The Commentariat -- June 23, 2019

Afternoon Update:

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." ...

... Here's the full interview via NBC News. ...

... 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.'"

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."

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...." ...

     ... 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 abuse of children & asylum-seekers as an acceptable "deterrent" to immigration doesn't mean the rest of us should become desensitized.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Latest from the Sadist-in-Chief. Michael Shear & Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "President Trump on Saturday delayed plans for nationwide raids to deport undocumented families, but he threatened to unleash Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in two weeks if Democrats do not submit to changes in asylum law they have long opposed. The announcement, made on Twitter as Mr. Trump was meeting with aides at Camp David, was the president's latest attempt to pressure his adversaries into making immigration changes. Last month, he threatened to levy tariffs on Mexico unless it did more to stop the flow of migrants into the United States.... The specter of high-profile immigration raids had risked imperiling ... passage [of a $4.5 billion humanitarian border aid bill].... Some Democrats, including members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, had threatened to withhold their support for the funding package.... Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Mr. Trump on Friday evening to persuade him to cancel the raids.... The president did that a few hours later, announcing that 'at the request of Democrats, I have delayed the Illegal Immigration Removal Process (Deportation) for two weeks.'... He said he had delayed the raids 'to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border. If not, Deportations start!' he tweeted." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: No one can tell me that vicious SOB doesn't get off on throwing his weight around & bullying people. The more helpless his victims, the better. He's a sociopath with the soul of a common criminal. He'll want some fava beans & a nice chianti. ...

... David Boddiger of Splinter: "Trump's constant strategy of dictating irrational or inhumane threats only to call them off at the last minute and claim victory is becoming increasingly common as he eyes reelection in 2020 amid falling poll numbers. In addition to temporarily calling off the raids, which were widely condemned by rights groups, Democrats, and pretty much anyone with a sense of decency, Trump also has threatened to close the U.S.-Mexico border, impose tariffs on all goods imported from Mexico, and attack Iran. Stable genius, indeed.... The nationwide ICE raid, which would have targeted some 2,000 families who had received deportation orders in 10 U.S. cities ... was so unpopular that not even his acting secretary of Homeland Security appeared to be on board. According to The Washington Post's Nick Miroff, Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan had urged ICE, which is part of the agency he runs, to conduct a 'more targeted operation' that would focus on 150 families, instead of thousands.... Trump reportedly bypassed McAleenan and dealt directly with Acting ICE Director Mark Morgan and other ICE officials regarding the details of the raid, which Trump first announced on Twitter last Monday."

David Sanger of the New York Times: "President Trump's last-minute decision to pull back from a retaliatory strike on Iran underscored the absence of appealing options available to him as Tehran races toward ... building up and further enriching its stockpile of nuclear fuel..., [a] program [that] stemmed in substantial part from the president's decision last year to pull out of the 2015 international accord, while insisting that Tehran abide by the strict limits that agreement imposed on its nuclear activities.... The president ... [said] that he planned to impose 'major' additional sanctions [on Iran] on Monday. At the same time, administration officials are beginning to experiment with more aggressive options, including cyberattacks. On Thursday, the United States Cyber Command conducted one such operation against an Iranian intelligence group that is believed to have helped plan the recent attacks against oil tankers...." ...

... Tami Abdollah of the AP: "U.S. military cyber forces launched a strike against Iranian military computer systems on Thursday..., U.S. officials said Saturday. Two officials told The Associated Press that the strikes were conducted with approval from Trump. A third official confirmed the broad outlines of the strike.... The cyberattacks -- a contingency plan developed over weeks amid escalating tensions — disabled Iranian computer systems that controlled its rocket and missile launchers, the officials said. Two of the officials said the attacks, which specifically targeted Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps computer system, were provided as options after Iranian forces blew up two oil tankers earlier this month. The IRGC, which was designated a foreign terrorist group by the Trump administration earlier this year, is a branch of the Iranian military.... In recent weeks, hackers believed to be working for the Iranian government have targeted U.S. government agencies, as well as sectors of the economy, including finance, oil and gas...." ...

... Trump Eyes Ayatollah as Potential BFF. Julian Borger of the Guardian: "Donald Trump has said that if Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon, it will be prosperous and have the US president as 'a best friend' -- but also warned that the Islamic Republic would be 'obliterated' in any war between the two countries. Trump's remarks on Saturday morning ... are significant in that they differ starkly from the official line of his own administration: that Iran must fulfil a list of 12 US demands before sanctions can be lifted.... Iran has insisted it has no intention of acquiring nuclear weapons and the International Atomic Energy Agency has said there is no recent evidence of development or experimentation with weaponisation." ...

... Juan Cole: "Trump can't get the conservative script right to save his life.... Trump is now citing Iran's non-existent bomb-making as the reason for his breach of the [2015 Iran nuclear] treaty and not mentioning any of the things the hawks mind.... Under [Obama's Iran deal], there is no way Iran can make a bomb without everybody knowing it is trying.... So if what Trump wanted was no Iranian nuke, he had that when he was sworn into office in 2017.... He has stopped Iran from selling its oil, a form of blockade that probably amounts to an act of war. He is also stopping European concerns from investing in Iran. It is frustrating that Trump is dancing on the brink of a war for a purpose that had already been attained. This is why it is bad to elect people to high office who have mental health problems." --s

Patrick Caldwell of Mother Jones: "A day after New York magazine published a bombshell story by journalist E. Jean Carroll that detailed when ... Donald Trump raped her in the mid-1990s, the husband of one of Trump's most prominent aides published an op-ed saying that his fellow Republicans should take the rape accusation seriously. In a Washington Post op-ed, George Conway, the husband of Kellyanne Conway, compared Carroll's account to the allegations Juanita Broaddrick made that former President Bill Clinton had raped her. Trump invited Broaddrick as his guest to the second presidential debate of the 2016 campaign, and Trump, at the time struggling to respond to the release of the Access Hollywood tape, began referring to Broaddrick on the campaign trail to attack his opponent, Hillary Clinton.... 'Trump called Broaddrick "courageous," and if Broaddrick was courageous, then certainly Carroll is as well,' [Conway] writes [in his op-ed]. 'For Carroll's story is at least as compelling as Broaddrick's -- if not more so.'... Back in the 2016 campaign, Kellyanne Conway went on TV to defend Trump's decision to revive the Broaddrick's allegations as part of the presidential campaign." ...

... Katie Sullivan of Media Matters: "A new report of sexual assault committed by ... Donald Trump has come to light, but several major newspapers didn't find the story important enough to place on their front pages.... [E. Jean Carroll's account] is horrific, detailed, and extremely similar to the accounts of numerous other women. It also echoes comments Trump has made in the past, saying in 2005, 'I'm automatically attracted to beautiful -- I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. When you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything.'"

Pamela Brown & Manu Raju of CNN: "The House Judiciary Committee appears to have reached a deal with former White House aide Annie Donaldson that would allow her to not appear before the committee by a Monday deadline and answer written questions instead, according to sources familiar with the matter.... The committee issued a subpoena in May for her testimony by Monday. But Donaldson's attorney and Democrats have discussed allowing her to answer written questions instead, in part because she is pregnant and lives in Alabama. Under the terms outlined, Donaldson would be required to answer questions within a week and the committee would reserve the right to bring her in for testimony after November 1, according to one of the sources.... But how much information Donaldson will ultimately be able to provide the committee is another question. The White House has claimed that current and former White House officials have absolute immunity...."

David Lightman & Ben Wielder of McClatchy DC: "Twenty-five of the 30 states ... Donald Trump won in 2016 have received bigger shares of funding from a federal transportation program that has shifted to favoring rural projects over urban, according to a McClatchy analysis of Department of Transportation data.... The Trump administration insists that the generous tilt towards rural projects was done to compensate for an Obama-era preference for urban grants. Critics, however, say the Trump program has too often focused on its own version of the Three Rs: Rural, Republicans and Roads.... Trump&'s political strength rests in small town and rural communities. Being able to cite road improvements is a valuable political weapon, experts said." --s

Emily Holden of the Guardian: "Senate Democrats are charging that the Trump administration has gone 'dangerously off the rails', in failing to implement landmark legislation meant to protect people from toxic chemicals. In a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency, five senators say Trump officials are ignoring new authorities made available to them, favoring the chemical industry over the health of Americans. The senators are presidential candidate Cory Booker, Tom Udall, Ed Markey, Jeff Merkley and Sheldon Whitehouse.... A recent report from the Environmental Defense Fund finds that EPA has approved more than 80% of the chemicals it reviewed over the past year, clearing them for unrestricted use." --s

The Part of the U.S. Where There Is No Bill of Rights but Plenty of Law Enforcement Officers. Journalist Seth Harp, a U.S. citizen, gets stopped at the Tex-Mex border & subjected to a Customs & Border Protection "secondary screening" where he finds out the hard way he had no Fourth Amendment rights (against unreasonable search & seizure). Also too, no Sixth Amendment rights (to an attorney), Harp reports in the Intercept. First Amendment freedom of speech & of the press? Not so much.

