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


Friday
Aug282020

The Commentariat -- August 29, 2020

Afternoon Update:

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Saturday are here.

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: "With her blond mane rippling, [Ivanka Trump] was full-on MAGA [at Thursday night's fantasy convention], shoving the amped-up Don Jr. and fortissimo Kimberly Guilfoyle out of the way and positioning herself as the heir to her father's political dynasty. The night was so Borgia, it made sense to end it with opera.... The old joke that if Trump became president, he'd slap his name on the White House almost came true during the egomania jubilee, when fireworks spelled out the name 'Trump.'... In New Hampshire on Friday night, the president considered his dynastic possibilities. 'I want to see the first woman president also,' he said, but called Kamala Harris 'not competent.' 'They're all saying, "We want Ivanka,"' he said."

Jack Tapper & Zachary Cohen of CNN: "The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has informed the House and Senate Select Committees on Intelligence that it'll no longer be briefing on election security issues, a senior administration official told CNN. It'll provide written updates, the official said. The official added that other agencies supporting election security, including the Department of Justice, Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security, intend to continue briefing Congress.... The abrupt announcement is a change of course that runs counter to the pledge of transparency and regular briefings on election threats by the intelligence community. Last month, the top intelligence official for election security, Bill Evanina, reiterated a commitment to providing 'robust intelligence-based briefings on election security' to key stakeholders that include Congress, along with the political parties and presidential campaigns." Mrs. McC: There's a reason for this, and I doubt it's an innocent one.

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race, Etc.

Katie Glueck, et al., of the New York Times: "As a weeklong Republican offensive against Joseph R. Biden Jr. ends, the Democratic nominee plans to resume campaigning in swing states and has released a multimillion dollar barrage of ads attacking President Trump's handling of the coronavirus. The moves come as the presidential campaign barrels into the critical last 10 weeks. They represent a bet by Mr. Biden that a focus on Covid-19 will prevail over Mr. Trump's 'law and order' emphasis and his attempt to portray Mr. Biden as a tool of the 'radical left.' Mr. Biden's ads also celebrate the history of peaceful protests. Mr. Biden's team on Friday made clear that they were determined to prevent Mr. Trump from framing the debate over the violent unrest in some cities and would aggressively move to prevent the president's narrative from taking hold."

Biden Punks Trump. Caitlin O'Kane of CBS News: "The 'Keep America Great' website might sound like something that belongs to President Trump, but the site says it was paid for by Biden for President. Mr. Trump's 'Make America Great Again' slogan got a slight facelift for his 2020 presidential run, with the campaign adopting 'Keep America Great' as its official new slogan. Keepamericagreat.com, however, features what it says are promises made by Mr. Trump that were broken.... Biden -- who has taken to Twitter during the Republican National Convention to denounce the president -- tweeted out a link to the 'Keep America Great' website on Thursday night, the last night of the convention...."

Zeke Miller & Kevin Freking of the AP: "... Donald Trump said Friday he was the only thing standing between 'democracy and the mob,' as he lashed out at protesters who accosted his supporters as they left the White House the night before.... Speaking in New Hampshire, a state he lost in 2016 by fewer than 2,000 votes and is a top pickup opportunity for him in 2020, Trump repeated unfounded allegations that thousands of voters were bused into the state from neighboring Massachusetts four years ago.... In New Hampshire, a campaign advisory said masks for attendees are 'required' in accordance with Republican Gov. Chris Sununu's [R] executive orders, and would be provided.... Before Trump arrived, many in the crowd did not put their masks back on after singing the national anthem. They later booed when a campaign staffer called on them to do so.... Eric Gravel, 39, of Burlington, Vermont, who waited in line at a food truck before Trump spoke, wore a T-shirt that read 'COVID-19. Just tested positive for FRAUD.' He was not wearing a mask." Mrs. McC: Thanks, Trump, for bringing more Covid-19 to my state, you irresponsible, narcissistic prick.

Quid Pro Quo. David Badash of RawStory: "President Donald Trump on Friday afternoon granted a full pardon to Alice Marie Johnson, less than 24 hours after she endorsed him in a speech during the final night of the Republican National Convention.... In 2018 Trump commuted Johnson's sentence of life in prison without parole, following a campaign by the ACLU and at the request of Kim Kardashian and Jared Kushner. It is not known why he did not grant her a full pardon at that time. Attorney Adrienne Lawrence, author of a book on sexual harassment in the workplace, suggested the pardon was 'quid pro quo.'" --s

Elements of the Farce

At the Unmasked Ball. James Poniewozik of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump could not truthfully appear at the Republican National Convention as a president who got America safely through the Covid-19 pandemic. But he could play one on TV.... Mr. Trump sandwiched the virus discussion among his preferred topics, as if it were a speed bump.... This is a technique first articulated by the political strategy guide 'Seinfeld.' 'This administration accomplished great things through 2019, yada yada yada, we'll do great things in 2021.'... The mostly maskless guests [of the show] seated cheek by jowl for hours, like the teeming crowd for the big finale of a pandemic reality show: The Celebrity Appestilence." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Toluse Olorunnipa of the Washington Post: "For more than 10 hours this week, President Trump and his allies used the unfiltered platform of a national political convention to paint a portrait of two Americas that do not exist. In one -- a misrepresentation of life under Trump -- the coronavirus has been conquered by presidential leadership, the economy is at its pre-pandemic levels, troops are returning home, and the president is an empathetic figure who supports immigration and would never stoke the nation's racial grievances. In the other -- a hypothetical preview of a Joe Biden presidency that mischaracterizes many of his proposals -- police are defunded, taxes are increased, infanticide is legal, suburbs are abolished and cities burn as violence spreads nationwide.... While Trump, a former reality television star, has long trafficked in mistruths and innuendo, the broad cast of characters who took up his tactics during prime-time speeches underscores how his brand of politicking has taken root in the GOP." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The Cowardly Liar v. the Straw Man. Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "In his speech accepting the Republican Party's nomination, Trump outlined a series of positions that he claimed are held by Biden but that, overwhelmingly, are not. It is, of course, not a new political tactic to stretch reality to cast your opponent in a negative light, but it is unusual to simply fabricate an opponent out of whole cloth.... Trump is ... running against a straw man whom he describes as a Trojan horse for socialists and communists. Here is what Trump said about Biden, in bold, contrasted with the positions Biden actually holds."

Trump & the Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Players. Matt Wilstein of the Daily Beast: "The president was telling his closest aides that he was determined to beat his rival Joe Biden in the TV ratings. He was requesting daily ratings for the Democratic National Convention and insisted that his RNC spectacle would demolish their 'pathetic' numbers, according to a senior administration official. In the end, apparently not even all of the unethical pomp and circumstance of a Trump-branded White House as the backdrop of his big speech Thursday night could draw more viewers than Biden's solemnly rousing speech to an empty auditorium. According to initial Nielsen numbers, President Trump's speech Thursday night drew 14.1 million viewers across the three broadcast networks and three major cable news networks. That is more than three million fewer viewers than the 17.5 million who tuned in to watch Biden's speech one week earlier. When those numbers are expanded out across nine broadcast and cable networks, Biden still beat Trump by a fairly wide margin, 23.6 million to 21.6 million. Biden's DNC beat Trump's RNC across the board on all four nights.... None of this stopped Trump from tweeting Friday morning, 'Great Ratings & Reviews Last Night. Thank you!'" Emphasis added. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

A Green-Screen Canvas. Andrew Limbong of NPR: "When first lady Melania Trump appeared at the last night of the RNC Thursday, she wore a Valentino dress in a lime green shade -- a green screen green, of sorts. And as she walked down the steps of the White House, everyone who spent the past four nights hate-watching the proceedings saw their time to shine. Images referencing the more than 180,000 Americans dead from the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, as well as the immigration crisis at the border were plastered onto the dress, online, last night." With images. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The Great Lego Mystery. Martin Belam of the Guardian: During her convention speech "On Thursday [Ivanka Trump] said: 'When Jared and I moved with our three children to Washington..., my son Joseph promptly built grandpa a Lego replica of the White House. The president still displays it on the mantel in the Oval Office and shows it to world leaders, just so they know he has the greatest grandchildren on earth.'... Andrea Bernstein, a WNYC reporter who wrote the book American Oligarchs about the Trumps, noted that in 2007 Ivanka said she had once made a Lego model of Trump Tower for her father, only to have it criticised by him several days later because it wasn't accurate enough. Bernstein also cast doubt about the veracity of the earlier story.... There is, however, photographic evidence that, as recently as March 2019 at least, there was a Lego model of the White House in the White House." Mrs. McC:Joseph would have been not quite 3-1/2 years old when Trump became president. I would be really surprised if a child that young could build a Lego replica of the White House. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Another Trumpy Con -- AND of Course It's Illegal. Matthew Haag of the New York Times: "... Lynne Patton, a longtime Trump associate who oversees federal housing programs in New York ... told a leader of a tenants' group at the New York City Housing Authority ... that she was interested in speaking with residents about conditions in the authority's buildings, which have long been in poor repair. Four tenants soon assembled in front of a video camera and were interviewed for more than four hours by Ms. Patton herself. They were never told that their interviews would be edited into a two-minute video clip that would air on Thursday night at the Republican National Convention and be used to bash Mayor Bill de Blasio, three of the tenants said in interviews on Friday. 'I am not a Trump supporter,' said one of the tenants, Claudia Perez. 'I am not a supporter of his racist policies on immigration. I am a first-generation Honduran. It was my people he was sending back.' The episode represents another stark example of how President Trump has deployed government resources to further his political ambitions. Ms. Patton is head of the New York office of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and under the Hatch Act is barred from using her government position to engage in political activities." ~~~

     ~~~ The Hill has a summary report here.

The RNC's Brazen Copyright Theft. Brooke Seipel of the Hill: "A lawyer for the estate of late singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen said on Friday that legal action is being considered after the Republican National Convention used a cover of Cohen's 'Hallelujah' during a fireworks show after President Trump's acceptance speech.... 'We are surprised and dismayed that the RNC would proceed knowing that the Cohen Estate had specifically declined the RNC's use request, and their rather brazen attempt to politicize and exploit in such an egregious manner "Hallelujah"...,' said Michelle L. Rice, legal representative of the Cohen Estate."

After the Ball Was Over. AP: "A crowd of protesters surrounded U.S. Sen. Rand Paul as he was leaving the White House following the Republican National Convention early Friday, shouting for the lawmaker from Kentucky to acknowledge the shooting of Breonna Taylor. Video posted on social media showed dozens of people confronting Paul and his wife, who were flanked by Metro Police, in a Washington street after midnight. Protesters could be heard shouting 'No Justice No Peace' and 'Say Her Name' before one appears to briefly clash with an officer, pushing him and his bike backward, sending the officer into Paul's shoulder.... After the encounter Friday morning, Paul tweeted that he 'got attacked' by a 'crazed mob' one block away from the White House, later thanking police for 'saving his life.' It was not clear whether any protesters made physical contact with Paul. The senator and his wife kept walking and did not appear to have suffered any injuries." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: In fairness to Paul, he did write a bill titled "Justice for Breonna Taylor Act," which would prohibit no-knock warrants, the type of warrant that led to her killing. The confrontation Thursday night might have been a good time for him to mention that. ~~~

     ~~~ Matthew Choi: "During [a] Fox & Friends interview, Paul said he and his wife were unharmed.... Paul hypothesized the protesters were compensated and flown in to instigate a violent riot, but didn't offer any suggestions on who might have paid them or evidence to support his assertion. That protesters are paid to cause disruption is a common talking point among some conservative figures for which there is no substantive evidence. Such claims have been regularly challenged by fact-checkers."

