The Ledes

Sunday, October 6, 2024

New York Times: “Two boys have been arrested and charged in a street attack on David A. Paterson, a former governor of New York, and his stepson, the police said. One boy, who is 12, was charged with second-degree gang assault, and the other, a 13-year-old, was charged with third-degree gang assault, the police said on Saturday night. Both boys, accompanied by their parents, turned themselves in to the police, according to Sean Darcy, a spokesman for Mr. Paterson. A third person, also a minor, went to the police but was not charged in the Friday night attack in Manhattan, according to an internal police report.... Two other people, both adults, were involved in the attack, according to the police. They fled on foot and have not been caught, the police said. The former governor was not believed to have been targeted in the assault....”

Weather Channel: “Tropical Storm Milton, which formed in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, is expected to become a hurricane late Sunday or early Monday. The storm is expected to pose a major hurricane threat to Florida by midweek, just over a week after Helene pushed through the region. The National Hurricane Center says that 'there is an increasing risk of life-threatening storm surge and wind impacts for portions of the west coast of the Florida Peninsula beginning late Tuesday or Wednesday.'”

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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


Tuesday
Jun252019

The Commentariat -- June 26, 2019

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Congressional Standoff. Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "The Senate on Wednesday approved $4.6 billion in emergency humanitarian aid for the southwestern border, rejecting House legislation approved Tuesday that sought to rein in President Trump's immigration crackdown by setting significant rules on how the money could be spent at squalid detention facilities. Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California rejected the Senate's bill even before the vote was taken, setting up a clash over immigration policy just days before Congress leaves Washington for a weeklong July 4 recess. Ms. Pelosi called President Trump to discuss how to reconcile the dueling measures in a 15-minute phone call early Wednesday afternoon.... The margin of the Senate vote, 84-8, underscored Senate Republican contentions that only their bill stands a chance of obtaining the president's signature."

** American Atrocity. Hamed Aleaziz of BuzzFeed News: "When Department of Homeland Security inspectors visited several border facilities in the Rio Grande Valley earlier this month, they found adults and minors with no access to showers, many adults only fed bologna sandwiches, and detainees banging on cell windows -- desperately pressing notes to the windows of their cells that detailed their time in custody. The inspectors compiled a draft report, obtained by BuzzFeed News, that described the conditions as dangerous and prolonged. Some adults were held in standing room-only conditions for a week. There was little access to hot showers or hot food for families and children in some facilities. Some kids were being held in closed cells. There was severe overcrowding. The draft report was written by the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General and addressed to the acting DHS secretary, Kevin McAleenan. It comes after inspectors visited five border facilities and two ports of entry during the week of June 10. It appears to have been sent to DHS officials last week for comments and requests for redactions before being released publicly." Read on.

Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump lashed out at the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, on Wednesday, dredging up false accusations about the conduct of investigators after House Democrats announced that Mr. Mueller would testify publicly next month. The president offered no evidence as he repeated earlier accusations that Mr. Mueller destroyed text messages between two former F.B.I. officials, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who worked on the Russia investigation. 'They're gone and that is illegal,' Mr. Trump said of the texts in an interview with Fox Business Network. 'That's a crime.'... He repeated that Mr. Mueller's report, released in April, found no collusion with the Russians, and he again offered a false assertion that he was cleared of obstruction of justice. Mr. Mueller emphasized that Mr. Trump has not been cleared of obstruction crimes."

Trump Doesn't Know What's Going on Down the Road. Sarah Cammarata of Politico: "... Donald Trump complained Wednesday that congressional Democrats 'won't do anything at all about border security' hours after the House passed a funding package worth billions of dollars to address the humanitarian crisis at the nation's southern border." Mrs. McC: Then he told some more lies disparaging Democrats before continuing on to insult "the American soccer player Megan Rapinoe in a three-tweet blast on Wednesday morning after she colorfully said in an interview that she would not go to the White House if the United States wins the Women's World Cup."

Andrew Desiderio of Politico: "The House Oversight and Reform Committee voted on Wednesday to authorize a subpoena for White House counselor Kellyanne Conway after she failed to appear at a hearing centering on her alleged violations of the Hatch Act. The White House blocked Conway from attending Wednesday's hearing, prompting the Democrat-led panel to authorize Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) to issue the subpoena.... Henry J. Kerner, who leads the OSC, testified before the Oversight Committee on Wednesday to defend his report. A former GOP staffer for the Oversight panel, Kerner was nominated by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate.... Lawmakers raised their voices at times as they sparred over the allegations, with Republicans asserting that Conway was unfairly targeted. The debate got so heated that Cummings repeatedly slammed his gavel to bring the committee back to order. One Republican -- Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan -- joined all Democrats in voting to authorize Cummings to subpoena Conway."

Miranda Green of the Hill: "The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) air policy chief is leaving, amid ethics concerns. The agency on Wednesday announced that Bill Wehrum, the head of EPA's Office of Air and Radiation, will leave the agency by the end of June. The announcement comes a few months after lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee launched an investigation into whether Wehrum and his deputy improperly aided former energy industry clients after joining the EPA. Wehrum, along with the office's senior counsel, David Harlow, formerly worked at the law firm Hunton Andrews Kurth, where he represented Utility Air Regulatory Group."

"Baby Trump" to Reign on His Parade. Morgan Gstalter of the Hill: "The 'Baby Trump' blimp that has followed President Trump around the world will fly just blocks from the White House hours before his Fourth of July address. Mike Litterst, a spokesman with the National Park Service, confirmed to Fox 5 this week that feminist anti-war group Code Pink has been granted a permit to fly the notorious balloon during their anti-Trump demonstration.... Most recently, the inflatable ball[o]on, or one of its six clones, was in Orlando, Fla., for Trump's 2020 reelection campaign kickoff."

Ken Meyer of Mediaite: "As Fox & Friends talked about Robert Mueller's upcoming testimony before Congress..., Brian Kilmeade said..., 'I don't think he knows the details of the report.... He is like the King of England on this; he assigns the people....'" Mrs. McC: Sounds like a little projection there, Brian. Not that you yourself aren't very good at details.

Nicole Lafond of TPM: "An employee at the upscale Aviary cocktail bar in Chicago's West Loop was taken into Secret Service custody Tuesday night for allegedly spitting on Eric Trump, according to NBC Chicago. Chicago police responded to the incident and assisted the Secret Service, according to a Chicago Police Department spokesperson.... Trump confirmed the incident during an interview with Breitbart Tuesday evening, calling it a 'disgusting' act by someone with 'emotional problems.'" ...

... MEANWHILE, Back in D.C. ...

... Charles Pierce: Some White House correspondents, led by an enthusiastic Anita Kumar, now of Politico, held a farewell cocktail party for Sarah Sanders. "The relentless desire of the elite political media to pretend that what we're experiencing is just politics as usual, that it conforms to the usual forms and fashions, and that, you know, the pendulum always swings the other way, (insert mandatory extraneous platitude here) is almost charming in its hopeful and child-like simplicity. First of all, this is not a normal administration*. It is a larval tyranny. Secondly, Sarah Huckabee Sanders was not a normal White House spokesperson. She was an embarrassingly bad liar and an embarrassingly arrogant countrified know-nothing running cover for a criminal gang, and everyone who attended this nightmare with canapes should be fired forthwith and replaced with someone who has covered organized crime for a living." Mrs. McC: I wonder if an employee spit in their drinks.

Ross Barkan of the Nation: "Tiffany Cabán, the 31-year-old public defender endorsed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is on the verge of a stunning upset in a Queens district-attorney's race that could dramatically impact the direction of criminal-justice reform in America. With 98 percent of the vote reported, Cabán held a razor-thin 1,229-vote lead over Melinda Katz, the borough president backed by the same Queens Democratic machine that Ocasio-Cortez crushed one year ago Katz has refused to concede, waiting for absentee votes to be counted. Cabán's startling performance may not only redefine criminal-justice reform but also New York's once-ossified, hierarchical political scene. Bold leftists are ascendant, with groups like the Democratic Socialists of America evolving from a curiosity to a preeminent vote-getting force in the city."

Elliott Hannon of Slate: "Employees at the online furniture seller Wayfair are planning to walk off the job Wednesday afternoon at the company's Boston headquarters to protest its sale of furniture to be used in border shelters for migrant children. Last week, employees discovered the company had sold $200,000 worth of bedroom furniture to the government contractor BCFS, which is responsible for managing camps at the border. That prompted more than 500 employees to sign on to a letter of protest to management; when Wayfair refused to change course, the employees organized a work stoppage.... [In their protest letter,] The employees specifically asked the company to donate the profit from the sale -- some $86,000 -- to the nonprofit RAICES that supports families on the border, as well as establish a code of ethics for future sales. The company rebuffed employee demands to, essentially, vet its customers."

