The Commentariat -- July 2, 2019

Afternoon Update:

Finally, a Baby Step. Nicholas Fandos & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "The House's tax-writing committee sued the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service on Tuesday demanding access to President Trump's tax returns, escalating a fight with an administration that has repeatedly dismissed as illegitimate the Democrats' attempt to obtain Mr. Trump's financial records. The lawsuit moves the dispute into federal courts after months of sniping between the Democratic-led House Ways and Means Committee, which requested and then subpoenaed the returns, and the Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin. The outcome is likely to determine whether financial information that Mr. Trump -- breaking with longstanding tradition -- has kept closely guarded as a candidate and as president will be viewed by Congress and, ultimately, by the public."

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Much of Today's News Is Brought to You by Trump Atrocities, Inc.

Dareh Gregorian of NBC News: "... Donald Trump said Monday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is going to be increasing deportations of undocumented immigrants after Independence Day. 'After July Fourth a lot of people are going to be brought back out,' Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, where he signed a $4.6 billion aid bill to deal with the surge of migrants at the border. 'So people that come up maybe here for a short while, but they're going to be gone, they're going back to their countries. They go back home. ICE is going to be apprehending them and bringing them back.'" Mrs. McC: Trump speaks like a child. Contrast what comes out of Trump's mouth with the way Gregorian characterized his remarks: "they go back home" (toddler) v. "increasing deportations of undocumented immigrants" (adult). I look forward to the day when "Donnie fall down go boom."

Robert Moore, et al., of the Texas Tribune: House "Lawmakers described how migrant women were being held in a cell with no running water and told by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers to drink out of toilet at a Texas detention center amid widespread concerns about deplorable conditions. More than a dozen U.S. House members visited facilities in El Paso and Clint -- a trip that came the same day as a news report that Border Patrol agents made vile posts that threatened lawmakers in a secret Facebook group and discussed throwing burritos at the congressional visitors.... The Congressional Hispanic Caucus organized the trip after conditions at the Border Patrol station in Clint prompted an outcry last month, with lawyers who visited the facility describing scenes of sick and dirty children without their parents and inconsolable toddlers in the care of other children. After touring the detention centers, the group struggled to be heard at a news conference, confronted by protesters who shouted at them 'Build a wall; deport 'em all -- that's the way we get rid of this problem!'" ...

... A. C. Thompson of ProPublica: "Members of a secret Facebook group for current and former Border Patrol agents joked about the deaths of migrants, discussed throwing burritos at Latino members of Congress visiting a detention facility in Texas on Monday and posted a vulgar illustration depicting Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez engaged in oral sex with a detained migrant, according to screenshots of their postings. In one exchange, group members responded with indifference and wisecracks to the post of a news story about a 16-year-old Guatemalan migrant who died in May while in custody at a Border Patrol station in Weslaco, Texas. One member posted a GIF of Elmo with the quote, 'Oh well.' Another responded with an image and the words 'If he dies, he dies.' Created in August 2016, the Facebook group is called 'I'm 10-15' and boasts roughly 9,500 members from across the country. (10-15 is Border Patrol code for 'aliens in custody.')... [Anticipating the visit by Members of Congress,] one member encouraged Border Patrol agents to hurl a 'burrito at these bitches.' Another, apparently a patrol supervisor, wrote, 'Fuck the hoes.' 'There should be no photo ops for these scum buckets,' posted a third member." Mrs. McC: This is why Trump continually praises Border Patrol officers. ...

     ... According to the Texas Tribune report, linked above, “Customs and Border Protection notified the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security about the Facebook posts and said an investigation had been initiated." ...

... Julia Ainsley & Jacob Soboroff of NBC News: "The government's own internal watchdog warned as far back as May that conditions at an El Paso, Texas, border station were so bad that border agents were arming themselves against possible riots, countering Friday's assertion by a top Trump administration official [-- acting DHS secretary Kevin McAleenan --] that reports of poor conditions for migrants were 'unsubstantiated.' In an internal report prepared by the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General and obtained by NBC News, inspectors noted during a May 7 tour of a border station in the El Paso sector that only four showers were available for 756 immigrants, more than half of the immigrants were being held outside, and immigrants inside were being kept in cells maxed out at more than five times their capacity.... The cell was so crowded the men could not lie down to sleep. Temperatures in the cells reached over 80 degrees, the report said." ...

... Bob Ortega of CNN: Dr. Roberto "Johansson, a pediatrician who specializes in emergency medicine and intensive care, says there's another pressing problem: The medical screening the Border Patrol gives to undocumented children is 'absolutely, unequivocally inadequate.'... Johansson said the Border Patrol does a poor job of initially assessing a child's illness and too often misses early signs of health problems of youngsters in custody. By the time children are sent to local hospitals, conditions that could have been treated earlier have grown more serious and more difficult to treat.Once at the hospital, border agents or other officers stand guard outside the children's rooms.... Under a CBP directive announced in January, a medical professional under CBP contract or a "credentialed healthcare provider" is supposed to conduct an interview and medical assessment of every child taken into custody."

"Trump Wants Census to Find Out Who Is 'An Illegal.'" Matthew Choi of Politico: "... Donald Trump said Monday his administration was still looking into delaying the 2020 census over disputes about the legality of a citizenship question. Speaking with reporters in the Oval Office, the president reiterated his incredulity that asking about citizenship is not part of the census. 'I think it is very important to find out if somebody is a citizen as opposed to an illegal,' Trump said. 'It is a big difference to me between being a citizen of the United States and being an illegal.'... Federal law requires the census to be taken 'as of the first day of April' 2020." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Trump's designation of a person as "an illegal" serves to further illustrate Rep. Ocasio-Cortez's point here. Rebecca Falconer of Axios: "Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) documented in a series of tweets what she described as 'horrifying' conditions inside a Texas migrant detention center at a Border Patrol station she visited Monday.... Ocasio-Cortez, who was in a party of Congressional Hispanic Caucus lawmakers, said a woman in the center told her officers had used 'psychological warfare' on migrants, 'waking them at odd hours for no reason, calling them wh*res, etc,' Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. 'Tell me what about that is due to a "lack of funding?'" she said.... 'It is hard to understate the enormity of the problem. We're talking systemic cruelty w/ a dehumanizing culture that treats them like animals.'" To Trump, these individuals are less than animals. "Animal" is a noun; "illegal" is an adjective. "An illegal" is not even a "person, place or thing." Trump views a "person" as a description, and a highly-negative description at that. "An illegal" cancels personhood. It's worse than calling someone the N-word.

David Sanger of the New York Times: "Iran has exceeded a key limitation on how much nuclear fuel it can possess under the 2015 international pact curbing its nuclear program, effectively declaring that it would no longer respect an agreement that President Trump abandoned more than a year ago, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported on Monday. The breach of the limitation, which restricted Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium to about 660 pounds, does not by itself give the country the material to produce a nuclear weapon. But it is te strongest signal yet that Iran is moving to abandon the limits and restore the far larger stockpile that took the United States and five other nations years to persuade Tehran to send abroad."

