The Commentariat -- September 7, 2018

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "Former President Barack Obama assailed President Trump on Friday as a 'threat to democracy' as he emerged from a period of political silence to kick off a campaign blitz intended to help Democrats take control of Congress in the November midterm elections. In a speech meant to frame his message on the campaign trail over the next two months, Mr. Obama offered a stinging indictment of his successor, sometimes by name, sometimes by inference, accusing him and his Republican supporters of practicing a 'politics of fear and resentment,' cozying up to Russia, emboldening white supremacists and politicizing law enforcement agencies." ...

Trump Takes Another Shot at the First Amendment. Mark Landler of the New York Times: "President Trump said on Friday that he wanted Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate the source of an anonymous Op-Ed essay published in The New York Times, intensifying his attack on an article he has characterized as an act of treason. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One as he traveled to Fargo, N.D., Mr. Trump said, 'I would say Jeff should be investigating who the author of that piece was because I really believe it's national security.' Mr. Trump said he was also considering action against The Times, though he did not elaborate.... In a statement on Friday, The New York Times said any such investigation would be an abuse of power.... Mr. Trump also escalated his attack on a new book by Bob Woodward, describing it as a 'total fraud' and arguing, 'I don't talk that way.' The president said libel laws should be toughened to go after Mr. Woodward for what Mr. Trump claimed was a pattern of falsehoods." ...

... Peter Baker & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "As President Trump tries to refute the portrayal in the latest attention-grabbing book, he has not only denied saying the things attributed to him, he has denied that he has ever said anything like them. The problem for Mr. Trump is that, in some cases at least, the record shows that he has. 'The Woodward book is a scam,' Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter on Friday morning.... 'I don&'t talk the way I am quoted. If I did I would not have been elected President. These quotes were made up.' In particular, Mr. Trump has denied that he called Attorney General Jeff Sessions 'mentally retarded' or a 'dumb Southerner,' as the book reports. 'I said NEITHER, never used those terms on anyone, including Jeff, and being a southerner is a GREAT thing,' the president wrote earlier this week. But, in fact, Mr. Trump has used the phrase 'mentally retarded' on recorded radio shows that have been unearthed this week. And in a previously unreported incident, a journalist who used to interact with Mr. Trump during his days as a real estate developer in New York said this week that he even used the phrase 'dumb southerner' to describe his own in-laws." He told New York Post gossip columnist Jeane MacIntosh that he was divorcing Marla Maples because "'she was constantly surrounded "by an entourage of dumb Southerners."' He even adopted a fake southern accent to mimic Ms. Maples's mother...."

This Should Go Well. Mark Landler & Maggie Haberman: "Three weeks from now, in New York, President Trump will find himself in the setting he most relishes: seated at the head of a polished table, calling on those seated around him, rewarding those he likes and cutting off those who displease him.... Mr. Trump will be presiding at the United Nations Security Council, a rotating role that falls to the United States this month. His star turn is prompting anxiety among people, inside and outside the administration, who worry that the president will bring reality-TV antics to the world stage."

Liar, Liar. Liar, Liar. "But His Emails." Jay Michaelson of the Daily Beast: "For over a month, Democrats (and this writer) have complained that the confirmation process of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is fatally flawed because the records of Kavanaugh's White House tenure were being redacted by his former deputy, then redacted again by the Trump White House, then redacted a third time by Judiciary Committee chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).... On Thursday, with the release of a half dozen emails by Grassley and several more by Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), the Democrats have been proven right. Brett Kavanaugh has misled the Senate at least four times [under oath], and the censored emails have been withheld not because of national security or executive privilege, but, at least in part, because they make Kavanaugh look bad." Do read on. ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Should a Supreme Court justice have a proven record of committing perjury at his confirmation hearings? Let me think. Maybe Republicans got used to it after the infamous Clarence Thomas hearings. Of course Thomas's lies were about sexual abuse, and boys will be boys, heh-heh. Kavanaugh's lies are about everything.

*****

Primary Election, Delaware.

The New York Times is reporting Delaware primary results here. ...

... Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Senator Tom Carper of Delaware fended off a primary challenge from his left on Thursday, dispatching a political newcomer, Kerri Evelyn Harris, in the latest test of strength between Democratic insurgents and the party establishment. The most successful statewide politician in Delaware history, Mr. Carper won renomination for a fourth Senate term and what will likely be his 14th consecutive general election victory. He had about 64 percent of the vote with 75 percent of the precincts reporting, according to The Associated Press. His deep connections in the state he has served since 1976 -- as treasurer, at-large congressman, governor and senator -- were enough for victory. But Mr. Carper, 71, had to work hard for the right to seek what he suggested could be his last term." Mrs. McC: Carper will face Republican Robert Arlett in the general election.

*****

"Trump Praises Congressman for [Physically] Assaulting a Reporter." Jonathan Chait: "Last night, at his rally in Billings, Montana, President Trump singled out the state's Republican member of Congress for praise. 'I'll tell you what,' said Trump, 'This man has fought' -- at this point, he lowered his voice into the slightly comic tone one uses to deliver an elbow-to-the-ribs punch line -- 'in more ways than one, for your state. He has fought for your state. Greg Gianforte. He is a fighter and a winner.' Last year, Gianforte was the brief focus of national attention as a candidate in a special election, after Gianforte was asked by Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs about his party's health-care plan, an issue he had dodged. Gianforte physically attacked Jacobs and slammed him to the ground. Later he lied to police about the incident." ...

... This man has lost it:

... Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "This week's revelations of a purported 'resistance' force of senior government officials acting as guardrails against President Trump -- manipulating him, infantilizing him and ignoring his directives -- raised the specter of a shadow administration. 'Who's in charge at the White House?' a reporter shouted at Trump on Thursday as he departed for a rally in Montana. The president did not answer.... Senior officials have long acted to slow-walk or stymie some of the president's ideas and directives. When he was White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus had a favored strategy, according to his colleagues -- tell the president that he would execute an order, or a firing -- but not until 'next week.' By then, Trump often would have forgotten.... In his new book, [Bob] Woodward chronicles multiple episodes in which aides deployed subterfuge against their boss.... Thursday offered fresh evidence of the divergent courses set by the president and the Justice Department. In the morning, Trump tweeted praise for North Korea's leader: 'Kim Jong Un of North Korea proclaims "unwavering faith in President Trump." Thank you to Chairman Kim. We will get it done together!' Hours later, the Justice Department announced criminal charges against Park Jin Hyok for allegedly being part of a North Korean government hacking team that crippled Sony's computer systems, stole $81 million from a Bangladesh bank and unleashed far-reaching malware." ...

... Peter Baker, et al., of the New York Times: "In a spectacle that may be without precedent even for an administration that has seen many of those already, almost the entire cabinet and leadership team working for President Trump pleaded not guilty on Thursday to writing an extraordinary anonymous essay about plotting against him. The unnamed author of the essay published by The New York Times was the target of a mole hunt by an infuriated president and the subject of an obsessive public guessing game that played out on television, online and in social media.... Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, an ally of Mr. Trump's, recommended that the president force members of his administration to take polygraph examinations, and there was at least briefly some discussion of that among advisers to the president. Another option mentioned by people close to Mr. Trump was asking senior officials to sign sworn affidavits that could be used in court if necessary. One outside adviser said the White House had a list of about 12 suspects." ...

... Matt Flegenheimer of the New York Times: "What is a senior administration official? Who counts? Certainly cabinet secretaries would qualify, and top aides in the White House, like the chief of staff. But veterans of Washington recognized that the list was potentially far broader, and murkier.... At the very least, according to the working definition used by many journalists and sources, the universe of possible senior administration officials probably numbers in the hundreds, at a minimum -- deputies, under secretaries, special assistants.... 'I was quoted as one when I was an assistant White House press secretary making $57,500 per year. Is that really senior?' said Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council under President Barack Obama." Mrs. McC: I came across this after I wrote my comment to MAG below, but Flegenheimer's piece is consistent with what I wrote. ...

... Rebels Without a Clue. Lachlan Markay, et al., of the Daily Beast: "Either Wednesday's explosive New York Times op-ed becomes the start of a bigger, public resistance to President Trump from inside his own administration, senior officials who agree Trump threatens the country tell The Daily Beast, or it will be nothing more than an exercise in moral vanity while America burns. Some officials interviewed by The Daily Beast cheered the underlying message of the anonymously written op-ed. But several worried about its lasting impact, beyond provoking a familiar Washington parlor game: outing a dissenter. There was even a fear that the op-ed would hand Trump a pretext to purge his administration of the very bureaucratic scapegoats the op-ed writer portrayed as being crucial to saving America from Trump.... Two officials inside the [Justice] department said they've been passively resisting the president since he took office in 2017. 'We see ourselves as rebels,' one official said laughing, adding that the op-ed marked a perfect time to celebrate. 'We even went around fist-bumping each other,' another official said. But a third, who feels similarly about Trump, sounded darker notes about where Trump's ire over public embarrassment could lead." ...

... Nancy Cook & Christopher Cadelago of Politico: "... Donald Trump put physical distance between himself and the mutiny he faces in Washington, jetting off Thursday for an unusual two-day Western swing amid rising questions about whether his own aides trust him to run the country.... The president left behind a White House seized with paranoia, as staffers worried that anything they say to colleagues or in meetings will become fodder for the next tell-all or leak, according to interviews with more than a half dozen White House officials and Republicans close to the administration." ...

... Denis Slattery of the New York Daily News: "White House officials reached out to a noted Yale University psychiatrist last fall out of concern over President Trump's increasingly erratic behavior. Dr. Bandy Lee, who edited the best-selling book 'The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President,' told the Daily News Thursday the staffers contacted her because the President was 'scaring' them.... Political psychologist Dr. Bart Rossi said it is clear that Trump has bee exhibiting narcissistic behavior and it has been getting worse as the pressures of the office mount and the federal Russia probe stretches on. 'The problem is he is narcissistic to the extreme. He's self-absorbed to the point where he's only concerned about himself. The other problem is that he has a thought disturbance,' Rossi added. 'When Donald Trump says something he expects others to believe it is reality even if it is completely fabricated.'" ...

... Anonymous, Multiplied. Jonathan Swan & Mike Allen of Axios: "President Trump is ... deeply suspicious of much of the government he oversees -- from the hordes of folks inside agencies, right up to some of the senior-most political appointees and even some handpicked aides inside his own White House, officials tell Axios.... In the hours after the New York Times published the anonymous Op-Ed from 'a senior official in the Trump administration'..., two senior administration officials reached out to Axios to say the author stole the words right out of their mouths.... One senior official said, 'A lot of us [were] wishing we'd been the writer, I suspect ... I hope he [Trump] knows -- maybe he does? -- that there are dozens and dozens of us.'... Several senior White House officials have described their roles to us as saving America and the world from this president. A good number of current White House officials have privately admitted to us they consider Trump unstable, and at times dangerously slow." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Manu Raju of CNN: "Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, seizing on an explosive op-ed from an anonymous administration official, said Thursday that it's time to use constitutional powers to remove ... Donald Trump office if top officials don't think he can do the job. 'If senior administration officials think the President of the United States is not able to do his job, then they should invoke the 25th Amendment,' Warren told CNN. 'The Constitution provides for a procedure whenever the Vice President and senior officials think the President can't do his job. It does not provide that senior officials go around the President -- take documents off his desk, write anonymous op-eds ... Everyone of these officials have sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States. It's time for them to do their job.'" ...

... Vichy, American-Style. Frank Rich: "Mr. Anonymous is a coward so lacking a moral compass that he doesn't realize that the best way to 'preserve our democratic institutions' (as he claims to be doing) is to identify himself, resign, and report any criminal activity he has witnessed by the president or his colleagues." He or she is a collaborator, not a resister. Rich also talks about Kavanaugh & McCain: "But Mr. Anonymous's enlistment in the Trump White House mitigates his self-aggrandizing appropriation of McCain's final message much as McCain's empowering of Palin in 2008, which he never fully disowned, casts a shadow over his subsequent anti-Trumpism." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Susan Glasser of the New Yorker on Woodward's book & the Anonymous op-ed: "For twenty months, Washington has been asking, Is this the crisis? Is this finally the constitutional confrontation we have been waiting for? The Trump Presidency, to those closely watching it, and to many of those participating in it, has always seemed unsustainable. And yet it has gone on, and will keep going on, until and unless something seismic happens in our politics -- and our Congress -- to change it. We don't need to wonder when the crisis will hit; it already has. Every day since January 20, 2017, has been the crisis." Glasser says of the op-ed: "It was as if one of Woodward's sources had chosen to publish a real-time epilogue in the pages of the Times."