Election 2020

David Corn of Mother Jones: "There's a widespread perception that federal laws ban foreign spending in political races, and that's true, but only to an extent. In addition to the unknown quantities of illegal money pouring into US elections through shell companies and other illicit pathways, gaping loopholes in these laws could allow substantial foreign spending on the 2020 presidential election, fully within the boundaries of the law. The judicial branch has increasingly pried the door open to more foreign spending -- and allowed it to stay secret.... Here are several ways that foreign individuals, companies, and states could influence the 2020 election legally[.]" --s

David Siders & Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "For nearly 90 minutes on a sweat-soaked stage in South Carolina on Friday night, it was almost as if Joe Biden had put the uproar surrounding his comments about segregationists behind him. Speaking at a gathering of 21 presidential candidates here, the former vice president did not mention the controversy from the platform. Nor did his rivals confront him about it directly at Rep. Jim Clyburn's annual fish fry event, a reflection of their reticence to criticize Biden in front of a crowd that adored him.... The meeting of 21 candidates here came at a turning point in the presidential primary. After crisscrossing the country for months on largely divergent paths, the candidates will collide next week for the first primary debates of the campaign. The fish fry -- a mainstay on the presidential campaign circuit where candidates wearing blue Clyburn T-shirts posed for photographs with each other and with members of the crowd -- served as a dress rehearsal for those debates."

Marianne Williamson, "Dangerous Wacko." Jay Michaelson of the Daily Beast: "To most observers, Marianne Williamson's quirky presidential candidacy is a footnote. She's running at around 1 percent in the polls. Few Americans know who she is, even though she's written a few best-sellers and has managed to qualify for the 20-person Democratic debate squad next week. But that may change thanks to Williamson's anti-vaxxer statement last week that policies requiring children to get life-saving vaccines is 'Orwellian' and 'draconian' and that the issue is 'no different than the abortion debate.' Now she's headline news -- at least in the context of the noxious, moronic, false, and dangerous anti-vaxxer conspiracy theory, which now has a Democratic presidential candidate backing it. (Donald Trump, of course, has backed it for years.)... She's been anti-science, anti-medicine, and anti-rationality for decades." Although Williamson appeared to back off her anti-vaxxer remarks in a Friday tweet, a close reading of her tweet says she did not.

** Ian Millhiser in the New Republic: "Nearly four decades ago, Anne Gorsuch Burford resigned as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Though at the helm for less than two years, she left behind a notorious anti-environment legacy, slashing the agency's budget by 22 percent and claiming to have cut the length of clean water regulations by more than 90 percent. Burford died in 2004, but her approach to the planet lives on in her offspring: Neil Gorsuch, Trump's first appointment to the Supreme Court. And on Thursday, Gorsuch proved that he truly is his mother's son handing down an opinion [in dissent] in which he threatens to give Republicans on the Supreme Court veto power over countless federal regulations -- and potentially render the EPA an impotent husk." Brett Kavanaugh did not participate in the decision because he was not on the Court when it heard arguments. "... when the next case arises, Kavanaugh will be there, and that means that there will almost certainly be five votes to write Gorsuch's views into the law. Gorsuch's opinion leaves little doubt that this new Supreme Court regime will seek to dismantle laws that permit agencies to regulate."

Jeff Toobin of the New Yorker: "A Mississippi prosecutor went on a racist crusade to have a black man executed. Clarence Thomas thinks that was just fine.... As [Justice Brett] Kavanaugh recounted in his opinion, [prosecutor Doug] Evans's actions were almost cartoonishly racist.... [Thomas] filed a dissenting opinion that was genuinely outraged — not by the prosecutor but by his fellow-Justices, who dared to grant relief to [the plaintiff Curtis Flowers, who has spent more than two decades in solitary confinement at Mississippi's notorious Parchman prison.... Thomas all but called for the overturning of the Court's landmark decision in Batson v. Kentucky, from 1986, which prohibits prosecutors from using their peremptory challenges in racially discriminatory ways." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Either Thomas is a masochist or he wakes up every morning & sees a KKK wizard in the mirror.

Erin McCormick, et al. of the Guardian: "A Guardian investigation reveals that cities around the country are no longer recycling many types of plastic dropped into recycling bins. Instead, they are being landfilled, burned or stockpiled. From Los Angeles to Florida to the Arizona desert, officials say, vast quantities of plastic are now no better than garbage.... Once the largest buyer of US plastic waste, [China] shut its doors to all but highest-quality plastics in 2017.... Analysis of US export records shows that the equivalent of 19,000 shipping containers of plastic recycling per month, once exported abroad, is now stranded at home. This is enough plastic to fill 250 Olympic swimming pools each month." --s

Beyond the Beltway

Florida. Michael Sasso of Bloomberg News: "... it's increasingly looking like Florida's 1.4 million disenfranchised ex-convicts won’t be the potent voting bloc they might've been. Seven months ago, almost two-thirds of [Florida] voters approved Amendment 4, which restores registration rights to many felons.... Many saw Floridians' vote as bringing the state into the U.S. mainstream.... However, Governor Ron DeSantis [R] is expected to sign a bill within days that critics say will blunt much of Amendment 4's impact. The bill passed by the Republican-led Legislature would require felons to pay off restitution, court fees and fines before registering.... So far, the number of former inmates who have visited a local supervisor of elections office to register has been a modest 2,000, according to one estimate."

Oregon. Anti-Earth Militia Shuts Down State Capitol. Sarah Zimmerman & Gillian Flaccus of the AP: "The Oregon Capitol [was] closed Saturday due to a 'possible militia threat' from right-wing protesters as a walkout by Republican lawmakers over landmark climate change legislation drags on. Republican state senators fled the Legislature -- and some, the state -- earlier this week to deny the majority Democrats enough votes to take up the climate bill.... Gov. Kate Brown then dispatched the state police to round up the rogue lawmakers, but none appeared in the Capitol on Friday and the stalemate seemed destined to enter its third day with a week left in the legislative session. Right-wing groups posted their support for the GOP lawmakers Friday on social media -- in one instance offering to provide escorts to them should the state police come for them. A group of local Republicans were set to protest inside the Capitol on Saturday when lawmakers were present, and anti-government groups threatened to join, prompting the statehouse shutdown. One of the groups, the Oregon Three Percenters, joined an armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in 2016."

Way Beyond

Carole Cadwalladr of the Guardian: Documentary filmmaker Alison Klayman caught Steve Bannon on tape working on copy for Boris Johnson, top contender for prime minister & Telegraph columnist. Release of Klayman's film "The Brink" "is terrible timing for Johnson.... This link to Bannon, like so many things, is something [Johnson] has denied. It was nothing more than 'a lefty delusion', he said last summer.... But what's new and potentially toxic for Johnson is what the apparent relationship with Bannon says about him.... What's no longer in doubt is that Bannonism has entered mainstream British politics. Wherever that may lead." --s

The Commentariat -- June 22, 2019

The news stories linked in today's Commentariat alone paint a particularly devastating portrait of Donald Trump. By day, he's too ignorant, dense, careless, narcissistic, intemperate & generally incompetent to do his job. By evening, he's a rapist. In the meantime, he permits & encourages gross child abuse & other crimes against humanity. He's corrupt, and his "friends" -- people who cultivate him for their own purposes -- are corrupt. He lies all the time and blames others for his own acts of depravity & greed. Not surprisingly, he can't keep the help. The lies are understandable. You'd lie about yourself too if you were the kind of person Donald Trump is. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

Trump the Unready

** Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: "The president's description of his decision-making process, unorthodox for previous presidents, was part of a day of shifting stories and contradictory statements that made it difficult to resolve outstanding questions about how the confrontation unfolded.... President Trump said Friday morning [in a series of tweets] that the United States military had been 'cocked and loaded' for a strike against Iran on Thursday night, but that he called it off with 10 minutes to spare when a general told him that 150 people would probably die in the attack.... Mr. Trump said in an NBC interview later on Friday that news reports that he had called off the mission while it was underway were inaccurate. But two senior United States officials said again on Friday that the military had received the president's go-ahead and that jets were headed toward targets in Iran when the mission was aborted. Thursday's on-again, off-again episode was another chaotic moment on the world stage for a president whose credibility with allies is already strained from two and a half years of delivering bellicose threats, sometimes without following through. But a person familiar with Mr. Trump's thinking said that the president, for one, was pleased with Thursday night's events because he liked the 'command' of approving the strike, but also the decisiveness of calling it off.... A senior Trump administration official said there was concern inside the United States government about whether the [U.S.] drone, or another American surveillance aircraft, or even the P-8A manned aircraft flown by a military aircrew, actually did violate Iranian airspace at some point. The official said the doubt was one of the reasons Mr. Trump called off the strike." Emphasis added. Read on. What a mess. See also the AP & Daily Beast stories linked below, which controvert Trump's saving-Iranians tall tale. ...