Edward Wong of the New York Times: "... administration officials were sharply at odds on Monday over what demands to make of Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, as they prepared to restart negotiations on a nuclear deal. Pushing an internal debate into the open, John R. Bolton, the national security adviser and the most prominent hawk in the administration, reacted angrily to a report in The New York Times about the possibility of a deal to effectively freeze North Korea's nuclear activity in return for American concessions.... 'This was a reprehensible attempt by someone to box in the president,' Mr. Bolton wrote on Twitter. 'There should be consequences.' But some senior administration officials have been discussing the idea of an incremental approach under which North Korea would first close down its nuclear facilities to prevent it from making new fissile material, in effect freezing its program but leaving its existing arsenal in place. In exchange, the Americans would make some concessions that would help improve the living conditions of North Korea...." ...

... Michelle Goldberg: "Say this for Donald Trump. He may be transforming American politics into a kleptocratic fascist reality show and turning our once-great country into a global laughingstock, but at least he's humiliating John Bolton in the process.... It's nightmarish to live in a country where our foreign policy has been reduced to an intramural battle between Fox News reactionaries [Bolton & Tucker Carlson]. And there's still a danger that Bolton could outmaneuver the isolationists. But right now there is a thin, bitter consolation in knowing that he, like so many others who've worked for Trump, sacrificed his principles for power and will likely end up with neither."

Jonah Shepp of New York on how Trump shifted the G-20 summit. "In his statements and meetings on the sidelines of the summit, he gave explicit cover and support to authoritarian leaders, made concessions to adversaries, and threatened to tear up decades-old agreements with longstanding allies.... When Trump wasn't posing for smiling snapshots with [an] all-star cast of brutal dictators, he was taking potshots at real U.S. allies like Europe and Japan." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Emoluments! Anita Kumar of Politico: "While visiting South Korea over the weekend..., Donald Trump tried to strike a deal with President Moon Jae-in to get more companies to invest in the United States. But even as he pushed American interests, a partner of Trump's namesake company is aggressively expanding plans to build luxury Trump-branded resorts in Indonesia -- and the project involves a construction company partly owned by the South Korean government.... The meeting [between Trump & Moon] represented the latest example of the blurred lines between Trump's official diplomatic work and his business interests. The expansion of the project that now has the South Korean government attached to it seems to run afoul -- at least in spirit --of Trump's pledge that the Trump Organization will not enter into any new foreign deals while in office." Oh, P.S. Saudi Arabia also has a substantial interest in the construction company building the "Trump Community" in Indonesia.

Nous Sommes Désolés. Rym Momtaz & Nahal Toosi of Politico: An official of the French presidency says the Élysée is awfully sorry it released a video clip showing Ivanka Trump horning in on a conversation among actual government leaders. "'We didn't anticipate the reaction, and ... we are not responsible for the use made of the clip,' the official said." ...

... The New York Times weighs in on Ivanka Trump, Junior Diplomat. Katie Rogers: "On Sunday, [Ivanka] Trump ... used an impromptu meeting between her father and Kim Jong-un ... to further slip into the role of unofficial spokeswoman and budding stateswoman for the Trump administration. With her husband ... Jared Kushner at her side, Ms. Trump delivered news interviews, posed for photos and attended a closed-door meeting between her father and Mr. Kim.... 'We are on the precipice of ushering in potentially a golden era for the Korean Peninsula,' Ms. Trump told Bloomberg News in the hours before her father took the historic step of crossing into the North. But by the time she emerged from the closed-door meeting between the leaders hours later, she only had one word for journalists about her encounter with North Korea. She called it 'surreal.' Others following along called [her presence] inappropriate.... Ms. Trump's participation in the G20 trip illustrated just how unchecked her ascent in the White House has been in recent months, and how few people who might have raised doubts remain." Mrs. McC: Junior Displomat. I think there's a merit badge for that. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

Ivanka Trump at Yalta. I'm thing that if Ivanka hadn't been there to assert her own views (notice Churchill, Roosevelt & Stalin are mum while Ivanka shares her thoughts), there might never have been a cold war.

... Mrs. McCrabbie: CNN ran an unintentionally hilarious clip of Mike Pompeo -- a confirmed Secretary of State -- trying to squeeze in to the front row of a group picture while Ivanka & Daddy Dearest hogged front row, center-stage. Pompeo eventually pushed through, but Canadian PM Justin Trudeau didn't even try; the formal photos show Trudeau in the back row. Some pundits blame Daddy for putting his daughter in these spots where she doesn't belong. I don't buy it; Ivanka is a chip off the old blockhead & loves to hog the spotlight whether it's "appropriate" or not. ...

... Erin Banco & Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast. “Ivanka and Kushner ... were reportedly present at a closed-door meeting between [Trump & Kim], who ended up speaking about one of the most sensitive topics on the planet -- North Korea's nuclear weapons program.... , an official reached out and said: 'Although they met Kim, Jared and Ivanka did not participate in the closed-door meeting.' The official did not clarify which meeting Ivanka and Jared participated in or how many meetings were held on the border. But two other officials told The Daily Beast that Ivanka and Kushner were in the room for conversations that pertained to nuclear weapons and sanctions." Mrs. McC: While the president* has the authority to clear anyone, I'm not sure either Jared of Ivanka has official clearance high enough to attend meetings about nuclear security. ...

... Suzanne Moore of the Guardian: "That Ivanka is on some permanent 'take your daughter to work day' has long been evident.... The toxicity of Trump, a patriarchal mobster, is still met with appalled politeness. Our own royals [i.e., Queen Elizabeth, et al.,] prostrated themselves before these lowlifes. This is not participatory democracy.... Indeed, the only way we participate is by making memes about this ghastly spectacle on social media.... We laugh -- because to take her seriously is too ugly to contemplate."

... Alison Rourke of the Guardian: "Ivanka Trump's prominent role at the G20 summit over the weekend, and her presence at the Korean demilitarised zone with her father, has inspired a slew of parodies under the hashtag #unwantedivanka.... Following an awkward encounter in Osaka, in which Trump appeared to muscle in on a conversation with world leaders, the president's daughter and senior White House advisor has been photoshopped into significant moments in history...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

He wants to have a parade like they have in Moscow or China or North Korea. -- RNC Fundraiser ...

The image, believe it or not, comes from a Trump supporter.... Another Spectacular Fascist Vanity Project. Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump said on Monday that the Pentagon would put military tanks on display on Thursday in Washington as part of his plans to turn the Fourth of July celebration in the nation's capital into a salute to the country's military prowess. The tanks would join an airborne display of the nation's firepower.... Mr. Trump, who will be speaking at the celebration, has requested that the chiefs for the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines be standing next to him as aircraft from each of their services fly overhead and their respective hymns play on loudspeakers.... Pentagon officials declined to comment on Monday as they wrestled with how to accommodate the president's tank request with only a few days left before the event.... The Memorial Bridge, which spans the Potomac River and connects the Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial, might not be able to hold the weight.... The City Council for the District of Columbia ... posted on Twitter: 'We have said it before, and we'll say it again: Tanks, but no tanks.'" ...

