The Ledes

Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Washington Post: “ John Amos, a running back turned actor who appeared in scores of TV shows — including groundbreaking 1970s programs such as the sitcom 'Good Times' and the epic miniseries 'Roots' — and risked his career to protest demeaning portrayals of Black characters, died Aug. 21 in Los Angeles. He was 84.”

New York Times: “Pete Rose, one of baseball’s greatest players and most confounding characters, who earned glory as the game’s hit king and shame as a gambler and dissembler, died on Monday. He was 83.”

The Ledes

Monday, September 30, 2024

New York Times: “Kris Kristofferson, the singer and songwriter whose literary yet plain-spoken compositions infused country music with rarely heard candor and depth, and who later had a successful second career in movies, died at his home on Maui, Hawaii, on Saturday. He was 88.”

~~~ The New York Times highlights “twelve essential Kristofferson songs.”

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Public Service Announcement

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

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Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns


Wednesday
Jun272018

The Commentariat -- June 28, 2018

Afternoon Update:

Kevin Rector of the Baltimore Sun: "A shooting has occurred at the Capital Gazette in Anne Arundel County, a paper that is owned by The Baltimore Sun.... Anne Arundel County Police confirmed there was an 'active shooter' at 888 Bestgate Road, where the newspaper's offices are located. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives confirmed it was responding to a 'shooting incident' at the Capital Gazette. Lt. Ryan Frashure, Anne Arundel County police spokesman, said he could not confirm if there were any fatalities, only that there were several injuries. He said that once the building is secured he would release information about the suspect and the injuries." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: According to a banner on the WashPo's main page, Gov. Hogan has said several were killed & several injuried. Remarkably, I just heard a Maryland EMS manager, speaking on MSNBC, cite Trump's attacks on the press as "not helpful"; i.e., a contributing factor in this kind of violence.

Devlin Barrett, et al., of the Washington Post: "Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein squared off Thursday with Republican lawmakers who accused him of misconduct and stonewalling -- claims he angrily denied -- in an ongoing feud over the FBI's investigations into Hillary Clinton and President Trump. The tense exchanges at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee were interrupted by a House vote on a resolution meant to publicly rebuke Rosenstein over what lawmakers characterize as his failure to turn over investigative documents related to both cases. The measure, which passed 226 to 183, calls on the Justice Department to 'comply with requests including subpoenas' by July 6. Thursday's hearing featuring Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher A. Wray was billed as an examination of an inspector general's report that found serious failings in how federal law enforcement handled a high-profile investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. But it mostly centered on Rosenstein -- and Republican accusations that he has withheld key details about the politically sensitive investigations." ...

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Lloyd Grove of the Daily Beast: "'Kind of pisses me off that @ nytimes is still asking Who Is Ocasio-Cortez? when it should have covered her campaign,' Jill Abramson erupted on Twitter on Wednesday morning -- a biting reference to the newspaper's original headline concerning the 28-year-old socialist's shocking Democratic primary upset, a landslide actually, over incumbent Joe Crowley in New York's 14th Congressional District. Indeed, a quick review of the Times' coverage of the primary race turned up mention of and quotes from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in two news stories prior to Election Night, and a few name-checks in editorials -- one of which, published in the June 20 print edition, noted that she's 'a challenger [Crowley] is heavily favored to beat. Missing her rise [is] akin to not seeing Trump's win coming in 2016,' Abramson added in her tweet -- an even more biting reference to the Times' self-acknowledged failings in the paper's reporting of the presidential campaign. In response to Abramson's critique -- which she elaborated in several emailed comments shared with the Times -- Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy told The Daily Beast: '... we just disagree with Jill.' A few hours after Abramson's tweet, the headline phrase that pissed her off, 'Who is Alexandria Ocasia-Cortez?' was changed online to 'Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: A 28-Year-Old Democratic Giant Slayer.'"

Gardiner Harris of the New York Times: "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo promised on Wednesday to impose additional sanctions on Venezuela, predicted that the United States would again fund schools for Palestinian refugees in Jordan and said that President Trump viewed Russia's return to the Group of 7 as inevitable. Mr. Pompeo's remarks came during a hearing in the Senate that was intended to discuss his department's budget. But there was little said about the Trump administration's plans to slash the State Department's funding, and Mr. Pompeo did not try to defend proposals to cut spending on such things as the battle against H.I.V. and AIDS in Africa."

Matthew Mosk & John Santucci of ABC News: "Several billionaires with deep ties to Russia attended exclusive, invitation-only receptions during Donald Trump's inauguration festivities, guest lists obtained by ABC News show. These powerful businessmen, who amassed their fortunes following the collapse of the Soviet Union -- including one who has since been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department -- were ushered into events typically reserved for top donors and close political allies and were given unprecedented access to Trump's inner circle. Their presence has attracted the interest of federal investigators probing Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election, three sources with knowledge of the matter said. Matthew Olsen, a former senior national security official who now serves as an ABC News consultant, said their presence at inaugural events is 'very concerning.'"

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "A former aide to Roger J. Stone Jr., the longtime Trump adviser and self-described 'dirty trickster,' was subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury hearing evidence in the Russia investigation and to hand over documents, and his lawyer said he planned to move on Thursday to quash it in court. The aide, Andrew Miller, has not been mentioned before publicly in the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. Mr. Miller, a registered Libertarian, worked briefly for Mr. Stone around the Republican convention in 2016, helping to arrange media interviews and conducting other tasks, according to a person close to Mr. Stone." Miller's lawyer plans to argue that Mueller's appointment is unconstitutional. Mrs. McC: Because that's what these nuts do. But don't worry; pretty soon the Supremes will be green-lighting the nuts' arguments.

Lachlan Markay & Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "Though [Scott] Pruitt demands loyalty among those in his inner circle, he has not reciprocated it to his aides, even as they face a legal and public-relations backlash stemming from his conduct at the agency.Sources say he's actively undermined the reputations of former and current staffers, with campaigns that former senior EPA officials have described as 'ratfucking.'... Knowledgeable sources also told The Daily Beast that Pruitt instructed staff to pitch 'oppo hits' to media outlets on ... officials who departed on bad terms or were sidelined.... Pruitt's vindictiveness doesn't put him out of place within the administration. In many respects, it reflects some of the trademark impulses of his boss, Donald J. Trump." The reporters cite some tacky examples of Pruitt's ratfucking projects.

Feds Interrupt Whistleblower Interview. CBS News: "In his first television interview, former Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson James Schwab has opened up about why he abruptly resigned in March. But his interview with CBS News' Jamie Yuccas on Wednesday was unexpectedly interrupted by agents identifying themselves as agents from the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General's Office. 'They just said that they wanted to talk to me about the leak with the Oakland mayor,' Schwab said of his conversation with the agents.... He said he felt compelled to resign after the current administration told him to lie about an incident that pitted the government against Oakland's mayor." He said that after Jeff Sessions "told a flat-out lie" about the incident, officials wanted Schwab to back up Sessions' lie to the public.

Congressional Races

Jonathan Martin & Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "The stunning defeat on Tuesday of Representative Joseph Crowley, the fourth-ranking House Democrat and a potential future speaker, threw the future of the septuagenarian-led caucus into chaos, opening the door to a new generation of leadership and a push leftward. As shock in the capital over Mr. Crowley's New York primary loss to a 28-year-old first-time candidate, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, gave way to calculation, House Democrats began floating challengers to Representative Nancy Pelosi, their leader. The current leadership slate reacted defensively to the threat of a purge, while a handful of other lawmakers braced for their own primary challenges from the left.... Rank-and-file House Democrats made clear in dozens of interviews that whether the party takes back the majority or not in November, there would be a push to depose Ms. Pelosi, the 78-year-old former speaker." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: As some wag pointed out a while back, the combined ages of Pelosi (78), Hoyer (79) & Clyburn (77) (= 234 )-- the top three House Democrats -- are older than the U.S. Constitution (229).

Mrs. McCrabbie: I don't know if Democrat M.J. Hegar will win, but it is stories like hers that make the political careers like those of her opponent look as craven & meaningless as they are. Thanks to PD Pepe for the link:


Abbie Bennett of the Raleigh News & Observer: "A website tied to a candidate for the North Carolina General Assembly says God is a racist white supremacist and that Jews are descended from Satan. Russell Walker is a Republican candidate running for state House District 48 which includes Scotland and Hoke counties. On Tuesday, the North Carolina Republican Party withdrew its support for Walker."

*****

Jonathan Chait runs down how the U.S. has come to be ruled by a minority, a/k/a Republicans: "The central drama of the Trump era is a struggle to defend American democracy against an authoritarian leader. The Republican Party's comfort with the crude authoritarianism of its president, though, did not spring out of nowhere. It is the culmination of a party increasingly comfortable with, and reliant on, countermajoritarian power."

** Michael Shear of the Washington Post: "Justice Anthony M. Kennedy announced on Wednesday that he will retire this summer, setting in motion a furious fight over the future of the Supreme Court and giving President Trump the chance to cement a conservative judicial philosophy on the American legal system for generations. A critical swing vote on the sharply polarized court for nearly three decades, Justice Kennedy, 81, embraced liberal views of gay rights, abortion and the death penalty even as he helped conservatives trim voting rights, block gun control measures and unleash campaign spending by corporations. His replacement by a conservative justice -- something Mr. Trump has vowed to insist upon -- is certain to reshape the country's legal landscape and could imperil a variety of landmark Supreme Court precedents on social issues, like abortion, where Justice Kennedy frequently sided with his liberal colleagues." (Also sort of linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Kennedy's impending retirement explains why Roberts punted on a number of cases that came up before the Court this year. ...