The Leader of the Free World Reacts: We Are Amused. Melissa Eddy of the New York Times: "Asked during her annual summer news conference about a claim made by Richard Grenell, the former U.S. ambassador to Germany, that he had 'watched President Trump charm the chancellor of Germany,' [Angela] Merkel drew her eyebrows together, tilted her head and leaned toward the reporter. 'He did what?' she asked. 'Charmed,' repeated Marina Kormbaki, a journalist with the German reporting collective R.N.D. 'Ah, OK,' Ms. Merkel said. Then she added with a laugh, 'I don't talk about internal discussions.'... [Grenell's] comment [-- made during a speech at the Republican convention --] sparked outrage over social media ... and brought derision on both sides of the Atlantic." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Lolita Baldor of the AP:"The U.S. armed forces will have no role in carrying out the election process or resolving a disputed vote, the top U.S. military officer told Congress in comments released Friday. The comments from Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, underscore the extraordinary political environment in America, where the president has declared without evidence that the expected surge in mail-in ballots will make the vote 'inaccurate and fraudulent,' and has suggested he might not accept the election results if he loses. Trump's repeated complaints questioning the election's validity have triggered unprecedented worries about the potential for chaos surrounding the election results. Some have speculated that the military might be called upon to get involved, either by Trump trying to use it to help his reelection prospects or as, Democratic challenger Joe Biden has suggested, to remove Trump from the White House if he refuses to accept defeat. The military has adamantly sought to tamp down that speculation and is zealously protective of its historically nonpartisan nature." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The Trumpidemic, Etc.

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Friday are here. The Washington Post's live updates for Friday are here: "Groups representing nearly every public health department called Friday for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reverse 'haphazard' changes the agency recently made to its public testing advice. The CDC's decision to stop recommending that asymptomatic people who were exposed to the virus get tested is 'bad policy' that 'costs lives and livelihoods,' the groups wrote -- a striking rebuke of the premiere U.S. health authority by towns and cities across the country. ~~~

~~~ "Nearly all of the California Senate's Republican caucus is now under mandatory quarantine after being exposed to one senator -- a skeptic on government statistics about the coronavirus -- who tested positive, state lawmakers said this week." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Sheila Kaplan & Katie Thomas of the New York Times: "Two senior public relations experts advising the Food and Drug Administration have been ousted from their positions after fumbled communications about a blood plasma treatment for Covid-19. President Trump and the head of the F.D.A. had erroneously boasted on the eve of the Republican National Convention that the treatment sharply lowered mortality from the disease. On Friday, the F.D.A. commissioner, Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, removed Emily Miller, the agency's chief spokeswoman. The White House had installed Ms. Miller, who had previously worked in communications for the re-election campaign of Senator Ted Cruz and as a journalist for One America News, the conservative cable network, in this post just 11 days ago. Ms. Miller's removal came one day after the F.D.A.'s parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, terminated the contract of a public relations consultant [-- Wayne Pines --] who had advised Dr. Hahn to correct misleading comments about the benefits of blood plasma for Covid-19." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Rachel Maddow pointed out that Trump and Hahn's false claims are not a "P.R. problem" that can be attributed to spokeswomen & consultants.

Mini-Trumps Con the SBA. Stacy Cowley of the New York Times: "The Justice Department has made at least 41 criminal complaints in federal court against nearly 60 people, who collectively took $62 million from the Paycheck Protection Program by using what law enforcement officials said were forged documents, stolen identities and false certifications. They are just 'the smallest, tiniest piece of the tip of the iceberg,' said Hannibal Ware, the inspector general of the Small Business Administration, which led the program. But with their ostentatious spending and clearly faked records, those examples have also been the easiest to spot.... More than five million businesses received loans, which could be forgiven if used for payroll and certain other expenses. Now, that hastily created and frequently chaotic program is entering its next messy stage, one that lenders and government officials expect to take years: the hunt to recapture illicitly obtained cash."

Black Lives Matter

But Not So Much to Donald Trump. Asawin Suebsaeng & Erin Banco of the Daily Beast: "Two former top Homeland Security officials in the Trump administration have told The Daily Beast that there was an unwritten policy to not utter phrases like 'domestic terrorism' and 'white supremacy' around the president, for fear that he would take such conversations as implicit criticism of him. The directives, said Elizabeth Neumann, previously assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security for counterterrorism and threat prevention, were never formalized. But both she and Miles Taylor, the former chief of staff at DHS, say that they were explicitly told by White House brass not to use such phrases or terms around Trump.... Neumann said that it's been standard operating procedure for years among top officials and Trump aides to avoid 'trigger words' when briefing the president -- severely complicating efforts to respond to high-profile killings that have occurred during the Trump presidency. She said that such trigger words have included 'white supremacy,' 'Russia,' 'election interference,' and 'domestic terrorism.'... Trump's abhorrence for the term 'domestic terrorism' did eventually soften, Neumann recalled..., only when he concluded he was able to use it against the anti-fascist group Antifa and other 'left-wing radicals.'..." ~~~

~~~ Mike German , former FBI agent, in the Guardian: "For decades, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has routinely warned its agents that the white supremacist and far-right militant groups it investigates often have links to law enforcement. Yet the justice department has no national strategy designed to protect the communities policed by these dangerously compromised law enforcers.... [I]n June 2019, when Congressman William Lacy Clay asked the FBI counter-terrorism chief, Michael McGarrity, whether the bureau remained concerned about white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement since the publication of its 2006 assessment, McGarrity indicated he had not read it.... Since 2000, law enforcement officials with alleged connections to white supremacist groups or far-right militant activities have been exposed in [12 states]. Research organizations have uncovered hundreds of federal, state and local law enforcement officials participating in racist, nativist and sexist social media activity, which demonstrates that overt bias is far too common." --s See related Guardian story, also linked yesterday. ~~~

~~~ Joshua Shanes in Slate: "In the final week of August, the United States saw its biggest deterioration in societal norms and steps towards outright fascism since President Donald Trump came to office four years ago under a mantle of barely veiled authoritarianism.... A president pushing fascist rhetoric with autocratic tendencies is running America and our democratic safeguards are greatly weakened. Paramilitary violence by an enraged, white minority -- organized and stoked by the president, to whom they are loyal, and local police who tolerate or empower them -- is becoming a new norm.... No matter what happens on November 3, we should be ready for white violence. It is the new normal, stoked and validated by the highest office in the land." --s

Ta-Nehisi Coates, in a Vanity Fair issue he edited & features Breonna Taylor on the cover, interviews Taylor's mother Tamika Palmer. All the words in the story are Ms. Palmer's, and her story really is more about Ms. Palmer than about Breonna. Mrs. McCrabbie: One of the more striking part of her story is the way police treated her after the shot and killed Breonna. (1) The cops gave Ms. Palmer the runaround for hours, sending her on a wild goose chase to the hospital when Taylor's body was still at the scene -- where again she could get no information -- and then not telling Ms. Palmer that her daughter was dead when she returned to Breonna's apartment. (2) AND, either the police "investigators" were trying to concoct a coverup or -- if you want to be more generous -- they were trying to debunk a coverup perpetrated by the cops involved in Breonna's killing. In any event, detectives repeatedly asked Ms. Palmer who would want to hurt Breonna, obviously implying that the shooter was unknown. Vanity Fair stories are subscriber-firewalled, but there is limited access.

"Two Systems of Justice." Aaron Morrisson, et al., of the AP: "Standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. famously laid out a vision for harmony between white and Black people 57 years ago, his son issued a sobering reminder about the persistence of police brutality and racist violence targeting Black Americans. 'We must never forget the American nightmare of racist violence exemplified when Emmett Till was murdered on this day in 1955, and the criminal justice system failed to convict his killers,' said Martin Luther King III, speaking to thousands that gathered Friday to commemorate the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.... Some stood in sweltering temperatures in lines that stretched for several blocks, as organizers took temperatures as part of coronavirus protocols. Organizers reminded attendees to practice social distancing and wear masks throughout the program, although distancing was hardly maintained as the gathering grew in size." This is an update of a story linked yesterday. ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post live-updated the event. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

NEW. Will Jones, et al., of ABC Chicago News: "Friday afternoon, [Jacob] Blake's lawyer told ABC News that the cuffs have been removed. The lawyer said [a] felony warrant out for Blake before Sunday's shooting has been vacated."

AP: "The Kenosha police union on Friday offered the most detailed accounting to date on officers' perspective of the moments leading up to police shooting Jacob Blake seven times in the back, saying he had a knife and fought with officers, putting one of them in a headlock and shrugging off two attempts to stun him." ~~~

~~~ Guardian: "A judge postponed a decision on Friday on whether 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse should be returned to Wisconsin to face charges in the killing of two people on the streets of Kenosha during unrest following the police shooting of a local Black father, Jacob Blake, last Sunday. The Illinois judge granted Rittenhouse's request to delay the extradition hearing to 25 September, during a brief hearing that was streamed online from the Lake county courthouse in Waukegan, Illinois, about 16 miles directly south of Kenosha, on the shore of Lake Michigan. Rittenhouse did not appear.... He also faces one count of attempted first-degree intentional homicide and two counts of first-degree reckless endangerment.... Rittenhouse was also charged with possession of dangerous weapon by someone under the age of 18.... Under Wisconsin law, Rittenhouse, who is 17, was too young to legally posses the rifle he was alleged to have been carrying...." ~~~

John Diedrich of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "One of Rittenhouse's lawyers said on social media the 17-year-old did not own the AR-15 he was carrying the night of the shooting or bring it across the Illinois/Wisconsin line. 'Kyle did not carry a gun across state line,' L. Lin Wood said in a tweet Friday morning. 'The gun belonged to his friend, a Wisconsin resident. The gun never left the state of Wisconsin.' Wood is part of the Texas-based #FightBack Foundation Inc. that is raising money for Rittenhouse's defense.... In a statement late Friday, Rittenhouse's attorneys said he was defending himself from a "mob" of attackers who 'accosted' and 'verbally threatened and taunted' him...." ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: There are two huge lies in two short grafs of this news item by Blake Montgomery of the Daily Beast: (1) Kenosha Police Chief Daniel Miskinis, in defending his cops for allowing a killer to walk away from the scene, said, "Nothing suggested this person or anybody else who was armed around them was the person [who did the shooting]." But multiple reports, including this one, say people were shouting at the cops that Rittenhouse had shot people. Miskinis said the cops probably couldn't hear the shouts. (2) "The Kenosha County Sheriff [David Beth] said ... that he hadn't seen video of the shooting [of Jacob Blake], by now viewed by millions around the world, of police shooting Blake seven times in the back.... Video of a recent protest, however, shows him watching the recording on a protester's phone." ~~~

~~~ Robert Mackey of the Intercept: "When Tucker Carlson set off a firestorm of criticism on Wednesday -- by describing a 17-year-old Trump supporter who opened fire on protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Tuesday, killing two, as a well-meaning kid who decided he 'had to maintain order' in the Democrat-run state because 'no one else would' -- the Fox News host was surfacing an idea that had already spread widely on the far-right.... Pro-Trump YouTubers, bloggers, and commentators [including Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Az.-Crazy)] ... decided ... that the young man ... was merely acting in self-defense [after he had shot someone in the head!]... [A Glenn Beck producer] described the ... the protesters attempting to disarm the gunman as Rittenhouse 'being attacked by #BLM rioters.'... As the momentum to excuse Rittenhouse's crimes as justified spread online Thursday, amplified by far-right figures around the globe, Jamelle Bouie [of the NYT] called it 'the single most ominous development of the year.'"

Jacob Crosse of World Socialist Web Site (of all places) has quite a good summary of protests and events throughout the U.S. this week and weekend. Mrs. McC: As far as I can tell, based on MSM reports I've read and heard, Crosse's report of the facts is pretty accurate, and his report is worth a read because it includes details that are scattered here and there in other reports. However, I do read Crosse's editorializing with a healthy skepticism, as when he describes "the bankrupt politics of the speakers ... [who] painted police murder in purely racial terms, obfuscating the class character of police repression...." Generally speaking, of course, we should consider the editorializing, conscious or not, of every news report, even when we agree with the "editors" of supposedly straight news reports. And not all of Crosse's editorialized is necessarily off-base.

Ryan Mac of BuzzFeed News: "In a companywide meeting on Thursday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that a militia page advocating for followers to bring weapons to an upcoming protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, remained on the platform because of 'an operational mistake.' The page and an associated event inspired widespread criticism of the company after a 17-year-old suspect allegedly shot and killed two protesters Tuesday night. The event associated with the Kenosha Guard page, however, was flagged to Facebook at least 455 times after its creation, according to an internal report viewed by BuzzFeed News and had been cleared by four moderators, all of whom deemed it 'non-violating.' The page and event were eventually removed from the platform on Wednesday -- several hours after the shooting.... A previous story from the Verge noted that the page had issued a 'call to arms' and hosted a number of commenters advocating for violence in Kenosha following the police shooting of 29-year-old Black man Jacob Blake." Emphasis added. ~~~

     ~~~ Ryan Mac: "Frustrated Facebook employees slammed CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday during a companywide meeting, questioning his leadership and decision-making, following a week in which the platform promoted violent conspiracy theories and gave safe harbor to militia groups. The billionaire chief executive was speaking via webcast at the company's weekly all-hands meeting, attempting to address questions about violence in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and the QAnon conspiracy that has proliferated across Facebook." Mrs. McC: This is not a First-Amendment issue. Only the government is required to allow free expression (and that's not carte blanche); private entities can shut you off even if they do so in an arbitrary manner.

Ben Golliver of the Washington Post: "NBA games will resume Saturday after an agreement was reached between league governors and players on a series of social justice initiatives that will end a three-day shutdown caused by the Milwaukee Bucks' decision not to take the court for a playoff game Wednesday to protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis.... These initiatives included: the establishment of a social justice coalition composed of players, coaches and governors to focus on voting access, civic engagement and criminal justice reform; the coordinated use of NBA arenas as voting locations in the upcoming elections; and the airing of new televised advertising messages promoting civic engagement and voting access during upcoming games." ~~~