... Here's the latest version of the evolving Trump-Changes-His-Mind story:

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Get that? These generals are so stupid & careless ("Great people, these generals," Trump says facetiously) that they have given no consideration to and have no idea of what the body count is projected to be. The "generals" (no "admirals"??) have to leave the room & phone for an answer from some functionary in the Pentagon basement. Then they come back, and for the first time, tell Trump that the strikes are likely to kill 150 people. Up till 10 minutes before missiles are to be launched, no top aides or military leaders have weighed in on "collateral damage." It's up to Our Hero Donald Trump to bring up the issue at liftoff-minus-ten. Unbelievable? Youbetcha. More likely, Trump has turned the real story on its head. I suspect "these generals" were the ones making a last-ditch effort to persuade Trump to reconsider his decision to choose such a lethal option, causing Trump to say at the last minute, "WTF, let's call the whole thing off." Speaking to Chuck, Trump struggles with the word "proportionate." It's not a Trump word. It's a general's word. ...

     ... Deb Reichmann, et al., of the AP: "Trump's assertion that he learned only at the last minute of his military advisers’ casualty estimate does not align with the usual way a president is briefed on military attack options. An assessment of the likelihood of casualties, whether civilian or military, and a broad estimate of the number, normally are a major element of each option provided to the commander in chief.... Asked how he was weighing his options, Trump said in a meeting with congressional leaders Thursday, 'My gut,' according to a person familiar with the exchange.... Although top congressional leaders met with Trump at the White House on Thursday to discuss Iran, he apparently did not tell them an attack was imminent." Mrs. McC: Jonathan Lamire of the AP said on MSNBC that the AP's reporting indicated that Trump had received casualty estimated hours before the planned strike. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... ** Asawin Suebsaeng & Erin Banco of the Daily Beast: "... Donald Trump approved preparations for military strikes against Iran -- fully aware that dozens of more Iranians might die as a result, two senior Trump administration officials and another source familiar with the situation tell The Daily Beast.... as The Washington Post first reported[,] Trump was initially briefed on Thursday for military options to retaliate against Iran for downing a U.S. surveillance drone. One of the things his advisers discussed with him was the potential for a high Iranian body count. With the possible death toll made clear, the president approved the preparations for striking Iran.... 'The military has a standard in which the president is briefed on a potential strike -- the battle damage assessment is included in that,' [said] a former national security official involved in past briefings. 'It's always part of the package. And that includes possible military and civilian casualties.'" Emphasis added. ...

... Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump said Friday morning that the United States military had been 'cocked and loaded' for a strike against Iran on Thursday night, but that he called it off with 10 minutes to spare when a general told him that 150 people would likely die in the attack.... The president said in a series of tweets just after 9 a.m. that he was prepared to retaliate against three sites in Iran for that country's shooting down an American drone, but that he was 'in no hurry.' He indicated that the death of 150 Iranians would not be 'proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone.' It was unclear why Mr. Trump would have been getting information about possible casualties so late in the process of launching military action. Such information is typically discussed early in the deliberations between a president and national security officials." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... David Graham of the Atlantic: "There's no shame in calling back the strike.... Yet the story of how it happened, by Trump's own account, is chilling. There seem to be three possibilities. One is that Trump was railroaded by advisers who are reportedly far more hawkish on Iran than he is, and only at the last minute realized what was happening, in which case he's being ill-served by his aides. A second is that Trump was given other, more proportionate options, and estimates of the casualties each would produce, and only stopped to consider these questions as the planes were in the air -- not the sign of the sort of careful, measured decision-making one wants in national-security decisions. A third is that Trump knew exactly what he was doing and it was all a big performance. That possibility is perhaps most supported by Trump's own account and by his past history of using the military as a prop. That's also what a source told Maggie Haberman[.]" (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: See also my comment in yesterday's thread. I still think the not-paying-attention explanation is possible. ...

... Conservative Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner: "... , it makes sense how [Trump] ... decid[ed] against striking Iran. What doesn't make sense is what prompted him to order the strike in the first place. Again, there is an argument for strategic patience. But indecisiveness, especially when exhibited so publicly, never works well on the world stage." ...

... A Lesson from 1987. Christopher Dickey of the Daily Beast: "Could American policy toward Iran look any more reckless, feckless, or just plain nuts? One is tempted to ask: What happens when your actions are based on a madman theory, but conducted by an actual madman?... The president may be a warmonger, but his weapon of preference is the dollar, using tariffs and sanctions to try to bring other leaders to their knees. He dreads the idea of conventional wars in far away places. Trump is also the man who paid $94,801 in 1987 to place ads in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe attacking President Ronald Reagan's naval deployment in the Persian Gulf to defend oil tankers from Iranian attacks (yes, this history is redundant). Trump's full page advertisements said the world was laughing at American politicians for protecting 'ships we don't own, carrying oil we don't need for allies who won't help.' One might say the same thing today, and Trump knows it." ...

... Roger Cohen of the New York Times: "President Trump has been all over the place on Iran, which is what happens when you take a serious subject, treat it with farcical superficiality, believe braggadocio will sway a proud and ancient civilization, approach foreign policy like a real estate deal, defer to advisers with Iran Derangement Syndrome, refuse to read any briefing papers and confuse the American national interest with the Saudi or Israeli. This American slouching toward another Middle East war has been a disgrace, shot through with the twisting of truth or outright lies.... Now, in a real crisis, and one of the administration's own making, the cavalier ineptitude and absence of anything resembling process is on full public view."

... Wonkette's Five Dollar Feminist has some thoughts. ...

... Jack Crosbie of Splinter also is worried about the influence of the "Fox & Friends" National Security Council. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Connor Mannion of Mediaite: "Trump tweeted out the phrasing ['cocked and loaded'], a deviation from the usual term 'locked and loaded,' while tweeting out an explanation about why he abruptly called off a major military strike against Iran that would have been in retaliation for a shot-down drone aircraft. Twitter quickly caught on and joked about the phrasing.... Tina Dupuy[:] '"Cocked and loaded" sounds like the porn version of a John Wayne film.'" Thanks to Ken W. for the link. (Also linked yesterday.)

The Trump Scandals, Ctd.

Hannity Was Trump-Manafort Cutout. Dan Berman & Marshall Cohen of CNN: "Paul Manafort told Sean Hannity that he would never give up information on ... Donald Trump or senior White House adviser and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, according to newly unsealed texts between the two men in 2017 and 2018. A court unsealed more than 50 pages of texts that show Manafort was scared and defiant and did not think special counsel Robert Mueller would cut a cooperation deal with him because Manafort wouldn't give up Trump or his family." Here are the texts the court has released. ...

... Ken Vogel & Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "Mr. Hannity ... advised Mr. Manafort on how to fight his prosecution in the court of public opinion, and also pressed for confidential details about the case, according to a compilation of hundreds of text messages exchanged between the men, made public as part of the winding down of the case. Mr. Hannity at times appeared to try to gauge whether Mr. Manafort ... might be poised to cooperate with investigators, and, if so, what he might tell them about Mr. Trump and his inner circle.... The messages underscore the outsize role Mr. Hannity has played in Mr. Trump's orbit." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: Obviously, Hannity -- who reportedly speaks with Trump almost daily -- provided another conduit between Trump & Manafort in their longstanding obstruction project. AND Manafort is promising Trump, through Hannity, that he won't flip while Manafort is under a court-ordered gag order. And it's not as if Manafort accidentally forgot about the gag order; he mentions it four times in the texts to Hannity. ...