Holly Otterbein of Politico: "The embattled leader of the Pennsylvania GOP has resigned amid a #MeToo scandal, throwing the party into further upheaval in a state critical to ... Donald Trump's reelection chances. The news of Val DiGiorgio's departure follows months of party infighting and disastrous midterm election results for Republicans in the state, including the loss of three congressional seats and double-digit collapses in the gubernatorial and Senate races."

~~~~~~~~~~

Robert Mueller is being subpoenaed by some House Committee (not specified), Rachel Maddow reports. I'll get up a link to a report when one becomes available. Update: The subpoena is for both the Judiciary & Intelligence Committees, and testimony from Mueller will be open. Some of his staff are to testify in closed session before the Intelligence Committee. Rep. Adam Schiff, chair of the Intelligence Committee, told Maddow he would not characterize the subpoena as "friendly," as Mueller has made clear he does not wish to testify. Update update: Hill & NYT stories linked below.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Chaos intensified on Tuesday inside the agency responsible for securing the nation's borders as a top official [John Sanders] was replaced by an immigration hard-liner and former Fox News contributor [Mark Morgan] who last week pushed for nationwide deportations. Mark Morgan, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director who pushed for raids to deport undocumented families, will lead Customs and Border Protection, administration officials said Tuesday.... Before he was named acting director of ICE, Mr. Morgan made frequent appearances on Fox News supporting some of President Trump's more aggressive immigration policies." (An earlier version of this story was linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Ted Hesson of Politico: "Mark Morgan, the White House choice to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said during a Fox News interview earlier this year that he can judge the likelihood that an unaccompanied minor will become a gang member by looking into that child's eyes. 'I've been to detention facilities where I've walked up to these individuals that are so-called minors, 17 or under,' Morgan said on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' in January. 'I've looked at them and I've looked at their eyes, Tucker -- and I've said that is a soon-to-be MS-13 gang member. It's unequivocal.'... Morgan's comment echoed statements by ... Donald Trump. During an event last year in Long Island, N.Y., Trump said unaccompanied minors 'look so innocent,' but aren't in reality.... The view that unaccompanied minors are more likely to become criminals is unsupported by statistical evidence." Mrs. McC: Oh, Morgan will do a great job. ...

... Arturo Rubio & Caitlin Dickerson of the New York Times: "At the squat, sand-colored concrete border station in [Clint,] Texas that has become the center of debate over President Trump's immigration policies, a chaotic shuffle of migrant children continued on Tuesday as more than 100 were moved back into a facility that days earlier had been emptied in the midst of criticism that young detainees there were hungry, crying and unwashed.... In a press call on Tuesday, a Customs and Border Protection official said that the agency was able to send about 100 children back to the station because overcrowding there had been alleviated. The official disputed the lawyers' accounts of [abysmal] conditions at the facility, insisting that migrant detainees housed by the agency were given access to periodic showers and were offered unlimited snacks throughout the day. The continuing movement of children and confusion over the situation at Clint demonstrated the increasingly disorganized situation along the southern border and the government's struggle to maintain minimal humanitarian standards...." ...

I'm very concerned. And they're much better than they were under President Obama by far.... And we're trying to get the Democrats to get us some humanitarian aid.... If we get this bill signed, we'll be able to do it. The Democrats don't want to sign anything, and now I think they're going to probably sign this, from what I understand, I call it humanitarian aid. -- Donald Trump, in the Oval Office yesterday, in response to a reporter's question about whether or not he was personally concerned about the conditions at these border facilities (lies indicated in boldface type)

... Jordan Fabian & Saagar Enjeti of the Hill: "President Trump on Monday declared migrant detention facilities are better than they were under former President Obama, despite numerous reports describing worsening conditions in centers along the southern border and elsewhere. 'No, the conditions are much better than they were under President Obama,' Trump said during an exclusive interview with The Hill.... He said he would 'like to see them' receive toothbrushes and other toiletries, but added there may be issues providing them 'from a strictly legal standpoint' while repeating his claim that 'we're taking care of people far better than President Obama did.'... Obama also faced criticism in 2014 for the conditions at makeshift facilities for child migrants, most of whom crossed the border unaccompanied. At the time, news outlets and advocates discovered thousands of children sleeping inside chain-link-fenced cages, oftentimes on the floor.... 'When I came in, I took over Obama's policy. It was a policy of separation. I'm the one that put them together,' [Trump] said. The Trump administration last year created a 'zero tolerance' policy as a deterrent amid a growing number of Central American migrants crossing the southern border, which resulted in children being separated from their parents after families were detained by immigration authorities. The previous administration did not have a sweeping policy of prosecuting adults in a way that required they be separated from their children." ...

... Julie Davis & Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "The House pressed toward a vote Tuesday evening on an emergency $4.5 billion humanitarian aid bill to address the plight of migrants at the border, and Democratic leaders appeared confident they had quelled a rebellion in their ranks by adding health and safety requirements for children and adults held by the government. A group of liberals and Hispanic-American lawmakers had threatened to withhold their backing for the bill because they feared that the aid package would enable President Trump's immigration crackdown.... 'This isn't an immigration bill,' [Speaker Pelosi [told reporters]. 'It's an appropriations bill to meet the needs of the children.'... The White House has already threatened that Mr. Trump would veto the House bill because of restrictions that were included even before those new measures." ...

     ... New Lede: "A divided House voted on Tuesday to send $4.5 billion in humanitarian aid to the border to address horrific conditions facing a crush of migrants, attaching significant rules on how the money could be spent in the first action by Democrats to rein in President Trump's immigration crackdown. But the package, which passed by a vote of 230 to 195 nearly along party lines only after Democratic leaders toughened restrictions on the money to win over liberal skeptics, faces a tough path to enactment." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: To summarize: if Trump is "very concerned" about conditions at border camps, there is no objective evidence of his concern for the inhumane conditions in the camps he -- not Democrats or President Obama -- is administering. Veteran immigrant advocates have said conditions now are far worse than anything they've seen during previous administrations, including of course Obama's. Rather than "trying to get the Democrats to get us some humanitarian aid," Trump has threatened to veto the measure. Yesterday House Democrats passed the humanitarian aid package with only three Republican votes. (Members of Congress don't "sign" bills, as Trump characterized Congressional efforts.) Humane treatment is not conditional on an appropriations bill; if the administration truly doesn't have the funds to accommodate asylum seekers, undocumented immigrants & their children, it can decline to incarcerate them. I doubt there exist laws or regulations that prevent the administration from providing "toothbrushes and toiletries" or other necessities to incarcerated adults & children; a DOJ lawyer argued in court last week that such necessities were not required under the Flores decision. ...

... Roque Planas of the Huffington Post: "Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren called Tuesday for repealing the decades-old law criminalizing unauthorized border crossing ― the same law the Trump administration used to systematically split up families at the border last year. Warren joins fellow 2020 contender Julián Castro and several other prominent Democrats in backing a reform that, if enacted, would give civil immigration courts exclusive legal control over immigration enforcement at the border. Under the current system, tens of thousands of migrants who cross without authorization, including some asylum-seekers, face federal prosecution in criminal courts and jail time before they get in front of an administrative judge, who decides their immigration cases.... Congress first criminalized unauthorized border crossings in 1929, when it passed a law authored by famed segregationist Sen. Coleman Blease, a man known for celebrating the lynchings of black men." ...

... Peter Orsi & Amy Guthrie of the AP: "The man and his 23-month-old daughter lay face down in shallow water along the bank of the Rio Grande, his black shirt hiked up to his chest with the girl tucked inside. Her arm was draped around his neck suggesting she clung to him in her final moments. The searing photograph of the sad discovery of their bodies on Monday, captured by journalist Julia Le Duc and published by Mexican newspaper La Jornada, highlights the perils faced by mostly Central American migrants fleeing violence and poverty and hoping for asylum in the United States. According to Le Duc's reporting for La Jornada, Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez, frustrated because the family from El Salvador was unable to present themselves to U.S. authorities and request asylum, swam across the river on Sunday with his daughter, Valeria. He set her on the U.S. bank of the river and started back for his wife, Tania Vanessa Ávalos, but seeing him move away the girl threw herself into the waters. Martínez returned and was able to grab Valeria, but the current swept them both away."

D. Parvaz of ThinkProgress: "When asked by the White House press pool on Tuesday if he had an exit strategy for tensions with Iran -- especially if war breaks out -- ... Donald Trump replied, 'You're not going to need an exit strategy. I don't do exit strategies.' Whether he intends to sow confusion or communicate incoherence, the president has managed to bring things to a near boiling point with Iran." --s ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: One can surmise this is Trump's way of confirming something we already know about him: the consequences of his actions are of no concern to him. Update: See Ken W.'s comment on Trump's "exit strategy" in the thread below. I have to admit Ken is right.

Katie Rogers & Annie Karni of the New York Times: "Stephanie Grisham, Melania Trump's loyal and sometimes combative communications director, will replace Sarah Huckabee Sanders as White House press secretary, the first lady announced on Tuesday. She will also take on the added role of communications director, a job that has been vacant since the departure of Bill Shine in March, and will keep her role with Mrs. Trump." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Robert Mackey of The Intercept: "Last year, when Trump returned to Britain as president..., [he] responded to a [reporter's] question about the protracted Brexit negotiations by claiming that he had predicted the outcome during his 2016 visit to Turnberry [insisting he arrived before the referundum on June 23rd, when he really came June 24th after the vote].... His false claim was quickly noted on Twitter by Jon Sopel, the BBC News North America Editor.... Less than an hour later, Stephanie Grisham [Trump's new Press Secretary], who had by then graduated to the role of communications director for First Lady Melania Trump, made the striking decision to deny objective reality in defense of Trump's delusion of grandeur. Grisham insisted to Sopel that Trump had arrived in Scotland on the day of the referendum, June 23rd 2016, in plenty of time to predict the outcome.... Grisham refused to give an inch to objective reality." --s ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Anyone capable of denying what day it is, is capable of lying about anything & everything, an obvious job requirement in a Trump spokesperson.

This Is Who Passes for the Top Diplomatic Specialist in TrumpWorld. Jennifer Jacobs & Daniel Flatley of Bloomberg: "The Trump administration official in charge of diplomatic protocol plans to resign and isn't going to Japan for this week's Group of 20 meetings, where he would have played a sensitive behind-the-scenes role, according to people familiar with the matter. Sean Lawler, a State Department official whose title is chief of protocol, is departing amid a possible inspector general's probe into accusations of intimidating staff and carrying a whip in the office, according to one of the people." Emphasis added. Mrs. McC: And you wonder why Trump doesn't know how to behave himself on foreign trips.

The Trump Scandals, Ctd.

Tax Axelrod of the Hill: "Special counsel Robert Mueller will publicly testify in front of the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees on July 17 following a subpoena, the panels' chairmen said Tuesday. 'Pursuant to subpoenas issued by the House Judiciary and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence tonight, Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III has agreed to testify before both Committees on July 17 in open session,' Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), the chair of the Judiciary panel, and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the chair of the Intelligence panel, said in a press release.&" ...

     ... Update. The New York Times story, by Nicholas Fandos, is here.

Burgess Everett & Melanie Zanona of Politico: "The president's GOP allies in Congress are moving swiftly to dismiss new rape accusations against him, arguing journalist E. Jean Carroll is eager to promote her new book and that Trump's denial of the alleged attack is credible.... Politico spoke to 16 Republican senators and a half-dozen House members, the majority of whom offered little on the subject. Many said no comment..., and several said that they were unaware of the allegations and had only seen news coverage in passing." The story cites a slew of GOP lemmings who are okay with a rapist president* & a few equivocators. ...