~~~ Tierney Sneed of TPM: "Several cities with NBA arenas could see those facilities turned into in-person voting sites this fall thanks to a deal reached Friday between players and franchise officials to resume the NBA playoffs this weekend. The NBA and NBA players' association announced the agreement -- which also includes the establishment of a social justice coalition and an NBA ad campaign promoting civic engagement -- after several playoff games were put on hold this week due to team boycotts.... 'In every city where the league franchise owns and controls the arena property, team governors will continue to work with local elections officials to convert the facility into a voting location for the 2020 general election[' according to the NBA statement].... NBA arenas are often located near public transportation, making them accessible to low-income voters.... [A] civic engagement group launched by NBA star LeBron James has helped craft deals to use sporting facilities in other parts of the country for voting. These partnerships between election officials and sporting facilities have also facilitated the use of arena employees as poll workers, helping to solve the poll worker shortage COVID-19 has caused." --s


Another Two-Tiered System of "Justice": The Hatch Act. Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: "The [Office of Special Counsel] says it does not track how many political appointees it has warned or disciplined for political activity on the job. But Special Counsel Henry Kerner, who was appointed by President Trump, has cited at least nine high-level Trump appointees for abusing their government roles to further the president's reelection or disparage his rivals. And they have largely thumbed their noses at the law -- with the president's blessing. Career employees, meanwhile, have faced warning letters, reprimands, suspensions without pay and, in extreme cases, been fired and debarred from returning to government.... For them, the law cannot be scornfully dismissed -- as White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows did this week when he said that 'nobody outside of the Beltway really cares' about the Hatch Act.... Discipline for [Kellyanne] Conway and others [who have been cited] was up to Trump, according to Office of Special Counsel's interpretation of the law."

The Rich Get Richer. Fred Imbert & Yun Li of CNBC: "Stocks rose on Friday to wrap up another strong week on a high note as the Dow Jones Industrial Average erased its losses of 2020. The 30-stock Dow closed 161.60 points higher, or 0.6%, at 28,653.87. The S&P 500 gained 0.7% to close at 3,508.01. It was the index's first-ever close above 3,500. The Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.6% to end the day at 11,695.63. Friday's gains put the Dow in positive territory for the year. The Dow had not sported a year-to-date gain since late February, when it traded around an all-time high. After Friday's close, the Dow was up 0.4% for 2020."

Rebecca Beitsch of the Hill: "A coalition of 21 states sued the Trump administration Friday for rolling back what they say is a 'rule that is, at its heart, the gutting' of America's bedrock environmental law. The White House in July finalized a rollback of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which for 50 years has required the government to weigh environmental and community concerns before approving pipelines, highways, drilling permits, new factories or any major action on federal lands. Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson (D) called the law the Magna Carta of environmental law."

More Tales of the Dysfunctional Trump Family

Emily Fox of Vanity Fair reviews a new book by one-time Friend of Melania Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, -- titled Melania and Me -- wherein we learn that Wolkoff took a lot of notes and they reveal that Melania Trump is as cold-hearted, selfish, and transactional as her husband. And Melania despises Ivanka Trump. For instance, "During the inauguration, Wolkoff writes that she and Melania launched 'Operation Block Ivanka,' making sure that she was seated out of frame in the photos of President Trump being sworn in.... This iciness appeared to play out on the national stage on the final night of the Republican National Convention Thursday evening --an unintentional bit of native advertising ahead of the book's release next week. A video of Ivanka breezing past her stepmother without much acknowledgment and making a beeline for her father went viral. In it, Melania's face appears to sour almost immediately after Ivanka walks past.... Melania is not cloistered away, above the muck. She is rolling around in it."

Brooke Seipel of the Hill: "President Trump's niece, Mary Trump, on Friday revealed audio recordings that reportedly capture Trump's sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, swiping at the president's children, Ivanka and Eric Trump. The audio, released by Mary Trump on MSNBC News late Friday evening, includes Trump Barry taking aim at Ivanka for an Instagram post around the start of the Trump administration's policy separating families at the U.S. border.... 'Meanwhile, Eric's become the moron publicly. Ivanka gives a s--t. She's all about her,' Trump Barry says." ~~~

Way Beyond the Beltway

Another Trumpish Bankruptcy. David Fahrenthold & Jonathan O'Connell of the Washington Post: "The company that owns the Trump International Hotel in Vancouver, Canada, has filed for bankruptcy, according to Canadian records -- raising questions about the future of one of President Trump's newest hotels, just three years after it opened. Trump does not own the Vancouver hotel; the building's owner pays Trump's company to operate the hotel and to license the Trump name. The Trump Vancouver hotel has already been closed for four months because of the coronavirus pandemic. By Friday -- a day after the bankruptcy filing -- the hotel's website was taken down, its name was missing from Trump Hotels' corporate website, and the Vancouver hotel's accounts were deleted from Twitter and Facebook." A Reuters story is here. Thanks to safari for the lead.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Chadwick Boseman, who found fame as the star of the groundbreaking film 'Black Panther' and who also portrayed pioneering Black figures like Jackie Robinson, James Brown and Thurgood Marshall, died on Friday. He was 43. A statement posted on his Instagram account said he learned in 2016 that he had Stage 3 colon cancer and that it had progressed to Stage 4. It said he died in his home with his wife and family by his side...."

Washington Post: "While Hurricane Laura largely missed major cities and left the Texas coastline almost completely unscathed, the low-lying wetlands in far southwestern Louisiana took a significant hit, with crushing storm surge and whipping winds dramatically altering the area and destroying numerous homes and properties. In and around Cameron, La., where Laura's eyewall struck first before rampaging north, rescuers and homeowners were getting their first looks at the damage late Friday and early Saturday.... Out on the Intracoastal Canal -- the waterway serving as an access point to the damaged southern portions of the parish -- stark scenes made Laura's devastation clear. A luxury speed boat, still strung with the rope that once connected it to a dock, now sat half-sunken in the water. Coyote puppies paced back-and-forth, marooned on a strip of land that had recently become an island, as an alligator slowly prowled the edges. Few boats traversed the water; helicopters whirred overhead. The tops of cars poked out of inundated streets."

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Thursday
Aug272020

The Commentariat -- August 28, 2020

Afternoon Update:

Lolita Baldor of the AP: "The U.S. armed forces will have no role in carrying out the election process or resolving a disputed vote, the top U.S. military officer told Congress in comments released Friday. The comments from Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, underscore the extraordinary political environment in America, where the president has declared without evidence that the expected surge in mail-in ballots will make the vote 'inaccurate and fraudulent,' and has suggested he might not accept the election results if he loses. Trump's repeated complaints questioning the election's validity have triggered unprecedented worries about the potential for chaos surrounding the election results. Some have speculated that the military might be called upon to get involved, either by Trump trying to use it to help his reelection prospects or as, Democratic challenger Joe Biden has suggested, to remove Trump from the White House if he refuses to accept defeat. The military has adamantly sought to tamp down that speculation and is zealously protective of its historically nonpartisan nature."

Trump & the Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Players. Matt Wilstein of the Daily Beast: "The president was telling his closest aides that he was determined to beat his rival Joe Biden in the TV ratings. He was requesting daily ratings for the Democratic National Convention and insisted that his RNC spectacle would demolish their 'pathetic' numbers, according to a senior administration official. In the end, apparently not even all of the unethical pomp and circumstance of a Trump-branded White House as the backdrop of his big speech Thursday night could draw more viewers than Biden's solemnly rousing speech to an empty auditorium. According to initial Nielsen numbers, President Trump's speech Thursday night drew 14.1 million viewers across the three broadcast networks and three major cable news networks. That is more than three million fewer viewers than the 17.5 million who tuned in to watch Biden's speech one week earlier. When those numbers are expanded out across nine broadcast and cable networks, Biden still beat Trump by a fairly wide margin, 23.6 million to 21.6 million. Biden's DNC beat Trump's RNC across the board on all four nights.... None of this stopped Trump from tweeting Friday morning, ;Great Ratings & Reviews Last Night. Thank you!':

A Green-Screen Canvas. Andrew Limbong of NPR: "When first lady Melania Trump appeared at the last night of the RNC Thursday, she wore a Valentino dress in a lime green shade -- a green screen green, of sorts. And as she walked down the steps of the White House, everyone who spent the past four nights hate-watching the proceedings saw their time to shine. Images referencing the more than 180,000 Americans dead from the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, as well as the immigration crisis at the border were plastered onto the dress, online, last night." With images.