... ** E.J. Dionne: "...the Republican Five on the nation's highest court have operated as agents of their party's interests. And now things stand to get even worse because of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's retirement. He was, at least on some occasions, a moderating force. His replacement by another conservative hard-liner in the mold of Justice Neil M. Gorsuch would give right-wing interpretations of the law free rein.... All the recent talk about civility should not stop opponents of a right-wing court from doing everything in their power to keep the judiciary from being packed with ideologues who behave as partisans. There is nothing civil about rushing a nominee to replace Kennedy before the midterm elections. And no rule of civility demands the confirmation of justices who would leave an abusive president unchecked and use raw judicial power to roll back a century's worth of social progress." Read on. ...

... Cristian Farias of New York: Anthony Kennedy's "tacit surrender to Trump and all he represents -- and his willingness to allow his name and legacy to be brandished in the coming battle over his replacement -- says more about the senior justice than anyone else. He may be the Supreme Court's enduring center of gravity. But in the term that just wrapped up today, he was, more than anything, dead weight.... He was just there, offering a few platitudes about respect for gays and lesbians in Masterpiece Cakeshop, but nonetheless willing to side with a Christian baker who, in his view, had been the target of Evangelical hostility. That he was unwilling to raise his voice with equal force for Muslims here or abroad in Trump v. Hawaii -- or for voting rights, labor unions, or even against the surveillance state in the digital age, all cases where he voted squarely with conservatives during the last term -- betrayed a certain tiredness and lack of enthusiasm for the very principles of equality and liberty that for 30 years we believed he held dear." ...

... Dahlia Lithwick of Slate: "Maybe it's a fitting end to his career to say that the man who wanted everyone to speak to one another civilly and respectfully did what everyone else has done this year and threw in the towel.... Democrats should rightly be terrified that Kennedy's legacy around gay rights, reproductive rights, affirmative action, some kinds of racial justice, and student prayer are in immediate peril. And Democrats can now be fully assured that the Supreme Court will not step in to stop Donald Trump's excesses. And to be sure, the reason the court will not stand up to future acts of Trumpism is that Kennedy, who tried to be the bridge at the court for so many decades, gave up and joined Team Trump.... There is no longer a center, or even a center built of make-believe." ...

... Matt Ford of the New Republic: "By stepping down from the court, Kennedy leaves behind a complex record on the court -- one that largely maintained a tenuous balance of power between America's increasingly polarized political factions. That balance now appears to be in jeopardy: upsetting it could be Anthony Kennedy's most lasting legacy." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Unless Kennedy is seriously ill, there is no excuse for his choosing to retire while Donald Trump is president*. It's an act of sabotage. It's not for nothing that David Souter waited to retire until Dubya was term-limited out of office. Souter is or was a Republican, but he was also aware of the effects Dubya's other appointees were having on American jurisprudence. ...

... Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress: "Anthony Kennedy was a horrible justice, and his last decision was his worst.... He was in over his head at the Supreme Court. And, for that reason, his most celebrated opinions will be very easy to dismantle.... His writing ranged from needlessly flowery to completely incoherent.... Nevertheless, for all of Kennedy's shortcomings  --  his naive view of money in politics and his disregard for voting rights, his crusade against the Affordable Care Act, his expansive conservatism and his miserly liberalism  --  America will be much, much worse off with Kennedy off the Court. The future now belongs to men such as Neil Gorsuch. It belongs to men eager to inject even more money into American politics. It belongs to men who will tear down reproductive freedom, give the Christian right broad immunity from the law, protect voter suppression, and even allow judges to sell themselves to campaign donors. Kennedy made many bad decisions on the Supreme Court, but his single worst decision was to give his seat up to Donald Trump." ...

... Surprise, Surprise. Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "Senator Mitch McConnell wasted no time on Wednesday and promised a Senate vote on a new Supreme Court nominee by the fall -- and Democrats will have little power to prevent confirmation of President Trump's choice on their own.... The decision to move swiftly shows that Mr. McConnell and his fellow Senate Republicans do not intend to give Democrats and their allies an extended opportunity to build opposition to a nominee -- or to retake the Senate and blockade confirmation as Republicans did with President Barack Obama's nominee in 2016. The confirmation process will throw a volatile new issue into the already charged midterm campaign season, providing fresh challenges for both Republican and Democratic candidates." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: As the Oracle Akhilleus wrote in yesterday's Comments thread, before McConnell's announcement, "Also, look for the little dictator to announce his latest future Nuremberg Trials defendant in days, and for traitor Mitch McConnell to race the nomination through in record time. No waiting for the November elections which might boot his fat turtle ass out of the leadership position and put a responsible person in his oily stead." ...

I fully expect the president’s nominee to receive the same consideration that Merrick Garland received. -- Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) ...

... Matt Shuham of TPM lists Democratic senators' responses to consideration of a Trump nominee to the Supreme Court.

... "Mitch McConnell's Politics of Shamelessness Have Won." Matt Yglesias of Vox: "When Justice Antonin Scalia died unexpectedly, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pulled a new rule of American politics out of thin air and said there could be no vote on a replacement during a hotly contested election year. When Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement Wednesday afternoon, McConnell pulled a distinction out of thin air and said that the autumn of a midterm election was a perfect time to confirm a new Supreme Court justice. It is, yes, hypocritical.... There's a perfect alignment between the reputation he wants, the reputation he has, and the reputation he deserves in a way that's unequalled among American politicians and that allows him to conduct himself with an even greater degree of shamelessness than Donald Trump himself since unlike the all-id Trump, McConnell isn't out of control he's just willing to be utterly ruthless in pursuit of his political objectives." ...

... Richard Hasen: "The only political hope here is for massive street protests, like we saw with the initial Trump travel ban to try to convince senators like Susan Collins of Maine or Lisa Murkowski of Alaska to vote no. It's a long shot because we've seen these senators fold time and again. But it is worth trying.... Democrats may have to turn to more radical measures — like adding more justices to the court, something some have already proposed -- when they come back into power in order to make up for the Merrick Garland nomination that was blockaded by McConnell in 2016.... I expect a Trump Bump in the midterms when evangelicals come out to vote excited about the next Scalia that Trump and McConnell have delivered to them." ...

... Steve M. "But we know what's going to happen if liberal interest groups take to the streets. A norm-shattering act of blatant hypocrisy that might hand decades-long control of the Supreme Court to a president who lost the popular vote and who's under investigation for colluding in election-rigging by an enemy country ... well, I'm sure [Chuck] Todd and others like him will think that's bad, but liberal demonstrators will be rude, and that's much, much worse.... Yet it's all we've got. So let's get to it."

Pete Williams of NBC News: "The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a crippling blow Wednesday to unions representing millions of the nation's public employees. The justices said in a 5-4 opinion that state government workers who choose not to join a union cannot be compelled to pay a share of union dues for covering the cost of negotiating contracts. Unions had said such an outcome would cut off a source of income and diminish their political clout in the 23 states where they bargain for both members and non-members alike. A recent non-partisan study predicted that a Supreme Court defeat would eventually cause public employee unions to lose 726,000 members, a significant blow in one of organized labor's remaining strongholds. Nearly half of all union members in the U.S. are government employees.... Donald Trump tweeted shortly after the ruling that it was a 'Big loss of the coffers of the Democrats!'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Eric Levitz of New York: "In hindsight, it's hard to argue that Democrats did everything in their power to [put a liberal on the Supreme Court to replace Antonin Scalia.] For example, imagine if Barack Obama had nominated the first African-American woman to the Supreme Court -- one who was young, and unabashedly progressive in her jurisprudence. When McConnell subsequently vetoed her appointment -- and thereby nullified Obama's attempt to give a modicum of representation in the halls of high power to the Democratic Party's most loyal constituency -- wouldn't it have been easier to mobilize the Democratic base in outrage, than it was to rally them behind Merrick Garland?" (Also linked yesterday.)


"Trump Takes over America." Mike Allen of Axios: "President Trump, with his refusal to take advice or yield to experts, is the West Wing. Republicans who control both halves of Congress won't lift a finger against him and fully support his every move.... With his chance to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, Trump may have fewer checks on his power than any president in his lifetime.... His one big legislative accomplishment -- a huge tax cut -- will silence business critics as long as he's around.... The 2018 elections matter exponentially more today than they did 24 hours ago."

Mark Landler & Andrew Kramer of the New York Times: "President Trump plans to meet President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia next month in a one-on-one summit meeting, a politically sensitive encounter that could exacerbate strains with NATO allies even if it eases tensions between the United States and Russia." Mrs. McC: Will the Artful Dealer turn over the keys to the White House in exchange for Trump Tower Kremlin? Inquiring minds want to know. ...

     ... Update. Louis Nelson of Politico: "... Donald Trump will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin next month in Finland, the White House announced Thursday, setting up a historic summit between two presidents who have often spoken warmly of one another even as their nations have become increasingly at odds. 'President Donald J. Trump and President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation will meet on July 16, 2018, in Helsinki, Finland,' White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement Thursday morning." ...

... Steven Erlanger of the New York Times: "NATO members say they fear that all the preparation and the desire to show solidarity in the face of a new Russian threat will be overshadowed, if not undone, by a divisive encounter followed by Mr. Trump's prospective summit meeting with the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin.The European allies are deeply worried that they will confront the Trump who was on display at the meeting in June in Canada of the seven major economies, known as the Group of 7, or G-7. Those in the room described him as angry, mocking, wandering and rude, especially to the host, Canada's prime minister, Justin Trudeau, and to Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany.... European and some American officials say they dread the same pattern -- a noisy, divisive NATO summit, damaging deterrence, followed by a chummy meeting with a dictator, in this case Mr. Putin, whose long-term goals are to destabilize the European Union, undermine NATO and restore Russian influence over Eastern Europe, the Baltic States and the Balkans."