... ** Michelle Goldberg: “'We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous,' the official [Anonymous] wrote, adding, 'There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture: effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more.' This is the quintessence of the Trump-enabling Republican. He or she purports to be standing between us and the calamities that our ignorant and unstable president could unleash, while complaining, in the very same op-ed, that the media doesn't give the White House enough credit.... A vote for Kavanaugh is ... a vote to give Trump a measure of impunity. Republican senators who know the president is out of control have a choice -- they can maintain a check on his ill-considered autocratic inclinations, or solidify right-wing power on the Supreme Court for a generation. It's obvious which way they'll go."

These Are Not Very Bright Guys, Ctd. ... David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "It was supposed to be a quick photo op with President Trump. But the 44 sheriffs at the White House got a lot more than that when Trump conscripted them as unwitting bystanders in a withering assault Wednesday on a critical, anonymous essay about him in the New York Times. In a surreal setting, the president turned to the uniformed law enforcement officers, assembled on a small riser in the stately East Room, for explicit support as he attacked the 'dishonest media' as a 'disgrace.'... For the sheriffs..., it was a moment of truth: How would these elected officials -- frozen in place in the background of a live television shot -- react as Trump went on for another 840 words, slamming the anonymous author as 'gutless,' predicting that the 'phony media outlets' will go out of business and boasting of his accomplishments as if delivering a campaign speech?... They gave Trump several rounds of hearty applause.... Trump routinely rails against the press corps on Twitter and at his campaign rallies. But he has begun eliciting cheers of support during more-official settings and from audiences once thought to be more immune to naked partisanship."

In many ways this is the greatest economy in the HISTORY of America. -- President Trump, in a tweet, June 4

We have the strongest economy in the history of our nation. -- Trump, in remarks to reporters, June 15

We have the greatest economy in the history of our country. -- Trump, in an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, July 16

We're having the best economy we've ever had in the history of our country. -- Trump, in a speech at a steel plant in Illinois, July 26

This is the greatest economy that we've had in our history, the best. -- Trump, in a rally in Charleston, W.Va., Aug. 21

It's said now that our economy is the strongest it's ever been in the history of our country, and you just have to take a look at the numbers. -- Trump, in remarks on a White House vlog, Aug. 24

We have the best economy the country's ever had and it's getting better. -- Trump, in an interview with the Daily Caller, Sept. 3

Now, in 40 different venues over three months, according to our database of false and misleading claims, President Trump has declared that the economy is the greatest, the best or the strongest in U.S. history. That's a rate of every two days. In some cases, such as the rally in West Virginia -- a rally, that like all of his campaign rallies was aired without interruption on Fox News -- he repeated the statement as many as four times.... By just about any important measure, the economy today is not doing as well as it did under Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson and Bill Clinton -- and Ulysses S. Grant. -- Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post

Kessler fails to point out that the economy is great only for the haves; the vast majority of Americans are not reaping the benefits. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

Margaret Hartmann: "... there]s more to add to the mounds of evidence that Trump's staff doesn't listen to him, and it has nothing to do with the op-ed or Bob Woodward's forthcoming book. Five months after Trump said the U.S. would be leaving Syria 'very soon,' and two months after he and Russia's Vladimir Putin suggested they could be partners in handling the situation in Syria, U.S. officials said the military effort there is being extended indefinitely, due partly to concerns about Russia. Back in March, President Trump seemed to announce a new Syria policy without notifying anyone else in government. 'We're coming out of Syria, like, very soon,' he said.... When top officials pushed back, saying they needed time to ensure that ISIS wouldn't reemerge in the region, Trump reportedly relented, saying they could have five or six months to wrap up the mission.... Trump shifted his public tone on Syria within a matter of weeks, as the U.S. and its allies launched missile strikes against Syria in April over a chemical attack against civilians in the city of Duoma. Yet the goal remained to have the roughly 2,200 U.S. troops in Syria exiting sometime this fall. On Thursday James Jeffrey, a retired senior Foreign Service officer who was recently named Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's 'representative for Syria engagement,' told reporters there's been a change of plans. 'The new policy is we're no longer pulling out by the end of the year,' he said. As the Washington Post explains, the Trump administration has adopted a broader mission that could keep troops in Syria indefinitely[.]"

Jonathan Lemire of the AP: "... Donald Trump will not answer federal investigators' questions, in writing or in person, about whether he tried to block the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, one of the president's attorneys told The Associated Press on Thursday. Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said questions about obstruction of justice were a 'no-go.' Giuliani's statement was the most definitive rejection yet of special counsel Robert Mueller's efforts to interview the president about any efforts to obstruct the investigation into possible coordination between his campaign and Russians. It signals the Trump's lawyers are committed to protecting the president from answering questions about actions the president took in office." ...

... Jonathan Swan & Mike Allen of Axios: "Giuliani later seemed to backtrack, telling NBC News that those questions are 'not ruled in or out.' Jonathan Swan reads between the lines: Giuliani is daring Mueller to issue a subpoena. The president's team is itching for the fight.Trump's lawyers are betting that Mueller won't have the heart for the multi-month court fight that would result from trying to compel the president to be interviewed. The White House bet: Mueller will blink and ultimately issue an incomplete report, avoiding the stakes of a court battle. The source close to the president's team explained: 'Mueller backed off from a demand for a face-to-face, to get to a compromise of written Q-and-A on Russia. And Rudy still says no. What is Mueller to do now?'" ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Say, does a refusal to cooperate with investigators betray a consciousness of guilt?

Matthew Mosk of ABC News: "George Papadopoulos, the novice, unpaid foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump who rose to prominence when he became the first former campaign adviser arrested as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russian-influence probe, is scheduled to be sentenced Friday in Washington." ...

... Aidan McLaughlin of Mediaite: "George Papadopoulos, the former foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign and a figures at the center of the Russia investigation, will appear in his first-ever T.V. interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on Friday, following his sentencing for the charge of giving false statements to the FBI. CNN will air the exclusive hour-long special with Papadopoulos on Friday night at 10 p.m., sources told Mediaite. In the interview -- which has already been taped — Papadopoulos detailed to Tapper what he told Special Counsel Robert Mueller during his cooperation with the Russia probe, a CNN source said."

Friend of Vlad Helped Write Trump's Foreign Policy Speech. Betsy Woodruff of the Daily Beast: "In the morning of April 21, 2016, a staffer at the Center for the National Interest, a Washington D.C., think tank, wandered into the office of Dimitri Simes, the group's president. The staffer saw a pile of papers on the desk titled 'FOREIGN POLICY AND DEFENSE OUTLINE.' The staffer realized the papers were the detailed outline, in bullet-pointed paragraphs, of a major foreign-policy address that then-candidate Donald Trump was set to deliver six days later as a guest of the center. The staffer used a cellphone to snap pictures of all five pages of the document.... It isn't unusual for a think-tank chief to preview drafts of a speech presented at their invitation. But Simes' proximity to the speech shows that a person Vladimir Putin once called a 'friend and colleague' had an early view into the crafting of a speech that would have historic significance for American foreign policy. Democrats on the House intelligence committee tried to investigate Simes' relationship to Trump's campaign, but Republican committee chairman Devin Nunes blocked their efforts.... The pictures demonstrate that significant changes were made from the speech's detailed outline to its final version -- including the removal of lines condemning bigotry, praising legal immigration, and disparaging Russia." (Also linked yesterday.)

Hey, Some Important News from the Daily Mail!: "Four UFOs were spotted flying over ... Donald Trump's golf course in Scotland. A golf fan shared a picture of the mysterious objects, seen in the sky above a Scottish flag at Trump's Turnberry club in Ayshire. Alongside the snap on the UFO Stalker website, he revealed his niece had takenthe picture from the balcony of the room at the luxury resort at around 8pm on August 16." Includes photo! Mrs. McC: Probably just a deep-state convoy. (Also linked yesterday.)

Mrs. McCrabbie: Mitch McConnell, Chuck Grassley, other Senate Republicans & Donald Trump have accomplished something remarkable: they have delegitimized one of the three branches of government -- the judiciary. This began of course with McConnell & Grassley's decision not to consider President Obama's nominee Merrick Garland. It continued when Donald Trump nominated hard-right hack Neil Gorsuch & the Senate confirmed him, only after it eliminated the 60-vote cloture rule that applied to Supreme Court nominees. Now we're undergoing a sham confirmation hearing in which Grassley & other Republicans are hiding embarrassing and/or disqualifying documents in the nominee's record. The Supreme Court of the United States is no longer a legitimate check on the other two branches of government. Quite an accomplishment. ...

     ... ** Update. Krugman agrees: "A vote for Kavanaugh will be a vote to destroy the legitimacy of one of the last federal institutions standing." ...

Charlie Savage & Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "The disclosure on Thursday of dozens of previously secret emails involving Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh provoked pointed new questions on the third day of his Supreme Court confirmation hearings, as Democrats pressed him to explain fresh disclosures on abortion rights, affirmative action and previous testimony to the Senate. Much of the tumult surrounded one quotation from an email that Judge Kavanaugh wrote as a lawyer in George W. Bush's White House concerning the landmark abortion decision Roe v. Wade: 'I am not sure that all legal scholars refer to Roe as the settled law of the land at the Supreme Court level since Court can always overrule its precedent, and three current Justices on the Court would do so.' To Democrats and abortion rights advocates, that March 2003 statement appeared to contradict testimony from the judge on Wednesday, when he said he considered Roe 'settled as a precedent of the Supreme Court.'" ...

... Seung Min Kim of the Washington Post: "The dramatic release Thursday of once-concealed documents from Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh's tenure in the George W. Bush White House spotlighted the simmering frustrations from Democrats over how Republicans have kept secret vast parts of Kavanaugh's voluminous paper trail. Tens of thousands of pages from Kavanaugh's records have been hidden from public view, only available to senators and certain congressional aides in advance of Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings this week. On Thursday, a small sample of the 'committee confidential' documents were disclosed after Democratic senators asked that they be approved for public release, raising questions about why the documents had been considered confidential in the first place. At the beginning of his confirmation hearings this week, nearly 200,000 pages of Kavanaugh's records from his tenure in the Bush White House had remained classified as 'committee confidential.'... A team of lawyers vetting the documents on Bush's behalf throughout the confirmation process had been giving them to the Senate Judiciary Committee on the condition that they remain 'committee confidential.'... A separate batch of more than 100,000 additional pages were withheld from the Senate Judiciary Committee altogether, because the Trump administration believes they would be covered by executive privilege." ...

... Seung Min Kim, et al., of the Washington Post: "The fight over access to Kavanaugh's records from his time in the Bush White House intensified in the opening moments of the hearing Thursday morning. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said he is prepared to violate Senate rules and release confidential committee documents -- and to risk the consequences.... 'I openly invite and accept the consequences of releasing that email right now,' Booker said. 'The emails being withheld from the public have nothing to do with national security.'" Under the committee's rules, Booker could be expelled from the Senate for releasing such records. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Tex.) angrily responded to Booker and referred to his potential aspirations for higher office, saying 'running for president is no excuse for violating the rules of the Senate.'... After Booker said he was willing to violate Senate rules and release confidential documents, Senate Democrats on the committee appeared in open revolt as Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) read aloud from the rules on expulsion." This is part of the WashPo's liveblog of today's hearing. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Update. Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) on Thursday released emails from Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's time as a White House counsel, escalating a heated fight over his documents. Booker released approximately 12 pages of emails tied to discussions Kavanaugh had on racial inequality including one email thread titled 'racial profiling.'... Tens of thousands of documents have been given to the committee under the label of committee confidential. Shortly after Booker released the documents, Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley's (R-Iowa) staff released a bulk of new emails, previously marked 'committee confidential,' that had been cleared for public release. Booker's emails were included in the document tranche." (Also linked yesterday.)

... Here's the New York Times' liveblog of the Thursday hearing. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Jenavieve Hatch of the Huffington Post: "On the third day of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he referred to contraception as 'abortion-inducing drugs.' Judge Kavanaugh was responding to a question from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Thursday about his 2015 dissent in the Priests for Life v. HHS case. Kavanaugh had sided with the religious organization, which didn't want to provide employees with insurance coverage for contraceptives.... Dawn Laguens, executive vice president at the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said it was 'no wonder' activists have been so emphatic in protesting his nomination. 'Kavanaugh referred to birth control ― something more than 95 percent of women use in their lifetime ― as an "abortion-inducing drug," which is not just flat-out wrong, but is anti-woman, anti-science propaganda,' Laguens told HuffPost.... 'Let me break it down for you, Brett,' she went on. 'Birth control is basic health care. Birth control allows women to plan their futures, participate in the economy, and ― for some women with health issues like endometriosis ― allows them to get through the day.'"

... Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "As a White House lawyer in the Bush administration, Judge Brett Kavanaugh challenged the accuracy of deeming the Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision to be 'settled law of the land,' according to a secret email obtained by The New York Times. The email, written in March 2003, is one of thousands of documents that a lawyer for President George W. Bush turned over to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the Supreme Court nominee but deemed 'committee confidential,' meaning it could not be made public or discussed by Democrats in questioning him in hearings this week. It was among several an unknown person provided to The New York Times late Wednesday. Judge Kavanaugh was considering a draft opinion piece.... It stated that 'it is widely accepted by legal scholars across the board that Roe v. Wade and its progeny are the settled law of the land.' Judge Kavanaugh proposed deleting that line, writing: 'I am not sure that all legal scholars refer to Roe as the settled law of the land at the Supreme Court level since Court can always overrule its precedent, and three current Justices on the Court would do so.'... The court now has four conservative justices who may be willing to overturn Roe ... and if he is confirmed, Judge Kavanaugh could provide the decisive fifth vote." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Brett's Application for Justice Job: Send Clear Signals He Would Overrule Roe. Irin Carmon of New York: "Leaked emails today from Brett Kavanaugh’s time in the Bush White House reveal what everyone already knew: that Trump's SCOTUS nominee will pose a threat to Roe v. Wade. To get Maine senator Susan Collins's vote, Kavanaugh called Roe v. Wade 'settled precedent,' but according to an email he wrote in 2003, 'the Court can always overrule its precedent.' In other words, though Kavanaugh recognizes that the Court has repeatedly found a right to abortion, he knows he can use his power as a justice to change that. Is Kavanaugh willing to make abortion illegal or impossible? We don't need emails to know. He wouldn't be at his third day of confirmation hearings if the Trump administration didn't think so; to get there, Kavanaugh had to send early signals to them to prove himself. He's already said everything they -- and we -- need to know about where he stands." Read on.

... Weasel Nominated to Supreme Court. Cristian Farias of New York: "When asked by Connecticut's Richard Blumenthal if he condemns questioning a judge's impartiality on the basis of his or her ethnicity, as Trump did with [District Judge Gonzalo] Curiel during the presidential campaign, Kavanaugh chose to dodge and save face rather than display judicial courage. 'The way we stand up is by deciding cases and controversies without fear or favor,' he replied. On this score, Kavanaugh is a notch below ... Neil Gorsuch, who drew Trump's ire when it came to light that he told Blumenthal privately that he found the president's attacks on the courts 'disheartening' and 'demoralizing.' The White House reportedly had to scramble to convince Trump to not pull Gorsuch's nomination. That slip of the tongue did not happen with Kavanaugh, who held steadfast to his view that commenting on a federal judiciary under siege is somehow commenting about politics. 'We stay out of politics, we don't comment on comments made by politicians,' he told Hawaii's Mazie Hirono, who had suggested that Kavanaugh was bending over backwards to not bite the hand that gave him the nomination." Read on. ...

... Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress implies that Kavanaugh might have committed perjury in 2006 lying to Congress, based on info. gleaned from his recent email dump. "If Kavanaugh did, in fact, lie to Senator Leahy during his 2006 hearing, he could potentially have much bigger programs than his current confirmation fight." --safari ...

... What about that time Brett went sailing with some bros & there was gambling going on & maybe a masseuse ("rub-n-tug") & definitely something Brett & the amateur sailors didn't want to tell their wives? Want to tell the committee about that, Brett?

Julia Ainsley of NBC News: "The Trump administration announced a new rule Thursday that would allow immigrant children with their parents to be held in detention indefinitely, upending a ban on indefinite detention that has been in place for 20 years. The rule, proposed by the departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, goes into effect in 60 days and will allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to keep children with their mothers in detention facilities while their cases for asylum play out in court. A DHS official speaking on the condition of anonymity said the purpose of the rulemaking is to terminate the 1997 Flores settlement agreement that said children could not be held in detention longer than 20 days. The result may mean the issue is taken to appellate courts or even the Supreme Court." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Nick Miroff & Maria Sacchetti of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration said Thursday it is preparing to circumvent limits on the government's ability to hold minors in immigration jails by withdrawing from the Flores Settlement Agreement, the federal consent decree that has shaped detention standards for underage migrants since 1997. The maneuver is almost certain to land the administration back in court, where U.S. District Court Judge Dolly M. Gee, who oversees the agreement, has ;rejected attempts to extend the amount of time migrant children can be held with their parents beyond the current limit of 20 days." (Also linked yesterday.)

E. A. Crunden of ThinkProgress: "The coal industry consultant [J. Steven Gardner] nominated by President Donald Trump to lead the Interior Department's mining agency has withdrawn his nomination after facing fierce backlash from green groups and environmental advocates, as well as a stalled confirmation process." --safari ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Apparently we can thank Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) -- at least in part -- for Gardner's withdrawal: "Gardner is one of several Interior Department candidates whose nomination has been stalled by the efforts of Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL). In January the Florida lawmaker placed a hold on at least three department nominees over offshore drilling concerns, a leading issue for his low-lying coastal state." Nelson is in a very tight race to keep his seat against a challenge by Gov. Lex Luthor Rick Scott.

Where Are They Now? Asawin Suebsaeng of The Daily Beast: "Just a couple years ago, [Scottie Nell] Hughes was one of the most nationally visible and hardcore Trumpworld luminaries.... Recently, Hughes updated her job description on her personal Facebook page to state that she works for RT America, a propagandistic, Kremlin-friendly news organization, previously known as Russia Today. Last year, RT had to register as a foreign agent following a protracted standoff with the U.S. Department of Justice." --safari

Carrie Johnson of NPR: "Prosecutors in Washington, D.C., have impaneled a grand jury to look into the case of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was fired from the bureau after investigators found he 'lacked candor.' The Justice Department's internal watchdog referred McCabe to the U.S. attorney's office to determine whether he should face criminal charges in addition to having lost his job. Prosecutors and grand jurors are reaching that determination now." Mrs. McC: Evidently we'll find out soon if McCabe is a ham sandwich.

Amanda Gomez of ThinkProgress: "More than 4,500 low-income Arkansans lost their health insurance over the weekend because they did not report 80 hours of work online for three consecutive months, according state data. The three-strikes law took affect in June, making Arkansas the first state to implement Medicaid work requirements in the country. Critics warned the law wouldn't move Medicaid recipients 'out of poverty' as Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) contends, but instead would kick people off coverage. Early data, first reported by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, indicates this is precisely the case." --safari

Sharon Otterman & Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times: "Attorneys general across the United States are taking a newly aggressive stance in investigating sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy, opening investigations into malfeasance and issuing subpoenas for documents. On Thursday alone, the New York State attorney general issued subpoenas to all eight Catholic dioceses in the state as part of a sweeping civil investigation into whether institutions covered up allegations of sexual abuse of children, officials said. The attorney general in New Jersey announced a criminal investigation. The new inquiries come several weeks after an explosive Pennsylvania grand jury report detailed the abuse of more than 1,000 children by hundreds of priests over decades.... In the three weeks since the release of the Pennsylvania report, the attorneys general of Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska and New Mexico have also said they will investigate sex abuse by Catholic priests in their states and have asked local dioceses for records."

Donie O'Sullivan of CNN: "Twitter banned far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his website InfoWars from its platform Thursday afternoon, a month after several of its Silicon Valley counterparts did so. Jones was suspended from Twitter for one week last month after he posted a video in which he said, 'Now is time to act on the enemy before they do a false flag.' But Twitter did not ban him from its platform then, even after YouTube, Apple and Facebook each kicked him off.... Twitter also said that it 'will take action' if in the future it discovers other accounts being used to get around the ban of Jones and InfoWars. The company made its decision a day after Jones accosted a CNN reporter, Oliver Darcy, on Capitol Hill, and livestreamed the encounter through Periscope, which Twitter owns.... Jones shouted at Darcy for more than ten minutes, accusing him of being in favor of censorship and insulting his appearance, comparing him to 'a rat' and told Darcy he was 'evil-looking.' Jones was live on Twitter's Periscope service the whole time.... Before accosting Darcy, Jones confronted Senator Marco Rubio in a hallway outside the room where Dorsey and [Facebook COO Sheryl] Sandberg were appearing for a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing."

Beyond the Beltway

Noor Al-Sibai of RawStory: "The Salt Lake City Tribune reported that a newly-unsealed federal indictment shows that Robert Glen Mouritsen — a 'stake president' or regional leader in the Kaysville, Utah Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1989 to 1997 -- stole the funds from multiple people under the guise of a secretive campaign he called 'The Project.'" --safari

Way Beyond

Jeffrey Gettleman, et al., of the New York Times: "India's Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously struck down one of the world's oldest bans on consensual gay sex, a groundbreaking victory for gay rights that buried one of the most glaring vestiges of India's colonial past. After weeks of deliberation by the court and decades of struggle by gay Indians, Chief Justice Dipak Misra said the law was 'irrational, indefensible and manifestly arbitrary.'"

Luke Barnes of ThinkProgress: "Sweden is facing a widespread disinformation campaign ahead of its general election this weekend according to a new study, with a third of articles shared online coming from deliberately misleading sources. The study, conducted by researchers at Oxford University and first reported by Reuters, analyzed 275,000 tweets during a ten-day period in August. It found that a third of shared articles came from 'junk' websites that deliberately shared misleading information, most of them with a rightward tilt. Three of the most popular 'junk sites' employed former members of the Sweden Democrats, a far-right party currently riding high in the polls." --safari

Dom Phillips of the Guardian: "Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right frontrunner in next month's Brazilian presidential election, is in a serious condition in hospital after being stabbed while campaigning.... Bolsonaro's son Flávio -- himself a candidate for the Brazilian Senate -- tweeted that his father was 'almost dead' when he arrived at hospital, having lost a lot of blood.... A police spokesman confirmed that the alleged attacker – named as Adélio Bispo de Oliveira -- was in custody. Local media said he was beaten up by Bolsonaro supporters. The G1 news website printed a leaked extract from the suspect's police interview in which he said he had been ordered by God to carry out the attack."

News Lede

Bloomberg: "American wages unexpectedly climbed in August by the most since the recession ended in 2009 and hiring rose by more than forecast, keeping the Federal Reserve on track to lift interest rate this month and making another hike in December more likely. Average hourly earnings for private workers increased 2.9 percent from a year earlier, a Labor Department report showed Friday, exceeding all estimates in a Bloomberg survey and the median projection for 2.7 percent. Nonfarm payrolls rose 201,000 from the prior month, topping the median forecast for 190,000 jobs. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.9 percent, still near the lowest since the 1960s. Treasury yields and the dollar jumped after the report, while U.S. stocks opened lower as investors saw the data as encouraging FedChairman Jerome Powell to keep tightening monetary policy beyond this month."

The Commentariat -- September 6, 2018

Delaware is holding primary elections today.

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Vichy, American-Style. Frank Rich: "Mr. Anonymous is a coward so lacking a moral compass that he doesn't realize that the best way to 'preserve our democratic institutions' (as he claims to be doing) is to identify himself, resign, and report any criminal activity he has witnessed by the president or his colleagues." He or she is a collaborator, not a resister. Rich also talks about Kavanaugh & McCain: "But Mr. Anonymous's enlistment in the Trump White House mitigates his self-aggrandizing appropriation of McCain's final message much as McCain's empowering of Palin in 2008, which he never fully disowned, casts a shadow over his subsequent anti-Trumpism."

Seung Min Kim, et al., of the Washington Post: "The fight over access to Kavanaugh's records from his time in the Bush White House intensified in the opening moments of the hearing Thursday morning. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said he is prepared to violate Senate rules and release confidential committee documents -- and to risk the consequences.... 'I openly invite and accept the consequences of releasing that email right now,'Booker said. 'The emails being withheld from the public have nothing to do with national security.' Under the committee's rules, Booker could be expelled from the Senate for releasing such records. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Tex.) angrily responded to Booker and referred to his potential aspirations for higher office, saying 'running for president is no excuse for violating the rules of the Senate.'... After Booker said he was willing to violate Senate rules and release confidential documents, Senate Democrats on the committee appeared in open revolt as Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) read aloud from the rules on expulsion." This is part of the WashPo's liveblog of today's hearing. ...

     ... Update. Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) on Thursday released emails from Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's time as a White House counsel, escalating a heated fight over his documents. Booker released approximately 12 pages of emails tied to discussions Kavanaugh had on racial inequality including one email thread titled 'racial profiling.'... Tens of thousands of documents have been given to the committee under the label of committee confidential. Shortly after Booker released the documents, Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley's (R-Iowa) staff released a bulk of new emails, previously marked 'committee confidential,' that had been cleared for public release. Booker's emails were included in the document tranche."

... Here's the New York Times' liveblog of the hearing. ...

... Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "As a White House lawyer in the Bush administration, Judge Brett Kavanaugh challenged the accuracy of deeming the Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision to be 'settled law of the land,' according to a secret email obtained by The New York Times. The email, written in March 2003, is one of thousands of documents that a lawyer for President George W. Bush turned over to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the Supreme Court nominee but deemed 'committee confidential,' meaning it could not be made public or discussed by Democrats in questioning him in hearings this week. It was among several an unknown person provided to The New York Times late Wednesday. Judge Kavanaugh was considering a draft opinion piece.... It stated that 'it is widely accepted by legal scholars across the board that Roe v. Wade and its progeny are the settled law of the land.' Judge Kavanaugh proposed deleting that line, writing: 'I am not sure that all legal scholars refer to Roe as the settled law of the land at the Supreme Court level since Court can always overrule its precedent, and three current Justices on the Court would do so.'... The court now has four conservative justices who may be willing to overturn Roe ... and if he is confirmed, Judge Kavanaugh could provide the decisive fifth vote."

Julia Ainsley of NBC News: "The Trump administration announced a new rule Thursday that would allow immigrant children with their parents to be held in detention indefinitely, upending a ban on indefinite detention that has been in place for 20 years. The rule, proposed by the departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, goes into effect in 60 days and will allow Immigration> and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to keep children with their mothers in detention facilities while their cases for asylum play out in court. A DHS official speaking on the condition of anonymity said the purpose of the rulemaking is to terminate the 1997 Flores settlement agreement that said children could not be held in detention longer than 20 days. The result may mean the issue is taken to appellate courts or even the Supreme Court." ...

... Nick Miroff & Maria Sacchetti of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration said Thursday it is preparing to circumvent limits on the government's ability to hold minors in immigration jails by withdrawing from the Flores Settlement Agreement, the federal consent decree that has shaped detention standards for underage migrants since 1997. The maneuver is almost certain to land the administration back in court, where U.S. District Court Judge Dolly M. Gee, who oversees the agreement, has rejected attempts to extend the amount of time migrant children can be held with their parents beyond the current limit of 20 days. "

Anonymous, Multiplied. Jonathan Swan & Mike Allen of Axios: "President Trump is ... deeply suspicious of much of the government he oversees -- from the hordes of folks inside agencies, right up to some of the senior-most political appointees and even some handpicked aides inside his own White House, officials tell Axios.... In the hours after the New York Times published the anonymous Op-Ed from 'a senior official in the Trump administration'..., two senior administration officials reached out to Axios to say the author stole the words right out of their mouths.... One senior official said, 'A lot of us [were] wishing we'd been the writer, I suspect ... I hope he [Trump] knows -- maybe he does? -- that there are dozens and dozens of us.'... Several senior White House officials have described their roles to us as saving America and the world from this president. A good number of current White House officials have privately admitted to us they consider Trump unstable, and at times dangerously slow."

Friend of Vlad Helped Write Trump's Foreign Policy Speech. Betsy Woodruff of the Daily Beast: "In the morning of April 21, 2016, a staffer at the Center for the National Interest, a Washington D.C., think tank, wandered into the office of Dimitri Simes, the group's president. The staffer saw a pile of papers on the desk titled 'FOREIGN POLICY AND DEFENSE OUTLINE.' The staffer realized the papers were the detailed outline, in bullet-pointed paragraphs, of a major foreign-policy address that then-candidate Donald Trump was set to deliver six days later as a guest of the center. The staffer used a cellphone to snap pictures of all five pages of the document.... It isn't unusual for a think-tank chief to preview drafts of a speech presented at their invitation. But Simes' proximity to the speech shows that a person Vladimir Putin once called a 'friend and colleague' had an early view into the crafting of a speech that would have historic significance for American foreign policy. Democrats on the House intelligence committee tried to investigate Simes' relationship to Trump's campaign, but Republican committee chairman Devin Nunes blocked their efforts.... The pictures demonstrate that significant changes were made from the speech's detailed outline to its final version -- including the removal of lines condemning bigotry, praising legal immigration, and disparaging Russia."

Hey, Some Important News from the Daily Mail!: "Four UFOs were spotted flying over ... Donald Trump's golf course in Scotland. A golf fan shared a picture of the mysterious objects, seen in the sky above a Scottish flag at Trump's Turnberry club in Ayshire. Alongside the snap on the UFO Stalker website, he revealed his niece had taken the picture from the balcony of the room at the luxury resort ... August 16." Includes photo! Mrs. McC: Probably just a deep-state convoy.

*****

Interesting Times:

The [New York] Times today is taking the rare step of publishing an anonymous Op-Ed essay. We have done so at the request of the author, a senior official in the Trump administration whose identity is known to us and whose job would be jeopardized by its disclosure. We believe publishing this essay anonymously is the only way to deliver an important perspective to our readers. ...

... ** Anonymous, in a New York Times op-ed: "... many of the senior officials in [Donald Trump's] administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations. I would know. I am one of them.... We believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic. That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump's more misguided impulses until he is out of office. The root of the problem is the president's amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.... Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until -- one way or another -- it's over." Read it all. ...

... ** Peter Baker & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump denounced what he called a 'gutless editorial' posted by The New York Times on Wednesday, an essay written by an unnamed administration official claiming that advisers to the president were deliberately trying to thwart his 'reckless decisions' from the inside. At an event at the White House, Mr. Trump angrily assailed The Times for publishing the Op-Ed column, the second time in two days that news reports highlighted the way that some members of his team quietly seek to undermine the president when they believe he may be acting dangerously.... Not long afterward, Mr. Trump turned to Twitter to continue his complaints and posted one message that said simply, 'TREASON?'" ...

     ... New Lede: "President Trump sought to assert command of his administration on Wednesday amid reports of a 'quiet resistance' among some of his own advisers who have secretly and deliberately tried to thwart from the inside what one official called his 'reckless decisions.' The surreal struggle between Mr. Trump and at least some members of his own team has characterized his tenure from the beginning, but it spilled into public view this week in a way that raised questions about the president's capacity to govern and the responsibilities and duties of the people who work for him."

     ... Dylan Matthews of Vox explains what the meaning of "treason" is. "Treason is a very limited crime. It's rarely prosecuted outside of wartime.... And it definitely doesn't apply to this case." ...

... Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump and his aides reacted with indignation Wednesday to an unsigned opinion column from a senior official blasting the president's 'amorality' and launched a frantic hunt for the author.... The extraordinary column, published anonymously in the New York Times, surfaced one day after the first excerpts emerged from Bob Woodward's new book, in which Trump's top advisers painted a devastating portrait of the president and described a 'crazytown' atmosphere inside the White House. Taken together, they landed like a thunder clap, portraying Trump as a danger to the country that elected him and feeding the president's paranoia about who around him he can trust. Trump reacted to the column with 'volcanic' anger and was 'absolutely livid' over what he considered a treasonous act of disloyalty, and told confidants he suspects the official works on national security issues or in the Justice Department.... Trump questioned on Twitter whether the official was a 'phony source,' and wrote that if 'the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!'" ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: There has nevah, evah been anything like this. Instead of having a dimwitted, impulsive, know-nothing president making horrible decisions, we have a gang of unelected, nonaccountable officials secretly running the government. This is not what presidential advisors do. If the muddled rationales this person espouses are any indication, the "cure" is as bad as the disease. ...

... Brian Stelter of CNN: "Several days ago a senior official in the Trump administration used an intermediary to contact New York Times op-ed page editor Jim Dao. Through the go-between, the senior official expressed interest in writing an explosive piece for the paper, describing a 'resistance- to President Trump within the government that works overtime to protect the United States from the president's worst impulses. The result, published on the New York Times' website on Wednesday, prompted speculation all across Washington about who the official is. Dao, of course, isn't saying. In a telephone interview, he was careful not to share any identifying details, even the person's gender." ...

... Lawrence O'Donnell fingered Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats as the anonymous senior official. Mrs. McC: Seems like a good, educated guess to me. ...

... Jeet Heer: "The op-ed makes for very strange reading.... The intent, perhaps, is to shield the Republican Party (and those Republicans who have worked most closely with Trump) from reputational contamination. We're to believe that the real heroes of the Trump era are those who worked most closely with him and tried to constrain his worst impulses.... What is being justified here as an act of heroism is in fact a dereliction of duty. After all, the proper constitutional course to take with an unfit president is the 25th amendment. The path chosen is far worse: an administrative coup that leaves Trump as the figurehead not only makes the United States government look foolish and untrustworthy, it also undermines democracy. Finally, if there is a secret plot to govern competently despite Trump, surely there is nothing more self-defeating than announcing the plot in one of the world's largest newspapers...." ...

... Steve Benen: "He/she acknowledges some behind-the-scenes chatter about a 25th Amendment solution, which was dismissed to avoid a 'constitutional crisis.' But the fact of the matter is that if the head of a global superpower's executive branch is unstable, and White House decisions are being made by an unelected and unaccountable team of aides who are circumventing and undermining a mad president, that is a constitutional crisis." ...

... David Frum of the Atlantic: "If the president's closest advisers believe that he is morally and intellectually unfit for his high office, they have a duty to do their utmost to remove him from it, by the lawful means at hand. That duty may be risky to their careers in government or afterward. But on their first day at work, they swore an oath to defend the Constitution -- and there were no 'riskiness' exemptions in the text of that oath.... The author of the anonymous op-ed is hoping to vindicate the reputation of like-minded senior Trump staffers. See, we only look complicit! Actually, we're the real heroes of the story. But what the author has just done is throw the government of the United States into even more dangerous turmoil. He or she has enflamed the paranoia of the president and empowered the president's willfulness." ...

... David Graham of the Atlantic: "... what the anonymous official says lines up closely with the accounts in Woodward's book, in which officials steal documents, act on their own, and simply disregard orders from the president.... The actions described in the book and in the op-ed are extremely worrying, and amount to a soft coup against the president. Given that one of Trump's great flaws is that he has little regard for rule of law, it's hard to cheer on Cabinet members and others openly thwarting Trump's directives, giving unelected officials effective veto power over the elected president. Like Vietnam War-era generals, they are destroying the village in order to save it. As is so often the case in the Trump administration, both alternatives are awful to consider.... If the price of defending democracy and rule of law is to destroy both, the price is too high." ...

... Jessica Roy of the Los Angeles Times: "The op-ed says ... these 'unsung heroes' are protecting America from Trump's 'erratic behavior.' If they really believe there's a need to subvert the president to protect the country, they should be getting this person out of the White House.... How is it that utilizing the 25th Amendment of the Constitution would cause a crisis, but admitting to subverting a democratically elected leader wouldn't? The truth is, Republicans don't want Trump out of office. They're clearly pleased with this 'two-track' arrangement. They're advancing the right-wing economic agenda that President Jeb Bush or Ted Cruz would have been championing while preserving their popularity with Trump's base. If you're reading this, senior White House official, know this: You are not resisting Donald Trump. You are enabling him for your own benefit. That doesn't make you an unsung hero. It makes you a coward."

... Jeff Zeleny & Jeremy Diamond of CNN: "... Donald Trump, showing his outrage over Bob Woodward's explosive new book, is ordering a real witch hunt in the West Wing and throughout his administration, asking loyal aides to help determine who cooperated with the book. 'The book is fiction,' Trump said Wednesday in the Oval Office alongside the Emir of Kuwait. Even as the President publicly fumes, he's privately on a mission to determine who did -- and didn't -- talk to Woodward, CNN has learned. But no sooner had the search for Woodward's sources begun than yet another devastating portrait of the President emerged, this time via a New York Times op-ed written by an unnamed senior Trump administration official.... '"Gen. Mattis has come out very, very strongly.... He was insulted by the remarks that were attributed to him,' Trump said. 'John Kelly, same thing...."In Trump's eyes, what makes or breaks aides who are reported to have made disparaging comments about him is how strongly they push back on the accusations. Unlike Kelly and Mattis, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson never denied calling Trump a 'moron' and a former senior White House official said Trump 'never forgave him for it.'" ...

... Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair: "The West Wing came to a virtual standstill yesterday after The Washington Post published the first excerpts of Bob Woodward's upcoming book, Fear.... Woodward's book triggered Trump's wrath on several levels. Two sources told me Trump is furious at the portions of the book that describe administration officials questioning his intelligence and emotional stability.... Trump is also outraged that the book portrays aides as believing they are the grown-ups protecting the country from his dangerous impulses.... An outside adviser added, 'Everybody on the inside knows it's true. It's just Fox News people who don't want to admit how crazy he is.'... Even Trump's family is concerned the president is in deep trouble. After attending John McCain's funeral, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump told Trump he needs to get control of himself." ...

... Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "... the president reacted furiously towards Woodward, questioning his motives and credibility. He specifically spotlighted the passage related to Sessions in a rage-tweet later that evening. 'The already discredited Woodward book, so many lies and phony sources, has me calling Jeff Sessions "mentally retarded" and "a dumb southerner,"' he posted to Twitter. 'I said NEITHER, never used those terms on anyone, including Jeff, and being a southerner is a GREAT thing. He made this up to divide!'... Trump is quite literally on tape calling a 'golf pro' mentally 'retarded'" As The Daily Beast reported during the 2016 campaign, Trump would repeatedly call Oscar-winning actress Marlee Matlin 'retarded' during her time on NBC's Celebrity Apprentice -- simply because she was deaf. Furthermore, in May 2013, Trump also quote-tweeted someone calling some of his followers 'pure RETARDS!'... [In addition,] Two people with direct knowledge of Trump's comments tell The Daily Beast that they have heard the president mock Sessions ... as mentally deficient, personally annoying, and 'retarded' and a 'retard.'" Emphasis added.

State of De Nile. Mrs. McCrabbie: The Trumpentweeter was consumed Wednesday morning with the Woodward book. (Ole Bob must be right pleased.) You can check out Trump's feed here. AND there's this one: "Almost everyone agrees that my Administration has done more in less than two years than any other Administration in the history of our Country. I'm tough as hell on people & if I weren't, nothing would get done. Also, I question everybody & everything-which is why I got elected!" Just pathetic. (Also linked yesterday.)

** Jamelle Bouie of Slate: "Questions of credibility surround both [Michael] Wolff’s and [Omarosa] Manigault Newman's accounts. But more traditional reporting, including that from Woodward, seems to bolster their claims that the White House is consumed by turmoil, all of it induced by Donald Trump, his compulsions, impulses, and appetites. Together, all of these accounts paint a clear picture: Unable to execute his duties for reasons of temperament, ignorance, and mental decline, President Trump has been sidelined by his aides, who work to mitigate his behavior and keep him from steering the country into catastrophe.... If anything described by Wolff, Manigault, or Woodward is true, then the United States is currently in the midst of an acute political crisis, beset with a functionally incapacitated president and a government branch run on an ad hoc basis.... Donald Trump cannot do his job, and as long as the Republican Party holds power in Washington, there's nothing to be done about it."

Michael Kruse in Politico Magazine: "With special counsel Robert Mueller and his associates quietly and methodically doing their investigatory work, with November's midterms looking for Republicans like a mixed bag at best, and with Bob Woodward's new book Fear painting the president as 'an idiot' and his White House as 'Crazytown,' Donald Trump seems to be on the precipice of disaster like never before in his administration and eve his life.... But what's inarguably true is that he's not unused to this sort of moment. He's not even uncomfortable with it.... The takeaway from Surviving at the Top [-- a book Trump had published after the collapse of his first marriage & his financial empire --] is not even so much that he's good at skirting calamity. It's that a crisis is something he actually enjoys.... 'He is fearless,' Roger Stone .... Stone ... added ...: 'Makes Nixon look like a cream puff.' Nixon? 'Nixon was smarter,' Stone responded, 'but Trump is tougher.'"

Even When Trump Is Right, It's for a Corrupt Reason. Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "When Nike announced this week that it would center an advertising campaign around Colin Kaepernick, the football player responsible for starting the protests, it seemed ... the president [could not] resist offering criticism.... Trump demurred.... In an interview with the Daily Caller on Tuesday, Trump ... [said,] 'I think it's a terrible message.... Nike is a tenant of mine. They pay a lot of rent.'... Is that business relationship the reason Trump has decided not to attack Nike directly over the company's embrace of Kaepernick?... That he linked his response as president to his relationship with Nike as a businessman necessarily draws new scrutiny to where a wall has been erected between those two roles.... Something kept Trump from attacking Nike and scoring points with his base (a base which, we'll note, was so incensed at Nike that people were burning their shoes).... Update: Shortly after this article was published, Trump weighed in on Nike's decision on Twitter. Instead of criticizing the company, he emphasized the purported fallout of their decision. 'Just like the NFL, whose ratings have gone WAY DOWN, Nike is getting absolutely killed with anger and boycotts...,' [Trump tweeted.] (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Pathetic & Corrupt from Day 1. Jon Swaine of the Guardian: "A government photographer edited official pictures of Donald Trump's inauguration to make the crowd appear bigger following a personal intervention from the president, according to newly released documents. The photographer cropped out empty space 'where the crowd ended' for a new set of pictures requested by Trump on the first morning of his presidency, after he was angered by images showing his audience was smaller than Barack Obama's in 2009. The detail was revealed in investigative reports released to the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act.... They shed new light on the first self-inflicted crisis of Trump's presidency, when his White House falsely claimed he had attracted the biggest ever inauguration audience. The records detail a scramble within the National Park Service (NPS) on 21 January 2017 after an early-morning phone call between Trump and the acting NPS director, Michael Reynolds. They also state that Sean Spicer ... called NPS officials repeatedly that day in pursuit of the more flattering photographs.... The newly disclosed details were not included in the inspector general's office's final report on its inquiry into the saga, which was published in June last year and gave a different account of the NPS photographer's actions.... Asked to account for the discrepancy, Nancy DiPaolo, a spokeswoman for the inspector general, said the cropping was not mentioned in the final report because the photographer told investigators this was his 'standard artistic practice'. But investigators did not note this in the write-up of their interview."

Donnie Has a BFF. John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who once called President Trump 'unfit for office,' emerged as one of his staunchest defenders in Congress in the 24 hours after the first reports about Trump's harrowing portrayal in Bob Woodward's new book. In a string of tweets and on television, Graham sought to minimize the impact of the book and lavished praise on Trump for a string of achievements, including his Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh.... 'President @realDonaldTrumps fate will be determined by the results he achieves for the American people, not by a book about the process,' Graham said in Wednesday morning tweets. 'By any reasonable measure we have one of the strongest economies in modern history, President Trump has rebuilt a broken military, and we are pushing back hard against America's enemies.'... The senator's defense of Trump came as other Southern lawmakers -- from both parties -- were voicing concerns about reporting in Woodward's book that the president had called Attorney General Jeff Sessions a 'dumb Southerner' and mocked his accent. Trump denied Woodward's account in a tweet Tuesday night." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Poor Lindsey! All of his amigos have gone -- McCain died, Lieberman quit his job, & Kelly Ayotte, briefly an amiga, got fired. All he has left is Donnie, whom he once called "the world's biggest jackass," a "kook," and "crazy." Trump, of course, took it in stride: he called "Graham an 'idiot' who is 'probably ... not as bright, honestly, as Rick Perry' and [read] off Graham's cell phone number at one of his televised rallies."

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Jerome Corsi, a conspiracy theorist and political commentator with connections to the former Trump adviser Roger J. Stone Jr., has been subpoenaed to testify on Friday before the grand jury in the special counsel investigation into Russia's election interference and whether Trump associates conspired with the effort, his lawyer said on Wednesday. The lawyer, David Gray, said that he anticipates that investigators for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, plan to ask Mr. Corsi about his discussions with Mr. Stone, who appeared to publicly predict in 2016 that WikiLeaks planned to publish material damaging to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. 'He fully intends to comply with the subpoena,' Mr. Gray said, adding that the subpoena was not specific about the topic.... Mr. Mueller's team appears to be zeroing in on Mr. Stone as a possible nexus between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks, which was used by Russian intelligence officers to spread information stolen from Democrats, according to an indictment by Mr. Mueller's team. Another former associate of Mr. Stone, the New York political gadfly Randy Credico, is also expected to testify before the grand jury on Friday."

Perfect. Michelle Kosinski & Jennifer Hansler of CNN: "A Fox News correspondent is a leading candidate to head the State Department agency tasked with combating propaganda and disinformation from foreign adversaries, CNN has learned. Lea Gabrielle is being considered for special envoy and coordinator of the Global Engagement Center, multiple State Department sources and one former senior State official told CNN.Gabrielle is a general assignment reporter for 'Shepard Smith Reporting,' according to her Fox News biography, and was previously a military reporter. She is also a United States Naval Academy graduate and served in the US Navy as fighter pilot for more than a decade, as well as taking part in some intelligence operations."

Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: "Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, President Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court, on Wednesday dodged direct questions about whether the Constitution would allow Mr. Trump to use the powers of the presidency to thwart the Russia collusion and obstruction investigations that are swirling around his administration. Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on a grueling second day of hearings, Judge Kavanaugh refused to say whether he believes Mr. Trump, as a sitting president, could be subpoenaed by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, to testify in the sprawling inquiry. Answering questions in public for the first time since his nomination, the judge also declined to say whether Mr. Trump could escape legal jeopardy by pardoning himself or his associates.... At the same time, he did not retreat from views offered in law review articles that revealed a robust conception of presidential power.... Judge Kavanaugh also declined to say he would disqualify himself from cases concerning Mr. Trump." The hearing was still ongoing at 8:30 pm ET. See also Akhilleus's assessment at the end of yesterday's thread. ...

... Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "A Democratic senator called into question on Wednesday Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh's testimony a dozen years ago that he knew nothing about two disputed episodes from the George W. Bush era: Republicans' infiltration of computer files belonging to Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats and a warrantless surveillance program created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The senator, Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, cited emails that have not been made public.... Mr. Leahy was referring to Judge Kavanaugh's testimony about the Bush-era disputes as an appeals court nominee during hearings in 2004 and in 2006. At the time, Judge Kavanaugh told the Senate he knew nothing about either episode until they became public knowledge. But Mr. Leahy said that Bush White House emails provided to the Judiciary Committee for Judge Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination -- most of which were deemed 'committee confidential,' meaning he cannot make them public -- raise 'serious questions' about the 'truthfulness' of Judge Kavanaugh's statements to the Senate back then. Judge Kavanaugh, in turn, said his prior testimony had been '100 percent accurate.'" Read on for details. ...

... Liar, Liar. Mark Stern of Slate: "Brett Kavanaugh says he follows every Supreme Court precedent. Don't believe him. 'I don’t get to pick and choose which Supreme Court precedents I get to follow,' Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. 'I follow them all. While that's a nice line, Kavanaugh's record reveals a judge who is eager to warp precedent to fit his ideological preferences -- most flagrantly with regard to guns and abortion. In a pair of major opinions, Kavanaugh proved adept at constraining Roe v. Wade and bolstering D.C. v. Heller, manipulating the law to throttle the liberty of women and aggrandize the rights of gun owners. His precedential chicanery offers clear proof that Kavanaugh will overturn Roe and strike down assault-weapons bans once he reaches the Supreme Court. And he only has to pretend otherwise for a few more weeks." Stern examines Kavagnaw's dissents to prove his point." ...

... Seung Min Kim, et al., of the Washington Post: "Kavanaugh said he was not aware of allegations of domestic abuse against Rob Porter, Trump's staff secretary who was forced to resign in February, until the claims by his ex-wives were reported by the media. Kavanaugh recommended Porter for his White House job, according to Bob Woodward's explosive new book on the Trump administration; the judge challenged that reporting on Wednesday. His answers about the Porter allegations, which Porter has denied, came amid a series of questions about sexual harassment and misconduct from Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii). Kavanaugh repeated that he never witnessed sexual harassment by his ex-boss, former Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, to whom he has remained close, nor heard any allegations of misconduct against Kozinski.... Hirono asked if Kavanaugh was on the email list Kozinski used to circulate sexually explicit material. He said he did not remember 'anything like that,' echoing a similar denial from earlier in the hearing. Then, asked if he believes Kozinski's accusers, Kavanaugh said: 'I have no reason not to believe them.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McC: Wait. He doesn't remember if Kozinski sent him sexually explicit material?? I think that's a "Yes, yes. He did." There is a lot more in this report, which is a liveblog of the day's Q&A. ...

... New York Times reporters liveblogged Wednesday's Kavanaugh hearing. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "On Tuesday, [President Trump] took his attacks on free speech one step further, suggesting in an interview with a conservative news site that the act of protesting should be illegal. Trump made the remarks in an Oval Office interview with the Daily Caller hours after his Supreme Court nominee, Brett M. Kavanaugh, was greeted by protests on the first day of his confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill. 'I don't know why they don't take care of a situation like that,' Trump said. 'I think it's embarrassing for the country to allow protesters. You don't even know what side the protesters are on.' He added: 'In the old days, we used to throw them out. Today, I guess they just keep screaming.' More than 70 people were arrested after they repeatedly heckled Kavanaugh and senators at Tuesday's hearing. Trump has bristled at dissent in the past, including several instances in which he has suggested demonstrators should lose their jobs or be met with violence for speaking out." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Emily Stewart of Vox: "Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones had a tense exchange in the Senate hallway during a break of the Senate Intelligence Committee's hearing with Facebook and Twitter leaders on Wednesday. Jones, who sat in on the hearing, crashed a scrum Rubio was holding with reporters, and the pair nearly came to blows." ...