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Friday are here. The Washington Post's live updates for Friday are here: "Groups representing nearly every public health department called Friday for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reverse 'haphazard' changes the agency recently made to its public testing advice. The CDC's decision to stop recommending that asymptomatic people who were exposed to the virus get tested is 'bad policy' that 'costs lives and livelihoods,' the groups wrote -- a striking rebuke of the premiere U.S. health authority by towns and cities across the country. ~~~

~~~ "Nearly all of the California Senate's Republican caucus is now under mandatory quarantine after being exposed to one senator -- a skeptic on government statistics about the coronavirus -- who tested positive, state lawmakers said this week."

Sheila Kaplan & Katie Thomas of the New York Times: "Two senior public relations experts advising the Food and Drug Administration have been ousted from their positions after fumbled communications about a blood plasma treatment for Covid-19. President Trump and the head of the F.D.A. had erroneously boasted on the eve of the Republican National Convention that the treatment sharply lowered mortality from the disease. On Friday, the F.D.A. commissioner, Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, removed Emily Miller, the agency's chief spokeswoman. The White House had installed Ms. Miller, who had previously worked in communications for the re-election campaign of Senator Ted Cruz and as a journalist for One America News, the conservative cable network, in this post just 11 days ago. Ms. Miller's removal came one day after the F.D.A.'s parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, terminated the contract of a public relations consultant [-- Wayne Pines --] who had advised Dr. Hahn to correct misleading comments about the benefits of blood plasma for Covid-19."

At the Unmasked Ball. James Poniewozik of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump could not truthfully appear at the Republican National Convention as a president who got America safely through the Covid-19 pandemic. But he could play one on TV.... Mr. Trump sandwiched the virus discussion among his preferred topics, as if it were a speed bump.... This is a technique first articulated by the political strategy guide 'Seinfeld.' 'This administration accomplished great things through 2019, yada yada yada, we'll do great things in 2021.'... The mostly maskless guests [of the show] seated cheek by jowl for hours, like the teeming crowd for the big finale of a pandemic reality show: The Celebrity Appestilence."

Toluse Olorunnipa of the Washington Post: "For more than 10 hours this week, President Trump and his allies used the unfiltered platform of a national political convention to paint a portrait of two Americas that do not exist. In one -- a misrepresentation of life under Trump -- the coronavirus has been conquered by presidential leadership, the economy is at its pre-pandemic levels, troops are returning home, and the president is an empathetic figure who supports immigration and would never stoke the nation's racial grievances. In the other -- a hypothetical preview of a Joe Biden presidency that mischaracterizes many of his proposals -- police are defunded, taxes are increased, infanticide is legal, suburbs are abolished and cities burn as violence spreads nationwide.... While Trump, a former reality television star, has long trafficked in mistruths and innuendo, the broad cast of characters who took up his tactics during prime-time speeches underscores how his brand of politicking has taken root in the GOP."

AP: "A crowd of protesters surrounded U.S. Sen. Rand Paul as he was leaving the White House following the Republican National Convention early Friday, shouting for the lawmaker from Kentucky to acknowledge the shooting of Breonna Taylor. Video posted on social media showed dozens of people confronting Paul and his wife, who were flanked by Metro Police, in a Washington street after midnight. Protesters could be heard shouting 'No Justice No Peace' and 'Say Her Name' before one appears to briefly clash with an officer, pushing him and his bike backward, sending the officer into Paul's shoulder.... After the encounter Friday morning, Paul tweeted that he 'got attacked' by a 'crazed mob' one block away from the White House, later thanking police for 'saving his life.' It was not clear whether any protesters made physical contact with Paul. The senator and his wife kept walking and did not appear to have suffered any injuries."~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: In fairness to Paul, he did write a bill titled "Justice for Breonna Taylor Act," which would prohibit no-knock warrants, the type of warrant that led to her killing. The confrontation Thursday night might have been a good time for him to mention that.

The Great Lego Mystery. Martin Belam of the Guardian: During her convention speech "On Thursday [Ivanka Trump] said: 'When Jared and I moved with our three children to Washington..., my son Joseph promptly built grandpa a Lego replica of the White House. The president still displays it on the mantel in the Oval Office and shows it to world leaders, just so they know he has the greatest grandchildren on earth.'... Andrea Bernstein, a WNYC reporter who wrote the book American Oligarchs about the Trumps, noted that in 2007 Ivanka said she had once made a Lego model of Trump Tower for her father, only to have it criticised by him several days later because it wasn't accurate enough. Bernstein also cast doubt about the veracity of the earlier story.... There is, however, photographic evidence that, as recently as March 2019 at least, there was a Lego model of the White House in the White House." Mrs. McC: Joseph would have been not quite 3-1/2 years old when Trump became president. I would be really surprised if a child that young could build a Lego replica of the White House.

Aaron Morrisson & Kat Stafford of the AP: "Capping a week of protests and outrage over the police shooting of a Black man in Wisconsin, civil rights advocates began highlighting the scourge of police and vigilante violence against Black Americans at a commemoration of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. An estimated thousands have gathered Friday near the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, where the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his historic 'I Have A Dream' address, a vision of racial equality that remains elusive for millions of Americans." ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post is live-updating the event.

We Are Amused. Melissa Eddy of the New York Times: "Asked during her annual summer news conference about a claim made by Richard Grenell, the former U.S. ambassador to Germany, that he had 'watched President Trump charm the chancellor of Germany,' [Angela] Merkel drew her eyebrows together, tilted her head and leaned toward the reporter. 'He did what?' she asked. 'Charmed,' repeated Marina Kormbaki, a journalist with the German reporting collective R.N.D. 'Ah, OK,' Ms. Merkel said. Then she added with a laugh, 'I don't talk about internal discussions.'... [Grenell's] comment [-- made during a speech at the Republican convention --] sparked outrage over social media ... and brought derision on both sides of the Atlantic."

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race

T-R-U-M-P Corrupts, Lies About Everything.* Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump delivered a scathing and wholesale attack on Democrat Joe Biden and fiercely defended his stewardship of a nation buffeted by historic crises on Thursday night, appealing to voters for a second term in an election he said would either preserve or destroy the 'American way of life.' In formally accepting the Republican presidential nomination from the South Lawn of the White House, Trump cast himself as an insurgent rather than the incumbent he is, railing against Biden as eminence of 'the failed political class.' He blamed the former vice president and his Democratic Party for the nation's chronic socioeconomic problems as well as for the anger and unrest coursing through the country today.... Trump spoke from a red-carpeted stage adorned with American flags and bookended by massive campaign signage, with the White House's grand portico illuminated against the night sky as his backdrop. After his 70-minute speech, among the longest acceptance speeches in history, fireworks exploded over the Mall, some of the blasts bearing the president's name, T-R-U-M-P. And as the coronavirus pandemic still rages coast to coast, an estimated 1,500 guests gathered on the South Lawn flouting social distancing recommendations and mostly forgoing face masks -- exemplifying the convention's aim to falsely portray the virus as fading away."

     * Generic headline.

Alexander Burns & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "In a 70-minute speech on the South Lawn of the White House, Mr. Trump repeatedly misrepresented his own record on the coronavirus, part of a broader attempt to minimize his lapses in office and turn a harsh light toward his opponent, Mr. Biden, a moderate Democrat. The president also accused his rival and Democrats of failing to take on rioters, though Mr. Biden has condemned recent acts of violence, and of harboring designs to restructure the American economic system along socialist lines. Mr. Trump, by contrast, adopted the role of a defender of traditional American values and an unbending ally of the police.... Much of the night was given over to unusually explicit rebuttals to Mr. Trump's vulnerabilities: Seldom if ever has a political party spent so much time during a convention insisting in explicit terms that its nominee was not a racist or a sexist, and that its standard-bearer was, perhaps despite public appearances, a person of empathy and good character.... The program took on an atmosphere of pomp and celebration with Mr. Trump's arrival late in the evening, as he and the first lady, Melania Trump, made their entrance down the White House stairs like the guests of honor at a gala. And when Mr. Trump concluded his speech, the atmosphere of festivity erupted again in the form of a bellowing opera singer and exploding fireworks that put an exclamation point on a convention determined not to be overtaken by a continuing crisis of mass death and economic adversity.... Mr. Trump spoke from a prepared text.... Underscoring the scripted nature of the speech, Mr. Trump misspoke in a high-profile, symbolic moment: 'I profoundly accept this nomination,' he declared, though the word in his prepared text was 'proudly.'"

How fitting that Trump accepted his renomination with a mass violation of the rule of law And an intentional mass Covid exposure event. The two core failures that history will remember him for.... Literally thousands of Hatch Act violations-- one for every federal official who helped with or participated in this revolting display. The greatest mass Hatch Act transgression in US history. Even the fireworks are a violation. -- Norm Eisen, in tweets

Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "... Donald Trump formally accepted the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday night, directly countering Joe Biden's own convention address, as the sound of racial justice protesters echoed in the background.... Here are the key moments from the Republican National Convention's final night."

As usual, Stephen Colbert provides a good summary and analysis of the latest Trumpisode:

Daniel Dale, et al., of CNN: "... Donald Trump is a serial liar and he serially lied during his speech accepting the Republican nomination. CNN counted more than 20 false, exaggerated or misleading claims from Trump on Thursday night. That's in addition to a number of falsehoods from other speakers. Trump's dishonesty touched on a range of topics, from the economy to his administration's performance during the coronavirus pandemic. Some of Trump's most egregious false claims were directed at ... Joe Biden.... Here's a look at a selection of false and misleading claims from the final night of the Republican National Convention." ~~~

"A Volcano of Lies." Fred Kaplan of Slate: "The profusion of falsehoods from Tom Cotton, Rudy Giuliani, and Ivanka Trump provided a fitting setup for the big man at the Republican National Convention." Kaplan runs down some of the most blatant lies delivered during the final episode of the Fantasy Trump Show.

From the New York Times' live updates of Black Lives Matter developments Thursday: "President Trump made only a glancing reference to Kenosha, Wis., in his speech on Thursday accepting the Republican nomination for a second term, linking it to other American cities where protests against systemic racism and police brutality have sometimes turned violent. Mr. Trump's mention of Kenosha, the scene of several chaotic nights of demonstrations this week, and the other cities was shorthand for what he claims is a creeping lawlessness that will blanket the United States if his Democratic opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr., is elected. But, like Vice President Mike Pence, who hit the same theme on Wednesday, Mr. Trump did not say what touched off the unrest in Kenosha: the shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake, by a white police officer in an episode that has drawn widespread condemnation and is being investigated by state authorities and the Justice Department."

The New York Times' live updates of the Trump Circus & the Ringmaster-in-Chief are here. Times reporters' snark analysis is here, & includes a video livefeed to the convention.

The Washington Post's live updates are here: Yay! Rudy Giuliani is one of the speakers. Trump will speak on the South Lawn. "More than 1,000 people are to be in attendance, and the overwhelming majority will not be tested for the novel coronavirus." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I unmuted the video for Rudy, and here's my advice to anyone who finds herself in his vicinity: Get out! He will spit on you.

The Guardian's live updates are here.

Trolling Trump. Dominic Patten & Ted Johnson of Deadline: "..., the Biden campaign has a two-minute 'Keep Up' ad that will air on ABC, NBC, CBS and Trump's beloved Fox News Channel just before the incumbent speaks tonight. Here it is:" ~~~

Matt Viser of the Washington Post: "Joe Biden on Thursday blamed President Trump for the racial unrest that has roiled the country and in recent days has gripped Kenosha, Wis., saying the president is fomenting animosity and cheering on a spasm of violent protests to benefit himself politically.... 'I think he [Trump] views it as a political benefit,' Biden said on MSNBC. 'He's rooting for more violence, not less.'... Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), the first Black woman on a major-party ticket, also delivered her most detailed remarks on the Kenosha protests, saying that 'we must always defend peaceful protest and peaceful protesters' but also that 'we should not confuse them with those looting and committing acts of violence.... The reality is the life of a Black person in America has never been treated as fully human.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: In case you think Joe is making up stuff, see Philip Bump's analysis, linked under "Black Lives Matter" below.

Adam Edelman & Dareh Gregorian of NBC News: "A Joe Biden administration would address systemic racism and tackle police reform, Sen. Kamala Harris said on Thursday, invoking the 'sickening' shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin as further evidence for the need to address racial injustice in the U.S.... She also noted that the topic of racial justice has been avoided at the Republican convention.... Harris spoke hours before ... Donald Trump is set to formally accept his party's nomination for re-election at the final night of the Republican National Convention, pre-emptively criticizing the president for his response to the coronavirus pandemic.... 'Instead of rising to meet the most difficult moment of his presidency, he froze. He was scared. He was petty and vindictive,' Harris said."

Max Cohen & Matthew Choi of Politico: "Support for Joe Biden's White House bid is growing among staffers of past presidential campaigns -- Republican ones, that is. Several dozen former staffers from Sen. Mitt Romney's (R-Utah) presidential campaign, the George W. Bush administration and the campaign and Senate staff of former Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) have signed on to an effort to elect Joe Biden. For the Romney and McCain staffers, they're working to elect the same man they tried to defeat in 2012 and 2008, respectively.... In an open letter obtained by Politico, the group 'Romney Alumni for Biden' says Trump's rhetoric and actions are antithetical to the Republican Party they believe in.... The 34 total signatories include finance, operations, policy and events staffers from Romney's presidential bid. Politico also received in advance a letter from Bush alumni supporting Biden, whose signatories include former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, Bush domestic policy adviser Sally Canfield, former Ambassador James Glassman and former U.S. Treasurer Rosario Marin. The group praised Biden's decency and ability to work across party lines and launched a website raising money for the Delaware Democrat." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Rebecca Shabad & Mike Memoli of NBC News: "Several hundred former aides to President George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain announced Thursday that they are endorsing Joe Biden for president.... A political action committee, 43 Alumni for Biden, that launched last month posted a list of nearly 300 members of the Bush administration or campaigns who are publicly backing Biden.... Earlier this week, more than two dozen former Republican Congress members backed Biden for president." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "More than 100 former staff members for Senator John McCain are supporting Joseph R. Biden Jr., a show of support across the political divide that they hope amplifies the 'Country First' credo of the former Arizona senator. That motto and 'his frequent call on Americans to serve causes greater than our self-interest were not empty slogans like so much of our politics today,' the group of aides, most of them still Republicans, wrote in a joint statement, praising Mr. McCain and implicitly taking aim at President Trump.... The list of signatories includes a range of people -- from chiefs of staff in Mr. McCain's Senate office to junior aides on his campaigns -- who worked for him over his 35 years in Congress and during two presidential bids. Mark Salter, Mr. McCain's longtime chief aide and speechwriter, helped organize the letter.... Coinciding with Mr. Trump's renomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on Thursday and the second anniversary of Mr. McCain's death this week, the joint endorsement of Mr. Biden represents the latest effort from anti-Trump Republicans to lure conservatives and moderates away from the president." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Salter's letter is published as an op-ed in the Washington Post. Here's the statement by the McCain group, published in Medium, & the list of signatories. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Matthew Choi of Politico: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday there shouldn't be any presidential debates this year between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, adding that the president would debase the debate stage with poor behavior.... Pelosi called Trump's 2016 debates with Hillary Clinton 'disgraceful,' emphasizing how he loomed behind her on the stage as she spoke. Clinton later admitted that Trump's lurking made her 'skin crawl.' 'He'll probably act in a way that is beneath the dignity of the presidency,' Pelosi said. 'He does that every day.'... Speaking with MSNBC's Andrew Mitchell, Biden said Thursday afternoon that he planned to face Trump so long as the debates remained on the docket. Still, he conceded that the president would probably use the debate stage to spread misinformation, similar to the instances of revisionism displayed at the Republican National Convention this week."

Glenn Kessler, et al., of the Washington Post: "The third night of the Republican National Convention yet again offered a cascade of false claims, especially in Vice President Pence's speech. Here are 20 claims that caught our attention." Mrs. McC: This is a remarkable lost of whoppers. All of the puppet-makers in all the world could not make enough Pinocchio marionettes to cover one GOP convention. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: An MSNBC pundit (David Jolly?) noted that Trump has managed to find more black people to speak at his convention than he has placed among those approximately 4,000 political-appointee jobs he can fill.

Jane Lytvynenko of BuzzFeed News (Aug. 26): "On the first night of the Republican National Convention, the party aired a segment featuring Catalina and Madeline Lauf warning of dire consequences if Democratic candidate Joe Biden is elected president. 'This is a taste of Biden's America,' one sister says in a voiceover as images of protests play onscreen. The problem is that one of the images in the segment doesn't show the US at all -- it shows Spain. As first reported by Catalonian public broadcaster CCMA and independently verified by BuzzFeed News, one of the four images of protests was filmed in October 2019 in Barcelona." Mrs. McC: Wow! Barcelona is a beautiful, vibrant city. I can hardly wait till Biden makes America look more like Barcelona. Could we have Gaudi-style apartment buildings, Joe, & public spaces like Park Guell?

Shutting the Stable Door After the Horse's Ass Has Bolted. Vivian Salama of CNN: "The Department of Homeland Security sent an agency-wide email to its employees Thursday morning reminding them not to participate in partisan politics, citing "heightened scrutiny." While directives like this are standard in election years, the warning comes days after acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf participated in a swearing in ceremony with ... Donald Trump for naturalized Americans as part of the Republican National Convention, raising ethics concerns.... Signed by Joseph Maher, the agency's designated ethics official, the email references the Hatch Act, which stipulates that most executive-branch officials must not engage in political activity in an official capacity at any time...." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: BTW, the official name of the Hatch Act is "An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities." Nearly everything Trump does is a pernicious political activity.

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

Now, Don't Get Confused by Another Quasi-Reversal by Another Gutless Wonder. From Thursday's NYT coronavirus updates: "The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has scaled back the agency's recommendation advising some people not to get tested after exposure to the novel coronavirus, now saying 'testing may be considered for all close contacts of confirmed or probable Covid-19 patients.' The statement by Dr. Robert R. Redfield was issued to some news outlets late Wednesday, and more broadly Thursday morning, after a storm of criticism over the new C.D.C. guidelines -- involving potentially asymptomatic people -- which were the product of the White House Coronavirus Task Force and not C.D.C.'s own scientists. Dr. Redfield made the statement in an effort to clarify the new policy, an official said. However, the guidelines issued earlier this week remained on the C.D.C.'s website as of Thursday morning, and it appears unlikely that the agency will change them." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Ryan Reilly of the Huffington Post: "... Donald Trump's top civil rights official at the Department of Justice announced this week that he was considering launching investigations into how state-owned nursing homes responded to the coronavirus. The four states he targeted all have Democratic governors. This highly unusual public announcement of potential investigations raised alarm bells among Civil Rights Division alumni and Democrats that DOJ's move was motivated by partisan politics. Eric Dreiband, the assistant attorney general running the Civil Rights Division, sent letters to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday, requesting documents and information under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA) about how public nursing homes in their states responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Cuomo and Whitmer said in a joint statement that the inquiries were 'nothing more than a transparent politicization of the Department of Justice in the middle of the Republican National Convention.' They called DOJ's move a 'nakedly partisan deflection' and questioned why Republican-run states that, based on federal guidelines, had similar rules about nursing home admissions were not being targeted."

Kate Riga of TPM: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said Thursday that during a call with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, she offered to drop the price tag on the top-line spending for COVID-19 relief legislation to $2.2 trillion, well down from the original $3.4 trillion. Meadows, Pelosi said, rejected the offer. The 25-minute phone call was the first significant contact the two have had since negotiations fell apart earlier this month."

Black Lives Matter

Adding Insult to Multiple Injuries. Edward Moreno of the Hill: "The father of Jacob Blake, the 29-year-old Black man shot seven times by a Kenosha, Wis., police officer, told the Chicago Sun-Times that his son is handcuffed to his hospital bed. 'I hate it that he was laying in that bed with the handcuff onto the bed,' Blake's father said Thursday, the day after he visited his son in the hospital. 'He can't go anywhere. Why do you have him cuffed to the bed?' Officials have not announced any charges against Blake." The Sun-Times story is here.

Adam Kilgore & Ben Golliver of the Washington Post: "A day after the Milwaukee Bucks' sudden, historic strike spread throughout the sports world, athletes continued protests of racial injustice and police brutality Thursday as the NBA suspended another night of playoff games, the WNBA remained dormant, more than a quarter of NFL teams canceled preseason practices, the NHL suspended its Thursday and Friday playoff schedule and multiple MLB games -- but not all ... -- were called off. The NBA playoffs, painstakingly constructed within a bubble on the Disney World campus, hung in the balance as players met Wednesday night and Thursday morning to determine whether they would play again this year in the wake of Jacob Blake's shooting by police in Kenosha, Wis. Players agreed to continue the season, and the NBA announced it planned to resume the playoffs either Friday or Saturday. The protests spread into politics as Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden praised players for 'moral leadership' and ... Jared Kushner told CNBC that players should seek 'actual action' to solve problems and cast athletes who short-circuited the peak of their professional career in pursuit of racial justice as lucky to get a break from work."

Dropping the Mic. Ben Strauss of the Washington Post: "About 30 minutes into a makeshift pregame show without any basketball to follow it, TNT's 'Inside the NBA' cut to former NBA star Chris Webber. Webber was supposed to call one of Wednesday night's playoffs games from the Orlando bubble. But all three games were postponed after players, led by the Milwaukee Bucks, said they would not play in protest of the shooting of Jacob Blake, the unarmed Black man, by police in Kenosha, Wis. Choking back tears, Webber delivered an impassioned monologue supporting the players' historic actions.... Webber’s words came just a few minutes after the opening moments of the show, during which Kenny Smith, a former NBA player and host, walked off the set in solidarity with the players. 'For me, I think the biggest thing now -- as a black man and a former player -- I think it's best for me to support the players and just not be here tonight,' Smith said before taking off his microphone and leaving his chair." The Colbert segment embedded yesterday has video of Smith's extraordinary protest. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Racist-in-Chief, Racist Family, Racist Staff Weigh in. Cindy Boren of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Thursday afternoon dismissed the NBA player-led protest of the police shooting of Jacob Blake, hours after Jared Kushner ... called NBA players 'very fortunate' to be 'able to take a night off from work.' 'I don&'t know much about the NBA protest,' Trump told reporters during a news briefing on Hurricane Laura. 'I know their ratings have been very bad because I think people are a little tired of the NBA. ... They've become like a political organization, and that's not a good thing.'... Also on Thursday, Vice President Pence's chief of staff called the NBA protests 'absurd' and 'silly.' Marc Short, appearing on CNN's 'New Day,' also said that he believed the Trump administration shouldn't speak out on the boycott. 'If they want to protest, I don't think we care,' he said." A Hill story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Ah, I remember fondly those innocent days of 2016 when we thought the stupidest thing a politician could say about basketball was that time then-presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz [R-Texas] called a hoop a "basketball ring" when he was speaking at Indiana's Hoosier Gym Center.

Philip Bump of the Washington Post: Speaking on "Fox & Friends" Thursday, Kellyanne "Conway made explicit the strategy that the president and his team have been making obvious for months now: Trump's team sees violent protests as politically advantageous.... '... [Donald Trump is] trying to send federal reinforcements in. And you've got these governors saying, oh, no. They're putting their pride in their politics ahead of public safety.... The more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is for the very clear choice on who's best on public safety and law and order.'... Trump is happy to present himself as powerless here specifically because he thinks it reinforces weakness on the part of his opponents.... An administration official who spoke with The Washington Post at the time [Trump sent ... federal law enforcement officials to] Portland[, Oregon,] made clear that the White House didn't necessarily see [the escalation of violence the feds caused] as a bad thing, that the White House had wanted to amplify tension in cities for some time. 'It was about getting viral online content,' [the] official told The Post."

Sam Levin of the Guardian: "White supremacist groups have infiltrated US law enforcement agencies in every region of the country over the last two decades, according to a new report about the ties between police and far-right vigilante groups. In a timely new analysis, Michael German, a former FBI special agent who has written extensively on the ways that US law enforcement have failed to respond to far-right domestic terror threats, concludes that US law enforcement officials have been tied to racist militant activities in more than a dozen states since 2000, and hundreds of police officers have been caught posting racist and bigoted social media content."


Grifter-in-Chief. David Fahrenthold, et al., of the Washington Post: "Trump has now visited his own properties 270 times as president, according to a Washington Post tally -- with another visit planned for Thursday, when he is scheduled to meet GOP donors at his Washington hotel. Through these trips, Trump has brought the Trump Organization a stream of private revenue from federal agencies and GOP campaign groups. Federal spending records show that taxpayers have paid Trump's businesses more than $900,000 since he took office. At least $570,000 came as a result of the president's travel, according to a Post analysis. Now, new federal spending documents obtained by The Post via a public-records lawsuit give more detail about how the Trump Organization charged the Secret Service -- a kind of captive customer, required to follow Trump everywhere.... The documents show that the Trump Organization charged daily 'resort fees' to Secret Service agents guarding Vice President Pence in Las Vegas and in another instance asked agents to pay a $1,300 'furniture removal charge' during a presidential visit to a Trump resort in Scotland. In addition, campaign finance records have provided new details about the payments the Trump Organization received from GOP groups, as a result of the 37 instances in which Trump headlined a political event at one of his properties. Those visits have brought the company at least $3.8 million in fees, according to a Post analysis of campaign spending records." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie's Financial Planning Advice to Future Presidents & Vice Presidents: Buy or build an expensive resort in some isolated place in the USA & go there at every opportunity and charge the federal government exhorbitant rates for every possible thing. I'm sure Republicans wouldn't mind if Joe Biden and Kamala Harris tried this stunt.