... Ted Barrett & Kristin Wilson of CNN: "Two Republican senators said Tuesday the rape allegation made against ... Donald Trump by writer E. Jean Carroll should be explored to determine the veracity of the allegation against the President -- even as many Senate Republicans sidestepped questions over the matter More Options and defended Trump. Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa said both Trump and Carroll should be questioned about the alleged assault.... Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah said there needs to be an 'evaluation' but that he didn't know what entity should conduct it...." ...

... ** Jonathan Chait: "Asked by reporters about E. Jean Carroll's accusation that President Trump raped her, Senator Lindsey Graham replied, 'He's denied it. That's all I needed to hear.' This seems like an inappropriately high level of credibility to grant a man who has made over 10,000 documented false statements just since taking office.... There are a number of reasons to disbelieve his denial of this specific charge. Trump began his denials by claiming he had 'never met this person in my life.' This denial was pre-refuted by a photograph that New York ran with the story, showing the two of them together. He proceeded to insist 'she's not my type.' Even aside from the insinuation that Trump does have a type of women he would rape, this denial echoed a line he has used before.... It would seem a little strange for Trump to be now refuting a false allegation by using the same terms he previously employed to refute ... allegations that he slept with Stormy Daniels," since the Daniels relationship is known to be true. Read on.

Richard Hasen in Slate: "The government's conduct in the pending Supreme Court case about adding a citizenship question to the census has gone from indefensible to outrageous. In the case, which is likely to be decided this week, Solicitor General Noel Francisco on Tuesday asked the Supreme Court to become complicit in a cover up of discriminatory activity by doing something the court does not and cannot do: decide a legal issue that is not before it. If the court does so, any pretense of the legitimacy of the decision will be gone. Here's the relevant background." Should the Court decide for the government this week, Hasen writes that it would "be the biggest travesty since Bush v. Gore."

Matt Shuham of TPM: "The federal judge in congressional Democrats' Emolument Clause lawsuit against President Donald Trump has yet again rejected an attempt by the President to derail the case. In a 12-page opinion Tuesday, Judge Emmet Sullivan rejected Justice Department lawyers' attempt to delay the discovery phase of the suit by appealing Sullivan's previous opinions."

Melanie Zanona, et al., of Politico: "Federal prosecutors have accused Rep. Duncan Hunter of improperly using campaign funds to pursue numerous romantic affairs with congressional aides and lobbyists, according to a new court filing late Monday night. The Justice Department alleged that Hunter (R-Calif.) and his wife Margaret Hunter illegally diverted $250,000 in campaign funds for personal use, including to fund lavish vacations and their children's school tuition. Monday's court filings also spell out allegations that Hunter routinely used campaign funds to pay for Ubers, bar tabs, hotel rooms and other expenses to fund at least five extramarital relationships." You might want to read on just for the fun of it. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Here's a fun detail from the report: "The filing also says Hunter -- who has developed a reputation on Capitol Hill for drinking heavily and carousing -- used campaign money to pursue 'clearly non-work related activity during get-togethers with his close personal friends.' But prosecutors declined to elaborate further, saying the sensitive conduct could potentially taint the jury pool." IOW, Hunter's behavior was so abhorrent that prosecutors can't reveal it because they would not be able to empanel a jury who could give Hunter a fair trial if potential jurors had heard the allegations. Duncan Hunter may be creepier than Donald Trump.

Presidential Race 2020

The first Democratic presidential debate is tonight beginning at 9 pm. Here's where to watch, via Wired.

Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress: "Senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) released a 'plan to strengthen our democracy' on Tuesday. Much of Warren's plan tracks the For the People Act of 2019, the legislation commonly referred to as 'H.R. 1,' which House Democrats passed last March. What sets Warren's plan apart is the sophisticated mechanisms she uses to insulate voting reforms from state officials hostile to voting rights. Warren's plan is not a perfect solution to the problem of anti-democratic state officials, and, like nearly all laws, it is defenseless against a rogue Supreme Court that is determined to give an electoral advantage to Republicans. Nevertheless, it's a thoughtful effort at least, to mitigate red states' ability to sabotage pro-democratic reforms." --s

Oh Noes! Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "The National Rifle Association has shut down production at NRATV. The N.R.A. on Tuesday also severed all business with its estranged advertising firm, Ackerman McQueen, which operates NRATV, the N.R.A.'s live broadcasting media arm, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The New York Times. While NRATV may continue to air past content, its live broadcasting will end and its on-air personalities -- Ackerman employees including Dana Loesch -- will no longer be the public faces of the N.R.A."

Beyond the Beltway

Oregon. Will Sommer of The Daily Beast: "While the Oregon Senate walk-out has earned national headlines, this isn't the first time the state's conservatives have gone wild. Over the past few years, Oregon Republicans have fought vaccines and brought in militias as their private security. Even as they're increasingly marginalized in state government, Oregon Republicans have grown more extreme.... Oregon's political divide falls between its western urban centers and its more rural eastern parts, according to John Temple, the author of a new book on militias..., 'Oregon is an interesting snapshot of the U.S. as a whole -- that divide,' Temple said.... Oregon ... was the only state whose original constitution forbid non-white people from living there." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Update. Dirk VanderHart & Lauren Dake of Oregon Public Broadcasting: State "Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, says Oregon's sweeping plan for addressing climate change this legislative session does not have the votes to pass. But it's not clear whether that will be enough to bring Senate Republicans back to work. As a walkout by Republican Senators entered its sixth day and fifth Oregon Senate meeting Tuesday, Courtney announced that House Bill 2020 -- the reason Republicans began skipping work last week -- will not pass the Senate chamber."

Pennsylvania. Chris Brennan of the Philadelphia Inquirer: Valentino DiGiorgio III, the South Philadelphia-born chairman of the Pennsylvania Republican Party..., sent a "barrage" of sexually explit messages -- including a photo of his erect penis -- in a texting exchange with a woman who was running for a seat on the Philadelphia City Council. "They finally stopped communicating..., after a written exchange in which she told him his messages amounted to his 'sexually harassing' her. In a reply to her, DiGiorgio denied any wrongdoing during their online interaction, and said he had been a 'perfect gentleman' in their only face-to-face meeting, at a Philadelphia restaurant. They never had physical contact.... Joel Frank, general counsel for the state Republican Party and a lawyer for DiGiorgio, in a letter last week described the messages as 'mutual private exchanges between adults' and called ['correspondent Irina] Goldstein's claims 'a mischaracterization, incomplete and defamatory.'... Goldstein, 35, also said Michael Schwartz, a former federal prosecutor now representing DiGiorgio as a private attorney, called her last week and proposed that she sign a nondisclosure agreement that would bar her from disparaging DiGiorgio, 51, who is married with children." ...

     ... Update. Neil Vigdor of the New York Times: "The chairman of Pennsylvania's Republican Party abruptly resigned Tuesday after a news report that he sent a sexually explicit photograph of himself to a female candidate who ran unsuccessfully for the Philadelphia City Council."

Way Beyond

Guardian: "The estimated number of people using opioids -- an umbrella term for drugs ranging from opium and derivatives such as heroin to synthetics like fentanyl and tramadol -- in 2017 was 56% higher than in 2016, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said in the report published on Wednesday. The report also said that global cocaine production reached an all-time high in 2017, breaking the previous year's record by 25%, as production soared in post-conflict Colombia.... Seizures of tramadol around the world have surged from less than 10kg in 2010 to almost nine tonnes in 2013 and 125 tonnes in 2017, the report showed, adding that the problem was particularly severe in west, central and north Africa." --s

Brazil. Tom Philliips of the Guardian: "Since the far-right leader [Jair Bolsonaro] took office in January, his foreign policy team has set about pulverizing decades of diplomatic tradition: cuddling up to rightwing nationalists including Donald Trump, Steve Bannon and the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán; irking China, an jettisoning its position as a climate crisis leader; infuriating longtime Middle Eastern partners by embracing Benjamin Netanyahu's Israel and threatening to move Brazil's embassy to Jerusalem. All this under a Bible-bashing pro-Trump foreign minister who claims global heating is a Marxist conspiracy and Nazism is a movement of the left.... In interviews with the Guardian, doyens of Brazilian diplomacy described their bewilderment, unease and indignation at seeing such a cherished ministry -- and their country's place in the world -- turned on its head." --safari: The parallels between the two "melting pots" of the Americas is fascinating. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Congo. David Corn of Mother Jones: "[T]here is another nightmare brewing:... Ebola...The number of confirmed Ebola deaths over the past 10 months in the eastern region of Congo has topped 1,500, and the outbreak has spread into Uganda.... This is a far cry from the 11,300 deaths that occurred in 2014 and 2015, but the current eruption is the second-worst flare-up, and it's heading from rural areas toward a major city and refugee camps. So what is President Donald Trump doing about this? Not much..., Ronald Klain, the Ebola czar for President Barack Obama during the 2014-15 episode, notes, it is essential that a senior official in the Trump administration with full White House authority coordinate the various agencies involved -- the State Department, USAID, the Centers for Disease Control, the Pentagon, and others &-- to have an effective response. Now no one holds such a position." --s

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Monday
Jun242019

The Commentariat -- June 25, 2019

Afternoon Update:

Caitlin Dickerson & Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "The Customs and Border Protection agency's acting commissioner, John Sanders, will step down in early July as the government's primary border enforcement executive, a federal official said Tuesday, a development that comes as the agency faces continuing public fury over the treatment of detained migrant children. The news of the resignation came shortly after agency officials disclosed that more than 100 children had been returned to a troubled Border Patrol station in Clint, Tex., a location where a group of lawyers who visited recently said hundreds of minor detainees had been housed for weeks without access to showers, clean clothing, or sufficient food."

Katie Rogers & Annie Karni of the New York Times: "Stephanie Grisham, Melania Trump's loyal and sometimes combative communications director, will replace Sarah Huckabee Sanders as White House press secretary, the first lady announced on Tuesday. She will also take on the added role of communications director, a job that has been vacant since the departure of Bill Shine in March, and will keep her role with Mrs. Trump."

Melanie Zanona, et al., of Politico: "Federal prosecutors have accused Rep. Duncan Hunter of improperly using campaign funds to pursue numerous romantic affairs with congressional aides and lobbyists, according to a new court filing late Monday night. The Justice Department alleged that Hunter (R-Calif.) and his wife Margaret Hunter illegally diverted $250,000 in campaign funds for personal use, including to fund lavish vacations and their children's school tuition. Monday's court filings also spell out allegations that Hunter routinely used campaign funds to pay for Ubers, bar tabs, hotel rooms and other expenses to fund at least five extramarital relationships." You might want to read on just for the fun of it.

Oregon. Will Sommer of The Daily Beast: "While the Oregon Senate walk-out has earned national headlines, this isn't the first time the state's conservatives have gone wild. Over the past few years, Oregon Republicans have fought vaccines and brought in militias as their private security. Even as they're increasingly marginalized in state government, Oregon Republicans have grown more extreme.... Oregon's political divide falls between its western urban centers and its more rural eastern parts, according to John Temple, the author of a new book on militias..., 'Oregon is an interesting snapshot of the U.S. as a whole — that divide,' Temple said.... Oregon ... was the only state whose original constitution forbid non-white people from living there." --s

Brazil. Tom Phillips of the Guardian: "Since the far-right leader [Jair Bolsonaro] took office in January, his foreign policy team has set about pulverizing decades of diplomatic tradition: cuddling up to rightwing nationalists including Donald Trump, Steve Bannon and the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán; irking China, and jettisoning its position as a climate crisis leader; infuriating longtime Middle Eastern partners by embracing Benjamin Netanyahu's Israel and threatening to move Brazil's embassy to Jerusalem. All this under a Bible-bashing pro-Trump foreign minister who claims global heating is a Marxist conspiracy and Nazism is a movement of the left.... In interviews with the Guardian, doyens of Brazilian diplomacy described their bewilderment, unease and indignation at seeing such a cherished ministry -- and their country's place in the world -- turned on its head." --safari: The parallels between the two "melting pots" of the Americas is fascinating.