Zeeshan Aleem of Vox: "After weeks of anticipation, President Donald Trump has decided to back down from a hard-hitting policy that would sharply restrict Chinese investment in the US -- opting to work with Congress on a more modest measure instead. Trump's decision should at least temporarily defuse tensions between the US and China, who are on the brink of an all-out trade war over China's trade policies. Earlier this week reports indicated that Trump was on the verge of using emergency presidential powers to issue an order to dramatically restrict Chinese investment in US businesses." --safari ...

... Self-enrichment > U.S. security. Jessica Kwong of Newsweek: "First daughter Ivanka Trump's company received approval from China to register three trademarks on the same day her father ... agreed to lift sanctions against a Chinese telecommunications company, according to a government watchdog group. China granted registration approval for the three Ivanka Trump Marks LLC trademarks on June 7.... President Trump saved the Chinese telecommunications company ZTE from financial collapse the same day by lifting tough American sanctions, despite opposition from some of his advisers and Republicans." --safari: Any photos of giant bags of money changing hands? No. Welp, no corruption here

Trump's Lies Are Getting Weirder.

The head of U.S. Steel called me the other day, and he said, 'We're opening up six major facilities and expanding facilities that have never been expanded.' They haven't been opened in many, many years.-- President Trump, roundtable with American workers, Duluth, Minn., June 20

U.S. Steel just announced they're expanding or building six new facilities. -- President Trump, remarks at the White House, June 26

Why is the president of the United States announcing the opening of new factories that a major U.S. company has not announced?... [U.S. Steel refused to confirm that its CEO had spoken with Trump re: any expansions.] Either the president of U.S. Steel tipped market-moving information to the president of the United States, or he did not. Interestingly, the securities markets have not reacted at all to the president's disclosure; U.S. Steel's stock fell the day after Trump made his comments about six new facilities, and it has continued to decline. -- Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post


Spencer Ackerman of The Daily Beast: "'Several hundred' undocumented parents appear to have been deported without their children in April 2018 alone, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) sponsored by Syracuse University. Breaking down newly acquired Border Patrol data, TRAC found that only 851 children out of 5,144 arrested in April have been deported, contrasting with 1,060 deportations of the 4,537 undocumented adults arrested that month." --safari...

... Sam Biddle of The Intercept: "The reporters at Reuters have been providing crucial, unfliching coverage of the cruel treatment of would-be immigrants under policies pushed by President Donald Trump. Meanwhile, the news agency's parent company, Thomson Reuters, has been supplying U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement with data from its vast stores as part of federal contracts worth close to $30 million.... Last week, advocacy and watchdog group Privacy International wrote to Thomson Reuters CEO James Smith to 'express concern' over contracts between ICE and two of the company's subsidiaries." --safari

Rachel Bade of Politico: House Republicans' so-called "'compromise' [--no Dems allowed-- immigration] bill died Wednesday afternoon, 121 to 301 -- the latest in a string of high-profile failures to overhaul the nation's immigration system and an embarrassment to House GOP leaders and ... Donald Trump. While several top conservatives had been in the room helping write the bill, every single one of them voted against it." AND they were all mad at each other. Mrs. McC: Boo-fucking-hoo.

This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.

Adam Davidson of the New Yorker: "Barring an unexpected change, the Donald J. Trump Foundation will be defending itself in a New York courtroom shortly before this fall's midterm elections. The proceedings seem unlikely to go well for the institution and its leadership; President Trump and his elder children, Ivanka, Donald, Jr., and Eric, are being sued by New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood for using the charity to enrich and benefit the Trump family. On Tuesday, the judge in the case, Saliann Scarpulla, made a series of comments and rulings from the bench that hinted -- well, all but screamed -- that she believes the Trump family has done some very bad things.... During Tuesday's hearing, the Trump Foundation's lawyer, Alan Futerfas, asked that the trial not commence in October, because it was so close to the midterms. Judge Scarpulla laughed in response, did not change the trial date, and hinted that she is likely to require the President to testify.... The case against the Trumps appears damning."

Reuters: "A search warrant application unsealed on Wednesday revealed closer links than previously known between ... Donald Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort and a Russian oligarch with close ties to the Kremlin. In an affidavit attached to the July 2017 application, an FBI agent said he had reviewed tax returns for a company controlled by Manafort and his wife that showed a $10 million loan from a Russian lender identified as Oleg Deripaska."


All the Best People, Ctd. Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: "Bill Shine, a former Fox News executive who was close to Roger E. Ailes, the network's ousted chairman, is expected to be offered the job of White House communications director, according to four people familiar with the decision. Mr. Shine, who was forced out as co-president at Fox News last May for his handling of sexual harassment scandals at the network, has met with President Trump in recent weeks about taking the West Wing communications job, which has been vacant since Hope Hicks left the job in March. Four people familiar with the decision said it was likely to be announced and that the president had offered him the job. But the move has not been finalized, in part because of the president's mercurial decision-making process and also because of Mr. Shine's reluctance to walk into a chaotic West Wing. As recently as a month ago, Mr. Shine didn't want the job, according to a person familiar with his thinking. The former television executive was reluctant to deal with all the scrutiny, part of which could focus on his own connection to the sexual harassment scandal at Fox News, the person said."...

... Aaron Lorenzo of Politico: "President Donald Trump's pick to run the IRS, tax lawyer Chuck Rettig, owns properties at the Trump International Hotel Waikiki and Tower. He'd previously disclosed his 50 percent stake in a pair of Honolulu rental units, but not their specific location. That detail was discussed later, at a June 21 meeting with congressional staff, according to a memo obtained by Politico.... It also indicated Rettig failed to report interest income or interest expenses related to a personal loan he made to an unnamed family member." --safari...

... Shambolic Corporate Shill Award. David Dayen ;of The Intercept: "Andrew Smith, the newly installed head of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission represented an astonishing array of [54] miscreant companies ... during his four-year tenure at the corporate law firm Covington & Burling, according to a financial disclosure form released Wednesday.... Under conflict-of-interest standards, Smith would likely have to recuse himself from investigations of all of those companies, including several already under investigation by the FTC..., But [it] doesn't stop there..., Smith ... received compensation for legal services from practically all of the nation's large financial firms.... Financial companies linked to Smith have paid tens of billions of dollars in fines for securities and consumer protection violations.... It gets worse...." --safari ...

... Recruiting the Swamp. Zahra Hirji of BuzzFeed (June 25th): "A month after starting as chief of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt made a recruiting 'plea' to top executives at the American Petroleum Institute, a major oil and gas trade group, according to internal emails obtained by BuzzFeed News.... [T]he emails give yet another example of the Trump administration offering jobs to industry officials and lobbyists. For example, J. Steven Hart, the energy lobbyist linked to Pruitt's former apartment deal in Capitol Hill, provided the agency with recommendations for staff and science advisers last year, the New York Times reported. In another case, Trump donor Doug Deason submitted a list of names to be EPA science advisers, according to Politico." --safari

Toby Eckert of Politico: "Public support for the recent tax overhaul plunged in the past two months ... according to a new Politico/Morning Consult poll. Just 37 percent of registered voters said they supported the tax-cut laden law, down from 44 percent in an April poll. The number of voters who were undecided or offered no opinion leapt to 24 percent from 17 percent.... Even among Republicans, support for the law dropped to 70 percent, from 80 percent in April. The number who moved into the undecided column jumped to 19 percent from 10 percent.... Only 25 percent of voters said they had noticed an increase in their paychecks as a result of the law, while 52 percent said they hadn't." --safari...

Benjamin Haas of the Guardian: "North Korea has continued to upgrade its only known nuclear reactor used to fuel its weapons program, satellite imagery has shown, despite ongoing negotiations with the US and a pledge to denuclearise. Infrastructure improvements at the Yongbyon nuclear plant are 'continuing at a rapid pace', according to an analysis by monitoring group 38 North of commercial satellite images taken on 21 June." Mrs. McC: What? You mean Kim snookered the artful dealer Trump? Unpossible! (Also linked yesterday.)

Philip Gordon amp; Prem Kumar in The Atlantic: "Given the serious risks of escalating violence, the desperate humanitarian situation in Gaza, and the continued costs of the status quo, [Jared] Kushner's desire to move forward [with a peace plan] even in the face of long odds is understandable. Unfortunately, his interview also revealed that he is living in a fantasy world and preparing an approach more likely to compound the current problems than to resolve them.... Neither the Palestinian nor Israeli people, nor their leaders, are currently prepared for the compromises required for a deal, and accentuating this reality will only make things worse. In diplomacy, as in medicine, the Hippocratic Oath to 'do no harm' can be a worthy principle. Jared Kushner would do well to consider it now." --safari

Congressional, State Races

Dana Milbank: "In her shocking primary upset of Nancy Pelosi's heir apparent, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just did Democrats a big favor. I mean no disrespect to Rep. Joseph Crowley, the New York Democrat she beat.... Now he won't be speaker. And this, in a very concrete way, clears the way for a new generation to take the reins of the opposition -- leaders who appeal to the emerging electoral majority that already dominates the party and will soon dominate the country: progressive, young, female and nonwhite. It is no accident that Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old Latina, is all four.... Until Tuesday night, the party was in the absurd position of having septuagenarians occupying all three of its top leadership positions in the House -- with a somewhat-less-old white guy, the 56-year-old Crowley, waiting patiently to succeed them.... Ocasio-Cortez saved Democrats from that and improved the odds of a younger and feistier Democratic opposition emerging." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Let us pause for a moment to thank the people of Queens & the Bronx who exercised the franchise. ...