~~~ AND There's This from the WashPo report: "In response to questions for this report, White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement..., 'The Washington Post is blatantly interfering with the business relationships of the Trump Organization, and it must stop.... Please be advised that we are building up a very large "dossier" on the many false David Fahrenthold and others stories as they are a disgrace to journalism and the American people.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Oliver Darcy of CNN: David "Fahrenthold wrote on Twitter that if anyone knows 'anything about a dossier the White House has supposedly compiled' on him, to let him know or provide him a copy. Fahrenthold won a Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for 'casting doubt' on Trump's 'generosity toward charities' in his coverage. He has also reported on Trump's businesses. Last summer, The New York Times reported that allies of the White House had compiled dossiers on hundreds of people who work for top news organizations. The White House's boasting of building a dossier on Fahrenthold and other journalists is jarring, but perhaps not surprising from an administration that has branded the press as 'the enemy of the people.' Trump and his allies have for years aimed to discredit journalists and news organizations, often through the use of lies and dishonest rhetoric." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Jarring? Compiling dossiers on reporters & warning them off negative stories about a "leader" & his cohort are exactly what repressive dictators & their henchmen do in repressive, non-democratic regimes. I don't of an American president* who has done so and admitted to it. Richard Nixon, infamously, did have an "enemies list" (or two) that included journalists, the purpose of which was to "screw" the "enemies" with tax audits & other means. But Nixon didn't kept his tactics secret. John Dean revealed it to the Senate Watergate Committee during hearings, & journalist Daniel Schorr -- who made the list -- obtained a copy of the original list "and read names from the list live on CBS television on this day." (Schorr didn't realize he was included until he read it on TV.)