~~~~~~~~~~

When I spoke to the president, I said, look, I'm a mom, I have five kids, seven, nine grandchildren. And children are scared. You're scaring the children of America. Not just in those families, but their neighbors and their communities. You're scaring the children. -- Nancy Pelosi, relating her Friday conversation with Donald Trump ...

... Martha Mendoza & Garance Burke of the AP: "The U.S. government has removed most of the children from a remote Border Patrol station in Texas following reports that more than 300 children were detained there, caring for each other with inadequate food, water and sanitation. Just 30 children remained at the facility near El Paso Monday, said Rep. Veronica Escobar after her office was briefed on the situation by an official with Customs and Border Protection.... 'How is it possible that you both were unaware of the inhumane conditions for children, especially tender-age children at the Clint Station?' asked Escobar in a letter sent Friday to U.S. Customs and Border Protection acting commissioner John Sanders and U.S. Border Patrol chief Carla Provost.... Escobar said some were sent to another facility on the north side of El Paso called Border Patrol Station 1. Escobar said it's a temporary site with roll-out mattresses, showers, medical facilities and air conditioning. But Clara Long, an attorney who interviewed children at Border Patrol Station 1 last week, said conditions were not necessarily better there." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: This is like a shell game where the con man moves around real-life children instead of balls, only instead of the children ending up under one of the cups to they surprise of the mark, they are lost forever in the system. Every one of the con artists, from Trump on down to workers who did not report these atrocities should wind up in prison, where they are allowed to bathe only once a month, sleep on the concrete floor with only a mylar "blanket" to cover them, get only cold MREs to eat, & receive no medical attention. ...