Margaret Hartmann: "In a battle over which candidate is the most Trump-like, GOP primary voters in Staten Island went with the guy who isn't a convicted felon. Michael Grimm, who resigned from Congress in 2015 after pleading guilty to tax evasion, was hoping for a chance to reclaim his old seat on Tuesday night, but he was easily defeated by Representative Dan Donovan. With all precincts in New York's 11th Congressional District reporting, Donovan took 64 percent of the vote to Grimm's 36 percent." (Also linked yesterday.)

Teachers Rule, Even in Oklahoma. Rivka Galchen in the New Yorker: "Republican legislators who opposed the [teacher] pay raise were mostly either beaten or forced into runoffs.... Three statewide Republican incumbents, including the current lieutenant governor, were forced into a runoff or rejected.... Meanwhile, more than fifty educator candidates advanced.... All the Democratic incumbents held onto their positions.... Red states such as Oklahoma -- with its decade of dramatic cuts to public services and fanatical antagonism to taxes -- are often mentioned as leading indicators of the direction in which the whole country may be heading. This primary, which boosted teachers and rejected the current state-level Republican leadership, may be the embodiment of a turn."


Edmund Lee & Cecilia Kang of the New York Times: "The Department of Justice approved the Walt Disney Company's $71 billion bid for the entertainment assets of 21st Century Fox on Wednesday, potentially complicating Comcast's desire to make a rival offer for Rupert Murdoch's entertainment empire. The government's approval was filed in federal court on the condition that Disney, which already owns ESPN, divest all of Fox's 22 regional sports networks, which include valuable channels like the Yankees' YES network."

See the Forest for the Trees' (Stumps). Eliza Barclay of Vox: "Given forests' importance [maintaining climate stability], new data from the University of Maryland released on Global Forest Watch, a forest monitoring site, is alarming: 2017 was the second-worst year on record for tropical forest loss. Some 39 million acres of trees, an area the size of Bangladesh, were destroyed. That's about 40 football fields of trees lost every single minute... 'This is a crisis of existential proportions,' Ola Elvestuen, Norway's minister of climate and environment, said Wednesday at the Oslo Tropical Forest Forum where the data was released. 'We either deal with it or we leave future generations in ecological collapse.'" --safari

Beyond the Beltway

Justice Delayed. Cleve Wootson of the Washington Post: "In Franklin Gebhardt’s eyes, Timothy Coggins's crime was simple: Coggins was a black man who was dating a white woman. One night in the fall of 1983, Gebhardt and his brother-in-law, William Moore, lured Coggins into a car.... The pair stabbed Coggins more than 30 times, leaving a patchwork of bloody Xes on the young man's skin, prosecutors said, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Then, the two white men chained Coggins to the back of a pickup truck, took him to a desolate part of town and dragged him across the asphalt until he stopped moving." Although Gebhardt & Moore had boasted over the years that they had killed a black man, the case never moved forward, partly because the two men had friends in the police department. A break in the case "came a year ago, when authorities said they received new information, "& other witnesses came forward].... Gebhardt was convicted of committing a murder that was driven by racial hatred.... Moore is awaiting trial." The linked AJC story is compelling.

Way Beyond

Trumpenfriends. Hannah Ellis-Peterson of the Guardian: "Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen has become a 'fully fledged military dictator' according to Human Rights Watch in a report released on Thursday investigating the extent of his personal control over the military and the police.... While Hun Sen while has always been notorious for his autocratic rule -- his official title is princely exalted supreme great commander of gloriously victorious troops." --safari

Kelsey Munro of the Guardian: "China's social credit system, a big-data system for monitoring and shaping business and citizens' behaviour, is reaching beyond China's borders to impact foreign companies, according to new research. The system, which has been compared to an Orwellian tool of mass surveillance, is an ambitious work in progress: a series of big data and AI-enabled processes that effectively grant subjects a social credit score based on their social, political and economic behaviour.... The Chinese government aims to have all 1.35 billion of its citizens subject to the system by 2020. But a new report by US China scholar Samantha Hoffman ... claims the system's impact ... has the 'potential to interfere directly in the sovereignty of other nations', she said." --safari

Comments Off
Tuesday
Jun262018

The Commentariat -- June 27, 2018

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

** "Oh Jesus. Anthony Kennedy is retiring. Nazi Germany, here we come." Mrs. McC: That might not be quite how the NYT report (linked) phrases it, but Akhilleus's report is good enough for me.

Pete Williams of NBC News: "The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a crippling blow Wednesday to unions representing millions of the nation's public employees. The justices said in a 5-4 opinion that state government workers who choose not to join a union cannot be compelled to pay a share of union dues for covering the cost of negotiating contracts. Unions had said such an outcome would cut off a source of income and diminish their political clout in the 23 states where they bargain for both members and non-members alike. A recent non-partisan study predicted that a Supreme Court defeat would eventually cause public employee unions to lose 726,000 members, a significant blow in one of organized labor's remaining strongholds. Nearly half of all union members in the U.S. are government employees.... Donald Trump tweeted shortly after the ruling that it was a 'Big loss of the coffers of the Democrats!'" ...

... Eric Levitz of New York: "In hindsight, it's hard to argue that Democrats did everything in their power to [put a liberal on the Supreme Court to replace Antonin Scalia.] For example, imagine if Barack Obama had nominated the first African-American woman to the Supreme Court -- one who was young, and unabashedly progressive in her jurisprudence. When McConnell subsequently vetoed her appointment -- and thereby nullified Obama's attempt to give a modicum of representation in the halls of high power to the Democratic Party's most loyal constituency -- wouldn't it have been easier to mobilize the Democratic base in outrage, than it was to rally them behind Merrick Garland?"

Benjamin Haas of the Guardian: "North Korea has continued to upgrade its only known nuclear reactor used to fuel its weapons program, satellite imagery has shown, despite ongoing negotiations with the US and a pledge to denuclearise. Infrastructure improvements at the Yongbyon nuclear plant are 'continuing at a rapid pace', according to an analysis by monitoring group 38 North of commercial satellite images taken on 21 June." Mrs. McC: What? You mean Kim snookered the artful dealer Trump? Unpossible.

Margaret Hartmann: "In a battle over which candidate is the most Trump-like, GOP primary voters in Staten Island went with the guy who isn't a convicted felon. Michael Grimm, who resigned from Congress in 2015 after pleading guilty to tax evasion..., was easily defeated by Representative Dan Donovan. With all precincts in New York's 11th Congressional District reporting, Donovan took 64 percent of the vote to Grimm's 36 percent."

*****

Primary Election Results

New York. The New York Times has results here.

... Shane Goldmacher & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Representative Joseph Crowley of New York, once seen as a possible successor to Nancy Pelosi as Democratic leader of the House, suffered a shocking primary defeat on Tuesday, the most significant loss for a Democratic incumbent in more than a decade, and one that will reverberate across the party and the country. Mr. Crowley was defeated by a 28-year-old political newcomer, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a former organizer for Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign, who had declared it was time for generational, racial and ideological change. Mr. Crowley, the No. 4 Democrat in the House, had drastically outspent his lesser-known rival to no avail, as Ms. Ocasio-Cortez's campaign was lifted by an aggressive social media presence and fueled by attention from national progressives hoping to flex their muscle in a race against a potential future speaker." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: If Crowley were any good at promoting the Democratic party & liberal values, I would have known who the hell he was. The No. 4 guy in the House & I never heard of him? Shame on him, not on me. He deserved to lose, & thanks to Ocasio-Cortez for relieving us of the dead-weight pasty old white guy. ...

... Matt Berman, et al., of BuzzFeed: "Ocasio-Cortez in her campaign became one of the dominant voices of the left's anti-establishment movement. She ran on a slate of issues now popular on the left -- Medicare for All, abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and stripping corporate money out of politics. She's backed by the Democratic Socialists of America and by Our Revolution, the group affiliated with Bernie Sanders. She spent the last weekend of the campaign in Texas, protesting ... Donald Trump's border policy.... 'Holy cow, we're elated, and simultaneously and honestly shocked,' Corbin Trent, Ocasio-Cortez's communications director told BuzzFeed News.... 'Shell shocked' was the phrase an aide who works closely with Democratic House leadership used in a text to describe the night. 'I don't know what else to say. We joked about it today. I can't believe this is real life.' Ocasio-Cortez was given virtually no chance of winning the race by New York political observers...."

Maryland. NYT results are here.

... Baltimore Sun: "Ben Jealous' progressive bid for the Democratic nomination for governor hinged on a bet that the Maryland Democratic party's left wing had enough force to put him over the top. He won that bet by a big margin -- more than 55,000 votes. Tuesday night's results show that the traditional Maryland establishment lost out to a candidate who could unite unions, Bernie Sanders-style Democrats and African-Americans. Rushern Baker, the Prince George's County executive supported by most of the state's Democratic leaders, started out as the nominal front-runner...."

Oklahoma. NYT results are here.

... Barbara Hoberock, et al., of the Tulsa World: "Former Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett comfortably advanced and Tulsa businessman Kevin Stitt upset Lt. Gov. Todd Lamb to get into the Republican runoff for governor. On the Democratic side of the governor's race, former Attorney General Drew Edmondson easily advanced to the general election, securing more than 60 percent of the vote over state Sen. Connie Johnson. Cornett and Stitt move on to an Aug. 28 runoff.... Gov. Mary Fallin is term-limited and could not seek re-election after eight years in office.... Voter turnout was bolstered by dissatisfaction with the current Oklahoma Legislature and Fallin's low approval rating. A state question seeking to legalize medical marijuana also contributed to heavy turnout. Tuesday's unofficial turnout exceeded 880,000 votes, more than were cast in the 2014 general election and the 2016 presidential primary." ...