... Jack Crosbie of Splinter: "Per the Washington Post, Trump is again giving the National Parks Service a massive headache by requesting massive armored vehicles on the National Mall for his planned rebrand of the nation's Fourth of July celebration as a VIP 'Salute to America.' According to the paper this morning: '... The ongoing negotiations over whether to use massive military hardware, such as Abrams tanks or Bradley fighting vehicles, as a prop for Trump's "Salute to America" is just one of many unfinished details when it comes to the celebration planned for Thursday.... Traditionally, major gatherings on the Mall, including inauguration festivities and a jubilee commemorating the start of a new millennium, have featured a designated event producer. But in this case, the producer is the president himself....'... As HuffPost reported at the time [of Trump's inauguration, when he also requested tanks for his parade]: '... "I could absolutely see structural support being a reason [not to use tanks]," a Department of Defense official said. "D.C. is built on a swamp to begin with."'" The WashPo story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... S. V. Date of the Huffington Post: "... Donald Trump has hijacked what for decades had been a nonpolitical Independence Day celebration on the National Mall, packing his ticketed-event speech with political appointees and Republican donors. The Republican National Committee has been offering major donors tickets to Trump's speech, as have political appointees at the White House and executive branch agencies.... The current plans for Thursday do not include a parade, but Trump is still pushing for tanks or other military vehicles to be displayed on the National Mall, The Washington Post reported, even though their weight is liable to damage the grass and roads.... Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a New York University history professor and expert on fascism, said Trump's need to display military hardware is a feature of authoritarians throughout history." ...

... Jennifer Bendery of the Huffington Post: "Irked by ... Donald Trump's plan to hold his own July Fourth event on the National Mall, veterans plan to give out thousands of USS John S. McCain T-shirts to make the president face a crowd of people honoring the McCain family's legacy and the idea of putting one's country before oneself. VoteVets, a left-leaning nonprofit group founded in 2006 by Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, is organizing the effort in response to Trump's unprecedented 'Salute to America' celebration."

Michelle Kosinski of CNN: "Democrats on a key House congressional committee are investigating allegations from a whistleblower within the State Department about Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his family's use of taxpayer-funded Diplomatic Security.... Congressional investigators, who asked for the committee not to be named as they carry out their inquiries, tell CNN that a State Department whistleblower has raised multiple issues over a period of months, about special agents being asked to carry out some questionable tasks for the Pompeo family. In April, for example, an agent was asked to pick up Chinese food -- without Pompeo in the car. The whistleblower said this led agents to complain that they are now serving as 'UberEats with guns.'... On another occasion, the whistleblower told aides, a Diplomatic Security special agent was given the job of picking up the Pompeo family dog from a groomer. And CNN has seen a document given to the committee aides by the whistleblower showing that in January, Diplomatic Security was asked by a person in Pompeo's office to pick up his adult son from Union Station in Washington and bring him to the family home."

The Moochers Voted for Trump. Paul Krugman: "In moving to the left on taxes and spending..., Democrats are actually moving toward voters' preferences, not away from them.... Nobody who endorsed the 2017 tax cut has any right to criticize Democratic proposals to spend more on things like child care. That tax cut, after all, appears likely to add around $2 trillion to federal debt -- with around a third of that going to foreigners. Meanwhile, the promised surge in business investment is nowhere to be seen.... If your view is that the progressive agenda is morally wrong, that people shouldn't receive more in government benefits than they pay in taxes, you should be aware how many Americans are already 'takers,' 'moochers,' whatever. In fact, we're talking about a vast swath of the heartland that includes just about every state that voted for Donald Trump."

Michael Tomasky in a New York Times op-ed: "The aggressive gerrymandering, which the Supreme Court just declared to be a matter beyond its purview; the voter suppression schemes; the dubious proposals that haven't gone anywhere -- yet -- like trying to award presidential electoral votes by congressional district rather than by state, a scheme that Republicans in five states considered after the 2012 election and that is still discussed: These are not ideas aimed at invigorating democracy. They are hatched and executed for the express purpose of essentially fixing elections." Tomasky borrows a term from Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way: "competitive authoritarianism," which describes the political structures of countries like Mozambique, Cambodia & Russia, where "formal democratic institutions exist..., but in which incumbents' abuse of the state places them at a significant advantage vis-à-vis their opponents." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Presidential Election 2016. Triumph of the Trolls. Ken Delanian of NBC News: "A new statistical analysis ... by researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, does not prove that Russian interference swung the election to Trump. But it demonstrates that Trump's gains in popularity during the 2016 campaign correlated closely with high levels of social media activity by the Russian trolls and bots of the Internet Research Agency, a key weapon in the Russian attack.... The study found that every 25,000 re-tweets by accounts connected to the IRA predicted a 1 percent increase in opinion polls for Trump. In an interview with NBC News, [the study's lead researcher Damian] Ruck said the research suggests that Russian trolls helped shift U.S public opinion in Trump's favor. As to whether it affected the outcome of the election: 'The answer is that we still don't know, but we can't rule it out.'"

Sam Stein of the Daily Beast: "ThinkProgress, the flagship news site of the Democratic think tank Center for American Progress, is up for sale. Staff were informed on Monday afternoon that the site would be sold off and a CAP official told The Daily Beast that the organization would begin looking for prospective buyers for the website, which has come under severe financial strains during the Trump era."

Way Beyond the Beltway

China. Javier C. Hernández of the New York Times: "Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators marched in peaceful protest on Monday as Hong Kong commemorated its return to China in 1997, but the city was shaken by images of a smaller group of activists who broke into the legislature, smashed glass walls and spray-painted slogans in the inner chamber. The split-screen protest offered vivid evidence that the divide in the former British colony is not merely between protesters and the Beijing-allied government -- the protesters are increasingly at odds with one another."

The Commentariat -- July 1, 2019

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

David Sanger of the New York Times: "Iran has exceeded a key limitation on how much nuclear fuel it can possess under the 2015 international pact curbing its nuclear program, effectively declaring that it would no longer respect an agreement that President Trump abandoned more than a year ago, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported on Monday. The breach of the limitation, which restricted Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium to about 660 pounds, does not by itself give the country the material to produce a nuclear weapon. But it is the strongest signal yet that Iran is moving to abandon the limits and restore the far larger stockpile that took the United States and five other nations years to persuade Tehran to send abroad."