     ... Update: Former prosecutor Barbara McQuade pointed out on MSNBC that Manafort also was attempting to influence the jury pool by feeding information to Hannity & encouraging Hannity to speak favorably of him on Fox "News."

Andrew Desiderio & Natasha Bertrand of Politico: "The House Intelligence Committee will issue a subpoena to Felix Sater, a former business associate of ... Donald Trump who was the chief negotiator for the failed Trump Tower Moscow project, after he failed to show up for a voluntary interview Friday morning. 'The committee had scheduled a voluntary staff-level interview with Mr. Sater, but he did not show up this morning as agreed,' said Patrick Boland, a spokesman for Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). 'As a result, the committee is issuing a subpoena to compel his testimony.' Sater told Politico that the interview is 'being rescheduled.' His attorney, Robert Wolff, said in a statement that Sater couldn't attend Friday's interview 'due to health reasons' but looks forward to voluntarily appearing once it's rescheduled."Mrs. McC: Right. (Also linked yesterday.)

** Sarah Jones of New York: "The cover story New York published [Friday] details an encounter the writer E. Jean Carroll had over two decades ago with Donald J. Trump, in which the then-real-estate mogul allegedly assaulted her in a dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store in midtown Manhattan. The episode is one of six incidents Carroll details in the article of attacks on her by men over the course of her life. Another episode involves the disgraced former CEO of CBS, Les Moonves. The cover story is an excerpt from her newest book, What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal, which will be published on July 2.... In Carroll's account, Trump shoves her against a wall inside a dressing room, pulls down her tights, and, 'forcing his fingers around my private area, thrusts his penis halfway -- or completely, I'm not certain — inside me.'... New York has verified that Carroll did disclose the attack to [two journalist] friends at the time, and has confirmed that Bergdorf Goodman kept no security footage that would prove or disprove Carroll's story.... In a statement released to the White House Press Pool, Donald Trump denied Carroll's allegation, saying that 'I've never met this person in my life.' The full statement is [published with Jones' story]. "

     ... Carroll's account is here. In the New York cover picture of Carroll, she is wearing the coatdress, "unworn and unlaundered since that evening" Trump assaulted her. Hmm, DNA? Trump's claim Friday that "I've never met this person in my life" is ever-so-slightly undercut by the picture of Trump, Carroll & others chatting at an NBC party in about 1987. ...

... Laura McGann of Vox: "Donald Trump deployed half a dozen tactics in a press release on Friday that any abuser would recognize. Trump's goal was to get us to question our own eyes and discredit columnist E. Jean Carroll, who described an encounter with Trump in the 1990s that ended in rape.... Tactic #1: Inject doubt. I've never met this person in my life.' ... Even if Trump didn't remember Carroll, he certainly read the article and would have seen the photo of himself with her. It's just not true that he never met her -- and he knows it.... Tactic #2: Misdirect. 'Shame on those who make up false stories of assault to try to get publicity for themselves, or sell a book, or carry out a political agenda -- like Julie Swetnick who falsely accused Justice Brett Kavanaugh.... Trump is attempting to make us forget that [Christine] Ford was at the center of the Kavanaugh controversy, instead bringing up a woman named Julie Swetnick ... [whose] account was far less specific and detailed [than] ... Ford's account.... Tactic #6: Cryptic threat of violence. 'The world should know what's really going on. It is a disgrace and people should pay dearly for such false accusations.' He's ... not just warning Carroll. He says 'people should pay dearly' -- as in, anyone who might come forward in the future." ...

... Madison Pauly of Mother Jones: "This is an unequivocal description of first-degree rape, according to Roger Canaff, a former sex crimes prosecutor in the Bronx.... But the statute of limitations for first-degree rape was just five years in New York in the mid-1990s, when the incident is alleged to have occurred. (Carroll claims the attack took place in either the fall of 1995 or the spring of 1996.) New York changed its statute in 2006 to give prosecutors unlimited time to bring first degree rape-charges, but the new law doesn't apply to cases in which the statute of limitations has already expired."

Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "President Trump plans to nominate Mark T. Esper, the secretary of the Army and former West Point classmate of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to be the next defense secretary, administration officials said on Friday. They said that Mr. Trump would send the nomination to lawmakers on Capitol Hill in the next few days. If confirmed, Mr. Esper, an Army infantryman who fought in the gulf war before becoming a lobbyist for Raytheon, would succeed Jim Mattis, who resigned in December during a dispute over pulling American troops out of Syria. Mr. Esper is set to become acting defense secretary on Sunday, following the abrupt resignation of Patrick M. Shanahan, who also was nominated by Mr. Trump to the top Pentagon job. Mr. Shanahan withdrew on Tuesday amid news reports about his 2011 divorce." (Also linked yesterday.)

Priscilla Alvarez, et al., of CNN: "Immigration and Customs Enforcement is pressing forward to arrest and deport families with court-ordered removals in 10 cities beginning Sunday, according to a senior immigration official, after ... Donald Trump's tweet revealing an operation was imminent. But acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan has been hesitant about elements of the operation, according to two sources familiar with his thinking.... A senior administration official told CNN the operation had been planned for some time, but said the tweet [claiming ICE would deport "millions" of undocumented immigrants next week] had put the operation at the forefront." ...

... Angelina Chapin of the Huffington Post: "Four toddlers were so severely ill and neglected at a U.S. Border Patrol facility in McAllen, Texas, that lawyers forced the government to hospitalize them last week. The children, all under age 3 with teenage mothers or guardians, were feverish, coughing, vomiting and had diarrhea, immigration attorneys told HuffPost on Friday. Some of the toddlers and infants were refusing to eat or drink. One 2-year-old's eyes were rolled back in her head, and she was 'completely unresponsive' and limp, according to Toby Gialluca, a Florida-based attorney." ...

When I became president, President Obama had a separation policy. I didn't have it. He had it. -- Donald Trump, Thursday, in a Telemundo interview

Immigration experts have told us that family separations were relatively rare under Obama and other past administrations. They did not happen at nearly the scale that they did under the Trump administration.... The controversial family separations under Trump's watch happened as a result of a new policy introduced in April 2018 by Trump's then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions.... In March 2017, then-DHS Secretary John Kelly told CNN he was considering separating children from parents to deter illegal immigration.... Amid growing backlash and criticism of family separations, Trump issued an executive order to keep families together, even if a parent faced prosecution.... Before issuing the order, Trump had claimed that family separations could not be stopped through an executive order. That wasn't true, either. -- Miriam Valvalde of PolitiFact

Funny how Trump tells a completely different story to Telemundo than his does to Trumpbots. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

Juan Cole: "US Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt has stated that next week's Bahrain economic workshop is the first part of the United State's peace plan known as 'Deal of the Century.' Greenblatt has also emphasized to the Israeli news agency 'i24NEWS' that the workshop will be concidsered [sic] as 'apolitical' due to the Palestinian Authority's decision to boycott the conference. Subsequently, no Israeli government officials would be invited nor any other foreign leaders or ministers.... [T]he current focus is on attracting investors and looking for donors to build up the Palestinian economy while garnering feedback." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "A white Mississippi prosecutor violated the Constitution by excluding black jurors from the sixth trial of Curtis Flowers, a black man who was convicted of murdering four people in 1996 in a furniture store, the Supreme Court ruled on Friday. Justice \Brett M. Kavanaugh, writing for a seven-justice majority, said the prosecutor, Doug Evans, had run afoul of the court's 1986 decision in Batson v. Kentucky. 'Equal justice under law requires a criminal trial free of racial discrimination in the jury selection process,' Justice Kavanaugh wrote. 'Enforcing that constitutional principle, Batson ended the widespread practice in which prosecutors could (and often would) routinely strike all black prospective jurors in cases involving black defendants. Chief Justice John G. Roberts's decision to assign the majority opinion in a high-profile case to the court's newest member may have been prompted by Justice Kavanaugh's longstanding interest in race discrimination in jury selection. When he was a law student at Yale, Justice Kavanaugh wrote an article in Yale Law Journal calling for vigorous enforcement of the Batson decision.... Justice Clarence Thomas dissented.... Justice Neil M. Gorsuch joined most of Justice Thomas's dissent. In a passage in which Justice Thomas spoke only for himself, he wrote that he had profound doubts about whether the Batson decision had been correctly decided in the first place." Mrs. McC: Yeah, Neil, that figures. (Also linked yesterday.)