... They'll Be Smoking Marijuana in Muskogee. Andrea Eger of the Tulsa World: "Oklahoma voters on Tuesday appear to have made it legal to use, sell and grow marijuana for medicinal purposes in a referendum two years in the making. About 57 percent of voters approved the measure."

Colorado. Results are here.

... John Frank of What's Left of the Denver Post: "The Colorado governor's race is set: Democrat Jared Polis will face Republican Walker Stapleton in a November election in which President Donald Trump, marijuana and big money are expected to dominate. The two candidates easily won their respective nominations in Tuesday's primary election, each defeating three rivals with campaigns that appealed to the party's most ardent supporters. Polis, a five-term Boulder congressman, would become the nation's first openly gay man elected governor if he succeeds, and his win Tuesday represents a sharp leftward shift that will test whether Colorado is a true blue state. Stapleton, the two-term state treasurer and Bush family relative, is competing to become only the second Republican elected governor in 44 years and aligned himself with Republican firebrands to win the race.... Stapleton embraced former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, a hard-liner on immigration, to secure a place on the ballot at the state party assembly after fraudulent petitions nearly cost him a place on in the race."

Utah. Results are here.

... Benjamin Wood of the Salt Lake Tribune: "Mitt Romney hardly broke a sweat on his way to capturing the Republican nomination in Utah's U.S. Senate race, according to unofficial results Tuesday, earning 73 percent of the vote.... Romney wished well to his Democratic opponent, Jenny Wilson, whom he will face in November's general election to fill the seat of retiring Sen. Orrin Hatch. To be a great nation, Romney said, the United States must be strong. The country should live within its means as Utah does, and welcome refugees and immigrants who legally enter the country and add vitality to the nation.... The former Massachusetts governor moved to Utah in 2014 after it looked like he was retired for good from political campaigning.... Romney finished behind [State Rep. Mike] Kennedy at the Utah Republican Convention in April in a 49 percent to 51 percent vote of state GOP delegates."

South Carolina. The New York Times has run-off results here.

... Avery Wilks of the State: "A day after ... Donald Trump flew to South Carolina to campaign for him, Gov. Henry McMaster won the S.C. Republican Party's nomination for governor Tuesday. The 71-year-old Columbia Republican defeated Greenville businessman John Warren, a political novice, after a contentious primary runoff in which both candidates tried to court Trump voters. In the end, S.C. Republicans picked the candidate Trump liked over the Trump-like candidate." ...

... Sammy Fretwell of the State: "Former state Sen. Lee Bright, the socially conservative Spartanburg resident known for his hardline political stances, lost Tuesday in his bid for a seat in Congress to replace retiring Rep. Trey Gowdy. William Timmons, a state senator from Greenville, defeated Bright in the Republican primary runoff election for the Upstate Congressional seat.... A first-term state senator, Timmons in November will face Democrat Brandon Brown, who defeated Lee Turner in that party's primary Tuesday. Chances that Republicans will retain the seat are strong because the district in northwestern South Carolina votes heavily for the GOP." ...

... Also, if you'd like to know who-all is ahead in the Miss Teen South Carolina & Miss South Carolina pageants, well, the State reports that news is right up there with primary results.

Mississippi. Primary run-off results are here.

... Anna Wolfe of the Mississippi Clarion Ledger: "Attorney and veteran state lawmaker David Baria defeated venture capitalist Howard Sherman, husband of Meridian native and Emmy-award winning actress Sela Ward, to become the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate. Baria led Tuesday night with 59 percent to 41 percent, with 99 percent of votes in from a low turnout election. Baria won despite having a fraction of his opponent's campaign funds."

It's Another Mitch McConnell Day at the Supreme Court ...
Or, to borrow from Ian Millhiser, Another Great Day for White Nationalism

Adam Liptak & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court >upheld President Trump's ban on travel from several predominantly Muslim countries, delivering to the president on Tuesday a political victory and an endorsement of his power to control immigration at a time of political upheaval about the treatment of migrants at the Mexican border. In a 5-to-4 vote, the court's conservatives said that the president's power to secure the country's borders, delegated by Congress over decades of immigration lawmaking, was not undermined by Mr. Trump' history of incendiary statements about the dangers he said Muslims pose to the United States." (Also linked yesterday in an earlier iteration.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is that "presumption of good faith" Ian Millhiser & Cristian Farias discuss. Farias specifically tied said presumption to the possible decision in the Muslim ban case. Sadly, he was right. I'll be way interested to see if the winger justices presume good faith on the part of Democratic lawmakers & administrators. Scalia thought one purpose of ObamaCare was to make every American eat broccoli, & they all seem to think workers & unions are up to no good. ...

... Amy Howe of ScotusBlog provides a detailed analysis of the decision, Justice Kennedy's concurrence (see Feldman, linked below, for more on Kennedy's lame excuse) & dissents.

... ** "Bigoted & Feckless, the Travel Ban Is Pure Trump." New York Times Editors: "On Tuesday morning the five conservative justices of the Supreme Court -- including the one who got the job only because Senate Republicans stole a seat and held it open for him -- voted to uphold President Trump's travel ban, which indefinitely bars most people from five majority-Muslim countries, and certain citizens from two other countries, from entering the United States.... They reached this conclusion despite Mr. Trump's best efforts to convince them, and the country, that its real purpose was to discriminate on the basis of religion.... The conservative majority's endorsement of nearly unchecked presidential power in this context is all the more disturbing given this administration's policies at America's southern border.... On Jan. 27, 2017, as Mr. Trump signed the first version of the travel ban, he read out its official title, 'Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States,' then looked up and said, 'We all know what that means.' Indeed we do, even if five Supreme Court justices refuse to admit it." ...

... Dana Milbank: "On the penultimate page of their 39-page majority ruling in the Trump travel-ban case Tuesday, the Supreme Court's conservative justices overturned a 74-year-old decision they weren't asked to consider. Renouncing the 1944 Korematsuv. United States decision, which upheld internment camps for U.S. citizens and noncitizens of Japanese descent during World War II, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote: 'Korematsu was gravely wrong the day it was decided, has been overruled in the court of history, and -- to be clear -- "has no place in law under the Constitution."'... He dismissed the many anti-Muslim statements Trump has made as 'extrinsic statements.'... It should take the court of history much less time to conclude that the Roberts Court was likewise wrong in deciding to uphold President Trump's travel ban.... The justices ... missed the big-picture impact their decision would have on discrimination generally and on the president's shaky regard for the rule of law.... Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in her dissent..., cited Justice Robert Jackson's dissent in Korematsu, in which he argued that, while the internment order itself was temporary, 'once a judicial opinion rationalizes such an order ... the Court for all time has validated the principle of racial discrimination.' Now Roberts has validated religious discrimination. And his fig leaf of facial neutrality won't stand up in the court of history." ...

... "A Decision that Will Live in Infamy." Noah Feldman of Bloomberg: "In what may be the worst decision since the infamous Korematsu case, when the Supreme Court upheld the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, the court today by a 5-4 vote upheld ... Donald Trump's Muslim travel ban.... The decision will be a stain not only on the legacy of the Roberts court, but on that of the Supreme Court itself.... To focus on Roberts's analysis would be to make the same crucial error as Roberts himself -- that is, treating one of the most outrageous acts of presidential bias in modern U.S. history as though it were an ordinary exercise of presidential power, taken by an ordinary president acting in good conscience.... Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court's most liberal member, played the truth-telling role today. Her dissent, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, states bluntly that a reasonable observer looking at the record would conclude that the ban was 'motivated by anti-Muslim animus.'... It has taken two generations for the court to begin to live down the taint of Korematsu. The taint of Trump v. Hawaii will last just as long." ...

OK. I'll tell you the whole history of it. So when [Trump] first announced it he said, 'Muslim ban.' He called me up and said, 'Put a commission together, show me the right way to do it legally.'... And what we did was we focused on, instead of religion, danger. The areas of the world that create danger for us. Which is a factual basis. Not a religious basis. Perfectly legal, perfectly sensible, and that's what the ban is based on. -- Rudy Giuliani, last year ...

... Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress: "In the first paragraph of Roberts' opinion in Trump v. Hawaii ... the Chief writes one of the most literally unbelievable lines to appear in a Supreme Court opinion: 'the President concluded that it was necessary to impose entry restrictions on nationals of countries that do not share adequate information for an informed entry determination, or that otherwise present national security risks.'... If you believe that, you probably slept through the entire 2016 presidential campaign.... Donald Trump has done everything short of publishing a book entitled How I'm Flouting The Constitution's Establishment Clause By Prohibiting Muslims From Entering The United States.... And yet, Roberts writes on behalf of himself and his four Republican colleagues, none of that matters.... Tuesday's decision is likely to embolden Trump even further." ...

... Christian Nation. Michelle Boorstein of the Washington Post: "Three weeks ago, many religious-liberty advocates celebrated the Supreme Court's decision that a Colorado baker should not have to create a gay wedding cake, saying the baker's religious faith was disparaged by the government and that could not stand. But some of the same groups met with silence the court's decision Tuesday to uphold what President Trump reportedly called his 'Muslim ban.'... Compared with other recent federal rulings about religious liberty, 'I would have said we were in a period when the court was caring more about religion,' said Noah Feldman, a constitutional law scholar at Harvard University who focuses on law and religion. 'But this makes it look like what the court cares about is the religion of evangelical Christians, not Muslims. It makes it look like the Supreme Court doesn't have a general concern for religion. It looks badly motivated.'" ...