Gangsta Rap. David Corn of Mother Jones: "On December 10, 2015, Donald Trump took time off from campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination to spend hours sitting for a videotaped deposition in a lawsuit alleging that he and Trump University had defrauded people who had plunked down thousands of dollars to learn the secrets of his financial success as a developer. During a break in the proceedings, the camera continued to roll. And Trump and his attorney, Daniel Petrocelli ... were captured discussing the case. In this 13-minute hot-mic video ... Trump boasted about how his company threatened the Better Business Bureau to change the D rating it had assigned Trump University to an A. He complained about the federal judge overseeing the suit, Gonzalo Curiel, elliptically talking about how to challenge him and referring to 'the Spanish thing.' Trump also griped that he had been sued personally in this case, and Petrocelli had to explain to Trump that he, not just Trump University itself, was in the legal crosshairs because Trump had been accused of making false statements to promote the venture. And Petrocelli pointed out that the case was not a lock for Trump because some of Trump's 'guys' had been 'sloppy.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

How Did Such a Dummy Get into Penn? Michael Kranish of the Washington Post: "A professor at the University of Pennsylvania has renewed a request to investigate how President Trump was admitted to the school in 1966, citing what he called 'new evidence' on secretly recorded tapes in which Trump's sister says a friend took his entrance exam. The professor, Eric W. Orts, is one of six faculty members who asked Penn's provost earlier this summer to launch an investigation into how Trump transferred into the school. He noted that the president's niece, Mary Trump, wrote in her book published in July that the president paid someone to take his SATs. The provost, Wendell E. Pritchett, replied to Orts on July 20 that 'we certainly share your concerns about these allegations.... However..., we have determined that this situation occurred too far in the past to make a useful or probative factual inquiry possible. If new evidence surfaces to substantiate the claim in the future, we will continue to be open to investigating it.'... The Washington Post on Saturday published a story that included audio of conversations Mary Trump recorded in 2018 and 2019 with Maryanne Trump Barry, the president's sister. [Barry] said Donald Trump '... got into University of Pennsylvania because he had somebody take the exams.'"

Keith Alexander of the Washington Post: "A man, who officials said had announced he was armed before he was shot by a Secret Service officer earlier in the month near the White House, was apparently holding a comb, according to new court documents. Myron Berryman, 51, was charged with one count of assault on a police officer in the incident and has been hospitalized since the Aug. 10 shooting. Berryman's first hearing on the misdemeanor charge was held Thursday afternoon in D.C. Superior Court. His lawyer said he has been moved to a psychiatric hospital. According to initial charging documents and Secret Service officials, Berryman walked up to the uniformed officer and said he was armed. Charging papers say Berryman reached along the right side of his body as if to retrieve an object, clasped his hands together and pointed his arms toward the officer. The officer then shot Berryman once in the torso. No weapon was found."

Brandon Ambrosino of Politico: "A former Liberty University student says Becki Falwell, the wife of the university's then-President Jerry Falwell Jr., jumped into bed with him and performed oral sex on him while he stayed over at the Falwell home after a band practice with her eldest son in 2008. The student was 22 at the time of the encounter, near the start of Liberty's fall semester. He said she initiated the act, and he went along with it. But despite his rejection of further advances, he said, Falwell continued pursuing him, offering him gifts and engaging in banter through Facebook messages.... The messages, screenshots of which were provided by the former student to Politico, suggest a flirtatious relationship that went beyond what might be expected of a mother communicating with her son's bandmate."

Way Beyond the Beltway

** Motoko Rich of the New York Times: "Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan will resign because of ill health, he said on Friday, just four days after he exceeded the record for the longest consecutive run as leader in Japanese history. Mr. Abe, 65, had been prime minister for nearly eight years, a significant feat in a country accustomed to high turnover in the top job." An AP story is here.

News Lede

New York Times: "In a region so accustomed to epic hurricanes that residents recall them by name, Laura was one of the strongest on record to hit the U.S. mainland. It continued to carve a path of destruction and fear as it chugged north through Arkansas as a tropical depression on Thursday night, and was responsible for at least six deaths in Louisiana -- most of them caused by trees falling on homes."

Comments Off
Wednesday
Aug262020

The Commentariat -- August 27, 2020

Afternoon Update:

Max Cohen & Matthew Choi of Politico: "Support for Joe Biden's White House bid is growing among staffers of past presidential campaigns -- Republican ones, that is. Several dozen former staffers from Sen. Mitt Romney's (R-Utah) presidential campaign, the George W. Bush administration and the campaign and Senate staff of former Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) have signed on to an effort to elect Joe Biden. For the Romney and McCain staffers, they're working to elect the same man they tried to defeat in 2012 and 2008, respectively.... In an open letter obtained by Politico, the group 'Romney Alumni for Biden' says Trump's rhetoric and actions are antithetical to the Republican Party they believe in.... The 34 total signatories include finance, operations, policy and events staffers from Romney's presidential bid. Politico also received in advance a letter from Bush alumni supporting Biden, whose signatories include former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, Bush domestic policy adviser Sally Canfield, former Ambassador James Glassman and former U.S. Treasurer Rosario Marin. The group praised Biden's decency and ability to work across party lines and launched a website raising money for ... [Biden]." ~~~

~~~ Rebecca Shabad & Mike Memoli of NBC News: "Several hundred former aides to President George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain announced Thursday that they are endorsing Joe Biden for president.... A political action committee, 43 Alumni for Biden, that launched last month posted a list of nearly 300 members of the Bush administration or campaigns who are publicly backing Biden.... Earlier this week, more than two dozen former Republican Congress members backed Biden for president." ~~~

~~~ Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "More than 100 former staff members for Senator John McCain are supporting Joseph R. Biden Jr., a show of support across the political divide that they hope amplifies the 'Country First' credo of the former Arizona senator. That motto and 'his frequent call on Americans to serve causes greater than our self-interest were not empty slogans like so much of our politics today,' the group of aides, most of them still Republicans, wrote in a joint statement, praising Mr. McCain and implicitly taking aim at President Trump.... The list of signatories includes a range of people -- from chiefs of staff in Mr. McCain's Senate office to junior aides on his campaigns -- who worked for him over his 35 years in Congress and during two presidential bids. Mark Salter, Mr. McCain's longtime chief aide and speechwriter, helped organize the letter.... Coinciding with Mr. Trump's renomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on Thursday and the second anniversary of Mr. McCain's death this week, the joint endorsement of Mr. Biden represents the latest effort from anti-Trump Republicans to lure conservatives and moderates away from the president." ~~~

     ~~~ Salter's letter is published as an op-ed in the Washington Post. Here's the statement by the McCain group, published in Medium, & the list of signatories.

Glenn Kessler, et al., of the Washington Post: "The third night of the Republican National Convention yet again offered a cascade of false claims, especially in Vice President Pence's speech. Here are 20 claims that caught our attention." Mrs. McC: This is a remarkable list of whoppers. All of the puppet-makers in all the world could not make enough Pinocchio marionettes to cover one GOP convention.

Shutting the Stable Door After the Horse's Ass Has Bolted. Vivian Salama of CNN: "The Department of Homeland Security sent an agency-wide email to its employees Thursday morning reminding them not to participate in partisan politics, citing "heightened scrutiny." While directives like this are standard in election years, the warning comes days after acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf participated in a swearing in ceremony with ... Donald Trump for naturalized Americans as part of the Republican National Convention, raising ethics concerns.... Signed by Joseph Maher, the agency's designated ethics official, the email references the Hatch Act, which stipulates that most executive-branch officials must not engage in political activity in an official capacity at any time...." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: BTW, the official name of the Hatch Act is "An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities." Nearly everything Trump does is a pernicious political activity.

Now, Don't Get Confused by Another Quasi-Reversal by Another Gutless Wonder. From Thursday's NYT coronavirus updates: "The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has scaled back the agency's recommendation advising some people not to get tested after exposure to the novel coronavirus, now saying 'testing may be considered for all close contacts of confirmed or probable Covid-19 patients.' The statement by Dr. Robert R. Redfield was issued to some news outlets late Wednesday, and more broadly Thursday morning, after a storm of criticism over the new C.D.C. guidelines -- involving potentially asymptomatic people -- which were the product of the White House Coronavirus Task Force and not C.D.C.'s own scientists. Dr. Redfield made the statement in an effort to clarify the new policy, an official said. However, the guidelines issued earlier this week remained on the C.D.C.'s website as of Thursday morning, and it appears unlikely that the agency will change them."

Dropping the Mic. Ben Strauss of the Washington Post: "About 30 minutes into a makeshift pregame show without any basketball to follow it, TNT's 'Inside the NBA' cut to former NBA star Chris Webber. Webber was supposed to call one of Wednesday night's playoffs games from the Orlando bubble. But all three games were postponed after players, led by the Milwaukee Bucks, said they would not play in protest of the shooting of Jacob Blake, the unarmed Black man, by police in Kenosha, Wis. Choking back tears, Webber delivered an impassioned monologue supporting the players' historic actions.... Webber's words came just a few minutes after the opening moments of the show, during which Kenny Smith, a former NBA player and host, walked off the set in solidarity with the players. 'For me, I think the biggest thing now -- as a black man and a former player -- I think it's best for me to support the players and just not be here tonight,' Smith said before taking off his microphone and leaving his chair." The Colbert segment embedded below has video of Smith's extraordinary protest.