Kyla Mandel of ThinkProgress: "It is going to cost the United States at least $400 billion over the next 20 years to protect the nation's public infrastructure -- everything from roads and rail lines to bridges, airports, and sewage treatment systems -- to withstand the impacts of sea level rise.... The price tag is almost as much as it took to build the original interstate highway system, which cost $114 billion at the time ($521 billion when accounting for inflation) over 36 years and now spans over 48,000 miles.... Moreover, all of this vital work would need to be done in half the amount of time it took to build the nation's highway system." --safari: You think D.C. is up to the task? (Also linked yesterday.)

Presidential Race 2020

Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Nearly every Democratic presidential candidate converged in South Carolina on Friday to pay homage to the state party's most powerful political kingmaker [-- Rep. James Clyburn --] and court black voters and women — two of its crucial voting blocs.... Mr. Clyburn is the highest-ranking African-American in Congress, an influential figure in this state's Democratic primaries and, most recently, has perhaps been Mr. Biden's most important ally."

** Frank Rich: Joe Biden's "Trump-like refusal to apologize for his tone-deaf remarks about the civility he enjoyed with segregationist colleagues in the Senate shows that he really is clueless. He keeps protesting that he's not a bigot and that he (mostly) supported civil-rights legislation. True, but that's changing the subject. His behavior this week reminds us that there are fundamental failures of empathy and historical sophistication that explain why he was flummoxed by the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings and why he championed the 1994 'tough on crime' law that contributed to the rise of mass incarceration. It's why, in 2019, he actually considers it an accolade that a viciously racist senator called him 'son' instead of 'boy.' Biden's tipping of his hat to the Senators James O. Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge of Georgia for their 'civility' in getting 'the job done' in the Senate suggests he has no idea of who they were beyond their staunch support of racial segregation. Their adamant opposition to civil rights, toxic as it was, doesn't begin to describe what they believed and what they did in public office." (Also linked yesterday.)

Danny Hakim of the New York Times recounts the story of Jane O'Meara Sanders' ill-fated attempt to create a campus for a small alternative college in Burlington, Vermont. In 2016, "the top Trump campaign official in Vermont filed a complaint, leading to a federal inquiry that examined whether Ms. Sanders -- the wife & close political advisor of Sen. Bernie Sanders -- had inflated donor commitments to secure a bank loan for the property, and whether her husband had pressured the bank to make the loan.... Federal prosecutors have not spoken publicly about their investigation, though late last year, Ms. Sanders's lead lawyer said he had been told it had been closed" without bringing charges against O'Meara Sanders.

Beyond the Beltway

Alaska. Owen Daugherty of The Hill: "Several attendees at a government meeting open to the public in Alaska walked out in protest after an opening prayer praised Satan. The Associated Press reports the prayer, where a woman declared 'Hail Satan,' was given by Satanic Temple member Iris Fontana, who won the right to open the meeting with an invocation of her choice." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Georgia. Elham Katami of ThinkProgress: "Georgia state officials said Tuesday that 30,000 residents will lose their Medicaid coverage for failing to respond to renewal notices. But lawyers of many of the recipients affected say their clients were dropped from coverage without ever having received those notices.... According to the [Atlanta Journal Constitution], the [Department of Community Health] admitted that some beneficiaries did not receive renewal notices, but added that the number is small, approximately 70 people. Lawyers, however, claim that the number is in the thousands." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

North Carolina. Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer: "[On election day in 2016]..., the electronic poll books -- records of who's eligible to vote, to be manned by workers with laptops -- had crashed, and Durham County [a democratic stronghold in North Carolina] soon took the whole system off-line. The hasty switch to printed poll books ... was a comedy of errors.... In the end ... Trump won [the state] by 173,000 votes.... Just days before the 2016 voting ... [Susan Greenhalgh, the executive director of an alliance called the National Election Defense Coalition] first reports that Russian operatives had tried to hack into an election technology company called VR Systems. She wondered that day if VR Systems was Durham's vendor. It was. Incredibly, it is just now -- 32 long months after ... that officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have finally launched a serious probe into the possibility that Russian hackers crashed the computers or altered data that caused those crushing lines.... North Carolina's problems have experts worried that the real interference could come from crashing the poll books or altering addresses or voting histories to cause mass chaos on Election Day." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Wisconsin. Patrick Marley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld lame-duck laws Friday that limit the power of the state's new Democratic governor, handing Republicans a victory in one of several legal fights over the laws. Two other lawsuits over the lame-duck laws are ongoing. The state Supreme Court is considering one and a federal judge the other. In Friday's 4-3 decision, conservatives on the state's high court found lawmakers were allowed to bring themselves into session in December to trim the authority of Gov. Tony Evers and Attorney General Josh Kaul just before they took office." (Also linked yesterday.)

Way Beyond

U.K. Jim Waterson of the Guardian: "Police were called to the home of Boris Johnson and his partner, Carrie Symonds, in the early hours of Friday morning after neighbours heard a loud altercation involving screaming, shouting and banging. The argument could be heard outside the property where the potential future prime minister is living with Symonds, a former Conservative party head of press. A neighbour told the Guardian they heard a woman screaming followed by 'slamming and banging'. At one point Symonds could be heard telling Johnson to 'get off me' and 'get out of my flat'.... Johnson and Symonds have increasingly appeared together at public events in recent weeks. The former mayor of London topped Thursday's ballot of Conservative MPs in the party leadership contest and is now the favourite against Jeremy Hunt to be the next prime minister."

The Commentariat -- June 21, 2019

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

So here's the latest version of the evolving Trump-Changes-His-Mind story:

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Get that? These generals are so stupid & careless ("Great people, these generals," Trump says facetiously) that they have given no consideration to and have no idea of what the body count is projected to be. The "generals" (no "admirals"??) have to leave the room & phone for an answer from some functionary in the Pentagon basement. Then they come back, and for the first time, tell Trump that the strikes are likely to kill 150 people. Up till 10 minutes before missiles are to be launched, no top aides or military leaders have weighed in on "collateral damage." It's up to Our Hero Donald Trump to bring up the issue at liftoff-minus-ten. Unbelievable? Youbetcha. ...

     ... Deb Reichmann, et al., of the AP: "Trump's assertion that he learned only at the last minute of his military advisers' casualty estimate does not align with the usual way a president is briefed on military attack options. An assessment of the likelihood of casualties, whether civilian or military, and a broad estimate of the number, normally are a major element of each option provided to the commander in chief.... Asked how he was weighing his options, Trump said in a meeting with congressional leaders Thursday, 'My gut,' according to a person familiar with the exchange.... Although top congressional leaders met with Trump at the White House on Thursday to discuss Iran, he apparently did not tell them an attack was imminent." Mrs. McC: Jonathan Lamire of the AP said on MSNBC that the AP's reporting indicated that Trump had received casualty estimated hours before the planned strike. ...

... Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump said Friday morning that the United States military had been 'cocked and loaded' for a strike against Iran on Thursday night, but that he called it off with 10 minutes to spare when a general told him that 150 people would likely die in the attack.... The president said in a series of tweets just after 9 a.m. that he was prepared to retaliate against three sites in Iran for that country's shooting down an American drone, but that he was 'in no hurry.' He indicated that the death of 150 Iranians would not be 'proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone.' It was unclear why Mr. Trump would have been getting information about possible casualties so late in the process of launching military action. Such information is typically discussed early in the deliberations between a president and national security officials." ...

... David Graham of the Atlantic: "There's no shame in calling back the strike.... Yet the story of how it happened, by Trump's own account, is chilling. There seem to be three possibilities. One is that Trump was railroaded by advisers who are reportedly far more hawkish on Iran than he is, and only at the last minute realized what was happening, in which case he's being ill-served by his aides. A second is that Trump was given other, more proportionate options, and estimates of the casualties each would produce, and only stopped to consider these questions as the planes were in the air -- not the sign of the sort of careful, measured decision-making one wants in national-security decisions. A third is that Trump knew exactly what he was doing and it was all a big performance. That possibility is perhaps most supported by Trump's own account and by his past history of using the military as a prop. That's also what a source told Maggie Haberman[.]" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: See also my comment in the thread below. I still think the not-paying-attention explanation is possible. ...

... Wonkette's Five Dollar Feminist has some thoughts. ...

... Jack Crosbie of Splinter also is worried about the influence of the "Fox & Friends" National Security Council. ...

... Connor Mannion of Mediaite: "Trump tweeted out the phrasing ['cocked and loaded'], a deviation from the usual term 'locked and loaded,' while tweeting out an explanation about why he abruptly called off a major military strike against Iran that would have been in retaliation for a shot-down drone aircraft. Twitter quickly caught on and joked about the phrasing.... Tina Dupuy[:] '"Cocked and loaded" sounds like the porn version of a John Wayne film.'" Thanks to Ken W. for the link.

Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "President Trump plans to nominate Mark T. Esper, the secretary of the Army and former West Point classmate of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to be the next defense secretary, administration officials said on Friday. They said that Mr. Trump would send the nomination to lawmakers on Capitol Hill in the next few days. If confirmed, Mr. Esper, an Army infantryman who fought in the gulf war before becoming a lobbyist for Raytheon would succeed Jim Mattis, who resigned in December during a dispute over pulling American troops out of Syria. Mr. Esper is set to become acting defense secretary on Sunday, following the abrupt resignation of Patrick M. Shanahan, who also was nominated by Mr. Trump to the top Pentagon job. Mr. Shanahan withdrew on Tuesday amid news reports about his 2011 divorce."

Andrew Desiderio & Natasha Bertrand of Politico: "The House Intelligence Committee will issue a subpoena to Felix Sater, a former business associate of ... Donald Trump who was the chief negotiator for the failed Trump Tower Moscow project, after he failed to show up for a voluntary interview Friday morning. 'The committee had scheduled a voluntary staff-level interview with Mr. Sater, but he did not show up this morning as agreed,' said Patrick Boland, a spokesman for Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). 'As a result, the committee is issuing a subpoena to compel his testimony.' Sater told Politico that the interview is 'being rescheduled.' His attorney, Robert Wolff, said in a statement that Sater couldn't attend Friday's interview 'due to health reasons' but looks forward to voluntarily appearing once it's rescheduled." Mrs. McC: Right.

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "A white Mississippi prosecutor violated the Constitution by excluding black jurors from the sixth trial of Curtis Flowers, a black man who was convicted of murdering four people in 1996 in a furniture store, the Supreme Court ruled on Friday. Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, writing for a seven-justice majority, said the prosecutor, Doug Evans, had run afoul of the court's 1986 decision in Batson v. Kentucky. 'Equal justice under law requires a criminal trial free of racial discrimination in the jury selection process,' Justice Kavanaugh wrote. 'Enforcing that constitutional principle, Batson ended the widespread practice in which prosecutors could (and often would) routinely strike all black prospective jurors in cases involving black defendants. Chief Justice John G. Roberts's decision to assign the majority opinion in a high-profile case to the court's newest member may have been prompted by Justice Kavanaugh's longstanding interest in race discrimination in jury selection. When he was a law student at Yale, Justice Kavanaugh wrote an article in Yale Law Journal calling for vigorous enforcement of the Batson decision.... Justice Clarence Thomas dissented.... Justice Neil M. Gorsuch joined most of Justice Thomas's dissent. In a passage in which Justice Thomas spoke only for himself, he wrote that he had profound doubts about whether the Batson decision had been correctly decided in the first place." Mrs. McC: Yeah, Neil, that figures.

Kyla Mandel of ThinkProgress: "It is going to cost the United States at least $400 billion over the next 20 years to protect the nation's public infrastructure -- everything from roads and rail lines to bridges, airports, and sewage treatment systems -- to withstand the impacts of sea level rise.... The price tag is almost as much as it took to build the original interstate highway system, which cost $114 billion at the time ($521 billion when accounting for inflation) over 36 years and now spans over 48,000 miles.... All of this vital work would need to be done in half the amount of time it took to build the nation's highway system." --safari: You think D.C. is up to the task?

Alaska. Owen Daugherty of The Hill: "Several attendees at a government meeting open to the public in Alaska walked out in protest after an opening prayer praised Satan. The Associated Press reports the prayer, where a woman declared 'Hail Satan,' was given by Satanic Temple member Iris Fontana, who won the right to open the meeting with an invocation of her choice." --s

Georgia. Elham Katami of ThinkProgress: "Georgia state officials said Tuesday that 30,000 residents will lose their Medicaid coverage for failing to respond to renewal notices. But lawyers of many of the recipients affected say their clients were dropped from coverage without ever having received those notices.... According to the [Atlanta Journal Constitution], the [Department of Community Health] admitted that some beneficiaries did not receive renewal notices, but added that the number is small, approximately 70 people. Lawyers, however, claim that the number is in the thousands." --s

North Carolina. Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer: "[On election day in 2016]..., the electronic poll books -- records of who's eligible to vote, to be manned by workers with laptops -- had crashed, and Durham County [a democratic stronghold in North Carolina] soon took the whole system off-line. The hasty switch to printed poll books ... was a comedy of errors.... In the end ... Trump won [the state] by 173,000 votes.... Just days before the 2016 voting ... [Susan Greenhalgh, the executive director of an alliance called the National Election Defense Coalition] first reports that Russian operatives had tried to hack into an election technology company called VR Systems. She wondered that day if VR Systems was Durham's vendor. It was. Incredibly, it is just now -- 32 long months after ... that officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have finally launched a serious probe into the possibility that Russian hackers crashed the computers or altered data that caused those crushing lines.... North Carolina's problems have experts worried that the real interference could come from crashing the poll books or altering addresses or voting histories to cause mass chaos on Election Day." --s

Wisconsin. Patrick Marley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld lame-duck laws Friday that limit the power of the state's new Democratic governor, handing Republicans a victory in one of several legal fights over the laws. Two other lawsuits over the lame-duck laws are ongoing. The state Supreme Court is considering one and a federal judge the other. In Friday's 4-3 decision, conservatives on the state's high court found lawmakers were allowed to bring themselves into session in December to trim the authority of Gov. Tony Evers and Attorney General Josh Kaul just before they took office."