... Nancy LeTourneau of the Washington Monthly: "One of the most disturbing aspects of Trump's presidency has been to watch congressional Republicans normalize the attacks on our democracy by failing to hold the Liar-in-Chief accountable. We can now add the conservative justices on the Supreme Court to that group because, in ruling the president's travel ban constitutional, they just affirmed his right to lie.... The national security argument used by this administration to defend the ban is a lie. To demonstrate that point, Philip Bump went back 20 years to determine whether this particular ban would have saved any of the lives that were lost to terrorist attacks.... 'Of the 24 attacks listed above, only two might have been prevented had the perpetrator been subject to the full travel ban Trump has proposed. One would have had to have been rejected at the age of 2. No deaths would have been prevented.' It is bad enough that the conservatives on the Supreme Court -- many of whom want to claim the mantle of being defenders of 'religious liberty' when it comes to Christians -- completely dismissed the fact that this travel ban is motivated by anti-Muslim animus. But I find it equally disturbing that they just affirmed the president's right to lie about national security concerns." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: As Rachel Maddow pointed out Tuesday night, the government also lied in the Korematsu case, claiming the military saw a clear necessity to intern Japanese Americans. There was not.

... Oh, P.S. California Legislators Presumably Act in Bad Faith. Because Abortion. Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court said Tuesday that pregnancy centers established to persuade women to continue their pregnancies do not have to tell their clients about the availability of state-offered services, including abortion. The court's conservatives said a California law likely violates the First Amendment. It required what are called crisis pregnancy centers -- they promise prenatal care and help when the child is born -- to post notices or tell clients about the state's service. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the 5 to 4 decision." Justice Stephen Breyer, who wrote the dissent "said the court has repeatedly upheld state laws that provide a script for doctors when they are counseling women who seek abortion. '"If a state can lawfully require a doctor to tell a woman seeking an abortion about adoption services, why should it not be able, as here, to require a medical counselor to tell a woman seeking prenatal care or other reproductiv healthcare about childbirth and abortion services?' Breyer wrote." Mrs. McC: Must be a false equivalency. Or something. (Also linked yesterday.)

** Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress: "The Supreme Court held on Monday that white lawmakers enjoy a presumption of racial innocence, even when they draw legislative districts that empower white voters at the expense of racial minorities. The thrust of Justice Samuel Alito's opinion in Abbott v. Perez is that the 'good faith' of a 'state legislature must be presumed,' even when there are very serious allegations of racialgerrymandering.... [T]he Perez opinion is very bad news for anyone hoping to challenge a racial gerrymander in the future. Lawmakers now enjoy an exceedingly strong presumption of racial innocence when they draw legislative maps. It's a great day for white nationalism." --safari (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Elizabeth Dias & Sydney Ember of the New York Times: "The consequences of President Trump's nomination of Neil M. Gorsuch to the Supreme Court -- and the Republican blockade of President Barack Obama's nomination of Merrick B. Garland in 2016 for that seat -- became powerfully clear on Tuesday after the court's conservative majority handed down major decisions to uphold Mr. Trump's travel ban and in favor of abortion rights.... 'As one after another 5-4 rulings of this SCOTUS on voting rights, abortion rights, the travel ban and more are announced, the full meaning of @SenMajLdr's unconscionable, nearly yearlong blockade against the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland is manifest,' wrote David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama, on Twitter Tuesday.... During a news conference on Tuesday, Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, sidestepped a question about the thwarting of Judge Garland's nomination and used the opportunity instead to offer praise."


Isaac Stanley-Becker of the Washington Post: "A federal judge in San Diego on Tuesday barred the separation of migrant children from their parents and required immigration officials to reunify within 30 days families that have been divided as a result of a zero-tolerance policy enforced by the Trump administration. Judge Dana M. Sabraw of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California granted a preliminary injunction sought by the American Civil Liberties Union. He said all children must be reunited with their families within 30 days, allowing just 14 days for the return of children under 5 to their parents. He ordered that parents must be entitled to speak by phone with their children within 10 days.... [The court's order] faulted the Trump administration for 'a chaotic circumstance of the Government's own making.' The judge stated bluntly: 'The unfortunate reality is that under the present system, migrant children are not accounted for with the same efficiency and accuracy as property.'" Sabraw is a Bush II appointee. ...

... Elliot Spagat, et al., of the AP: "The decision [by Judge Dana Sabraw] comes as 17 states, including New York and California, sued the Trump administration Tuesday to force it to reunite children and parents. The states, all led by Democratic attorneys general, joined Washington, D.C., in filing the lawsuit in federal court in Seattle, arguing that they are being forced to shoulder increased child welfare, education and social services costs.... Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told Congress on Tuesday that his department still has custody of 2,047 immigrant children separated from their parents at the border. That is only six fewer children than the number in HHS custody as of last Wednesday. Democratic senators said that wasn't nearly enough progress. Under questioning, Azar refused to be pinned down on how long it will take to reunite families. He said his department does extensive vetting of parents to make sure they are not traffickers masquerading as parents." ...

... Dara Lind of Vox: "DHS is promising to reunite parents once they've been ordered deported -- but not while they're still fighting an asylum claim.... [According to a DHS/HHS 'fact sheet,'] it is solely 'to ensure that those adults who are subject to removal are reunited with their children for the purposes of removal' (emphasis added). There is no such assurance for parents who are fighting deportation because they are trying to claim asylum (or another form of relief) in the United States. What this means, in practice, is that a parent who is currently trying to pursue an asylum claim but wants to see her child as quickly as possible will have to waive two sets of rights: her own and her child's." ...

     ... Mrs. McC: Judge Sabraw appears to have put the kibosh on this plan. Besides, it seems unconstitutional on the face of it; the plan declares that the U.S. government will hold your child hostage until you waive your Constitutional rights. Might as well call it kidnapping for ransom.

Gardiner Harris & Stanley Reed of the New York Times: "The United States said on Tuesday that it will impose sanctions against all importers of Iranian oil by Nov. 4, a surprisingly tough position that roiled oil markets and is likely to further alienate allies and adversaries alike. The policy shook financial markets that had become accustomed to waivers for American sanctions that in years past had been granted to companies in countries like India and China as long as they showed steady reductions in their imports of Iranian oil.... Oil prices immediately rose on the news. The Trump administration may be signaling an unusually tough position to gain leverage ahead of the first official meeting in Vienna of the remaining signatories to the Iran nuclear deal since President Trump announced in May that he was leaving the accord. American diplomats will not participate in the Vienna talks, set for next week, since the United States is no longer a party to the deal. But senior Trump administration officials will talk with European diplomats on the sidelines.... Sanctions experts expressed a mixture of bafflement and scorn at Tuesday's announcement." Mrs. McC: Thanks, Trump! I was hoping you'd drive up gas prices. Besides, if a guy can't afford gas, he surely doesn't have enough $$ to buy a hog to put the gas in. Brilliant moves all around. Numbskull. ...

... Alan Rappeport & Stacy Brown of the New York Times: "President Trump lashed out at one of his favorite American manufacturers on Tuesday, criticizing Harley-Davidson over its plans to move some of its motorcycle production abroad and threatening it with punitive taxes in return.... Mr. Trump also revived a threat that he used to lob at companies when he was a presidential candidate, warning Harley that it would pay a financial price for moving manufacturing abroad. 'Harley must know that they won't be able to sell back into U.S. without paying a big tax!' the president said in another tweet on Tuesday. While running for office in 2016, he said on several occasions that if elected he would make Ford pay a 35 percent tax on cars that it made in Mexico and sold into the United States. He did not say what presidential authority would give him that power, and the warning on Tuesday appeared to misunderstand -- or misconstrue -- the fact that Harley would be using its overseas production facilities to sell motorcycles in Europe, not back into the United States."

Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "A federal judge in Virginia concluded Tuesday that a special counsel is a poor tool for investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and that the current one is prosecuting Paul Manafort only so he will offer evidence against President Trump. But those thoughts do little for the ex-lobbyist, because U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III ultimately ruled that Robert S. Mueller III's prosecution of Manafort on bank and tax fraud charges can go forward. 'Although this case will continue, those involved should be sensitive to the danger unleashed when political disagreements are transformed into partisan prosecutions,' the judge wrote. If there are no further delays, the July 25 trial in U.S. District Court in Alexandria will be the first case brought by Mueller's team to come before a jury."

Charlie Savage & Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "Reality L. Winner, a former Air Force linguist who was the first person prosecuted by the Trump administration on charges of leaking classified information, pleaded guilty on Tuesday as part of an agreement with prosecutors that calls for a sentence of 63 months in prison. Ms. Winner, who entered her plea in Federal District Court in Augusta, Ga., was arrested last June and accused of sharing a classified report about Russian interference in the 2016 election with the news media. Ms. Winner, who is now 26, has been jailed since her arrest.... Her decision to plead guilty to one felony count allows the government both to avoid a complex trial that had been scheduled for October and to notch a victory in the Trump administration's aggressive pursuit of leakers."


Trump Sets a Record. Daniel Dale of the Toronto Star: "The frequency of ... Donald Trump's dishonesty had steadily accelerated since late last year. Then, last week, it skyrocketed. Trump made an astonishing 103 false claims over those seven days, an average of 15 per day. That shatters his one-week record of 60, which he had set in early March." ...