Grifter-in-Chief. David Fahrenthold, et al., of the Washington Post: "Trump has now visited his own properties 270 times as president, according to a Washington Post tally -- with another visit planned for Thursday, when he is scheduled to meet GOP donors at his Washington hotel. Through these trips, Trump has brought the Trump Organization a stream of private revenue from federal agencies and GOP campaign groups. Federal spending records show that taxpayers have paid Trump's businesses more than $900,000 since he took office. At least $570,000 came as a result of the president's travel, according to a Post analysis. Now, new federal spending documents obtained by The Post via a public-records lawsuit give more detail about how the Trump Organization charged the Secret Service -- a kind of captive customer, required to follow Trump everywhere.... The documents show that the Trump Organization charged daily 'resort fees' to Secret Service agents guarding Vice President Pence in Las Vegas and in another instance asked agents to pay a $1,300 'furniture removal charge' during a presidential visit to a Trump resort in Scotland. In addition, campaign finance records have provided new details about the payments the Trump Organization received from GOP groups, as a result of the 37 instances in which Trump headlined a political event at one of his properties. Those visits have brought the company at least $3.8 million in fees, according to a Post analysis of campaign spending records." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie's Financial Planning Advice to Future Presidents & Vice Presidents: Buy or build an expensive resort in some isolated place in the USA & go there at every opportunity and charge the federal government exorbitant rates for every possible thing. I'm sure Republicans wouldn't mind if Joe Biden and Kamala Harris tried this stunt.

~~~ AND There's This from the WashPo report: "In response to questions for this report, White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement..., 'The Washington Post is blatantly interfering with the business relationships of the Trump Organization, and it must stop.... Please be advised that we are building up a very large "dossier" on the many false David Fahrenthold and others stories as they are a disgrace to journalism and the American people.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Oliver Darcy of CNN: David "Fahrenthold wrote on Twitter that if anyone knows 'anything about a dossier the White House has supposedly compiled' on him, to let him know or provide him a copy. Fahrenthold won a Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for 'casting doubt' on Trump's 'generosity toward charities' in his coverage. He has also reported on Trump's businesses. Last summer, The New York Times reported that allies of the White House had compiled dossiers on hundreds of people who work for top news organizations. The White House's boasting of building a dossier on Fahrenthold and other journalists is jarring, but perhaps not surprising from an administration that has branded the press as 'the enemy of the people.' Trump and his allies have for years aimed to discredit journalists and news organizations, often through the use of lies and dishonest rhetoric." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Jarring? Compiling dossiers on reporters & warning them off negative stories about a "leader" & his cohort are exactly what repressive dictators & their henchmen do in repressive, non-democratic regimes. I don't of an American president* who has done so and admitted to it. Richard Nixon, infamously, did have an "enemies list" (or two) that included journalists, the purpose of which was to "screw" the "enemies" with tax audits & other means. But Nixon didn't kept his tactics secret. John Dean revealed it to the Senate Watergate Committee during hearings, & journalist Daniel Schorr -- who made the list -- obtained a copy of the original list "and read names from the list live on CBS television on this day." (Schorr didn't realize he was included until he read it on TV.)

Gangsta Rap. David Corn of Mother Jones: "On December 10, 2015, Donald Trump took time off from campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination to spend hours sitting for a videotaped deposition in a lawsuit alleging that he and Trump University had defrauded people who had plunked down thousands of dollars to learn the secrets of his financial success as a developer. During a break in the proceedings, the camera continued to roll. And Trump and his attorney, Daniel Petrocelli ... were captured discussing the case. In this 13-minute hot-mic video ... Trump boasted about how his company threatened the Better Business Bureau to change the D rating it had assigned Trump University to an A. He complained about the federal judge overseeing the suit, Gonzalo Curiel, elliptically talking about how to challenge him and referring to 'the Spanish thing.' Trump also griped that he had been sued personally in this case, and Petrocelli had to explain to Trump that he, not just Trump University itself, was in the legal crosshairs because Trump had been accused of making false statements to promote the venture. And Petrocelli pointed out that the case was not a lock for Trump because some of Trump's 'guys' had been 'sloppy.'"

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race, Etc.

     ~~~ As NiskyGuy writes in today's Comments, "Colbert got it right last night. Again."

Matt Flegenheimer & Katie Glueck of the New York Times: "The America that many speakers described on Wednesday at the Republican National Convention did not sound like a desirable place: fractious, violent, functionally lawless in some pockets. But their case that only President Trump could shield Americans from this fate was complicated by a nettlesome fact. He is in charge, at present.... The third night of the Republican convention steered into a bit of messaging jujitsu that has become a dominant theme of the week: Mr. Trump's ability to turn back Trump-era ills that have, in this telling, been largely out of his hands to date.... 'You won't be safe,' [Mike Pence] said, 'in Joe Biden's America.' Even as president, Mr. Trump has often appeared most comfortable in the role of back-seat driver, jeering his own government like a common bystander, insisting that someone really ought to do something about all this.... Through it all, the intended takeaway has seemed clear: Mr. Trump is in control of the good but not responsible for the bad, worthy of praise for America's successes and exoneration for its struggles." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I can tell you right now why Republicans, especially evangelicals, will buy this paradox: it is exactly what they believe of the Hebrew God. Their god is almighty, but bad things befall believers because they -- or someone -- has succumbed to Satan. Trump and his disciples are presenting him as an earthly god, while Joe Biden and "Democrat mayors" are Satan and his band of evil-doers. Trump is no theologian, but he has -- perhaps intuitively -- recognized & adopted the structural core of Christianity & Judaism.

Seung Min Kim, et al., of the Washington Post: "Republicans used the third day of their national convention to portray President Trump as a strong defender of conservative principles on law enforcement, defense and the economy -- emphasizing his law-and-order credentials as social unrest flared again after another police shooting of a Black man.... None of the speakers specifically addressed the police shooting of Jacob Blake Jr., a Black man, in Kenosha, Wis., on Sunday...."

Politico has a "highlights" report of Wednesday night's The New Trump Show, featuring women who said what a caring feminist Trump is. The fact-checking here is weak, though. For instance, one of Kayleigh McEnany's big points was that Trump would make sure people with pre-existing conditions were guaranteed coverage, even though Trump has fought throughout his presidency* to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the law that guarantees coverage for pre-existing conditions.

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: One likely outcome of the Republican National Convention: it will become a coronavirus super-spreader. Besides a number of maskless people sitting together for Melanie's speech Tuesday night, there were even more maskless people sitting close together for pence's speech at Fort McHenry Wednesday. Then Donald Trump showed up. According to CNN, a number of audience members Wednesday said they were not tested for coronavirus, and at Tuesday's event, only the people sitting closest to Trump were tested. After pence's speech, Trump & the Mrs. stood around chatting with guests.

The New York Times' live updates of Wednesday's episode of Trump TV programming are here. The Washington Post's live updates are here. The Guardian's live updates are here. ~~~

~~~ Here's New York Times reporters' live snark chat about the convention's Wednesday session. Politico reporters' live analysis is here.

Gene Robinson of the Washington Post: "What country does Vice President Pence live in? During his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, Pence sounded as though he lived in some kind of fantasyland that perhaps had encountered a few tiny little bumps in the road. His party has spent the week claiming to represent 'the common man,' but Pence spoke as though he knew next to nothing about the daunting challenges that Americans are having to deal with every day. The most he could muster was an acknowledgement that 'we're passing through a time of testing,' as though he were consoling a motorist after a fender bender. He did offer 'our prayers' for victims of Hurricane Laura, and he acknowledged there had been deaths from the coronavirus pandemic, though not how many. But his only pointed and specific words were his attacks against the Democratic nominee -- 'You won't be safe in Joe Biden's America' -- and his full-throated endorsement of President Trump's 'law and order' rhetoric."

Abraham Lincoln once famously said, 'America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.' -- Lara Trump, Wednesday at Republican convention, citing a right-wing meme which both PolitiFact and Snopes have debunked

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide. -- @Real Abraham Lincoln, January 1838

What would make anyone think Lara's "quote" reads anything like something Lincoln would have said? And yeah, if we Americans re-elect Lara's father-in-law we will ourselves be the authors & finishers of our own destruction. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

** Rebecca Beitsch of the Hill: "The National Park Service (NPS) is in hot water with ethics watchdogs for a slickly produced video promoting President Trump along with its plans to host a fireworks spectacle after his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. Trump is slated to give his convention speech on Thursday from the White House South Lawn, followed by fireworks at the nearby Washington Monument on Park Service property. Those plans come on the heels of an NPS video publicly praising the president for his involvement in legislation providing more funding to parks. The two instances are leading to allegations that federal employees are engaging in political activity while at work -- a violation of the Hatch Act." --s

Yes, Donald Trump Can Go Lower. Tax Axelrod of the Hill: "President Trump is calling for drug tests to be administered before the first presidential debate between him and Democratic nominee Joe Biden next month. Trump made the demand in an Oval Office interview with The Washington Examiner Wednesday, saying he noted a sudden improvement in Biden's primary debate performance against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in March. He offered no evidence to support his suggestion that the improvement could have been the result of a drug.... The president said he was going solely based off of his own observations and not any inside knowledge into Biden's campaign. 'All I can tell you is that I'm pretty good at this stuff,' he said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Mrs. McCrabbie: Remember the Taco Bowl! When considering Trump's "message" in pardoning a Black felon and in attending a naturalization ceremony for people of color at the White House yesterday, then playing back video of these events at the convention last night, we should bear in mind Trump's infamous May 2016 tweet in which he is pictured sticking a fork in a Trump Tower Grill taco bowl and declaring "I love Hispanics!" These White House events are not efforts to "soften" his image, as most in the media have asserted. Trump is a cruel person, and all of these "gestures" are, to put it as delicately as possible, mind-fucking exercises. He knows you know he is a racist xenophobe, and his intention is to mess with you.

Jonathan Easley of the Hill: "One of the GOP founders of the anti-Trump group The Lincoln Project said Wednesday that polls undercount the level of support that exists for President Trump. 'It is historically difficult to defeat an incumbent president, No. 1,' Steve Schmidt, a former adviser to Sen.& John McCain (R-Ariz.), told Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC. 'I suspect there is at least a point or two of undercount for Trump voters.'... [Joe] Biden has smaller leads in most of the six core battleground states, although recent surveys have found the race is tightening." --s

Julian Barnes of the New York Times: "Mail-in voting for the November presidential election is safe from foreign intervention, intelligence and election security officials said on Wednesday, saying that standard security measures and decentralization make the United States' election system extremely difficult for a foreign power to penetrate and change the results. The assessment contradicts President Trump's attacks on mail-in voting and comments by Attorney General William P. Barr that have also sowed doubt about its security.... 'You guys like to talk about Russia and China and other places,' Mr. Trump said in July. 'They'll be able to forge ballots. They'll forge them. They'll do whatever they have to do.'... Mr. Barr ... told NPR News in June that he did not think an election conducted by mail-in vote could be secure. Mr. Barr told lawmakers in July that ... mail-in voting increased the risk of fraud. And he defended Mr. Trump's claim that foreign governments could print fake mail-in ballots, saying that 'it is not disinformation.' The United States ... has no intelligence that any nation-state is making a coordinated attempt to undermine absentee voting or create fake mail-in ballots, a senior official from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said."

Black Lives Matter, Ctd.

Here are the New York Times live updates of the police shooting of Jacob Blake and of the Trump supporter's killing of two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin: "Wisconsin's attorney general Josh Kaul on Wednesday identified the white police officer who shot Jacob Blake, a Black man, multiple times in Kenosha, Wis., as Rusten Sheskey, a seven-year veteran of the city's police force."

Julie Bosman of the New York Times: "An Illinois resident has been arrested in connection to a shooting that left two people dead and another person wounded during a chaotic night of demonstrations over the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis., officials said on Wednesday. A court document from Lake County, Ill., shows that Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, was arrested in Antioch, Ill., on Wednesday morning after being charged with first degree intentional homicide in the fatal shooting that took place only hours earlier. Antioch is about 30 minutes southwest of Kenosha, just over the Illinois line." This is an update of a story linked yesterday. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

** Ellie Hall, et al., of BuzzFeed News: "The law enforcement-obsessed 17-year-old who was charged with shooting and killing two people and injuring another in Kenosha, Wisconsin, during protests for Jacob Blake appeared in the front row at a Donald Trump rally in January. Kyle Howard Rittenhouse's social media presence is filled with him posing with weapons, posting 'Blue Lives Matter,' and supporting Trump for president. Footage from the Des Moines, Iowa, rally on Jan. 30 shows Rittenhouse feet away from the president, in the front row, to the left of the podium. He posted a TikTok video from the event." Read on. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: If you wove this detail into a work of fiction, you (or your editor) would take it out as too trite.

Travis Gettys of the Raw Story, citing a tweet by Shannon Watts: "'Cell phone footage shows Kenosha police telling armed insurrectionists, 'We appreciate you guys. We really do,' and giving them bottles of water. Shortly after this video was taken, one of these men shot and killed two protesters and wounded another.' Another video shows Rittenhouse open fire with a rifle after he fell to the ground and then calmly walk toward police vehicles with his hands raised in surrender. Other people can be heard yelling that he had shot someone. However, no officers are seen getting out of the vehicles, which continue advancing toward protesters, to apprehend Rittenhouse -- who then fled the state and was considered a fugitive." Mrs. McC: An eyewitness told Anderson Cooper on CNN Wednesday that he saw the shooter talking to police, who were in their vehicle, and he heard a cop tell the shooter to clear away from the area. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Time to Fire the Kenosha Police Chief. Jeremy Stahl of Slate: "During the Kenosha Police Department's first press conference in response to the Blake shooting and subsequent protests, Chief Daniel Miskinis blamed the unidentified victims in Tuesday night';s shooting for their own deaths, saying the violence was the result of the 'persons; involved violating curfew[.]... 'It is the persons who were involved after the legal time, involved in illegal activity, that brought violence to this community,' Miskinis [said].... In describing the shooting of two protesters, Miskinis also declined to call it a homicide and instead referred to it by various euphemisms often used to describe killings by a police officer, which [Kyle] Rittenhouse is not. He said that the shooter 'was involved in the use of firearms to resolve whatever conflict was in place' and that there was a 'disturbance that led to the use of deadly force.' Additionally, Miskinis refused to comment on the video of [Jacob] Blake's shooting, but offered that there may have been a reasonable explanation for the man being shot seven times.... When asked about the vigilante groups, Miskinis defended them as civilians out to protect property and 'exercise their constitutional right.'"