Juan Cole: "US Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt has stated that next week's Bahrain economic workshop is the first part of the United State's peace plan known as 'Deal of the Century.' Greenblatt has also emphasized to the Israeli news agency 'i24NEWS' that the workshop will be concidsered [sic] as 'apolitical' due to the Palestinian Authority's decision to boycott the conference. Subsequently, no Israeli government officials would be invited nor any other foreign leaders or ministers.... [T]he current focus is on attracting investors and looking for donors to build up the Palestinian economy while garnering feedback." --s

~~~~~~~~~~

** Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump approved military strikes against Iran in retaliation for downing an American surveillance drone, but pulled back from launching them on Thursday night after a day of escalating tensions. As late as 7 p.m. Thursday, military and diplomatic officials were expecting a strike, after intense discussions and debate at the White House among the president's top national security officials and congressional leaders, according to multiple senior administration officials involved in or briefed on the deliberations. Officials said the president had initially approved attacks on a handful of Iranian targets, like radar and missile batteries. The operation was underway in its early stages when it was called off, a senior administration official said. Planes were in the air and ships were in position, but no missiles had been fired when word came to stand down, the official said.... Senior administration officials said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; John R. Bolton, the national security adviser; and Gina Haspel, the C.I.A. director, had favored a military response. But top Pentagon officials cautioned that such an action could result in a spiraling escalation with risks for American forces in the region." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: As Ben Rhodes said on MSNBC Thursday night, "We have no foreign policy."

... Rebecca Kheel of the Hill: "Democrats told President Trump in a situation room meeting Thursday he needs to get congressional authorization before taking military action against Iran, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. 'I told the president that these conflicts have a way of escalating. The president may not intend to go to war here, but we're worried that -- and the administration may bumble into a war,' Schumer told reporters at Capitol Hill after the meeting. 'We told the room that the Democratic position is that congressional approval must be required before funding any conflict in Iran,' he continued. 'One of the best ways to avoid bumbling into a war, a war that nobody wants, is to have a robust open debate and for Congress to have a real say. We learned that lesson in the run-up to Iraq.' Trump invited congressional leaders from both parties and chambers to the White House situation room to discuss Iran after Tehran shot down a U.S. drone."

Kristen Welker, et al., of NBC News: "... Donald Trump on Thursday said the public will 'find out' about a U.S. response to Iran shooting down an American military drone in the Persian Gulf that the president insisted was in international territory.... 'Iran made a very bad mistake,' the president continued. 'The drone was in international waters clearly. We have it documented.'... 'I have a feeling that someone under the command of that country made a big mistake,' he said. 'I find it hard to believe it was intentional. It could have been someone who was loose and stupid who did it.'... Trump has invited Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., to a briefing at the White House at 3:00 p.m. Thursday...." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Luis Martinez of ABC News: "In a major provocation, Iran shot down an unarmed and unmanned U.S. RQ-4A Global Hawk drone while it was flying in international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, U.S. Central Command confirmed in a statement.... Donald Trump tweeted Thursday morning that 'Iran made a very big mistake' after a top Iranian commander warned Iran was 'ready for war.'... A U.S. official confirmed to ABC News that the U.S. Navy was were working to recover the drone in a debris field the official said was located in international waters near the Strait of Hormuz." (Also linked yesterday.) More on this linked yesterday. ...

... David Axe of the Daily Beast: “The U.S. military drone Iran shot down over the Persian Gulf on Thursday was a high-flying prototype model belonging to the Navy. The Navy for years has deployed the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance Demonstrator, or BAMS-D, drones on an emergency basis, stationing the 737-size unmanned aerial vehicles to watch over Syria and Iran. The unarmed BAMS-D drone 'was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile system while operating in international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz,' Navy Capt. Bill Urban, a U.S. Central Command spokesperson, told The Daily Beast via email. 'Iranian reports that the aircraft was over Iran are false,' Urban added.... A single Global Hawk sells for more than $200 million, counting the cost of its sensors. Operators control the drone from work stations on the ground, beaming commands via satellite to the pilotless aircraft." ...

... Juan Cole: "... this crisis is of Trump's making. His conviction that he could stiff Iran without consequences, all for the sake of looking tough with his MAGA base, was a serious miscalculation. It is the problem with having an ignorant and yet opinionated man at the helm of the US government. He is guaranteed to make basic mistakes that put the US on a war footing even though that appears to be the last thing Trump wants. Unfortunately, Iran will provoke again, and next time the US warmongers may win the argument." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: Almost all of the experts & pundits I heard on the teevee Thursday were jumping up & down in their chairs crying, "But Trump has no idea what he's doing! This is insane! Trump caused this problem in the first place! This has been a Bolton wetdream for decades! It turns out Dr. Strangelove has a walrus mustache." Or something like that.

** Cedar Attanasio, et al., of the AP: "A traumatic and dangerous situation is unfolding for some 250 infants, children and teens locked up for up to 27 days without adequate food, water and sanitation, according to a legal team that interviewed dozens of children at a Border Patrol station in Texas. The attorneys who recently visited the facility near El Paso told The Associated Press that three girls, ages 10 to 15, said they had been taking turns watching over a sick 2-year-old boy because there was no one else to look after him. When the lawyers saw the boy, he wasn't wearing a diaper and had wet his pants, and his shirt was smeared in mucus. They said at least 15 children at the facility had the flu, and some were kept in medical quarantine. The children told lawyers that they were fed uncooked frozen food or rice and had gone weeks without bathing or a clean change of clothes at the facility in Clint, in the desert scrubland some 25 miles southeast of El Paso. 'In my 22 years of doing visits with children in detention I have never heard of this level of inhumanity,' said Holly Cooper, an attorney who represents detained youth." ...

... Nicole Goodkind of Newsweek: "The Trump administration went to court this week to argue that migrant children detained at the United States-Mexico border do not require basic hygiene products like soap and toothbrushes in order to be in held in 'safe and sanitary' conditions. Trump's team also argued that requiring minors to sleep on cold concrete floors in crowded cells with low temperatures similarly fulfilled that requirement." Mrs. McC: If the government loses -- and it's a good guess it will based on the judges' outraged responses to the government's assertions -- the Trump administration lawyer said it would appeal. ...

... A Very Unhappy Anniversary. Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "Exactly one year ago on Thursday, after a national uproar, Donald Trump signed an executive order ending his administration's policy of separating migrant children from their parents. Six days later, a federal judge ordered the reunification of thousands of parents and children whom the American government had torn apart.... It seemed that one of the ugliest chapters of this vicious administration had ended. But if there's one thing this administration rarely backs down on, it's cruelty. Family separation, it turns out, never really stopped.... There are kids in this country being systematically brutalized by the American government, and it's hard to keep that in the forefront of your mind all the time without going mad.... People can just shut down.... I think Trump understands this as well."

The Trump Scandals, Ctd.

You might want to send these videos to your Trumpbot brother-in-law. Rob Reiner directed:

Andrew Desiderio & Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Hope Hicks refused to answer 155 questions from House Democrats on Wednesday about her tenure as communications director in the Trump White House, according to a transcript of her closed-door testimony released Thursday.... Two White House lawyers, Michael Purpura and Patrick Philbin, objected to lawmakers' and committee staffers' questions every time the inquiry touched on Hicks' service in the White House and during the presidential transition period, which pre-dates Trump's presidency.... Hicks' attorney, Robert Trout, said his client was 'simply following the guidance of the White House.'" ...

     ... Rachel Maddow read some of the more interesting parts of the Hicks interview. (Sadly, no sock puppets.):

... Andrew Desiderio: “Hope Hicks broke with ... Donald Trump during her interview with the House Judiciary Committee this week, telling lawmakers that offers of foreign assistance in U.S. elections should be 'rejected and reported to the FBI,' Chairman Jerry Nadler said on Thursday.... Nadler indicated during a Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday that Hicks was also asked about Trump's recent comments to ABC News in which he suggested that he would accept a foreign adversary's offer of damaging information about a political opponent. According to Nadler, Hicks 'knew that the president's statement was troubling' and 'understood the president to be serious.' Nadler did not quote Hicks directly, but the transcript of her testimony is set to be released later this week." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Here's Jerry Nadler's Rationale on How Great the Hicks "Testimony" Was. Andrew Desiderio & Kyle Cheney: "House Democrats are planning to file a lawsuit within days to force former White House counsel Don McGahn to testify on Capitol Hill -- and they say Hope Hicks' reluctant testimony Wednesday will help deliver them a crucial win in court. Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said Hicks' blanket refusal to tell lawmakers about her tenure in the West Wing is the real-life illustration Democrats needed to show a judge just how extreme the White House's blockade on witness testimony has become. 'It very much played into our hands,' Nadler said in an interview in his Capitol Hill office Thursday." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Also too, weren't House Democrats "planning to file a lawsuit within days against Don McGahn" a couple of weeks ago? There are 29,434 days between now and January 1, 2100. So one could say the new century is coming "within days."

Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "Federal prosecutors in a new court filing Thursday allege that longtime Donald Trump associate Roger Stone has violated his gag order in his criminal case with recent social media posts. 'In the past several days, Stone posted statements on social media about this case and the special counsel's investigation and appears to have specifically targeted those posts at major media outlets,' prosecutors said in a court filing Thursday. 'On or about June 18 and 19, 2019, the defendant posted to Instagram and Facebook, commenting about this case and inviting news organizations to cover the issue,' prosecutors wrote. 'This is a violation of the current conditions of release.' Stone was barred by Judge Amy Berman Jackson from making public statements about his case in February...." ...

... Natasha Bertrand of Politico: "Government investigators independently verified that Russian operatives hacked the Democratic National Committee in 2016 and did not rely on a private cyber firm's findings, federal prosecutors in the Roger Stone case in a court filing on Thursday. The prosecutors were rebutting a claim made in a prior court filing by Stone ... that the government relied only on 'an inconclusive and unsubstantiated report' written by cyber research firm CrowdStrike and did not 'collect any evidence of the DNC breach directly.'"