... That's a Feature, Dan, Not a Bug. Liam Stack of the New York Times on how Trump uses his lies: "On Monday, President Trump tweeted that Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, had encouraged liberals to 'harm' supporters of 'the Make America Great Again movement' and warned her to 'be careful what you wish for.'... By Tuesday, the tweet was shared more than 40,000 times.... This kind of Twitter outrage cycle has repeated itself countless times since Mr. Trump began his presidential campaign in 2015, and it is one of his tried and true methods for injecting disinformation into public discourse, experts said.... The president's tweet about Ms. Waters contained a false statement, an insult and what sounds like a threat. But each time it was shared -- even, and perhaps especially, by critics who wanted to vent their anger &-- the message was amplified and spread.... Sarah Huckabee Sanders ... repeated a version of that claim during a White House press briefing, implying that she had advocated action against 'any Trump supporter.'"

Anton Troianovski of the Washington Post: "National security adviser John Bolton is set to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, the Kremlin spokesman said, in a prelude to a long-anticipated summit with President Trump that now looks increasingly likely. Bolton is in Moscow ahead of an expected meeting between Putin and Trump in mid-July. Bolton is also meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said."

Elise Viebeck of the Washington Post: "Protesters confronted Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Monday over migrant family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border.... Chao and McConnell, who are married ... were approached by a small group of young men at Georgetown University. One started repeating, 'Why are you separating families?' A short confrontation ensued. 'Why don't you leave my husband alone? Why don't you leave my husband alone?' Chao responded as McConnell got into the SUV." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Hey, kids. If you want to call out McConnell, the words you should be shouting are "Neil" & "Gorsuch."

... Being Politely Asked to Leave a Restaurant Is Dangerous. Elizabeth Landers & Jim Acosta of CNN: "White House press secretary Sarah Sanders is expected to receive Secret Service protection as soon as Wednesday, two sources familiar with the decision tell CNN, but they did not specify how long it will last.... The news comes days after Sanders was asked to leave a small Lexington, Virginia, restaurant because of her role with the Trump administration, a move that has since sparked a national conversation on civility and public service in the age of Trump." ...

     ... Thanks to Patrick for the link. ...

... Onion (satire): "Recent incidents of Trump officials being confronted in public for their role in the administration’s separation and imprisonment of immigrant families have driven renewed concern about the lack of civility in U.S. politics. The Onion presents tips for staying civil in a debate about child prisons. [Here are a few of them:] ... Consider that we all have different perspectives stemming from things like age, ethnicity, or level of racism. Recall that violently rejecting a tyrannical government goes against everything our forefathers believed in.... Realize that every pressing social issue is solved through civil discourse if you ignore virtually all of human history." More where that came from.

Kyla Mandel of ThinkProgress: "Environmental groups have filed a lawsuit against Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke in an effort to stop plans to allow mining near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northeastern Minnesota.... The legal challenges come after President Donald Trump announced during a rally in Duluth, Minnesota last week that he wanted to keep large portions of land within the state's Superior National Forest -- where the Boundary Waters recreation area is located -- open to mining. These ares of land were set to be banned to industry activities under the Obama administration." --safari (Also linked yesterday.)

Dan Spinelli of Mother Jones: "One of the country's major federal science agencies [The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Organization] seems to have been forced to abandon climate change research as a key organizational focus, the New York Times revealed this week. The ... Organization is responsible for managing the National Weather Service and using its network of satellites to forecast the effects of climate change.... NOAA ... had remained relatively immune so far from the influence of climate change skeptics within the Trump administration." -safari (Also linked yesterday.)

They Once Were Lost But Now They're Found. Alan Blinder: "When the Montgomery bus boycott electrified the struggle against segregation, it was all recorded in appeals bonds, court motions and $10 fines. A forgotten trove has turned up in a courthouse vault.... The fragile papers, filled in with sharp signatures and characters stamped out on manual typewriters, are part of what officials believe is the largest surviving trove of legal records from the boycott.... Discovered by a courthouse intern [Maya A. McKenzie] during a housecleaning project and now on loan to Alabama State University, the records will be made public online this summer."

Way Beyond the Beltway

Diego Cupolo of The Atlantic: "Recep Tayyip Erdoğan extended his 16-year dominance over Turkey with a victory in the first round of the country's snap elections, winning 52.5 percent of the vote.... In the eyes of his roughly 26 million supporters, it was a resounding victory for the powerless.... The problem is that such victories for Turkey's supposedly oppressed classes can feel like oppression for the other half of the country's voters, who just missed their best chance to date to unseat a leader with very real staying power.... Erdoğan is poised to rule Turkey for up to three more terms with consolidated governing powers -- what his opponents call 'one man rule.' Turks have, in essence, voted away their democracy." --safari (Also linked yesterday.)

Pavel Polityuk of Reuters: "Hackers from Russia are infecting Ukrainian companies with malicious software to create 'back doors' for a large, coordinated attack, Ukraine's cyber police chief told Reuters on Tuesday. The hackers are targeting companies including banks and energy infrastructure firms, in a roll out that suggests they are preparing to activate the malware in one massive strike, cyber police chief Serhiy Demedyuk said. Ukrainian police are working with foreign authorities to identify the hackers, Demedyuk added. The Kremlin denied the allegations."

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Monday
Jun252018

The Commentariat -- June 26, 2018

Liam Stack of the New York Times: "There will be important primaries or runoff elections on Tuesday in seven states, including New York, where establishment candidates in both parties face tests in colorful, close primary battles.... Voters will also go to the polls in Utah, Maryland, Colorado, Oklahoma, Mississippi and South Carolina." Vote!

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

It's Another Mitch McConnell Day at the Supreme Court ...
Or, to borrow from Ian Millhiser, Another Great Day for White Nationalism

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "President Trump acted lawfully in imposing limits on travel from several predominantly Muslim nations, the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday. The vote was 5 to 4, with the courts conservatives in the majority." At 10:45 am ET, this is kind of a rump story, with little detail. ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is that "presumption of good faith" Ian Millhiser & Cristian Farias discuss. Farias specifically tied said presumption to the possible decision in the Muslim ban case. Sadly, he was right. I'll be way interested to see if the winger justices presume good faith on the part of Democratic lawmakers & administrators. Scalia thought one purpose of ObamaCare was to make every American eat broccoli, & they all seem to think workers & unions are up to no good. ...

... Oh, P.S. California Legislators Presumably Act in Bad Faith. Because Abortion. Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court said Tuesday that pregnancy centers established to persuade women to continue their pregnancies do not have to tell their clients about the availability of state-offered services, including abortion. The court's conservatives said a California law likely violates the First Amendment. It required what are called crisis pregnancy centers -- they promise prenatal care and help when the child is born -- to post notices or tell clients about the state's service. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the 5 to 4 decision." Justice Stephen Breyer, who wrote the dissent "said the court has repeatedly upheld state laws that provide a script for doctors when they are counseling women who seek abortion. 'If a state can lawfully require a doctor to tell a woman seeking an abortion about adoption services, why should it not be able, as here, to require a medical counselor to tell a woman seeking prenatal care or other reproductive healthcare about childbirth and abortion services?' Breyer wrote." Mrs. McC: Must be a false equivalency. Or something.

** Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress: "The Supreme Court held on Monday that white lawmakers enjoy a presumption of racial innocence, even when they draw legislative districts that empower white voters at the expense of racial minorities. The thrust of Justice Samuel Alito's opinion in Abbott v. Perez is that the 'good faith' of a 'state legislature must be presumed,' even when there are very serious allegations of racial gerrymandering.... [T]he Perez opinion is very bad news for anyone hoping to challenge a racial gerrymander in the future. Lawmakers now enjoy an exceedingly strong presumption of racial innocence when they draw legislative maps. It's a great day for white nationalism." --safari


Kyla Mandel of ThinkProgress: "Environmental groups have filed a lawsuit against Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke in an effort to stop plans to allow mining near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northeastern Minnesota.... The legal challenges come after President Donald Trump announced during a rally in Duluth, Minnesota last week that he wanted to keep large portions of land within the state's Superior National Forest -- where the Boundary Waters recreation area is located -- open to mining. These ares of land were set to be banned to industry activities under the Obama administration." --safari

Dan Spinelli of Mother Jones: "One of the country's major federal science agencies [The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Organization] seems to have been forced to abandon climate change research as a key organizational focus, the New York Times revealed this week. The ... Organization is responsible for managing the National Weather Service and using its network of satellites to forecast the effects of climate change.... NOAA ... had remained relatively immune so far from the influence of climate change skeptics within the Trump administration." -safari

Diego Cupolo of The Atlantic: "Recep Tayyip Erdoğan extended his 16-year dominance over Turkey with a victory in the first round of the country's snap elections, winning 52.5 percent of the vote.... In the eyes of his roughly 26 million supporters, it was a resounding victory for the powerless.... The problem is that such victories for Turkey-s supposedly oppressed classes can feel like oppression for the other half of the country-s voters, who just missed their best chance to date to unseat a leader with very real staying power.... Erdoğan is poised to rule Turkey for up to three more terms with consolidated governing powers -- what his opponents call 'one man rule.' Turks have, in essence, voted away their democracy." --safari

*****

Incompetence, Malevolence, Indifference, Negligence, Chaos, Ctd.