Jack Crosbie of Splinter: "Per the Washington Post, Trump is again giving the National Parks Service a massive headache by requesting massive armored vehicles on the National Mall for his planned rebrand of the nation's Fourth of July celebration as a VIP 'Salute to America.' According to the paper this morning: '... The ongoing negotiations over whether to use massive military hardware, such as Abrams tanks or Bradley fighting vehicles, as a prop for Trump's "Salute to America" is just one of many unfinished details when it comes to the celebration planned for Thursday.... Traditionally, major gatherings on the Mall, including inauguration festivities and a jubilee commemorating the start of a new millennium, have featured a designated event producer. But in this case, the producer is the president himself....'... As HuffPost reported at the time [of Trump's inauguration, when he also requested tanks for his parade]: '... "I could absolutely see structural support being a reason [not to use tanks]," a Department of Defense official said. 'D.C. is built on a swamp to begin with.'" The WashPo story is here.

Jonah Shepp of New York on how Trump shifted the G-20 summit. "In his statements and meetings on the sidelines of the summit, he gave explicit cover and support to authoritarian leaders, made concessions to adversaries, and threatened to tear up decades-old agreements with longstanding allies.... When Trump wasn't posing for smiling snapshots with [an] all-star cast of brutal dictators, he was taking potshots at real U.S. allies like Europe and Japan."

The New York Times weighs in on Ivanka Trump, Junior Diplomat. Katie Rogers: "On Sunday, [Ivanka] Trump ... used an impromptu meeting between her father and Kim Jong-un ... to further slip into the role of unofficial spokeswoman and budding stateswoma for the Trump administration. With her husband ... Jared Kushner at her side, Ms. Trump delivered news interviews, posed for photos and attended a closed-door meeting between her father and Mr Kim.... 'We are on the precipice of ushering in potentially a golden era for the Korean Peninsula,' Ms. Trump told Bloomberg News in the hours before her father took the historic step of crossing into the North. But by the time she emerged from the closed-door meeting between the leaders hours later, she only had one word for journalists about her encounter with North Korea. She called it 'surreal.' Others following along called [her presence] inappropriate.... Ms. Trump's participation in the G20 trip illustrated just how unchecked her ascent in the White House has been in recent months, and how few people who might have raised doubts remain." Mrs. McC: Junior Diplomat. I thinks there's a merit badge for that. ...

Ivanka Trump at Yalta. I'm thing that if Ivanka hadn't been there to assert her own views (notice Churchill, Roosevelt & Stalin are mum while Ivanka shares her thoughts), there might never have been a cold war.

... Alison Rourke of the Guardian: "Ivanka Trump's prominent role at the G20 summit over the weekend, and her presence at the Korean demilitarised zone with her father, has inspired a slew of parodies under the hashtag #unwantedivanka.... Following an awkward encounter in Osaka, in which Trump appeared to muscle in on a conversation with world leaders, the president's daughter and senior White House advisor has been photoshopped into significant moments in history...."

Michael Tomasky in a New York Times op-ed: "The aggressive gerrymandering, which the Supreme Court just declared to be a matter beyond its purview; the voter suppression schemes; the dubious proposals that haven't gone anywhere -- yet -- like trying to award presidential electoral votes by congressional district rather than by state, a scheme that Republicans in five states considered after the 2012 election and that is still discussed: These are not ideas aimed at invigorating democracy. They are hatched and executed for the express purpose of essentially fixing elections." Tomasky borrows a term from Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way: "competitive authoritarianism," which describes the political structures of countries like Mozambique, Cambodia & Russia, where "formal democratic institutions exist..., but in which incumbents' abuse of the state places them at a significant advantage vis-à-vis their opponents."

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Michael Crowley & David Sanger of the New York Times: "... for weeks before the meeting [between Donald Trump & Kim Jong Un]..., a real idea has been taking shape inside the Trump administration that officials hope might create a foundation for a new round of negotiations. The concept would amount to a nuclear freeze, one that essentially enshrines the status quo, and tacitly accepts the North as a nuclear power, something administration officials have often said they would never stand for. It falls far short of Mr. Trump's initial vow 30 months ago to solve the North Korea nuclear problem, but it might provide him with a retort to campaign-season critics who say the North Korean dictator has been playing the American president brilliantly by giving him the visuals he craves while holding back on real concessions. While the approach could stop that arsenal from growing, it would not, at least in the near future, dismantle any existing weapons, variously estimated at 20 to 60. Nor would it limit the North's missile capability." ...

... Jim Acosta of CNN: "The new White House press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, got into a scuffle with North Korean officials on Sunday during a chaotic scene outside a meeting room where ... Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un talked privately. A source at the scene said Grisham got in 'an all out brawl' with North Korean officials as American and North Korean reporters were hustled in to view the summit. Grisham was bruised a bit in the scuffle, the source added." (Also linked late yesterday.) ...

... "Everything is going very smoothly":

(MEANWHILE. Mike Allen of Axios: "Sarah Sanders is likely to hit the speaking circuit and write a book after leaving the White House on Friday, and she'll move to Arkansas in August as the prelude to a possible 2022 run for governor, sources tell Axios." Mrs. McC: So now we'll have to pay to hear/read the lies we used to get for free.)

... This. Is. Not. Diplomacy. Mrs. McCrabbie: The Stephanie Scuffle, it turns out, was just one dance in the TrumpKim Shuffle. Confederate Jonathan Karl of ABC News starts out his report on the Shuffle with high praise: "For Donald Trump the showman, this may have been the greatest performance of his presidency. In one dramatic gesture, he became the first U.S. president to set foot in North Korea -- and the first to arrange an impromptu meeting with a North Korean dictator via tweet." But eventually Karl's recessive newsman gene kicks in, & he writes, "The scene at the DMZ was dramatic and chaotic because there was no agenda, no plan, no advance work. This was improv.... The first moves seemed well choreographed.... Then -- chaos. The two leaders walked around and talked, security guards for both sides were seemingly unclear about where they were going and where the press would be allowed to go.... There was lots of yelling as some of the Korean press followed the leaders into the building. There were shouts to the press to back away from the building ... called the House of Freedom, on the South Korean side of the border.... Then, moments later, shouts for the U.S. press to come inside.... At one point, incoming White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham appears. She elbows and shoves aside a Korean security guard who was among those trying to block the U.S. press from getting into the room where Kim and Trump were now meeting." ...

... Robin Wright of the New Yorker: "... analysts with long experience in dealing with North Korea were skeptical about the prospects. 'This is diplomacy as a reality show -- devoid of substance, purely driven by the pursuit of faux-historic photo ops,' Abraham Denmark, a former East Asia specialist at the Pentagon..., told me.... At the D.M.Z., Kim agreed to do only what he had already promised in Singapore last year: allow more talks between their teams." Mrs. McC: Kinda like going to Paris for the sole purpose of having your picture taken by the grave of Jim Morrison.