... Ed Kilgore of New York: "... it's remarkable how erratic and politically insensitive Team Trump has been in dealing with the lethal impression that it is deliberately mistreating children as a sort of extreme version of a deterrent to future migrants. The administration has presented four quite different but equally irresponsible strategies in just the last week or so: 1. Deny any responsibility for decent conditions[.]... 2. Move the kids around[.]... 3. Blame Democrats[.]... 4. Blow everything up with mass deportations[.]" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Kilgore didn't mention that Trump is specifically, repeatedly -- and falsely, of course -- blaming President Obama.

Clara Long & Nicole Austin-Hillery of Human Rights Watch in a CNN opinion piece report on "the devastating and abusive circumstances" they observed in their visits to children in US border facilities. "... more children are in immigration custody because over the last several years the government has slowed down the rate at which children are reunified with their families. The government has sought to use children in Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) facilities as bait to arrest and deport the family members who come forward to care for them, according to a report by advocacy groups The Women's Refugee Commission and the National Immigrant Justice Center." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: It is worth pointing out here that although Donald Trump disparages the FBI -- the federal government's principal law enforcement agency -- he has again and again commended the "great and incredible and fantastic" Border Patrol & Customs agents (the BP union supported him in 2016). He knows what those "great and incredible and fantastic" agents are doing to children (or he should), and he's good with it. Besides being an (alleged) rapist, he's a proven child abuser.

Edward Wong of the New York Times: "President Trump announced on Monday that he is imposing new sanctions on Iran, stepping up a policy of pressuring the nation's leaders and the crippled Iranian economy in retaliation for what the United States says are recent aggressive acts by Tehran. He said the order would bar Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, and his office from access to the international financial system. The Treasury Department said it also was imposing sanctions on eight Iranian military commanders, including the head of a unit that the Americans say was responsible for shooting down an American drone last Thursday." ...

... Patrick Wintour of the Guardian: "Iran says the US decision to impose sanctions on its supreme leader and other top officials is 'idiotic' and has permanently closed the path to diplomacy between Tehran and Washington.... Speaking in a live television address on Tuesday, [Hassan Rouhani, the country's president,] added: 'You sanction the foreign minister simultaneously with a request for talks?' The White House was 'afflicted by mental retardation', he said." --s ...

     ... Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Eric Hananoki of Media Matters: "During CNN's 'breaking news' coverage of the conflict between the United States and Iran, CNN political commentator David Urban advocated for a missile strike against Iran.... The network didn't disclose to viewers that Urban is a lobbyist for numerous defense contractors. Urban appeared on the June 20 edition of CNN's The Lead with Jake Tapper, where he advocated for striking Iran with a missile. CNN, Urban, and host Jake Tapper didn't disclose during the segment that Urban has extensive financial ties to military contractors." --s

Tim O'Brien of Bloomberg: "... President Trump was never going to become 'presidential.' It was inevitable instead that he would find himself most interested in frequenting the corridors of power that allowed him to operate independently.... In Trump's case it's uniquely perilous because no president in the modern era has been as ill-informed, unhinged and undisciplined as the current one. None has been as needy, nor as willing to playact without remorse while making the most consequential of decisions.... Trump has given the world a trifecta of sorts in recent weeks involving trade with Mexico, a military strike in Iran, and government raids on the homes of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. Trump launched all three episodes with public threats and bravado showcased on Twitter, embroidered them with promises of imminent and decisive action, and tethered them to the notion that complex challenges can be solved with blunt force wielded by a single man. He then abruptly abandoned all three provocations just before they were to take effect.... The only real difference between what he's doing now and what he was doing in his businesses decades ago is who it affects." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I can't get over the idea that Trump is remarkably stupid. I think every president -- including Trump, of course -- wants to be the Best President Ever. Yet Trump guaranteed from the get-go that his presidency would be a failure (see, for instance, Axios's report on the helter-skelter Trump transition). Trump can point a stubby finger at others till it falls off; the failure of his presidency is all his doing. Update: See Akhilleus's correction in the Comments below.

The Trump Scandals, Ctd.

Judy Kurtz of the Hill: "A star-studded cast -- including John Lithgow, Alyssa Milano, Alfre Woodard, Annette Bening and many others -- will perform in a play based on the Mueller report. The performers will take the stage Monday for 'The Investigation: A Search For The Truth in 10 Acts,' a play written by Robert Schenkkan. The work by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Schenkkan is based on special counsel Robert Mueller's 448-page report on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.... The event is being hosted and livestreamed by LawWorks.... The performance comes just days after a Washington theater announced it would host an 11-hour reading of the second volume of Mueller's report that deals with possible obstruction of justice committed by President Trump." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie (Monday afternoon): According to the LawWorks website, the play is to be performed on Monday, June 24 (i.e., yesterday) beginning at 9 pm EDT. You can stream it on the linked page. I can't tell from the site whether or not you can watch the play later. ...

     ... Update. The live performance has ended. According to the site, "A replay will be available shortly." Mrs. McC: I really enjoyed the show! John Lithgow was great as angry, inarticulate, lying Trump & Joel Gray was a funny Sessions. Those left-wing, liberal elite actors do the country proud. So far the arts are surviving Trump.

New, Credible Rape Allegation against Trump Finally Makes the Front Page of the NYT Online. Donald Trump, Discerning Rapist. Peter Baker & Neil Vigdor: "President Trump on Monday again denied assaulting a columnist for Elle magazine in the dressing room of a high-end clothing store more than 20 years ago, asserting just hours after she aired her explosive accusation on television that he would not have assaulted her because 'she's not my type.' Mr. Trump said that E. Jean Carroll, who wrote for years for Elle magazine, was 'lying' when she said that he threw her up against a wall and forced himself on her in the mid-1990s, and he insisted that he did not know her. 'I'll say it with great respect,' he said in an interview with The Hill, a Capitol Hill news organization. 'No. 1, she's not my type. No. 2, it never happened. It never happened, O.K.?'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: No. !, Carroll was & is a beautiful woman. No. 2, since when are rapists choosy? This is just the Liar-in-Chief adding insult to injury. ...

... Lara Takenaga of the New York Times: "After an article last week reported the advice columnist E. Jean Carroll's rape allegations against President Trump, some readers accused The Times of downplaying the story.... Dean Baquet, the executive editor [of the Times] ... said the critics were right that The Times had underplayed the article, though he said it had not been because of deference to the president.... Mr. Baquet said he had concluded that it should have been presented more prominently, with a headline on The Times's home page.... The fact that a well-known person was making a very public allegation against a sitting president 'should've compelled us to play it bigger.'" ...

... MEANWHILE, at That Bastion of Great Journalism, the New York Post. Oliver Darcy & Marianne Garvey of CNN: "The New York Post's former top editor [Col Allan], a supporter of President Trump and an old lieutenant of Rupert Murdoch who returned to the conservative tabloid as an adviser in early 2019, ordered the removal of a story about writer Jean Carroll's sexual assault allegations against President Trump, two people familiar with the matter told CNN Business. The Post's story about Carroll's sexual assault allegations was mysteriously scrubbed from the tabloid's website on Friday afternoon.... A wire story by the Associated Press which had been published on the Post's website was also removed.... Stories about Carroll's accusation against Trump remained online at The Wall Street Journal and Fox News, two other news organizations overseen by Murdoch." ...

... Jon Allsop of the Columbia Journalism Review: "Despite the litany of claims against Trump, Carroll is only the second woman to publicly accuse him of rape. Her account is graphic and detailed; was corroborated by two friends who recall Carroll telling them about it at the time; and echoes what Trump told Billy Bush, in the Access Hollywood tape, about grabbing women 'by the pussy.' You'd think, then, that it would have been a much bigger story over the weekend. Many commentators were furious that it was not.... As Media Matters for America's Katie Sullivan pointed out, Carroll's claim did not make the front page of Saturday's New York Times, Wall Street Journal, LA Times, or Chicago Tribune; The Washington Post did put it on A1, but did not lead with it. Also on Saturday, Nieman Lab's Joshua Benton calculated that the story was not among the 164 articles featured on the Times's homepage; it appeared there later on, but the Times tagged it in its books section, and even there it was downplayed. As of [Monday] morning, the story is all but absent from the homepages of major outlets." ...