Tony Romm & Craig Timberg of the Washington Post: "Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter's Jack Dorsey told lawmakers on Wednesday that they are better prepared to combat foreign interference on their platforms, even as Democrats and Republicans alike expressed doubts that the social media giants had fully cleaned them up ahead of the midterm elections. Sandberg ... and Dorsey ... conveyed their message in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, almost a year after their companies told the same panel of lawmakers that Russia used inauthentic accounts to spread divisive political messages around the 2016 election. This time, though, lawmakers on the committee came equipped with a roster of fresh complaints -- from the proliferation of fake video online to the heightened need to protect privacy and combat hacking. As they testified, though, some of their most public adversaries sat behind them, including conservative media personalities like Alex Jones, the founder of the conspiracy-minded InfoWars. The presence of Jones, who had been banned from both platforms for violating rules against harassment, seemed all the more striking given a Wednesday afternoon hearing in the House, featuring Dorsey, focused on allegations that tech is biased against right-leaning users." Mrs. McC: The House interrogation will surely bring us some of that chamber's patented thuggery. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Update. No Surprises. Cecilia Kang & Sheera Frenkel of the New York Times: "Republicans accused Twitter of being biased against conservatives on Wednesday, drawing rebukes from Democrats in a congressional hearing that illustrated how partisan lines are increasingly being drawn on social media. The sparring focused on the testimony of Jack Dorsey, Twitter's chief executive, who repeatedly denied the accusations during a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Republicans grilled Mr. Dorsey, suggesting that Twitter's algorithms suppress conservative viewpoints and discriminate against Republican voices.... During the hearing, Mr. Dorsey repeatedly said that Twitter did not exhibit any bias against conservatives, echoing his previous denials.... Before the afternoon hearing, the Justice Department said Attorney General Jeff Sessions planned to hold a meeting with state attorneys general .. to examine how social media companies 'may be hurting competition and intentionally stifling the free exchange of ideas on their platforms.'" ...

... "Republicans Were Mad at Twitter for Banning Alex Jones. Then They Met Him." Will Oremus of Slate: "Two images will endure from Wednesday's congressional hearings on social media bias and misinformation. Neither one quite captures what the Republican leaders who convened the hearings had in mind. First, far-right conspiracy monger Alex Jones hijacked a press interview with Marco Rubio outside the Senate hearing room, irritating the Republican senator so much that Rubio turned to him, glaring, and threatened to 'take care of you myself.' Later, alt-right provocateur Laura Loomer interrupted a House hearing and was escorted from the room, while Republican Rep. Billy Long of Missouri mocked her from the dais by performing an impressively authentic-sounding auctioneer's call.... The hearing from which Loomer was forcibly removed was motivated partly by Twitter's alleged censorship of those very same obnoxious voices. Turns out it's hard to focus one's outrage at Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey for silencing fringe figures while they're being dragged out of the room." ...

Congressional Races

Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "Former President Barack Obama is poised to plunge into the fray of the midterm campaign, returning to electoral politics with a frontal attack on Republican power in two states that are prime Democratic targets this fall: California and Ohio.... Mr. Obama's first public event of the midterm election will take place in Orange County, a traditionally conservative-leaning part of California where Republicans are at risk of losing several House seats. And Mr. Obama is expected to be joined by Democratic candidates from all seven of California's Republican-held districts that Hillary Clinton carried in 2016. Mr. Obama intends to campaign next Thursday in Cleveland for Richard Cordray, a former bank regulator in his administration who is the Democratic nominee for Ohio governor. Republicans have held total control of the state government since the 2010 election, and Mr. Obama helped encourage Mr. Cordray, also a former state attorney general, to seek the governorship." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Are They All Crooks? (-- Rhetorical Question.) Patrick Wilson of the Richmond Times-Dispatch: "In a ruling with potentially serious ramifications for the re-election campaign of Rep. Scott Taylor, R-2nd, a judge on Wednesday found 'out-and-out fraud' in signatures Taylor's campaign staff gathered to help get an independent spoiler candidate on the ballot. Richmond Circuit Judge Gregory L. Rupe ruled that independent Shaun Brown should be removed from the 2nd Congressional District ballot. Campaign staffers for Taylor helped gather signatures required to get Brown on the ballot. Investigations by news media and the Democratic Party showed forged signatures, including from voters who had died or no longer lived in the congressional district. The judge's ruling followed testimony in a civil lawsuit the Democratic Party of Virginia brought against state elections officials. Four Taylor staffers and a former campaign consultant signed affidavits invoking their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in response to a series of questions about what happened.... A criminal investigation into ballot fraud by a special prosecutor, Roanoke Commonwealth's Attorney Donald Caldwell, is active. A Virginia State Police investigator sat in the courtroom Wednesday to hear evidence from the civil case."

Sopan Deb of the New York Times: "Roy S. Moore, the former Senate candidate from Alabama, has followed through on his threat to sue Sacha Baron Cohen after he was duped into appearing on Mr. Cohen's Showtime series, 'Who Is America?' Mr. Moore said he was seeking more than $95 million in damages for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and fraud in a suit filed on Wednesday in Federal District Court in the District of Columbia. Showtime and CBS, which owns it, are named as defendants along with Mr. Cohen. In July, Mr. Moore said he had been duped by Mr. Cohen before the episode even aired. His admission came around the same time other high-profile conservatives, including Joe Walsh, a former congressman, and Sarah Palin, the former vice-presidential nominee, publicly said the same. But even if the lawsuit's assertions are true, legal experts say, Mr. Moore could have a difficult time winning the case."

If you're wondering if NYT columnist Bret Stephens is a jerk, check with Steve M. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Beyond the Beltway

Justin Moyer of the Washington Post: "A man convicted of assaulting a white-nationalist organizer two days after a white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville last year was fined $1 on Tuesday. Jason Kessler, an organizer of the Unite the Right rally, fled a news conference on Aug. 13, 2017, after he was swarmed by an angry crowd, one day after 32-year-old counterprotester Heather Heyer was run down and killed by a vehicle allegedly driven by another white nationalist. After Kessler fled, Jeffrey Winder of Charlottesville was charged with assault and battery, and prosecutors said he could be seen striking Kessler in a video. Winder was found guilty in Charlottesville General District Court in February, as the Daily Progress reported, and found guilty again Tuesday in Charlottesville Circuit Court after an appeal. Though Winder could have received up to 12 months in jail and $2,500 in fines from a jury, he received a $1 fine."

Way Beyond

Pippa Crerar of the Guardian: "[Britain's] security minister Ben Wallace has said that the Russian president Vladimir Putin is 'ultimately responsible' for the deadly Salisbury nerve agent attack as a result of his firm grip on the Russian state. His remarks are the furthest the British government has gone yet in attributing direct blame on Putin for the attempt by two Russian military intelligence officers to murder Sergei and Yulia Skripal with the military grade nerve agent in March. Britain will seek to intensify diplomatic pressure on the Kremlin by laying out the case against Moscow at the United Nations security council, of which Russia is a member, on Thursday. [Prime Minister] Theresa May did not explicitly blame Putin for authorising the attempted assassination, which resulted in the death of a British woman, when she addressed the Commons in a special statement on Monday, although she pointed the finger at the Kremlin."

News Lede

New York Times: "Burt Reynolds, the wryly appealing Hollywood heartthrob who carried on a long love affair with moviegoers even though his performances were often more memorable than the films that contained them, has died at 82."

The Commentariat -- September 5, 2018

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Tony Romm & Craig Timberg of the Washington Post: "Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter's Jack Dorsey told lawmakers on Wednesday that they are better prepared to combat foreign interference on their platforms, even as Democrats and Republicans alike expressed doubts that the social media giants had fully cleaned them up ahead of the midterm elections. Sandberg ... and Dorsey ... conveyed their message in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, almost a year after their companies told the same panel of lawmakers that Russia used inauthentic accounts to spread divisive political messages around the 2016 election. This time, though, lawmakers on the committee came equipped with a roster of fresh complaints -- from the proliferation of fake video online to the heightened need to protect privacy and combat hacking. As they testified, though, some of their most public adversaries sat behind them, including conservative media personalities like Alex Jones, the founder of the conspiracy-minded InfoWars. The presence of Jones, who had been banned from both platforms for violating rules against harassment, seemed all the more striking given a Wednesday afternoon hearing in the House, featuring Dorsey, focused on allegations that tech is biased against right-leaning users." Mrs. McC: The House interrogation will surely bring us some of that chamber's patented thuggery.

Donnie Has a BFF. John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who once called President Trump 'unfit for office,' emerged as one of his staunchest defenders in Congress in the 24 hours after the first reports about Trump's harrowing portrayal in Bob Woodward's new book. In a string of tweets and on television, Graham sought to minimize the impact of the book and lavished praise on Trump for a string of achievements, including his Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh.... 'President @realDonaldTrumps fate will be determined by the results he achieves for the American people, not by a book about the process,' Graham said in Wednesday morning tweets. 'By any reasonable measure we have one of the strongest economies in modern history, President Trump has rebuilt a broken military, and we are pushing back hard against America's enemies.'... The senator's defense of Trump came as other Southern lawmakers -- from both parties -- were voicing concerns about reporting in Woodward's book that the president had called Attorney General Jeff Sessions a 'dumb Southerner' and mocked his accent. Trump denied Woodward's account in a tweet Tuesday night." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Poor Lindsey! All of his amigos have gone -- McCain died, Lieberman quit his job, & Kelly Ayotte, briefly an amiga, got fired. All he has left is Donnie, whom he once called "the world's biggest jackass," a "kook," and "crazy." Trump, of course, took it in stride: he called "Graham an 'idiot' who is 'probably . . . not as bright, honestly, as Rick Perry' and [read] off Graham's cell phone number at one of his televised rallies."

New York Times reporters are liveblogging today's Kavanaugh hearing. ...

... Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "On Tuesday, [President Trump] took his attacks o free speech one step further, suggesting in an interview with a conservative news site that the act of protesting should be illegal. Trump made the remarks in an Oval Office interview with the Daily Caller hours after his Supreme Court nominee, Brett M. Kavanaugh, was greeted by protests on the first day of his confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill. 'I don't know why they don't take care of a situation like that,' Trump said. 'I think it's embarrassing for the country to allow protesters. You don't even know what side the protesters are on.' He added: 'In the old days, we used to throw them out. Today, I guess they just keep screaming.' More than 70 people were arrested after they repeatedly heckled Kavanaugh and senators at Tuesday's hearing. Trump has bristled at dissent in the past, including several instances in which he has suggested demonstrators should lose their jobs or be met with violence for speaking out."

State of De Nile. Mrs. McCrabbie: The Trumpentweeter is consumed this morning with the Woodward book. (Ole Bob must be right pleased.) You can check out Trump's feed here. AND there's this one: "Almost everyone agrees that my Administration has done more in less than two years than any other Administration in the history of our Country. I'm tough as hell on people & if I weren't, nothing would get done. Also, I question everybody & everything-which is why I got elected!" Just pathetic.

Even When Trump Is Right, It's for a Corrupt Reason. Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "When Nike announced this week that it would center an advertising campaign around Colin Kaepernick, the football player responsible for starting the protests, it seemed ... the president [could not] resist offering criticism.... Trump demurred.... In an interview with the Daily Caller on Tuesday, Trump ... [said,] 'I think it's a terrible message.... Nike is a tenant of mine. They pay a lot of rent.'... Is that business relationship the reason Trump has decided not to attack Nike directly over the company's embrace of Kaepernick?... That he linked his response as president to his relationship with Nike as a businessman necessarily draws new scrutiny to where a wall has been erected between those two roles.... Something kept Trump from attacking Nike and scoring points with his base (a base which, we'll note, was so incensed at Nike that people were burning their shoes).... Update: Shortly after this article was published, Trump weighed in on Nike's decision on Twitter. Instead of criticizing the company, he emphasized the purported fallout of their decision. 'Just like the NFL, whose ratings have gone WAY DOWN, Nike is getting absolutely killed with anger and boycotts...,' [Trump tweeted.]

Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "Former President Barack Obama is poised to plunge into the fray of the midterm campaign, returning to electoral politics with a frontal attack on Republican power in two states that are prime Democratic targets this fall: California and Ohio.... Mr. Obama's first public event of the midterm election will take place in Orange County, a traditionally conservative-leaning part of California where Republicans are at risk of losing several House seats. And Mr. Obama is expected to be joined by Democratic candidates from all seven of California's Republican-held districts that Hillary Clinton carried in 2016. Mr. Obama intends to campaign next Thursday in Cleveland for Richard Cordray, a former bank regulator in his administration who is the Democratic nominee for Ohio governor. Republicans have held total control of the state government since the 2010 election, and Mr. Obama helped encourage Mr. Cordray, also a former state attorney general, to seek the governorship."