Dan Friedman of Mother Jones lists "seven lowlights from Trump's latest adventure abroad." Here's one we missed: "Trump brought his daughter Ivanka with him, a decision that resulted in cringe-worthy instances of the younger Trump, who had no political experience prior to her father giving her job as a White House advisor, appearing to insert herself into pictures and conversations with world leaders. A viral video released Saturday by the office of French President Emmanuel Macron shows [Ivanka] Trump joining a conversation between [Mrs. McC: among!] Macron, British Prime Minister Theresa May, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and International Monetary Fund head Christine Lagarde. The effort drew widespread mockery. 'Being someone's daughter actually isn't a career qualification,' Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted." ...

     ... Balloon Juice has an extended excerpt from the Washington Post's story (by Anne Gearan) on Ivanka's odd & inappropriate role on the East Asia trip. ...

... Cristina Cabrera of TPM: “President Donald Trump brought Fox News host Tucker Carlson to North Korea on Sunday instead of his own national security adviser, John Bolton. Several journalists reported seeing Carlson on the sidelines of Trump's historic visit to the the demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea, and the hosts of 'Fox & Friends' confirmed Carlson was there during a phone interview with him." --safari: Why take him all the way to the DMZ for a phone interview. WTF? ...

... No, No. Bolton was way too busy to dance on the graves of murdered North Koreans with Trump & Tucker ... because Trump sent Bolton on an important mission to ... Mongolia. And we are delighted to learn that Bolton is "Delighted to be in Ulaanbaatar & looking forward to meeting with officials to find ways to harness Mongolia's capabilities in support of our shared economic & security objectives." I wonder if sending your top national security aide to Outer Mongolia while you preen on the world stage is sort of a message to said aide. Still, Ulaanbaatar must be lovely in summer. ...

... Anyhow, Tucker did a great job defending Trump. Morgan Gstalter of the Hill: "... Tucker Carlson on Sunday defended President Trump's praise of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, saying part of leading a country 'means killing people.'... The frequent Trump ally said there 'is no defending the North Korean regime, which is a monstrous regime. It is the last reall Stalinist regime in the whole world. It is a disgusting place, obviously. On the other hand, you've got to be honest about what it means to lead a country. It means killing people,' Carlson continued. 'Not on the scale the North Koreans do, but a lot of countries commit atrocities, including a number that we are closely allied with.'" Mrs. McC: Since Trump has an aversion to firing staff, next time he wants to rid himself of some meddlesome aide, he should just shoot the guy on Fifth Avenue. P.S. According to Bill Barr, that would be legal because l'état c'est Trump (see Donald Ayer essay, linked below).

Bryan Bender of Politico: "The U.S. is ill-equipped to counter the increasingly brazen political warfare Russia is waging to undermine democracies, the Pentagon and independent strategists warn in a detailed assessment that happens to echo much bipartisan criticism of ... Donald Trump's approach to Moscow. The more than 150-page white paper, prepared for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and shared with Politico, says the U.S. is still underestimating the scope of Russia's aggression, which includes the use of propaganda and disinformation to sway public opinion across Europe, Central Asia, Africa and Latin America. The study also points to the dangers of a growing alignment between Russia and China, which share a fear of the United States' international alliances and an affinity for 'authoritarian stability.'... The unclassified 'Strategic Multilayer Assessment' marks a clear warning from the military establishment to civilian leaders about a national security threat that strategists fear, if left unchecked, could ultimately lead to armed conflict."

Nahal Toosi of Politico: "President Donald Trump has so closely linked U.S. humanitarian assistance to his attempt to oust Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro -- even placing goods along the country's border as an incentive for Venezuelans to revolt -- that some groups are citing security concerns and asking U.S. officials if they can strip legally required U.S. branding from aid sent to Venezuela, three aid officials told Politico.... The situation reflects broader fears that Trump's unusually politicized approach to handing out U.S. aid worldwide is backfiring, tarnishing America's brand and possibly risking the lives of people from Latin America to the Palestinian territories." --s

Laurie Penny in the New Republic: "A rape allegation for Donald Trump, a domestic abuse allegation for Boris Johnson, and a filmed assault by [British MP] Mark Field -- all in the same week.... The way politicians treat women and children informs their attitude toward everything else. Men who bully, grope, and harass because they feel entitled to do so will treat the electorate with the same violent contempt. Institutions that cover up and tacitly condone abuse will operate similarly. Sexual violence and abuse are central to our political culture, not least because they create something that men like Trump and Johnson have always relied on: They create complicity, and complicity rallies the troops quicker than loyalty in fickle times like these." This essay is a week old but worth reading.

Eliott McLaughlin & Artemis Moshtaghian of CNN: "A federal judge has ordered US Customs and Border Protection to permit health experts into detention facilities holding migrant children to ensure they're 'safe and sanitary' and assess the children's medical needs. The order encompasses all facilities in the CBP's El Paso and Rio Grande Valley sectors, which are the subject of a lawsuit.... U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee ... made the ruling Friday, despite Attorney General William Barr and other defendants' request that the court 'set a schedule for briefing these issues that provides defendants with a full and fair opportunity to respond to the allegations that plaintiffs have lodged against them.'"

** Donald Ayer in the Atlantic: "Having known [Bill] Barr for four decades, including preceding him as deputy attorney general in the Bush administration, I knew him to be a fierce advocate of unchecked presidential power.... It is not at all surprising that Bill Barr, with this vision of the law in mind, could reach his ultimate conclusion on obstruction in just a few days, or that in subsequent public appearances he has never offered to explain his conclusions by referencing what Trump actually did. The facts simply don't matter under Barr's understanding of the Constitution, in which 'the President alone is the Executive branch ... the sole repository of all Executive powers conferred by the Constitution,' and Congress may not restrict his exercise of discretion in using those powers. Why worry about facts if, as Trump has claimed repeatedly, the president has unlimited power to direct or terminate any investigation, including of himself?... [Given Trump's endless assertions of power], Barr may have found the ideal setting in which to pursue his life's work of creating an all-powerful president and frustrating the Founders' vision of a government of checks and balances." ...

    ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Everybody in the Trump administration is insane.

Julian Borger of the Guardian: "A state department office tasked with negotiating and implementing nuclear disarmament treaties has lost more than 70% of its staff over the past two years, as the Trump administration moves towards a world without arms control for the first time in nearly half a century. The Office of Strategic Stability and Deterrence Affairs, normally a repository of expertise and institutional knowledge that does the heavy lifting of arms control, has been whittled down from 14 staffers at the start of the Trump administration to four, according to the former staffers." --s ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: According to the report, "the downgrading of the state department's capacity to negotiate disarmament agreements is ... widely seen as a deliberate strategy directed by John Bolton, Trump's national security adviser, and a lifelong opponent of arms control agreements which he sees as unnecessary constraints on US sovereignty." Because everybody in the Trump administration is insane.