... It's Just a Woman's Issue. Amanda Marcotte of Salon: "This should be an incredibly serious story, deserving of at least the wall-to-wall coverage and outrage that greeted Bill Clinton for his icky-but-consensual affair with Monica Lewinsky.... Part of the problem, no doubt, is that there's so much horrible stuff happening right now.... But that's not the full explanation, as many of these papers front-paged much less important stories.... Also noteworthy is that the M.O. Trump described to [Billy] Bush -- taking a woman shopping and then 'mov[ing] on her like a bitch' -- is what Carroll says he did to her.... It's become clear that Republican voters do not care if their leaders are sexual predators.... They don't believe [Trump is] innocent. They just don't care if he's guilty. And they think women who speak out about sexual violence are being spoilsports.... It also matters that Trump is a sexual predator because it clearly matters to the Trump opposition. The reason the biggest protest in American history was the Women's March stems directly from women's outrage that the nation elected a shameless sexual predator.... I suspect ... the main reason the media is underplaying this story is that women are still not taken seriously as full citizens and participants in our democracy." ...

... Megan Garber of the Atlantic: "The attrition of attention when it comes to Carroll's story -- 'media fatigue,' CNN's Reliable Sources put it -- is in its own way shocking but not surprising. It is yet more proof, as if any were necessary, of how commonly women's stated experiences, particularly when the statements threaten the fragile order of things, are reflexively dismissed. Once again, the woman offers up her pain -- as testimony; as evidence; as fodder for change -- and, once again, that pain is met with a shrug. Once again, those who have an interest in disbelieving her -- including, in this case, Trump himself &-- mention money and fame as her probable motivations for coming forward. Once again, the woman's story is consumed and abstracted and diffused into the acrid air.... In Carroll's case, a perverse kind of paradox has set in: The sheer number of women who have accused the president of misconduct seems to have helped diminish the impact of her accusation.&"

Bob Brigham of the Raw Story: "Attorney General Bill Barr killed seven different investigations started by special counsel Robert Mueller just ten days after he submitted his report. CNN's Katelyn Polantz had filed a request to unseal documents related to the special counsel's investigation and on Monday the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia agreed. Chief Judge Beryl A Howell ordered the release of multiple documents, [one of which] shows seven cases that were closed on April Fools Day -- only ten days after Mueller submitted his report." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I don't know that Brigham's implication is accurate. The "Case Closed" designations could be housekeeping, or it may be that Mueller meant to abort these investigations & asked DOJ to take care of the formalities. If Barr really shut down on-going, viable investigations, this should be a big story, and it isn't. I'm linking it just in case there's some there there. Polantz, in her report on the court releases, refers only obliquely to the cases still open as of April 1.

Steve Holland of Reuters: "... Donald Trump's senior adviser Kellyanne Conway will not testify before the House of Representatives Oversight Committee this week on her alleged violations of the Hatch Act, the White House told the panel's chairman on Monday.... The Oversight Committee has said it would vote on a potential subpoena if Conway does not testify before lawmakers on Wednesday." ...

... Betsy Woodruff of the Daily Beast: "The Trump-appointed ethics official who called for Kellyanne Conway's firing last week is set to defend that decision in congressional testimony on Wednesday. Henry Kerner, the chief of the White House's Office of Special Counsel, has submitted testimony to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform in which he criticizes Conway for allegedly breaking the law by politicizing her post as White House Counselor.... 'Ms. Conway's conduct reflects not a misunderstanding of the law, but rather a disregard for it,' [Kerner will testify].... Kerner's plan to appear at the hearing, which was confirmed by a senior Democratic committee aide, is a significant move, given that a host of administration officials have recently stiff-armed congressional testimony requests and subpoenas." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Conway & the White House have been defending her political remarks on First Amendment grounds, but inasmuch as she reportedly plans to be a no-show at the Oversight Committee hearing, maybe she & they should be thinking more about her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Jordan Fabian & Saagar Enjeti of the Hill: "President Trump on Monday declined to say he has confidence in Christopher Wray and stressed that he disagrees with the FBI director, who has said he does not believe there was spying on the president's 2016 campaign. 'Well, we'll see how it turns out,' Trump said in an exclusive interview with The Hill when asked about his level of confidence in Wray. 'I mean, I disagree with him on that and I think a lot of people are disagreeing. You may even disagree with him on that.'... The president recently gave [AG William] Barr the authority to declassify information related to the origins of the federal investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election. Trump has long claimed the probe will show there was improper surveillance on his campaign, an assertion denied by intelligence and law enforcement officials."


Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "The Treasury Department's internal watchdog has agreed to look into why designs of a new $20 bill featuring Harriet Tubman will not be unveiled next year. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, last week asked the Treasury Department's inspector general to open an investigation following Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's announcement at a May Congressional hearing that designs of the new $20 would be unveiled in 2026 instead of 2020 -- the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote. Mr. Mnuchin, at the hearing, would not commit to Tubman being featured on the note, diverging from the plan and timeline set by the Obama administration and leaving the decision to a future Treasury secretary. Treasury's inspector general, in a letter to Mr. Schumer dated June 21, said that the review of the $20 will be included in an already-planned audit of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing's process for designing new notes and security features."

Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "Jason Miller, a former top campaign aide and close adviser to Donald Trump, has left his job as a managing director at Teneo, a prominent consulting firm, days after launching a profanity-laced tirade directed at a top House Democrat.... Miller's departure from the firm comes just a few days after he went on a raging tweetstorm at House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler (D-NY), in which he called the New York Democrat, among other things, a' fat fuck.' 'He's a fucking scumbag. Anyone obsessed with attacking innocent Hope Hicks should take a long walk off a short pier,' Miller posted to Twitter late last week.... Miller's anger had been sparked by Nadler's questioning of former Trump aide and confidante Hope Hicks during closed-door testimony several days prior. During that testimony, Nadler had referred to Hicks as 'Ms. Lewandowski.' The congressman later insisted it was a slip of the tongue, but his repeated use of the wrong surname led to the impression that he was referencing an alleged 'affair' between Hicks and one-time Trump campaign chief Corey Lewandowski.... [Teneo] "has close ties to the Clintons." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Not only are Miller's rage-tweets highly unoriginal, roly-poly Miller has a lot of nerve referring to anyone as a "fat fuck."

Presidential Race 2020

Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "I had the chance to watch Biden campaign three times over the weekend, when almost the entire Democratic field descended on Columbia.... Seeing Biden on the stump often feels like watching an actor who can't quite remember his lines. Even if you don't support him, it's hard not to feel anxious on his behalf.... His performance was unnerving.... Donald Trump, of course, also speaks in gibberish, but with a bombastic unearned confidence; rather than flailing around for the right figure he makes one up. Biden, by contrast, was just shaky. And while there's great affection for him on the ground, there's little excitement. You can see why his campaign has been limiting his public events and why he's been avoiding the press.... Anyone convinced that Biden is the safe choice should go see him for themselves." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: There are reasons Biden flamed out early in his previous runs for president. (One is that Biden is not a great speaker for he does well in small crowds [as pundits & I have observed]. I think that's because in a conversational situation, we are used to having our friends make misstatements & grasp for words; a politician can't get away with that in a crowd.) We should hope that Biden is once again an also-ran in 2020. Yesterday, I heard or read a pundit note that one reason Barack Obama chose Biden as his running mate in 2008 (that is, 11 years ago) was that he was too old to have presidential ambitions in 2012 or 2016, so he would be a good VP, not a self-serving, aspiring candidate.

New York columnists Zak Cheney-Rice, Benjamin Hart & Ed Kilgore discuss South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg's mishandling of race relations in his city, specifically in regard to a recent white-cop-on-black fatal shooting.

Senate Races 2020

Cristina Cabrera of TPM: "Democratic Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon on Monday launched her campaign to challenge incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME). Citing her experience with battling former governor Paul LePage (R), Gideon said in her announcement video that 'getting things done for Mainers are what we're elected to do, not falling in line behind the demands of someone else.'... 'It doesn't matter if that person is LePage, Mitch McConnell, or Donald Trump,' said Gideon, pointing at Collins' votes in favor of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the GOP's massive 2017 tax cuts."

Eleanor Watson & Nicole Sganga of CBS News: "Retired Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc announced Monday that he would run for the U.S. Senate in New Hampshire against Democratic incumbent Jeanne Shaheen, setting up what may be one of the marquee congressional races of 2020. Bolduc, who spent 32 years in the Army, said at his announcement that the current leadership in Washington haven't secured the border, addressed student debt, or ended the opioid crisis. Although Bolduc is running as a Republican, he did not refer to President Trump in his speech. Bolduc told the crowd that he has nothing against Shaheen, who has been in the Senate since 2009, but that 'she has been a part of failed leadership in Washington for too long.' Bolduc also said that he would not 'engage in personal destruction' as a candidate." Mrs. McC: He sounds like a guy who has no idea how the Senate works. So, perfect.