If you're wondering if NYT columnist Bret Stephens is a jerk, check with Steve M.

*****

Massachusetts Primary Results. The New York Times is updating results. Republican Geoff Diehl will challenge Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D). Democrat Jay Gonzales will face Gov. Charlie Baker (R). NBC News is reporting that Ayanna Pressley (D) has upset 10-term Rep. Michael Capuano (D). Here's a NYT profile of Pressley (pub. Sept. 1). ...

... Katharine Seelye of the New York Times: "Ayanna Pressley upended the Massachusetts political order on Tuesday, scoring a stunning upset of 10-term Representative Michael Capuano and positioning herself to become the first African-American woman to represent the state in Congress. Ms. Pressley's triumph was in sync with a restless political climate that has fueled victories for underdogs, women and minorities elsewhere this election season, and it delivered another stark message to the Democratic establishment that newcomers on the insurgent left were unwilling to wait their turn. Ms. Pressley propelled her candidacy with urgency, arguing that in the age of Trump, 'change can't wait.'"

*****

Seung Min Kim, et al., of the Washington Post: "The confirmation hearing of Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh launched Tuesday as a bitter political brawl, with loud objections from Democratic senators, the arrests of dozens of protesters and questions even from some Republicans about how Kavanaugh would separate himself from President Trump, the man who chose him. But GOP senators mostly calmly defended Kavanaugh from what Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) called the Shakespearean nature of the hearing -- 'sound and fury, signifying nothing' -- confident that there were no defections from the solid Republican support Kavanaugh needs to become the court's 114th justice." ...

... Here's the New York Times' main story on the hearing, by Sheryl Stolberg & Adam Liptak. ...

... New York Times reporters liveblogged Tuesday's Kavanaugh hearings. "Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh's hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday began with a bang, as Democrats moved angrily to adjourn to consider newly released documents and protesters screamed in support. Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, called it 'mob rule.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) Also, you will want to read Akhilleus's rundown, at the end of yesterday thread, of Cory Booker's & Kamala Harris's remarks during the hearing. Something about a race for dogcatcher on the Kamchatka Peninsula. ...

... Lisa Ryan of New York has some highlights. ...

Ninety-six percent of his record is missing. -- Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), on Kavanaugh's hidden papers ...

... Lois Beckett of the Guardian: "When the father of a school shooting victim held out his hand to Donald Trump's nominee for the supreme court on Tuesday, Judge Brett Kavanaugh looked at him, then turned without saying a word and walked out. 'I put out my hand and I said: "My name is Fred Guttenberg, father of Jaime Guttenberg, who was murdered in Parkland," and he walked away,' Guttenberg said in an interview with the Guardian. The moment was captured in dramatic photographs, as well as on video from several different angles. In a statement after the incident, a White House spokesman [Raj Shah] said that 'an unidentified individual' had approached Kavanaugh as he was preparing to leave for the confirmation hearing's lunch break and that 'before the Judge was able to shake his hand, security had intervened' 'If you watch the video, you see that's not the case,' Guttenberg said. 'What the White House said was not true.'" Includes video from several viewpoints. A man who appears to be a security person intervenes, but not until after Kavanaugh frowns at Guttenberg & turns away. ...

... Chris Geidner of BuzzFeed News: "After two days of questions about how it was decided that more than 100,000 pages of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's White House work would be withheld from the Senate Judiciary Committee's review, the Justice Department took responsibility for the decision on Monday night.... The news that the documents were being kept from the public and the committee was reported on Friday night.... Lawyers for [George W.] Bush, led by William Burck of Quinn Emanuel, reviewed the documents requested and then provided the presidential records they found to the Justice Department for review.... Both career lawyers and political appointees in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel and Office of Legal Policy reviewed those documents, electronically tagging the documents that they believed should not be turned over as 'withhold for executive privilege.' Ultimately, that decision was reached with 27,110 documents, amounting to 101,921 pages." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Michael Kranish of the Washington Post has more. "The controversy over the files has been growing for weeks, as Republicans try to seat him in time for the Supreme Court term that begins in October, and Democrats seek to push the process beyond the midterm elections when they hope to regain majorities in Congress.... Many of the documents that have been shielded from disclosure come from Kavanaugh's three years as associate White House counsel. Democrats have been particularly interested in whether documents would reveal more about whether Kavanaugh played a role in developing [George W.] Bush's policy on torture."

Trump Lit

Ashley Parker & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "Hours after The Washington Post first reported several key incidents from Woodward's book, 'Fear,' the administration mounted a vigorous string of public denials, with statements from top advisers -- White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders -- as well as from Trump's former personal attorney John Dowd. Mattis called the book 'fiction,' and Sanders denounced the tome in a statement as 'nothing more than fabricated stories, many by former disgruntled employees' without disputing any of the specifics that have been reported in excerpts. Trump tweeted the statements Tuesday evening and then, without providing evidence, suggested the book's release was timed to affect the midterm elections in November.... Despite rumors for weeks that Woodward's latest project would likely paint a damning portrait of Trump and his team, the White House found itself caught ill prepared Tuesday as scenes from the book emerged. The official pushback initially was slow ... and felt pro forma.... As of Tuesday afternoon, the White House was still scrambling to procure a copy of Woodward's book.... By early Tuesday evening, Trump was furious...." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: Tuesday afternoon, Trump was already on a Twitter tear over Bob Woodward's book: "The Woodward book has already been refuted and discredited by General (Secretary of Defense) James Mattis and General (Chief of Staff) John Kelly. Their quotes were made up frauds, a con on the public. Likewise other stories and quotes. Woodward is a Dem operative? Notice timing?" He follows with statements by Mattis, Kelly & Sarah Sanders. They're here. (Scroll down the page.) ...

... He Has the Tapes. Jonathan Swan & Mike Allen of Axios: "President Trump is livid at the betrayal and stunning allegations in Bob Woodwards forthcoming 'Fear,' but limited in his ability to fight back because most of the interviews were caught on hundreds of hours of tape, officials tell Axios.... After the Washington Post posted excerpts yesterday, administration officials did little to deny specific revelations in the book, and instead spent the day speculating about Woodward's likely sources. One reason that few passages are being disputed: Woodward based the book on hundreds of hours of tapes of his interviews with current and former West Wing aides and other top administration officials." ...

Don't testify. It's either that or an orange jumpsuit. -- Attorney John Dowd, to Donald Trump, after Trump colossally flunked a mock Mueller interview ...

... The Lunatic in the White House: A (Mostly) Nonfiction Book. Philip Rucker & Robert Costa of the Washington Post: In his new book, Bob "Woodward depicts Trump's anger and paranoia about the Russia inquiry as unrelenting, at times paralyzing the West Wing for entire days.... The 448-page book was obtained by The Washington Post.... A central theme of the book is the stealthy machinations used by those in Trump's inner sanctum to try to control his impulses and prevent disasters, both for the president personally and for the nation he was elected to lead.... The ... forthcoming book ... paints a harrowing portrait of the Trump presidency, based on in-depth interviews with administration officials and other principals. Woodward writes that his book is drawn from hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand participants and witnesses that were conducted on 'deep background,' meaning the information could be used but he would not reveal who provided it. His account is also drawn from meeting notes, personal diaries and government documents." Read on. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: provides an annotated transcript of the phone call. "Bob Woodward, an associate editor at The Washington Post, sought an interview with President Trump as he was writing 'Fear,' a book about Trump's presidency. Trump called Woodward in early August, after the manuscript had been completed, to say he wanted to participate. Over the course of 11-plus minutes, Trump repeatedly claimed his White House staff hadn't informed him of Woodward's interview request -- despite also admitting Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) had told him Woodward wanted to talk. He also started the phone call by saying Woodward had 'always been fair' to him, but by the end he said the book would be 'inaccurate.'" ...

... Unfit for Office. Mark Landler & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump so alarmed his defense secretary, Jim Mattis, during a discussion last January of the nuclear standoff with North Korea that an exasperated Mr. Mattis told colleagues that 'the president acted like -- and had the understanding -- of a "fifth or sixth grader."' At another moment, Mr. Trump's aides became so worried about his judgment that Gary D. Cohn, the chief economic adviser, took a letter from the president's desk authorizing the withdrawal of the United States from a trade agreement with South Korea. Mr. Cohn told an associate that Mr. Trump never realized it was missing. These anecdotes are in a sprawling, highly anticipated new book by Bob Woodward, which depicts the Trump White House as a byzantine, treacherous, often out-of-control operation -- 'crazytown,' in the words of the chief of staff, John F. Kelly -- hostage to the whims of an impulsive, ill-informed and undisciplined president." ...

... Gabriel Pogrund of the Washington Post: "Southern Republican senators defended Jeff Sessions after an explosive new book by Bob Woodward recounted how President Trump called his attorney general a 'dumb Southerner' and mocked his accent.... Woodward writes that the president privately called Sessions a 'traitor,' saying: 'This guy is mentally retarded. He's this dumb Southerner ... He couldn't even be a one-person country lawyer down in Alabama.' The remarks are said to have come during a conversation between Trump and his former staff secretary, Rob Porter, about Sessions's decision to recuse himself from the Russian investigation.... 'The already discredited Woodward book, so many lies and phony sources, has me calling Jeff Sessions "mentally retarded" and "a dumb southerner." I said NEITHER, never used those terms on anyone, including Jeff, and being a southerner is a GREAT thing. He made this up to divide!' the president said [in a tweet Tuesday]." Pogrund cites a number of Southern senators. Their defenses of Sessions & of Southern intelligence are pretty halfhearted. ...

... Kaitlan Collins of CNN: "... Donald Trump has become increasingly exasperated in recent weeks that he wasn't interviewed by Bob Woodward ahead of the publication of his upcoming book, three sources with knowledge of the President's concern tell CNN. Trump's irritation reflects a heightened sense of unease in the West Wing about next week's release of the veteran reporter's book 'Fear: Trump in the White House,' which details life in the Trump administration. Woodward made several attempts to interview Trump, CNN is told.... But the interview never panned out.... Multiple people close to Trump have speculated that part of the reason an interview never happened was because of a policy instituted by chief of staff John Kelly after the January publication of [Michael] Wolff's 'Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,' which portrayed Trump as an ill-equipped leader who refused to read even one-page briefing papers." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... David Graham of the Atlantic: "Woodward delivers a raft of jaw-dropping anecdotes about the administration[.]... If there's an overarching theme that emerges from the new revelations, it is the depth of the mutual disgust and disrespect between the president and his top aides, which is even more extensive than was already known.... The dysfunction at the heart of Woodward's account demonstrates the paradox at the heart of the Trump White House: Everything is irreparably and disastrously broken, and yet what comes next could be even worse." ...

... Martin Longman in the Washington Monthly: "Woodward's book is further confirmation that the president is not fit to serve and that everyone who is a close witness already knows this. The Senate knows it, too, which is why I don't think they're going to be some partisan bulwark in the end. In fact, they're the most important audience for this book. They'll actually read it and discuss it, which is more than most voters will do.... If there's one bit of good news for the president in Bob Woodward's book, it's that the early publicity includes excerpts so disturbing that it will take a lot of urgently needed focus off of the confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh.... [Here's a partial excerpt:] '... When [Gary] Cohn met with Trump to deliver his resignation letter after Charlottesville, the president told him, "This is treason," and persuaded his economic adviser to stay on. [John] Kelly then confided to Cohn that he shared Cohn's horror at Trump's handling of the tragedy -- and shared Cohn's fury with Trump. 'I would have taken that resignation letter and shoved it up his ass six different times,' Kelly told Cohn, according to Woodward. Kelly himself has threatened to quit several times, but has not done so." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: I would expect Mueller's team to grab a copy of Woodward's book & check the veracity of some of these alarming stories. In the aggregate, they suggest that Donald Trump is completely unfit for office. The Mueller report should reflect that true thing. And I don't know why Mattis & Kelly, et al., haven't sat down with mike pence to have a serious talk about invoking the 25th Amendment. Maybe they have. ...

... Jeet Heer: "The willingness of Trump’s staff to subvert their commander in chief is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it's obviously useful to stop Trump most dangerous impulses from being carried out. On the other hand, not obeying the lawful order of a legitimately elected official is also a subversion of democracy. Woodward refers to it as 'an administrative coup d'etat.' If Woodward's book is accurate, the United States doesn't have a functional presidency right now." ...