Emma Vickers of Bloomberg: "Born out of World War II, it's the world's deepest and most comprehensive collaboration among spy services. But now the U.S. has threatened to limit the intelligence it supplies to the so-called Five Eyes network unless its members join it in excluding equipment from Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co. from their new 5G mobile networks." --s ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: Vickers' report is confusing. This weekend several news media reported that Trump, during his G-20 tour de farce "suspended a ban on U.S. companies' selling products to Huawei." (NYT) According to this Bloomberg report by Margaret Talev & others, "The U.S. has been engaged in a global campaign to block Huawei from so-called 5G communications networks, calling the company a security threat.... Trump didn't suggest he was relenting on plans to ban imports of Huawei equipment for new 5G telecommunications networks." So I gues U.S. companies can sell to Huawei but Americans (and American companies) -- and if the U.S. gets its way, the other Five Eyes countries -- can't purchase their products, because they products could contain software that allows China to spy on users.

Notes from the Trump Sump. Ken Vogel of the New York Times: "More than two years ago, Pavel Fuks, a wealthy Ukrainian-Russian developer looking for ways to attract more investment from the United States to his hometown, Kharkiv, Ukraine, enlisted an especially well-connected American to help him: Rudolph W. Giuliani. Mr. Fuks, who years earlier had discussed a Moscow tower project with Donald J. Trump, hired Mr. Giuliani ... under a one-year deal to help improve Kharkiv's emergency services and bolster its image as a destination for investment. 'I would call him the lobbyist for Kharkiv and Ukraine -- this is stated in the contract,' Mr. Fuks said in an interview in March.... Mr. Giuliani's overseas work in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and South America has drawn criticism from Democrats, who contend it is difficult to separate that work from his close relationship with the president."

Asawin Suebsaeng, et al. of The Daily Beast: "This month, former Special Counsel Robert Mueller is set to finally appear for his public testimony on Capitol Hill to answer questions about his famous report on Russian election meddling and potential obstruction of justice.... Republican lawmakers, as well as prominent allies and legal advisers to this president, want to turn it into a hostile referendum on the nexus of the 'deep state' and sexual dalliance and infidelity -- which is to say that they want to use Mueller's testimony to zero in on the duo that President Trump has repeatedly slammed as 'the FBI lovers.'" --s ...

... Kyle Cheney, et al., of Politico: "... Trump defenders are signaling that they'll use the historic moment to try to undercut [Mueller's] credibility and paint him as a political pawn in Democrats' efforts to undermine the president.... Mueller will also face a grilling from Trump's top Republican allies in Congress, including Reps. Jim Jordan (Ohio), Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Devin Nunes (Calif.) and Andy Biggs (Ariz.). They intend to press him on long-held articles of Trumpian faith: that Mueller's team was biased against the president from the start and that the Russia investigation was tainted by inappropriate surveillance.... They've already signaled that they want to press the former special counsel on how the so-called Steele Dossier factored into his work."

Presidential Race 2020

Christopher Cadelago of Politico: "The number of Democratic primary voters who pick Kamala Harris as their first choice for president doubled after the first Democratic debates, vaulting the California senator into a third-place tie in a new poll. The latest Morning Consult survey found Harris increased her standing to 12 percent in the poll, which was taken after the debate ended through Friday, up 6 percentage points over the previous week." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Lauren Evans of Splinter: "Joe Biden, a walking anachronism perpetually trapped in a bygone era, stuck his foot in his mouth yet again during a fundraiser in Seattle when he suggested that it was perfectly cool and chill to make homophobic remarks in...2014? According to CNN, 'The presidential hopeful suggested public sentiment toward gay rights issues has come far in a short period of time, saying five years ago if someone at a business meeting in Seattle 'made fun of a gay waiter' people would just let it go....' ... Members of the crowd pointed out to Biden that such comments would actually not have been acceptable at all, shouting 'Not in Seattle!'... Biden's intended point was that LGBTQ people still lack legal protections from job discrimination in 22 states, and that point is completely valid. But unfortunately, a large part of being president (a good one, anyway) is clearly conveying your message without mucking it up.... Politico's Dan Diamond points out [in a tweet] that Biden has been getting mileage out of this joke for years now, which is strange because it barely made sense when he debuted it: 'Back in 2014, Biden told a similar story about gay waiters, although he set the scene 15 years earlier - back in 1999.'"

Steven Overly of Politico: "Facebook on Sunday announced it's developing a plan to stop misinformation aimed at keeping people from participating in the 2020 census, the results of which will shape American political districting for a decade. The company said it will release a policy this fall that prohibits users from misrepresenting 'census requirements, methods or logistics,' and will deploy algorithms to detect and delete census-related misinformation. It will also appoint a manager to oversee its 'census interference policy' and train staff to specifically handle census-related ads and content. Facebook detailed its plans in a 26-page update to an ongoing civil rights audit published Sunday, part of a broader effort to tackle civil rights concerns that advocates have raised about the social network.... With both the census and presidential election taking place next year, 2020 will present a major test of Facebook's ability to halt the kind of misinformation and foreign meddling that was rampant during the 2016 election cycle."

Capitalism is Awesome, Ctd. Peter Robinson of Bloomberg: "It remains the mystery at the heart of Boeing Co.'s 737 Max crisis: how a company renowned for meticulous design made seemingly basic software mistakes leading to a pair of deadly crashes.... The Max software -- plagued by issues that could keep the planes grounded months longer after U.S. regulators this week revealed a new flaw -- was developed at a time Boeing was laying off experienced engineers and pressing suppliers to cut costs. Increasingly, the iconic American planemaker and its subcontractors have relied on temporary workers making as little as $9 an hour to develop and test software, often from countries lacking a deep background in aerospace -- notably India." --s

Harvard Promotes Lead Poisoning. Cristina Cabrera of TPM: "Former Michigan Governor Rick Snyder (R), who is currently being sued for his role in the Flint water scandal, has been named a Harvard fellow." --s

Beyond the Beltway

New York. James Barron of the New York Times: "... the Pride March, a buoyant global celebration of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender identity..., swept down Fifth Avenue and into Greenwich Village at a moment in history that many said was a crucial one, a half-century after the landmark Stonewall uprising: More gay rights have been affirmed than ever before, but L.G.B.T.Q. issues remain a flash point in the nation's culture wars. On Sunday, amid the bright palette of rainbow colors on flags and floats, there was awareness -- the sober awareness of 50 years of laws and changing attitudes that moved gay men, lesbians and transgender people into the mainstream.... The march brought together activists from across generations and around the world as one of the main events of WorldPride, the international L.G.B.T.Q. gathering held every couple of years."

Way Beyond

Hong Kong, China. New York Times: "Hundreds of riot police officers with helmets and shields used batons and pepper spray to push back protesters who tried to march to the site of an annual ceremony on Monday morning marking the 22nd anniversary of the territory's return to China from Britain. Thousands of protesters, dressed in black, with some wearing helmets and face masks, had occupied roads around Hong Kong's legislature early Monday. They barricaded streets and marched as they sought to disrupt a morning ceremony at the city's convention center that was attended by the Hong Kong's embattled leader, Carrie Lam, and other top officials." This is a liveblog.