Jordain Carney of the Hill: "The Senate is voting Thursday to block President Trump's Saudi arms deal, paving the way for a veto clash with the White House. Senators voted 53-45 in favor of a resolution of disapproval to block one of the 22 arms sales the administration noticed to Congress, though the vote is ongoing. The Senate is expected to block the entire arms deal on Thursday with two additional back-to-back subsequent votes.... House Democrats have pledged they will also pass resolutions blocking the sale. Neither chamber is expected to be able to muster the two-thirds votes necessary to override all-but-guaranteed vetoes from Trump in response." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Update. Marianne Levine of Politico: "The Senate voted to block arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on Thursday, rebuking ... Donald Trump's foreign policy in the aftermath of the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Trump, whose administration signaled it would bypass congressional opposition to the sale of arms, is expected to veto the Senate's resolutions."

Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times: "Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., on Wednesday called for ... Donald Trump to be subject to an impeachment inquiry, notable since she is part of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's leadership team, and the speaker has counseled restraint. 'This is a personal decision on my part,' Schakowsky said in a video." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... NPR has a handy "impeachment tracker" here. "Currently, 69 Democrats and one Republican in the House of Representatives support beginning an impeachment inquiry into Trump for potential obstruction of justice." The tracker has not been updated to include Schakowsky's announcement, so that would be at least 71 House members. (Also linked yesterday.)

Matt Stieb of New York: "On Wednesday, the Senate voted to confirm Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk to a lifetime federal seat, overriding the objections of all the body's voting Democrats and one Republican, Maine senator Susan Collins. With a 52-46 vote, the 42-year-old Kacsmaryk will head to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, bringing an alarming history of opinions questioning the rights of LGBTQ Americans and the legitimacy of Roe v. Wade." Read on. Mrs. McC: This horrible bigot is not qualified to judge a dog show, much less you & me. Shame on Senate Republicans. (Also linked yesterday.)

Presidential Race 2020. Lisa Lerer & Reid Epstein of the New York Times: "A few hours [after Joe Biden said Cory Booker should apologize to him for criticizing Biden's invocation of segregationists, and] after Mr. Booker responded angrily on CNN to the former vice president, Mr. Biden called him in an effort to decrease tensions.... The tone between the men was conciliatory; still, the former vice president and his allies have stood by his remarks. For decades, Mr. Biden's garrulous political style has led to the kind of gaffes that contributed to the demise of his previous presidential aspirations. Yet Donald J. Trump's refusal to admit any misstep during his winning presidential campaign may have shifted the gaffe gauge in American politics -- as well as some Democrats' expectations about their own candidates.

Senate Race 2020. James Arkin of Politico: "Roy Moore, the controversial Republican judge who lost a 2017 Senate race in deep-red Alabama amid allegations of sexual misconduct with young girls decades ago, is defying GOP opposition and running again in 2020, he announced Thursday.... Republicans fear Moore's candidacy could be a major roadblock in the GOP's path to retaking a critical Senate seat. Figures at every level of the party, including ... Donald Trump, had urged Moore to forgo another run, fearing that he would be the only candidate who would lose to Democratic Sen. Doug Jones. But Moore was defiant on Thursday, calling out by name leadership and staff at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, as well as top advisers and allies of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell."

Christian Nation, Ctd. Nina Totenberg & Domenico Montanaro of NPR: "The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a 40-foot World War I memorial cross can stay on public land at a Maryland intersection. The cross 'has become a prominent community landmark, and its removal or radical alteration at this date would be seen by many not as a neutral act but as the manifestation of a hostility toward religion that has no place in our Establishment Clause traditions,' the court wrote. Justice Alito wrote the majority opinion for the court.... The decision was 7-to-2, but had multiple parts and not all of the seven agreeing on every aspect. The decision reverses a lower-court ruling that said the memorial is unconstitutional because it is on public land and maintained at taxpayer expense. The high court's ruling is a major victory for religious groups and the American Legion, which warned that if this cross had to be moved, so too would other crosses that serve as war memorials.... Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in dissent, disagreed with Alito...." According to CNN, Justice Ginsberg read her dissent from the bench. The opinions are here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Alice Ollstein of Politico: "A federal appeals court this morning said the Trump administration's family planning rules can take effect nationwide while several lawsuits play out, delivering a major blow to Planned Parenthood and states challenging the overhaul. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the Trump administration's request to lift national injunctions ordered by lower federal courts in Oregon and Washington state, as well as a statewide injunction in California. A panel of three judges, all appointed by previous Republican presidents, said the administration will likely prevail in the legal battle over the Title X family planning program since the Supreme Court held up similar Reagan-era rules almost 30 years ago, though they were reversed by the Clinton administration before taking effect."

Dave Philipps of the New York Times: "In stunning testimony that may upend the war crimes trial of Chief Edward Gallagher of the Navy SEALs, a SEAL medic told the court on Thursday that he -- not the chief -- had killed a wounded captive in Iraq. The medic, Special Operator First Class Corey Scott, testified that he watched Chief Gallagher stab the prisoner, a teenage ISIS fighter, in the neck but that the stab wound did not appear to be life-threatening. After the chief walked away, Special Operator Scott told the court, he pressed his thumb over the captive's breathing tube until he died. 'I knew he was going to die anyway, and wanted to save him from waking up to whatever would have happened to him,' Special Operator Scott said, adding that he had seen other captives tortured and killed by Iraqi forces. He testified after being granted immunity from criminal prosecution for the events and actions that he would discuss on the stand.... Prosecutors said on Thursday that they would not drop the premeditated murder charge against the chief, despite the medic's testimony."

Capitalism Is Totally Awesome, Ctd. Michael Corkery of the New York Times: "For more than a decade, Walmart used middlemen to make dubious payments to governments around the globe in order to open new locations, United States prosecutors and securities regulators said in a settlement agreement on Thursday. But even as employees frequently raised alarm, the company's top leaders did little to prevent Walmart from being involved in bribery and corruption schemes. That lack of internal control led to a seven-year inquiry that culminated on Thursday with Walmart's Brazilian subsidiary pleading guilty to a federal crime. The guilty plea, and the $282 million in fines that Walmart has agreed to pay, capped one of the biggest investigations ever under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which makes it illegal for American corporations to bribe overseas officials.... The investigation, which was conducted by the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission, came after The New York Times revealed in 2012 that Walmart had made suspicious payments to officials in Mexico and then tried to conceal them from top executives at the company's headquarters in Bentonville, Ark.... Walmart was able to negotiate a lower fine after President Trump, who had previously criticized the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, took office." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: As Adam Davidson of the New Yorker wrote in March 2017, the Trump Organization almost certainly violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act during the construction of the Trump Tower Baku in Azerbaijan by looking the other way as "The Corleones of the Caspian," with whom Trump had partnered, bribed & colluded with local officials.

Couldn't Happen to More Deserving People. Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "The palace intrigue at the National Rifle Association deepened on Thursday as the gun group suspended its second-in-command and top lobbyist, accusing him of complicity in the recent failed coup against its chief executive, Wayne LaPierre. The accusation came in a lawsuit filed Wednesday night in New York State Supreme Court against Oliver North, the N.R.A.'s former president, who led the attempt to oust Mr. LaPierre shortly before the group's annual convention in April. The complaint provides fresh detail about the effort against Mr. LaPierre, but it is the involvement of the organization's No. 2 official, Christopher, W. Cox, that will reverberate."

Beyond the Beltway

New York. Vivian Wang of the New York Times: "... on Wednesday, [state] lawmakers passed sweeping anti-harassment legislation that supporters said would make New York's laws among the most robust in the nation. The package was the result of more than a year of lobbying by women across the state ... whose years of anger were given voice by the #MeToo movement. It was also directly tied to a group of former legislative staffers, who formed the Sexual Harassment Working Group to demand hearings an craft policy ideas, many of which were ultimately approved.... [The bills] would apply statewide, not only to government employees.... Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo [D] has promised to sign the bills."

Oregon. Hillary Borrud & Chris Lehman of the Oregonian: "Oregon Republican senators have left the Capitol and scattered in various directions outside the state in order to avoid being rounded up by troopers for a high-profile climate bill vote scheduled today. 'Protesting cap-and-trade by walking out today represents our constituency and exactly how we should be doing our job,' Senate Republican Leader Herman Baertschiger Jr., of Grants Pass, said in a written statement Thursday morning. 'We have endured threats of arrest, fines, and pulling community project funds from the governor, Senate president and majority leader. We will not stand by and be bullied by the majority party any longer.'... In response to the walkout, Senate President Peter Courtney formally requested Democratic Gov. Kate Brown to dispatch Oregon State Police troopers to round up the missing Republican Senators. Brown quickly granted that request. Democrats also announced they would fine the missing lawmakers $500 per day if they don't show up at the Capitol by 11 a.m. Friday. The money would be deducted from their salary and per diem." ...

Hillary Borrud: State “Sen. Brian Boquist, R-Dallas ... suggest[ed] he would shoot and potentially kill any state trooper sent to haul him unwillingly back to the Capitol. After Senate Republican Leader Herman Baertschiger Jr. said Tuesday that his caucus was 'prepared to take actions' to prevent passage of a major climate change bill, Gov. Brown announced on Wednesday that she was ready to answer Republican stonewalling by calling lawmakers back for a special session. Brown hinted that she would be willing to send state troopers to round up Republicans if they walk out in the final days of the regular legislative session.... 'This is what I told the superintendent,' Boquist said, referring to OSP Superintendent Travis Hampton. 'Send bachelors and come heavily armed. I'm not going to be a political prisoner in the state of Oregon. It's just that simple.'... As Willamette Week has reported, Boquist is a U.S. Army veteran whose businesses include military training and an international operation that journalists described in the 1990s as a paramilitary force of armed American and Russian ex-military officers."