Ari Berman of Mother Jones: "A federal judge in Maryland found on Monday that the Trump administration's addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 census might have been motivated by a desire to reduce the political clout of Hispanics and said he would reopen the case, if given the opportunity, to rule on late-breaking smoking-gun evidence. With the Supreme Court set to rule on the citizenship question by the end of the week, this sets up another longshot scenario where the question could be invalidated.... Thomas Hofeller, the GOP's longtime gerrymandering mastermind, had pushed for a citizenship question in order to draw new political districts that he said would be' advantageous to Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites.' Hofeller ghostwrote a key section of a Justice Department letter requesting the question, which was approved by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, and told the administration to argue that it was needed to better enforce the Voting Rights Act, when Hofeller had already concluded it would hurt Hispanic voters."

Paul Demko of Politico: "The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a challenge from health insurers who argue the federal government owes them hefty Obamacare payments, stoking the possibility the Trump administration could be forced to pay out billions of dollars for a law it's tried to dismantle. The insurers claim they are due money from an Obamacare program helping companies that attracted sick and expensive customers in the early years of the law's insurance marketplaces. The justices' decision to take the case means it will reconsider an earlier appellate court ruling that the federal government isn't on the hook for the payments.... The insurers' case involves the Affordable Care Act's risk corridors program.... Republicans balked at spending taxpayer dollars to cover the program's deficit -- decrying it as a bailout for insurers -- and blocked the federal government from making payments. That contributed to skyrocketing premiums in the ACA's fledgling marketplaces after they launched in 2014, and it also helped push many nonprofit insurers seeded with Obamacare funds into financial collapse."

Richard Wolf of USA Today: "A federal law requiring longer prison sentences for using a gun during a 'crime of violence' is unconstitutionally vague, a deeply divided Supreme Court ruled Monday.... Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the court's four liberals and wrote the decision. Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh delivered a fiery dissent for the court's other conservatives. The Justice Department had warned that if the law was struck down, it 'will inundate courts with collateral-review petitions by some of the most dangerous federal prisoners and will frustrate efforts to prosecute current and future violent criminals.' That argument was reinforced by Kavanaugh's dissent, which labeled the 5-4 ruling 'an extraordinary event in this court.'... 'In our constitutional order, a vague law is no law at all,' [Gorsuch] said in announcing the verdict from the bench."

Rafi Schwartz of Splinter: "As the debate over Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's characterization of American migrant detention facilities as 'concentration camps' enters its second, aneurysm-inducing week, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has entered the fray.... In a press release posted to its website on Monday, the museum wrote that it 'unequivocally rejects efforts to create analogies between the Holocaust and other events, whether historical or contemporary,' and directed readers to a six-month-old essay that cautions against 'careless Holocaust analogies [which] may demonize, demean, and intimidate their targets' and 'distract from the real issues challenging our society, because they shut down productive, thoughtful discourse.'... If, as the museum claims, 'efforts to create analogies between the Holocaust and other events' are to be unequivocally rejected, then what's the point of learning about the Holocaust in the first place? As rabbi Danya Ruttenberg succinctly put it last week in the Washington Post: '"Never Again" means nothing if Holocaust analogies are always off limits'... As Ocasio-Cortez herself explained, concentration camps are not the sole province of Nazis. It's the museum itself (along with plenty of bad-faith Republicans) that made the leap from 'concentration camps' to 'Holocaust analogy' without for a moment recognizing -- or at least admitting -- the term's well-established historical independence from the Nazi's treatment of European Jewry." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The Smithsonian article (Nov. 2017) on the history of concentration camp (linked last in the excerpt of Schwartz's post) is quite interesting. Some of those historical camps were very much like the camps in which Trump has put migrants & their children.

Damian Carrington of the Guardian: "G20 nations have almost tripled the subsidies they give to coal-fired power plants in recent years, despite the urgent need to cut the carbon emissions driving the climate crisis. The bloc of major economies pledged a decade ago to phase out all fossil fuel subsidies.... China and India give the biggest subsidies to coal, with Japan third, followed by South Africa, South Korea, Indonesia and the US. Global emissions must fall by half in the next decade to avoid significantly worsening drought, floods, extreme heatwave and poverty for hundreds of millions of people. But emissions are still increasing, with coal-fired power the biggest single contributor to the rise in 2018." --s

Damian Carrington: "The world is increasingly at risk of 'climate apartheid', where the rich pay to escape heat and hunger caused by the escalating climate crisis while the rest of the world suffers, a report from a UN human rights expert has said. Philip Alston, UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said the impacts of global heating are likely to undermine not only basic rights to life, water, food, and housing for hundreds of millions of people, but also democracy and the rule of law." --s

Beyond the Beltway

Kentucky. Tom Loftus of the Louisville Courier Journal: "Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd on Monday ruled the [Kentucky Governor] Bevin administration intentionally violated the Kentucky Open Records Act in refusing to release a copy of an economic analysis of the administration's 2017 pension reform plan. In a 19-page final order in the case, Shepherd ordered the economic analysis be released and -- because the violation of the open records law was willful -- directed the state to pay $72,833 in attorneys' fees and costs to the person who requested the record." --s

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Sunday
Jun232019

The Commentariat -- June 24, 2019

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Trump on Sunday shrugged off the brutal dismembering of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, just days after a United Nations report described how a team of Saudi assassins called Mr. Khashoggi a 'sacrificial animal' before his murder. The U.N. report urged an F.B.I. investigation into the slaying. But in an interview with NBC's 'Meet the Press,' Mr. Trump said the episode had already been thoroughly investigated. He said the Middle East is 'a vicious, hostile place' and noted that Saudi Arabia is an important trading partner with the United States.... Mr. Trump also said he was 'not looking for war [with Iran],' but added that if the United States went to war with Iran, 'it'll be obliteration like you've never seen before.'... Mr. Trump also falsely blamed former President Barack Obama for his policy of separating families at the border, lashed out at his Federal Reserve chairman and said the biggest mistake of his presidency was selecting Jeff Sessions to be his attorney general." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Here's the full, unedited interview via NBC News. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Dan De Luce of NBC News: "Long before Trump was elected, advocates of the nuclear agreement -- including then-President Barack Obama, French President Emmanuel Macron and others -- had argued that abandoning the accord carried grave risks that could lead to an armed conflict. 'So let's not mince words. The choice we face is ultimately between diplomacy or some form of war -- maybe not tomorrow, maybe not three months from now, but soon,' Obama said in a speech in 2015 defending the deal before a congressional vote.... Obama said that without an agreement limiting Iran's nuclear program in return for sanctions relief, any U.S. administration would be left with only one option to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon -- 'another war in the Middle East.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

David Boddiger of Splinter: "A day after Donald Trump announced via Twitter that he was postponing nationwide raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deport thousands of families, senior administration officials are furious, blaming acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan for leaking details of the raids to the press. It was no secret that McAleenan opposed the massive operation, which was supposed to target 10 major U.S. cities on Sunday morning, and he had commented to The Washington Post that such raids could risk separating more children from their parents. He also warned that ICE did not have the resources to carry out such sweeping deportation raids.... On Saturday, former ICE acting director and recently named 'border czar' Tom Homan criticized McAleenan during an appearance on Fox & Friends, claiming to know the source of the leak." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The Trump Scandals, Ctd.

Jonathan Swan, et al., of Axios: "Nearly 100 internal Trump transition vetting documents leaked to 'Axios on HBO' identify a host of 'red flags' about officials who went on to get some of the most powerful jobs in the U.S. government.... The massive trove, and the story behind it, sheds light on the slap-dash way President Trump filled his cabinet and administration, and foreshadowed future scandals that beset his government.... In the chaotic weeks after Trump's surprise election victory, Trump fired Chris Christie as the head of his transition. The team that took over -- which V.P. Mike Pence helmed -- outsourced the political vetting of would-be top officials to the Republican National Committee.... Traditionally, any would-be top official faces three types of vetting: an FBI background check, a scrub for financial conflicts of interest from the Office of Government Ethics, and a deep dive from the president-elect's political team, which veteran Washington lawyers often handle.... But in many cases -- for example the misguided choice of Andrew Puzder as Labor Secretary -- this RNC 'scrub' of public sources was the only substantial vetting in Trump's possession when he announced his picks." ...

... Jonathan Swan talks to Chris Christie about the Trump transition. Most of what Christie says isn't news, but it's worth hearing it again:

Andrew Desiderio of Politico: "The White House is expected to move to block former top aide Annie Donaldson from answering the House Judiciary Committee]s written questions about her tenure as White House deputy counsel, according to sources familiar with the matter. Donaldson, who was a central witness in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, struck a deal with the committee that would allow her to submit written responses instead of showing up for her scheduled public testimony on Monday. Donaldson is pregnant and lives in Alabama, her attorney Sandra Moser said, adding that it's difficult for her to travel to Washington at this time."