U.K. Gabriel Pogrund & Tom Harper of The Times: "MI5 has launched an investigation into a Russian lobbying campaign to infiltrate British politics that received advice and support from a senior Conservative MP. Ben Wallace, the security minister, has passed evidence to the intelligence services of an influence operation involving Sir Henry Bellingham, one of the prime minister's official trade envoys. The lobbyists, whose ultimate source of funding is unclear, have been urging British authorities to take action against Alexander Shchukin, a Russian oligarch." --safari: The article is firewalled.

The Commentariat -- June 30, 2019

Afternoon Update:

Jim Acosta of CNN: "The new White House press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, got into a scuffle with North Korean officials on Sunday during a chaotic scene outside a meeting room where ... Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un talked privately. A source at the scene said Grisham got in 'an all out brawl' with North Korean officials as American and North Korean reporters were hustled in to view the summit. Grisham was bruised a bit in the scuffle, the source added."

Christopher Cadelago of Politico: "The number of Democratic primary voters who pick Kamala Harris as their first choice for president doubled after the first Democratic debates, vaulting the California senator into a third-place tie in a new poll. The latest Morning Consult survey found Harris increased her standing to 12 percent in the poll, which was taken after the debate ended through Friday, up 6 percentage points over the previous week."

~~~~~~~~~~

Zeke Miller & Jonathan Lemire of the AP: "With wide grins and a historic handshake..., Donald Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong Un met at the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone on Sunday and agreed to revive talks on the pariah nation's nuclear program. Trump, pressing his bid for a legacy-defining accord, became the first sitting American leader to step into North Korea. What originally was intended to be an impromptu exchange of pleasantries turned into a 50-minute meeting, another historic first in the yearlong rapprochement between the two technically warring nations." ...

     ... The New York Times story, by Peter Baker & Michael Crowley, is here. ...

... Zeke Miller & Jonathan Lemire: "... Donald Trump will meet Sunday with North Korea's Kim Jong Un at the Demilitarized Zone separating the North and South, a day after he issued an unprecedented invitation and expressed willingness to cross the border for what would be a history-making photo op. South Korean President Moon Jae-in announced that Kim accepted Trump's invitation to meet when the U.S. president visits the heavily fortified site at the Korean border village of Panmunjom." ...

... The Pathetic, Envious Liar-in-Chief Makes up Another Fantastic Lie about Obama. Inquisitr: "... before making the trip to the DMZ, Trump made a claim about his predecessor, Barack Obama, that was immediately contradicted by one of Obama's top former foreign policy advisers. Trump claimed that while president, Obama was 'begging' to meet with Kim, according to ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl reporting via Twitter. 'There were begging for meetings constantly, and Chairman Kim would not meet him,' Trump said, according to an Twitter account to deny Trump's claim, which was also reported as 'false' in the ABC News report.... The truth was exactly the opposite of the way Trump described it, according to a Los Angeles Times report. It was Kim and his predecessor Kim Jong Il -- Kim's father -- who repeatedly sought meetings with Obama and previous U.S. presidents, but were rejected."

Peter Baker & Keith Bradsher of the New York Times: "President Trump and President Xi Jinping of China agreed on Saturday to resume trade talks after a seven-week breakdown, averting for now an escalation of their multibillion-dollar tariff war that has roiled global markets and threatened the future of the world's two largest economies. The agreement, brokered during more than an hour of discussion between the leaders, did not by itself signal any major breakthrough in resolving the fundamental conflict. But it represented a temporary cease-fire to give negotiators another chance to forge a permanent accord governing the vast flow of goods and services between the two nations." ...

... The Art of the Cave. Gordon Chang of the Daily Beast: "The United States will resume sales of products to Huawei Technologies, the Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer..., Donald Trump said in his post-G20 press conference Saturday in Osaka. The action appears to be a surrender to publicly issued Chinese demands.... On Thursday..., the Wall Street Journal reported that Huawei's removal [from the U.S.'s 'Entity List' of foreign companies U.S. companies cannot deal with without prior government approval] was one of China's three main preconditions to a trade deal.... Trump, in response to a reporter's question at the Osaka press conference, refused to confirm he would be taking Huawei off the Entity List.... Nonetheless, the president's initial words made it clear that his administration would resume the flow of high-tech American products to the embattled Chinese company.... Trump also mentioned at the press conference that he would not be imposing any additional tariffs on Chinese goods."

Mrs. McCrabbie: When Patrick wrote in yesterday's Comments, "DiJiT thinks that when Putin says Western liberalism is kaput, he's talking about California democrats and cities," I thought Patrick was joking. He wasn't. Jonathan Chait provides the evidence. Even Mueller would convict. Trump's ignorance is breathtaking. (So is his incoherence, but that's SOP.) (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Rebekah Entralgo of ThinkProgress: "This was hardly Trump's only flub during the Saturday's news conference. He was asked by ABC News about an exchange between former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) in Thursday's Democratic presidential debate over busing.... Trump's made clear he thought the term 'busing' meant using a bus to commute to school. 'You know, there aren't that many ways you're going to get people to schools. So this is something that's been done. In some cases, it's been done with a hammer instead of a velvet glove. And, you know, that's part of it[....] But it is certainly a primary method of getting people to schools.' (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Gary Bass in a New York Times op-ed: "President Trump reserves some of his worst behavior for foreign trips.... Yet even by Mr. Trump's dismal standards, his performance this week before the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan, should take everyone's breath away. More than yet another demonstration of his erratic behavior, this was also an object lesson in the dangers of his context-free hostility to the world beyond the United States. Before arriving in Japan, Mr. Trump had reportedly been musing about withdrawing the United States from the security treaty with Japan signed in 1951 and revised in 1960 -- the cornerstone of the alliance between the United States and Japan and a pillar of American foreign policy.... Though Mr. Trump implied that the security treaty favors Japan, it was largely dictated by the United States.... Mr. Trump's comment demonstrates a strategic cluelessness and historical ignorance that would disqualify a person from even a modest desk job at the State Department." ...

... Aris Folley of the Hill: "Veteran journalist Dan Rather criticized President Trump for his 'deeply strange behavior' towards Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit.... 'But that was only the beginning. He praises the leader of Saudi Arabia,' Rather continued while speaking to CNN's Anderson Cooper, saying that 'to put this in context, we have to understand, and whether you're Republican, Democrat or whatever, that under President Trump, American foreign policy has become incoherent and immaturish. For example, tweeting to the president of North Korea, "Meet me at the DMZ, just to see you and say hello,"' Rather continues, referring to a tweet Trump shared on Friday.... Cooper cut in saying he thought that was 'a joke' at first.... 'The president himself doesn't seem all that interested in learning about foreign policy...,' Rather continued, telling Cooper that it's 'hard to say ... whether it's more ineptitude, ignorance or mendacity. But whatever it is, it's dangerous for the country."