Marc Stein of the New York Times: "The Milwaukee Bucks responded to the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man in Wisconsin, by refusing to take the court Wednesday afternoon for their N.B.A. playoff game against the Orlando Magic. An hour later, the N.B.A. postponed two other playoff games scheduled for Wednesday night, thrusting its ambitious restart at Walt Disney World during the coronavirus pandemic into sudden chaos and doubt. The postponed games were first-round playoff matchups pitting the Houston Rockets against the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the Los Angeles Lakers against the Portland Trail Blazers. All three games will be rescheduled. Players from the N.B.A. and the W.N.B.A. have long been at the forefront of protests against racism and police brutality but especially this year, after the police killings of George Floyd, a Black man in Minnesota, and Breonna Taylor, a Black woman in Kentucky. Still, the boycott was an extraordinary escalation in the athletes' demonstrations, a move that had virtually no precedent in the league's history." A Deadline story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Carla Russo of the Huffington Post: "Several Major League Baseball teams postponed their games on Wednesday in an apparent show of protest against the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The Milwaukee Brewers and the Cincinnati Reds were the first MLB teams to postpone their game, multiple sources reported. They made their decision not long after the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks staged a walkout during a playoff game against the Orlando Magic, also on Wednesday. Later Wednesday, the Seattle Mariners and San Diego Padres decided to postpone their Wednesday game as well, according to multiple reports." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

     ~~~ Scott Lemieux in LG&$: "Critically, the Reds decided to join the strike rather than undermine it by accepting a forfeit. This is a big deal.... I dunno, making a lifelong champion of arbitrary violence against Black people president of the United States seems like a bad idea in retrospect." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Russell Brandom of the Verge: "In the wake of an apparent double murder Tuesday night in Kenosha, Facebook has faced a wave of scrutiny over posts by a self-proclaimed militia group called Kenosha Guard, which issued a 'call to arms' to in advance of the protest. Facebook took down Kenosha Guard's Facebook page Wednesday morning, identifying the posts as violating community standards. But while the accounts were ultimately removed, new evidence suggests the platform had ample warning about the account before the shooting brought the group to prominence. At least two separate Facebook users reported the account for inciting violence prior to the shooting.... In each case, the group and its counter-protest event were examined by Facebook moderators and found not to be in violation of the platform's policies."

Minnesota. Michael Levenson of the New York Times: "A Black man who was wanted in a homicide fatally shot himself as the police closed in on a downtown Minneapolis street on Wednesday evening, prompting a fresh round of protests and looting, the authorities said, three months after the killing of George Floyd in the city set off global demonstrations against police violence. Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota said the State Patrol was headed to the city to help restore order, and that he had deployed the National Guard. Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis said he had ordered an immediate curfew.... Wednesday evening, the police released video of the man shooting himself, saying it was important to quell rumors that he had been killed by the police."

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

Fred Imbert of CNBC: "The number of Americans who filed for unemployment benefits for the first time came in above 1 million for a second consecutive week as the economy tries to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, the Labor Department said Thursday.... Last week marked the 22nd time in 23 weeks that initial claims were above 1 million."

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Thursday are here: "Over the past six months, about 1.5 billion children around the world have been told to stay home from school to help minimize transmission of the coronavirus. More than 30 percent of these students -- around 463 million -- were unable to gain access to remote learning opportunities when their schools closed, according to a report on Wednesday by Unicef, the United Nations agency for children.... Henrietta Fore, the executive director of Unicef, said in a statement. 'The repercussions could be felt in economies and societies for decades to come.'"

The Washington Post's live updates of coronavirus developments Wednesday are here. The New York Times live updates Wednesday are here: "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was instructed by higher-ups in the Trump administration to modify its coronavirus testing guidelines this week to exclude people who do not have symptoms of Covid-19 -- even if they have been recently exposed to the virus, according to two federal health officials. One official said ... the guidelines were not written by the C.D.C. but were imposed." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Nick Valencia, et al., of CNN: "A sudden change in federal guidelines on coronavirus testing came this week as a result of pressure from the upper ranks of the Trump administration, a federal health official close to the process tells CNN. 'It's coming from the top down,' the official said of the new directive from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The new guidelines raise the bar on who should get tested, advising that some people without symptoms probably don't need it -- even if they've been in close contact with an infected person. Previously, the CDC said viral testing was appropriate for people with recent or suspected exposure, even if they were asymptomatic.... A CDC spokesperson referred all questions to the Department of Health and Human Services.... The new directive also lines up with a trend in policy and rhetoric from the White House.... Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested the US should do less testing." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Amy Goldstein & Lena Sun of the Washington Post: "An abrupt shift this week in government testing guidelines for Americans exposed to the novel coronavirus was directed by the White House's coronavirus task force, alarming outside public health experts who warn the change could hasten the disease's spread. The new guidance, introduced this week without any announcement on the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, replaces advice that everyone who has been in close contact with an infected person should get tested to find out whether they had caught the virus. Instead, it says that those without symptoms 'do not necessarily need a test.' Several leading infectious-disease experts predicted that, after months of public health exhortations encouraging people to get tested, the turnaround could heighten public confusion, impede contact tracing and lead to more cases. The CDC estimates that 40 percent of those who test positive for the coronavirus have no symptoms but may be highly infectious and spread it to other people.... On Wednesday, Brett Giroir, an assistant HHS secretary who oversees testing, denied the impetus for the shift came from the White House. He said the idea of altering the testing guidance originated with him and CDC Director Robert Redfield, based on concerns that people can have negative results if the test is given too early." ~~~

     ~~~ Then, this: "On a conference call with reporters, Giroir said they discussed the idea with all the physicians on the White House's coronavirus task force, including Anthony S. Fauci ... and Scott Atlas, a new member influential with Trump from his appearances on Fox News who is a fellow at Stanford University's conservative Hoover Institution. Atlas has said fewer people need tests for the virus, which has led to more than 5.7 million cases in the United States and at least 175,000 deaths. He is not an infectious-disease specialist. 'All the docs signed off on this ... before it got to a place where the political leadership would have ever seen it,' Giroir said." Emphasis added.

~~~ Really, Brett? Jeremy Diamond, et al., of CNN: "White House Coronavirus Task Force member Dr. Anthony Fauci said he was undergoing surgery and not in the August 20 task force meeting for the discussion on updated US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines that suggest asymptomatic people may not need to be tested for Covid-19, even if they've been in close contact with an infected person. 'I was under general anesthesia in the operating room and was not part of any discussion or deliberation regarding the new testing recommendations' at that meeting, Fauci told ... Dr. Sanjay Gupta. 'I am concerned about the interpretation of these recommendations and worried it will give people the incorrect assumption that asymptomatic spread is not of great concern. In fact it is,' said Fauci.... Fauci's comments undercut claims by Adm. Brett Giroir.... Asked whether Fauci signed off on the guidelines, Giroir said, 'Yes, all the docs signed off on this before it even got to the task force level.' 'We worked on this all together to make sure that there was absolute consensus that reflected the best possible evidence, and the best public health for the American people,' Giroir also said earlier in the call...." ~~~

     ~~~ Conspiracy Theory Alert. Mrs. McCrabbie: The change in the guidelines sounds like it was organized by a conspiracy of task members to sabotage the guidelines in response to Trump's "asks" to reduce testing in order to keep the number of cases down. On August 20, Bill Chappell of NPR reported, "Dr. Anthony Fauci underwent surgery to remove a polyp from one of his vocal cords Thursday, according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the agency Fauci has led for decades." This wasn't a scoop; Fauci's surgery was widely reported. Moreover, it's the type of surgery for which a patient makes an appointment. In one story I read, Fauci said he had been trying for a while to find a time to schedule the surgery. So you can bet people on the task force were forewarned Fauci would be unavailable on August 20, the day of their task force meeting. Scott Atlas, called the "anti-Fauci" in this headline, had joined the task force just ten days earlier. I know it seems unlikely that Trump could plan anything ten days in advance, but mike pence runs the task force, and mikey can plan. ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: By the way, Admiral Giroir isn't a "real" admiral who might have commanded a ship sailing the high seas or at least held a Pentagon post. Rather, Trump appointed him as a direct-commission officer with the rank of admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, which has no enlisted ranks & reports to the Department of Health & Human Services.

Quoctrung Bui, et al., of the New York Times: "On March 15, as the novel coronavirus was beginning to surge in the United States, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci accomplished a rare Washington feat: He appeared on all five major Sunday talk shows. But the White House worried that Dr. Fauci might upstage (and sometimes contradict) President Trump, and soon his media handlers were no longer approving his high-profile interview requests. So Dr. Fauci found another way to get his message out: He said yes to pretty much every small offer that came his way: academic webinars, Instagram feeds and niche science podcasts, as well as a few celebrity interviews. That's how Dr. Fauci, the country's leading infectious disease scientist, found himself talking to the American Urological Association in June; the Economic Club of Chicago in July; and the 'Brazda Breakfast' briefing this month." Mrs. McC: I once heard a rabbi say, "Absent evil, there are no heroes." Covid-19 has given us many heroes, most of them unsung. There's a good chance you're one yourself.

Caitlin O'Kane of CBS News: "The annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota drew hundreds of thousands of bikers to the small town earlier this month -- despite coronavirus concerns. Now, about three weeks after the rally kicked off, the repercussions are starting to become clear. More than 100 cases of COVID-19 connected to the rally have been reported in at least eight states, the Associated Press reports."


Another Gross Failure of Leadership. Tessa Stuart of Rolling Stone: "The National Hurricane Center has warned [Hurricane Laura] could bring with it an 'unsurvivable' surge -- waves up to 20 feet high that may cause 'catastrophic' damage up to 30 miles inland.... If those predictions bear out, Laura could be one of the most destructive Gulf hurricanes on record. It's particularly bad timing considering that, less than three weeks ago, instead of working with Congress to craft comprehensive legislation to address the ongoing crisis and deliver desperately-needed aid, President Trump looted FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund to the tune of $44 billion -- authorizing the agency to pay for a $300 per week supplement to regular unemployment benefits.... [In other words] because the Senate won't sign off on the House bill and Trump didn't work with lawmakers to reach a compromise, the unemployment supplement isn't coming from money appropriated by Congress. It's coming from the government account meant to cover natural disasters like the one presently bearing down on Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas." --s ~~~

~~~ Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "Just before the election in 2012, Donald Trump scolded President Barack Obama for campaigning while victims of Hurricane Sandy were still reeling. 'Yesterday Obama campaigned with JayZ & Springsteen while Hurricane Sandy victims across NY & NJ are still decimated by Sandy. Wrong!' Trump tweeted eight days after the storm struck. Actually..., both Obama and Mitt Romney had suspended their campaigns for a while -- and now his old criticism of Obama makes Trump look ridiculous. On Wednesday, Hurricane Laura approached the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Texas with a storm surge that the National Hurricane Center called 'unsurvivable' and 'catastrophic.' But Trump decreed that the show would go on.... Just two weeks earlier he signed an executive order stripping the Federal Emergency Management Agency of up to $44 billion from its Disaster Relief Fund. Before that, he did everything in his power to dismantle efforts to ameliorate climate change, which is fueling higher-intensity storms. It's another timely reminder that Trump is a man without a plan."


CPB Suggested Microwaving Asylum-Seekers. Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Fifteen days before the 2018 midterm elections, as President Trump sought to motivate Republicans with dark warnings about caravans heading to the U.S. border, he gathered his Homeland Security secretary and White House staff to deliver a message: 'extreme action' was needed to stop the migrants.... At a meeting with top leaders of the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection officials suggested deploying a microwave weapon -- a 'heat-ray' designed by the military to make people's skin feel like it is burning when they get within range of its invisible beams. Developed by the military as a crowd dispersal tool two decades ago, the Active Denial System had been largely abandoned amid doubts over its effectiveness and morality. Two former officials who attended the afternoon meeting ..., said the suggestion that the device be installed at the border shocked attendees, even if it would have satisfied the president. Kirstjen Nielsen, then the secretary of Homeland Security told an aide after the meeting that she would not authorize the use of such a device, and it should never be brought up again in her presence, the officials said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Beyond the Beltway

Missouri. Morgan Gstalter of the Hill: "The GOP-controlled Missouri House on Tuesday advanced a bill that would make it legal to give guns to children without their parents' permission. The bill comes after Gov. Mike Parson (R) called lawmakers back for a special summer session on crime and asked the legislature to penalize criminals who unlawfully use firearms, then pass them off on children to avoid detection. The legislation is the exact opposite of what Parson called for, according to The Associated Press." --s

News Ledes

New York Times: “Hurricane Laura pounded the Louisiana and Texas coasts as it made landfall near Cameron, La., as a Category 4 storm early Thursday, delivering a barrage of 150-mile-an-hour winds and a surge of water that was predicted to reach as high as 20 feet. The National Hurricane Center called the expected storm surge 'unsurvivable,' and said that it could push as far as 40 miles inland. Officials also said that low-lying areas facing the brunt of the storm, like Cameron Parish in Louisiana, would essentially be annexed by the Gulf of Mexico until floods receded. Landfall came after officials in both states issued the gravest of warnings, sounding the alarm about a storm that could be one of the worst to hit the region in decades." This is a live-update report. Access to the WashPo's live updates is free. ~~~

~~~ The AP's live updates of Hurricane Laura news are here. The Weather Channel's main report is here.

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