Andrew Desiderio: "The House Oversight and Reform Committee will vote to authorize a subpoena for White House counselor Kellyanne Conway on Wednesday if she does not show up for the panel's hearing on her alleged violations of the Hatch Act, according to a memo sent to lawmakers. The U.S. Office of Special Counsel has cited Conway for multiple violations of the Hatch Act, and earlier this month, Special Counsel Henry J. Kerner recommended that President Donald Trump terminate her White House employment. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the chairman of the committee, invited both Kerner and Conway to attend Wednesday's hearing."


Serena Marshall, et al., of ABC News: "From sleeping on concrete floors with the lights on 24 hours a day to no access to soap or basic hygiene, migrant children in at least two U.S. Customs and Border Protection facilities face conditions one doctor described as comparable to 'torture facilities.' The disturbing, first-hand account of the conditions were observed by lawyers and a board-certified physician in visits last week to border patrol holding facilities in Clint, Texas, and McAllen, a city in the southern part of the state. The descriptions paint a bleak image of horrific conditions for children, the youngest of whom is 2 1/2 months old.... [Dr. Dolly Lucio Sevier] compared it to being 'tantamount to intentionally causing the spread of disease.' In an interview with ABC News, Lucio Sevier said the facility 'felt worse than jail.'" ...

... ** Salt Lake Tribune Editors: "... the places into which we are herding tens of thousands of migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers are ... properly called concentration camps. Because that is precisely what they are. When some in the public eye dare to tell that truth, as the media-savvy Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did the other day, enablers of the administration's cruel policies cry foul.... [The Nazi Holocaust] worked its way up, from nasty political speeches (check) to politicians seeking and gaining power with promises to protect the purity of the nation from foreign invasion (check) to denying basic human rights and decency to people of an unfavored class (check)." Mrs. McC: A powerful piece by a conservative editorial board. Read it all. ...

... Ben Fenwick of the New York Times (June 22): "... more than 200 demonstrators arrived at Fort Sill on Saturday to protest the government's latest plan for the base: to house 1,400 undocumented children who arrived in the United States without a parent or a legal guardian. The protesters called the plan, which was announced this month, a return to one of the nation's great shames.... The Obama administration held several thousand immigrant children at Fort Sill in 2014.... Satsuki Ina, who was born in a Japanese-American internment camp during World War II ... protested then, too.... In the 19th century, the Army held hundreds of Chiricahua Apache warriors who surrendered in the conflicts between Native Americans and the United States; Geronimo was one of them and is buried at the base. During World War II, a distraught Japanese detainee, Kanesaburo Oshima, was fatally shot there as he tried to climb the barb-wire fence, becoming a symbol of a mass exclusion program that the United States has formally apologized for in 1988." ...

... Adam Serwer of The Atlantic: "The [Trump immigration] policy's cruelty is its purpose.... The barbarism of deliberately inflicting suffering on children as coercion, though, has forced the Trump administration and its allies in the conservative press to offer three contradictory defenses. First, there's the denial that the policy exists.... The policy is both real and delightful. The conservative radio host Laura Ingraham called the uproar 'hilarious'.... Others in the administration -- such as [former] Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his former aide, the White House adviser Stephen Miller -- offer a third defense. The policy exists, they say, and it's necessary to uphold the rule of law.... It is not an accident that these three defenses -- the policy does not exist, the children are better off under the policy, and the policy is required by law -- are contradictory. The heart of Trumpism is both cruelty and denial. The administration and its supporters valorize cruelty against outsiders even while denying that such cruelty is taking place."

Helena Evich of Politico: "The Trump administration has refused to publicize dozens of government-funded studies that carry warnings about the effects of climate change, defying a longstanding practice of touting such findings by the Agriculture Department's acclaimed in-house scientists.... All of these studies were peer-reviewed by scientists and cleared through the non-partisan Agricultural Research Service, one of the world's leading sources of scientific information for farmers and consumers. None of the studies were focused on the causes of global warming -- an often politically charged issue. Rather, the research examined the wide-ranging effects of rising carbon dioxide, increasing temperatures and volatile weather."

NOPEStephanie Covery of the Guardian: "One of the biggest knitting websites in the world, which claims to have more than 8 million members, has announced that it will ban users from expressing support for Donald Trump, saying that to do so constitutes 'white supremacy'. On Sunday, administrators for Ravelry, a site for knitters, crocheters, designers and anyone dabbling in the fibre arts, said that they were making any expression of support for Trump and his administration in forum posts, patterns, on their personal profile pages or elsewhere permanently off limits.... The policy drew on a similar statement made last year by roleplaying game site RPG.net, which banned advocacy of Trump from its forums on the grounds that the Trump administration was an 'elected hate group'.... The knitting and crochet community has played a prominent role in the anti-Trump movement in the past, with women wearing homemade pink 'pussy' hats to demonstrations around his election and inauguration becoming a distinctive symbol of protest against his presidency."

Presidential Race 2020

Dan Merica & Donald Judd of CNN: "Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg faced the raw and unvarnished emotion of his community at a town hall in South Bend, Indiana, on Sunday as the mayor attempted to soothe the pain caused by the recent killing of a black man by a police officer. The shooting of Eric Jack Logan, who police alleged was breaking into cars and wielding a knife when he was shot by officer Ryan O'Neill last Sunday, has roiled the Indiana community, putting the spotlight on years of racial tension between the South Bend Police Department and the city's African American residents.... The free-wheeling town hall -- which included a mix of questions, storytelling and protesting from attendees who spoke to the mayor -- focused on how the police department has interacted with the community for years, long before the shooting.... Under Buttigieg, the South Bend Police Department has slowly -- but consistently -- become less diverse."

Bianca Quilantan of Politico: "Joe Sestak, a retired three-star Navy admiral and former two-term congressman from Pennsylvania, on Sunday became the latest Democratic contender to announce a bid for the presidency. Sestak, in a video released on his campaign website, drew heavily on his naval career, saying he 'wore the cloth of the nation for over 31 years in peace and war, from the Vietnam and Cold War eras, to Afghanistan and Iraq and the emergence of China.'" Mrs. McC: Time for the Ghost of Pat Paulsen to announce his candidacy:

Murtaza Hussain of The Intercept: "For over 17 years, Moath al-Alwi ha been held at Guantánamo Bay without charge. A Yemeni citizen, al-Alwi is one of Guantánamo's 'forever prisoners,' those whom the U.S. government has not charged with a crime but is unwilling to release. On June 10, the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in his case, the latest setback in al-Alwi's long effort to obtain due process rights. The Supreme Court rejection ... briefly brought al-Alwi's case back to national attention. Little noted, however, were the eyebrow-raising assertions that the government has made in this case about its powers to indefinitely detain not just al-Alwi, but anyone -- including U.S. citizens." --s

Joe Drape of the New York Times: "Another horse died at Santa Anita Park in Southern California on Saturday -- the 30th since Dec. 26 and the fourth this month -- prompting the owners of what has become one of the deadliest racetracks in America to bar Jerry Hollendorfer, the horse's Hall of Fame trainer. American Currency died after a training session Saturday. The horse was the fourth trained by Hollendorfer to die at Santa Anita Park since the meeting opened on Dec. 26. The spike in fatalities at the landmark racetrack has put a bull's-eye on the very existence of one of America's oldest sports. The deaths have prompted an investigation by the Los Angeles County district attorney's office and earned public rebukes from Gov. Gavin Newsom of California and Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California.... The Stronach Group, which owns Santa Anita and six other American racetracks, has blamed corrupt trainers and owners for the deaths...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I suppose when we have a POTUS* who "shrugs off" the assassination of a political journalist, the suspicious deaths of dozens of racehorses may seem less significant. But just because we have a president* who sees murder as an excusable cultural phenomenon and the criminal abuse of children & asylum-seekers as an acceptable "deterrent" to immigration doesn't mean the rest of us should become desensitized.

Way Beyond the Beltway

Carlotta Gall of the New York Times: "President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey was confronting recriminations within his governing party and the wider circle of his supporters on Monday as the scale of the defeat of his candidate in the Istanbul mayoral race became clear. The opposition candidate, Ekrem Imamoglu, emerged as the landslide winner of the mayoral election redo against Mr. Erdogan's candidate, Binali Yildirim, according to preliminary results announced on Monday by Sadi Guven, the head of the High Election Council, confirming a significant defeat for the governing party."

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