LOLGOP in ElectraBlog: "Donald Trump is good at a lot of things, nearly all of them are terrible and nearly all of them exploit weaknesses in our system that have been intentionally exacerbated by America's right wing.... You don't get away with crimes like rape, tax fraud, or conspiring with foreign powers because you're lucky. You do it because you mastered the advantages you have.... The greatest advantage [the powers who made Trump possible] have is our belief is that it can't happen here. But Donald Trump already happened here and he knows he can get away with it." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... As Rose, who linked the LOLGOP post for us wrote at the end of Friday's thread, "... I think the Democrats are falling into the trap described in the article of thinking that Trump is incompetent at what he does. Yes, he's stupid beyond bearing mentally unstable in the extreme, narcissistic, sadistic and just plain evil, but -- and he doesn't need intelligence for this, just gut instinct -- he's gifted at grifting, a perfect example of the idiot savant in that regard. Whoever ultimately ends up facing off against him in the general election is going to have to take this into account if they hope to bring him down."

Miriam Jordan of the New York Times: "A federal judge has ordered a mediator to move swiftly to improve health and sanitation at Border Patrol facilities in Texas, where observers reported migrant children were subject to filthy conditions that imperiled their health. Judge Dolly M. Gee of the Central District of California asked late on Friday that an independent monitor, whom she appointed last year, ensure that conditions in detention centers are promptly addressed. She set a deadline of July 12 for the government to report on what it has accomplished 'post haste' to remedy them." ...

... Kate Cronin-Furman in a New York Times op-ed: "What's happening at the border doesn't match the scale of [some infamous] horrors, but if, as appears to be the case, these harsh conditions have been intentionally inflicted on children as part a broader plan to deter others from migrating, then it meets the definition of a mass atrocity: a deliberate, systematic attack on civilians.... Many Americans have been asking each other 'But what can we DO?' The answer is that we call these abuses mass atrocities and use the tool kit this label offers us to fight them.... Children are suffering and dying. The fastest way to stop it is to make sure everyone who is responsible faces consequences." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This sounds like an urgent call to Congress to either investigate the atrocities from the ground up or quickly appoint a nonpartisan commission to hold open hearings.

Presidential Race 2020

Anita Kumar of Politico: "Sen. Kamala Harris 'received too much credit for her attack on Joe Biden at Thursday night's Democratic presidential debate,' ... Donald Trump said Saturday. 'I think she was given too much credit for what she did. It wasn't that outstanding,' Trump said at a news conference in Osaka, Japan...." Mrs. McC: Trump's little critique is based on (1) he's afraid to run against Harris, and (2) he had no idea whatsoever about what Harris was talking about. (See Rebekah Entralgo's post above.) P.S. Notice how, at the end of her report, Kumar pretends that Trump did understanding busing. This is notably irresponsible reporting.

Trump Consultant Runs Fake Biden Website. Matthew Rosenberg of the New York Times: "For much of the last three months, the most popular Joseph R. Biden Jr. website has been a slick little piece of disinformation that is designed to look like the former vice president's official campaign page, yet is most definitely not pro-Biden. From top to bottom, the website, JoeBiden.info, breezily mocks the candidate in terms that would warm the heart of any Bernie Sanders supporter.... All the site says about its creator is buried in the fine print at the bottom of the page. The site, it says, is a political parody built and paid for 'BY AN American citizen FOR American citizens,' and not the work of any campaign or political action committee.... His name is Patrick Mauldin, and he makes videos and other digital content for President Trump's re-election campaign.... in anonymously trying to exploit the fissures within the Democratic ranks -- fissures that ran through this past week's debates -- Mr. Mauldin's website hews far closer to the disinformation spread by Russian trolls in 2016 than typical political messaging."

Maureen Dowd: "The aloofness and arrogance of the Biden operation came spilling out for all to see under the bright lights of the debate stage. The 76-year-old seemed irritated and unprepared to address inevitable jabs from his younger, more nimble rivals.... [Kamala] Harris [ground] her stiletto on a vulnerable part of Biden's record. The reason [Anita] Hill was eviscerated and a lying Clarence Thomas ascended to the Supreme Court is that Biden, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was bending over backward to appease uncompromising Republicans on the panel -- the same men who were falsely accusing Hill of perversity, erotomania and perjury.... Biden is selling himself as someone who can work with a Republican Party that everyone but Biden realizes doesn't exist anymore."

Sam Roberts of the New York Times: "Luis G. Alvarez, a former New York City detective who pleaded with Congress this month to extend health benefits to police officers, firefighters and other emergency workers who responded to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, died on Saturday in a hospice in Rockville Centre, N.Y. He was 53. His family announced his death in a post on Facebook. The cause was complications of colorectal cancer, for which Mr. Alvarez received a diagnosis in 2016. The disease was linked to the three months he had spent at the site of the toppled World Trade Center towers in Lower Manhattan, searching for survivors and for remains of his fellow officers on nearby rooftops and in the toxic rubble at ground zero."

Beyond the Beltway

California. Bari Weiss of the New York Times: "... the San Francisco school board's [unanimously decided] on Tuesday night to spend at least $600,000 of taxpayer money ... to destroy [a historical work of art].... Victor Arnautoff, the Russian immigrant who made the paintings in question, was perhaps the most important muralist in the Bay Area during the Depression.... His freshly banned work, 'Life of Washington,' does not show the clichéd image of our first president kneeling in prayer at Valley Forge. Instead, the 13-panel, 1,600-square-foot mural, which was painted in 1936 in the just-built George Washington High School, depicts his slaves picking cotton in the fields of Mount Vernon and a group of colonizers walking past the corpse of a Native American.... Arnautoff's purpose was to unsettle the viewer...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This supports my contention that school boards in general are gathering places for the stupidest people in the U.S. Thus, the San Francisco school board is being perfectly consistent with other boards when they prove they "just don't get" art even when it is carefully explained to them. Now, can we please burn Picasso's "Guernica" & replace it with a painting of playful kittens?

I've always considered school board elections stepping stones for up and coming future stupid politicians. -- Dan L., in yesterday's Comments

First God made idiots. That was for practice. Then He made school boards. -- Mark Twain, via Procopius, in yesterday's Comments thread

Florida. Doha Madani of NBC News: "A group of civil rights organizations filed a lawsuit against the state of Florida Friday after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill that would require felons to pay court-ordered financial obligations if they want their voting rights restored. Florida's new law, SB7066, violates the prohibition against poll taxes enshrined in the 24th Amendment, claims a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Florida, the Brennan Center for Justice and NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The suit filed on behalf of 10 Floridians also claims the law was at least partly motivated by a racially discriminatory purpose in violation of the 14th Amendment, which granted citizenship to people born or naturalized in the United States, and the 15th Amendment that prohibits the government from denying a citizen the right to vote based on race or color or previous servitude."