... "Everyone in the White House Considers Trump an Idiot." Jonathan Chait: "... even by the high standard set by the many previous insider accounts, [Woodward's] portrait of Trump's delusional state appears to be especially harrowing.... Trump's lawyer John Dowd has likewise called his client an idiot. Somewhat more audaciously, he has argued that Trump should not have to testify to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, because the transcript would leak, and foreign leaders would see that Trump is an idiot.... Another Trump lawyer, Jay Sekulow, tried to argue to Robert Mueller that Trump could not be asked to give an interview because he is a compulsive liar. They literally explained to Mueller how they conducted a mock interview with Trump, and he was so unable to tell the truth that they considered him mentally disqualified from testifying[.]... However dumb and crazy you might think Trump is, the reality always turns out to be even worse." ...

... Tina Nguyen of Vanity Fair: "Early leaked excerpts from Bob Woodward's new book, Fear: Trump in the White House, are overflowing with the sort of new details that ought to trigger the 25th Amendment." ...

Maggie Haberman & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, will accept written answers from President Trump on questions about whether his campaign conspired with Russia's election interference, Mr. Mueller's office told Mr. Trump's lawyers in a letter, two people briefed on it said on Tuesday. But on another significant aspect of the investigation -- whether the president tried to obstruct the inquiry itself -- Mr. Mueller and his investigators understood that issues of executive privilege could complicate their pursuit of a presidential interview and did not ask for written responses on that matter, according to the letter, which was sent on Friday. Mr. Mueller did not say that he was giving up on an interview altogether, including on questions of obstruction of justice. But the tone of the letter and the fact that the special counsel did not ask for written responses on obstruction prompted some Trump allies to conclude that if an interview takes place, its scope will be more limited than Mr. Trump's legal team initially believed...."

William Saletan of Slate: "Donald Trump has a habit of incriminating himself. No one understands this better than the people who work for him. In Bob Woodward's new book..., Trump's aides reportedly describe how they've scrambled again and again to stop him from exposing the extent of his paranoia and dishonesty. But the president has thwarted them.... The author who's going to bring down Trump isn't Woodward. It's Trump.... To make [the] case [for obstruction of justice], Mueller has to show that Trump acted with 'corrupt intent.'... To prove corrupt intent definitively, you'd have to catch the president attacking the justice process specifically because it threatened him or his political allies. On Monday, Mueller received that evidence... on Twitter.... The president lambasted Sessions for allowing the Justice Department to indict two pro-Trump congressmen.... He has no plausibly innocent grounds on which to attack the indictments.... [The tweet] shows a pattern of corrupt intent that goes beyond the Russia investigation.... Legally, the tweet sheds light on a specific question: Trump's attitude toward the administration of justice. It shows that his motivation in attacking investigations is corrupt." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump's corruption was inevitable. When an irrepressible narcissist gains any degree of power, he will necessarily abuse that power. Every action under his control is made in furtherance of his self-interest. Given the great powers a POTUS has, it would have been impossible for Trump not to act corruptly. As Woodward & many others have documented, Donald Trump is not-corrupt only to the extent that others -- the courts, his staff, the Congress, the voters -- have some power over him. But he cannot emotionally accept that control, & he gets around it in every way he can. ...

... Renato Mariotti, in a New York Times op-ed: "On Monday, President Trump publicly condemned Attorney General Jeff Sessions (via Twitter, of course) for failing to quash criminal investigations of two of his political allies, both Republican representatives who are under indictment for committing serious crimes. Oddly, what is surprising is not that the president made this statement but that absolutely no one is surprised that he made it.... Mr. Trump has increasingly obstructed the special counsel's investigation in plain view, in the process politicizing both the Justice Department and F.B.I.... The stakes could not be higher. A president with the power to initiate investigations of his opponents and quash investigations of his friends could destroy the rule of law and the ability of our criminal justice system to check corruption forever. For the sake of our nation, let us hope that congressional Republicans check the president while they still can." ...

... New York Times Editors: "It long ago became clear that Mr. Trump regards federal law enforcement -- as he sees all of government -- as a political tool to advance the interests of himself and of his party (assuming those interests align, of course; if not, the party is on its own). Yet even by that debased standard, Mr. Trump's latest Twitter tantrum against Mr. Sessions, on Monday, set a new low.... 'Two long-running, Obama era, investigations of two very popular Republican Congressmen were brought to a well publicized charge, just ahead of the Mid-terms, by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department,' he wrote. 'Two easy wins now in doubt because there is not enough time. Good job Jeff.'... Mr. Trump's beef is not with Jeff Sessions or the Justice Department. He has a problem with the law -- or at least with the idea that it should apply to him and those who do his bidding. Republicans, especially Republican lawmakers, are by their silence complicit in this perversion of justice." ...

... Jonathan Chait: "Here is a threat to a specific governing norm whose value is beyond dispute. Trump objects to the indictments of two House Republicans who have been caught in blatant illegality.... A Wall Street Journal editorial earlier this year sneered, 'we're pleased to report that there hasn't been a fascist coup in Washington.' It hasn't been for lack of trying, or for lack of support from institutional Republican organs like the Journal. Indeed, despite a handful of criticisms, Republicans in Congress have largely refused to criticize Trump's demands to control the DOJ." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Actually, there has been a fascist takeover, & it emerged from the back rooms, fully-formed, on the day Antonin Scalia died. It's been playing on the teevee this week, even if only one of the leaders of the coup -- Chuck Grassley -- is performing for the cameras. As Chait points out, fascists like Putin (and I'd add McConnell) don't rush in with guns blazing to take command of the government; they pretend to be following those "norms" Chait touts, even as they undermine & eventually eliminate the norms. Don't kid yourself; getting rid of Donald Trump will not obliterate this threat to democracy. It requires a full & permanent victory over the GOP front. We are living in a fascist state right now, with all three branches of government actively participating.

... Brad Reed of the Raw Story: "The hosts of 'Fox & Friends' on Tuesday appeared visibly deflated after legal analyst Andrew Napolitano told them that ... Donald Trump's latest tweets attacking Attorney General Jeff Sessions would provide 'fodder' for special counsel Robert Mueller's probe. In particular, Napolitano turned a critical eye to Trump's tweet attacking Sessions for letting the Department of Justice file charges against Reps. Chris Collins (R-NY) and Duncan Hunter (R-CA), who were respectively indicted on charges related to inside trading and campaign finance fraud.... '... there can't be two standards: One for members of Congress -- Republican members of Congress -- and one for others. It is the duty of the Justice Department to prosecute crimes when they find them and to bring indictments when a grand jury has decided there's enough evidence there,' [Napolitano said]." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Carol Lee, et al., of NBC News: "In recent conversations with confidants..., Donald Trump has added FBI Director Christopher Wray to his list of key members of his administration whom he complains about, three people familiar with the discussions tell NBC News. Trump has criticized Wray as another figure in the Justice Department who is not protecting his interests -- and is possibly out to undermine his presidency, these people said. Trump is 'in the worst mood of his presidency and calling friends and allies to vent about his selection of (Attorney General Jeff) Sessions and Wray," said one person familiar with the president's thinking. This person said the president was particularly focused on both men over the Labor Day weekend.... ow he's increasingly grouping Wray with Sessions, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and the special counsel's Russia investigation, all subjects of relentless criticism from the president."

Nancy Scola & Ashley Gold of Politico: "Twitter said Tuesday that not even ... Donald Trump is immune from being kicked off the platform if his tweets cross a line with abusive behavior. The social media company's rules against vitriolic tweets offer leeway for world leaders whose statements are newsworthy, but that 'is not a blanket exception for the president or anyone else,' Twitter legal and policy chief Vijaya Gadde told Politico in an interview alongside CEO Jack Dorsey. Trump regularly uses Twitter to ... at times raise the specter of violence, such as when he tweeted last year that if North Korean leaders continued with their rhetoric at the time, 'they won't be around much longer!'"

Gone But Not Forgotten. Stephanie Ebbs of ABC News: "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency did not justify increased spending on former Administrator Scott Pruitt's 24-hour security detail, which grew by almost $2 million in less than a year, the EPA's watchdog said. 'Failure to properly justify the level of protective services provided to the Administrator has allowed costs to increase from $1.6 million to $3.5 million in just 11 months,' the agency's inspector general said in a long-awaited report on Pruitt's 24-hour protective detail released Tuesday." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Yvonne Sanchez & Maria Polletta of the Arizona Republic: "Gov. Doug Ducey on Tuesday publicly chose Jon Kyl, once one of the most powerful Republicans in the U.S. Senate, to succeed the late Sen. John McCain.... Kyl could be sworn in as early as Tuesday night, though Wednesday is more likely, according to a governor's aide. He has agreed to serve at least through the end of the year.... If Kyl opts to step down after the end of the session, the governor would be required to appoint another replacement." Mrs. McC: It goes without saying that Kyl will vote to confirm Kavanaugh. I think that's his main job.

Congressional Races. Brian Murphy of the Raleigh News & Observer: "North Carolina's 13 congressional districts will remain in place and so will the Nov. 6, 2018 election, a federal three-judge panel ruled Tuesday. The panel ruled last week that the districts are unconstitutional due to 'partisan gerrymandering' designed to produce 10 Republican seats. But, with the election only two months away, the plaintiffs in the case -- the North Carolina chapters of Common Cause and The League of Women Voters -- argued that it was too late to change the maps despite their victory. On Tuesday, the court agreed."

Senate Race. Texas. Todd Gillman of the Dallas Morning News: "Sen. Ted Cruz's latest effort to inflame conservatives -- a video in which Rep. Beto O'Rourke appears to express enthusiasm for flag burning -- hinges on heavy splicing and a creative interpretation of a long-winded comment. O'Rourke did not say he's 'grateful' for flag burning. Nor did he say that flag burning is 'inherently American.' But that's how the Cruz campaign portrays O'Rourke's remarks from an El Paso town hall on Friday, in a 25-second video posted on the senator's campaign page and shared through social media. The challenger's camp called it a sign that Cruz is so worried about his re-election prospects, he is willing to twist facts. The Cruz side disputes that. This was one of several attacks launched against O'Rourke on Tuesday, as Cruz backers rush to his rescue."

Gubertorial Race. Kansas. Hunter Woodall of the Kansas City Star: "Republicans in Kansas further splintered Tuesday as the last moderate member of the party to hold the governor's office in Kansas endorsed a Democrat for governor over Kris Kobach, the GOP nominee. In a statement, former Kansas governor Bill Graves said he planned to support [state] Sen. Laura Kelly in the November election. Kelly is running against Kobach and independent Greg Orman. 'Laura Kelly is the only Democrat I have ever endorsed for public office,' Graves said in the statement." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Beyond the Beltway

Bill Ruthhart of the Chicago Tribune: Chicago "Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced Tuesday morning that he will no longer seek a third term in office, signaling the end to what has been a tumultuous -- and at times transformative -- eight years in office. With First Lady Amy Rule by his side, an emotional Emanuel said the time simply had come to write a new chapter in their lives together.... Emanuel's decision marks a dramatic political reversal, as for the better part of the last year he had said he would run for a third term. The mayor, long a prolific fundraiser, had already reeled in more than $10 million toward a bid for a third term.... Emanuel weighed the decision as the murder trial of Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke is scheduled to begin this week, a high-profile case that is sure to bring about fresh scrutiny of his handling of the Laquan McDonald police shooting, in which Van Dyke shot the teen 16 times in October 2014 as he walked down a Southwest Side street holding a small folding knife."

CBS-TV Miami: "Two Chicago-area [Roman Catholic] priests were charged Monday with Lewd and Lascivious behavior and Indecent Exposure after being caught performing a sexual act inside a car parked on a Miami Beach street. According to Miami Beach Police, 39-year-old Diego Berrio and 30-year-old Edwin GiraldoCortez were in the front seat of a car performing oral sex.... When officers arrived, the police report states, the two were performing sex acts on each other 'in full view of the public passing by on Ocean Drive and the sidewalk.' It was 3:20 in the afternoon." The Chicago Archdiocese removed the priests from their pastoral positions. Mrs. McC: Not sure why these guys couldn't have sex in a hotel room, but the real crime here is that they resorted to car sex because their church doesn't allow them to have sex at home.

Way Beyond

Vikram Dodd of the Guardian: "Two Russian nationals have been named and charged over the novichok poisoning of Sergei and Julia Skripal in March in Salisbury, Wiltshire. British police and prosecutors made the announcement on Wednesday. Police said they were travelling on authentic Russian passports under the names of Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov and arrived in the UK on an Aeroflot flight days before the attack. The Crown Prosecution Service said there was enough evidence to charge them.... The two Russian suspects ... have not been charged with the later poisoning that killed Dawn Sturgess and left Charlie Rowley seriously ill, after they became unwell on 30 June at a home in Amesbury, Wiltshire." The suspects apparently have returned to Russia, which does not extradite its own nationals.