Ron Nixon, et al., of the New York Times: "The nation's top border security official said on Monday that his agency has temporarily stopped handing over migrant adults who cross the Mexican border with children to prosecutors, undercutting claims by other administration officials that 'zero tolerance' for illegal immigration is still in place. Kevin K. McAleenan, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, said he had told border agents not to refer families to the Justice Department for prosecution until the two agencies can agree on a policy that would allow parents to be prosecuted without separating them from their children. Because Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not have enough detention space for families, the immediate impact of the decision will be that many families will be quickly released, with a promise to return for a court date at some point in the future. The decision by Mr. McAleenan, conveyed to reporters at a detention center here, will effectively revive a 'catch and release' approach used during the Obama administration for most families crossing the Mexican border illegally. President Trump has repeatedly railed against 'catch and release' and blamed it for helping to invite waves of crime and violence into the United States.... 'We're not changing the policy. We're simply out of resources, [Sarah] Sanders said. She blamed Democrats in Congress for not changing immigration laws in ways that would keep migrant families out of the country in the first place.... [Meanwhile,] Attorney General Jeff Sessions vowed to continue enforcing Mr. Trump's zero tolerance immigration policy." ...

... Lolita Baldor & Robert Burns of Stars & Stripes: "The Trump administration has chosen an Army base and an Air Force base, both in Texas, to house detained migrants swept up in the federal government's crackdown on illegal immigration, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Monday. Mattis said he could not confirm specifics, such as the number of migrants to be sheltered at Fort Bliss and Goodfellow Air Force Base.... The U.S. military has a long history of providing logistical support to people 'escaping tyranny' or affected by natural disasters, Mattis said... 'We provide logistics support and we're not going to get into the political aspect,' he said. 'Providing housing, shelter for those who need it is a legitimate governmental function.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: It's probably useful to read Mattis's decision in the light of reporting from Courtney Kube & Carol Lee of NBC News which documents how Trump has kept Mattis out of the loop on major decisions affecting the military. ...

... James Laporta & Spencer Ackerman of the Daily Beast: "Active-duty and retired U.S. military officers and enlisted personnel are expressing a sense of moral emergency over the Defense Department setting up detention camps for undocumented immigrants on military bases<. 'It smacks of totalitarianism,' said Steve Kleinman, a retired Air Force colonel and military intelligence officer. Raf Noboa, an Iraq War veteran and former Army sergeant, said he was astounded by the 'enormous moral offense' the camps represent and which the military will be ordered to support." ...

... Kevin Tripp of the Guardian: "A senior manager at a child detention camp in Texas, close to the Mexican border, spoke out on Monday to decry Donald Trump&'s zero-tolerance immigration policy that had been tearing migrant families apart as 'dumb'. Speaking to journalists in what he said was an individual capacity, at the end of a special, supervised media tour of the facility in Tornillo, near El Paso, Texas, the manager, who asked not to be named, called family separations 'a dumb, stupid decision'. 'All it did was harm children,' he said. The manager works for the private contractor BCFS, which is running the camp on behalf of the federal government. 'This operation would not be necessary had it not been for the separation.'" ...

... Dana Milbank: Speaking at a Trump fear-mongering event last Friday, "Mary Ann Mendoza, one of the angel moms on stage with Trump, [said,] 'if the public would go to illegalaliencrimereport.com and see the magnitude of crimes being committed against your fellow Americans by illegal aliens allowed to stay in this country, you will be sickened.' I did as she said and looked into the Illegal Alien Crime Report. I was indeed sickened by what I found: white-nationalist claims of 'genocide' and a 'Holocaust' being perpetrated against white Americans. And now, those promoting such filth are getting mentioned behind a lectern bearing the presidential seal, at an official event hosted by the president himself.... [A video on the site showed] war footage of Nazis' victims, corpses in concentration-camp uniforms lined up and in piles.... [One of the video's producers, Frank Jorge,] called for violence against politicians. 'When is somebody gonna get a senator, hang him by his f------ balls and do something about this s---?; he demanded. 'When is somebody going to get to some representative and f--- him up for letting our people get murdered? When is it gonna happen because it's goddamned overdue.' Jorge added that politicians 'need to bleed.'... It is yet another peek at the ugliness that lurks just beneath the surface of support for Trump and his nativist policies.... There have always been such characters in American life. The difference is they now can hope for a White House shout-out." ...

     ... Mrs. McC: Now read Charles Pierce's post & Michelle Goldberg's column, linked below, not to mention the WashPostory linked below, in which Democrats call for "civility." ...

... Melanie Schmitz of ThinkProgress: "First lady Melania Trump called for 'compassion,' 'kindness,' and understanding during an event with young students Sunday night, even as her husband's administration continued its brutal crackdown on immigrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border.... Mrs. Trump's comments come days after she visited a detention center for immigrant children in McAllen, Texas and wore a jacket bearing the phrase 'I really don't care. Do u?'... The first lady's speech also contrasts with her husband's racist, degrading comments about immigrants, as his administration continues to crack down on those entering the country at the U.S. southern border." ...

... David Boroff of the New York Daily News: "A 27-year-old California man and his mother were called 'rapists' and 'animals' [and 'drug dealers'] by a Trump supporter while trying to do landscaping work -- and video of the exchange has been viewed millions of times online. Video shows the unidentified woman confronting Esteban Guzman and his mom and saying she hated them because they are 'Mexican.'... The woman mentioned President Trump during her racist tantrum, which was recorded by Guzman's mother and went viral on Twitter. Trump used similar wording when he announced he was running for president in 2015. He said Mexico is 'not sending' their best people, and alluded to them as 'rapists.'" Guzman says he was born in California. Includes video.

... Felicia Sonmez & Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Monday escalated a feud with a veteran Democratic lawmaker who called for aggressive protests of administration officials, warning Rep. Maxine Waters of California to 'Be careful what you wish for Max!'... In a tweet, Trump called Waters 'an extraordinarily low IQ person' who, together with [Nancy] Pelosi, had become 'the Face of the Democrat Party.'... Waters, a vocal Trump critic, told supporters at a Los Angeles rally Saturday that 'if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them!' She repeated that call in an MSNBC interview later the same day. In a rare rebuke of a fellow Democrat, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) criticized Waters's comments Monday.... 'Trump's daily lack of civility has provoked responses that are predictable but unacceptable. As we go forward, we must conduct elections in a way that achieves unity....'... Democratic strategist Paul Begala warned that overly aggressive tactics could backfire by alienating the voters that his party needs most.... Several congressional Democrats issued clear rebukes of Waters's remarks, although they did not mention her by name." ...

... Juliegrace Brufke of the Hill: "A House Republican on Monday introduced a measure to censure Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and called on her to resign following her comments calling on Democrats to publicly confront officials in the Trump administration.... Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) said the California Democrat's comments do 'not become somebody who's in Congress,' arguing disciplinary action is appropriate." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Biggs, a first-term Congressman, also has called repeatedly for Robert Mueller to resign, he said President Obama probably knew the FBI had "embedd[ed] ... undercover operatives into the Trump campaign." He also "call[ed] for the criminal prosecution of Hillary Clinton and a variety of other Obama administration appointees, career FBI officials, and even Trump appointee Dana Boente. And so forth. In other words, a goose-stepping nut job. All due respect, etc.

... John Wagner of the Washington Post: "President Trump lashed out Monday at a Virginia restaurant that refused to serve his press secretary.... 'The Red Hen Restaurant should focus more on cleaning its filthy canopies, doors and windows (badly needs a paint job) rather than refusing to serve a fine person like Sarah Huckabee Sanders,' Trump said in his Monday tweet. 'I always had a rule, if a restaurant is dirty on the outside, it is dirty on the inside!'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: It is unconscionable for the POTUS* to make derogatory remarks about a small business, especially since there's no reason to think he's even seen the restaurant. Worse president* ever. ...

... ** Lachlan Markay of the Daily Beast: "Compared to the Red Hen, some of Trump's own restaurants seem like the bathroom of a dive bar the morning after a live show. The Lexington, Virginia-based restaurant, which caused a Trumpworld uproar when it refused to serve White House press secretary Sarah Sanders on Friday, passed its most recent health inspection with flying colors. State authorities found no violations when they visited the restaurant in February, and gave the Red Hen their best possible health-risk rating. By contrast, the conditions of restaurants at Trump's hotels and resorts have ranged from moderately unsanitary to outright revolting." Read on. Many thanks to Ed for the link. This is yet another instance of Trump's falsely accusing someone for shortcomings of which he himself is actually guilty. ...

... Charles Pierce: By all accounts, the most civil action taken in L'affaire Poule Rouge was the way Stephanie Wilkinson handled her refusal to serve Sarah Huckabee Sanders at the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Virginia. She first consulted with her staff..., she politely informed Sanders and her party that they would not be eating at the Red Hen that night. She even comped them the cheese plates they'd already ordered. She did not use an official government Twitter account to discuss the episode, as Sanders did later. She did not use the power of the Oval Office to try and destroy someone's business, as the president* found time to do later.... Suddenly, just as the issue of the hijacked children was beginning to bite the administration* severely in the ass, here was an event over which the elite political media could do one of its favorite traditional fan dances: the Question of Civility.... This debate is stupid. It's also dangerously beside the point. SarahHuck is the lying mouthpiece of a lying regime that is one step away from simply hauling people off in trucks. That she was politely told to take her business elsewhere is a small step towards assigning public responsibility to public officials that enable a perilous brand of politics.... So, Sarah, since I know it is hard for you to understand even short sentences, I'll put it as briefly as I can: Take a hike." ...

... ** Michelle Goldberg: "Naturally, all this [shaming of Trump officials & supporters] has led to lots of pained disapproval from self-appointed guardians of civility.... 'How hard is it to imagine, for example, people who strongly believe that abortion is murder deciding that judges or other officials who protect abortion rights should not be able to live peaceably with their families?' [the Washington Post] asked. Of course, this is not hard to imagine at all, since abortion opponents have assassinated abortion providers in their homes and churches, firebombed their clinics and protested at their children&'s schools. The Roman Catholic Church has shamed politicians who support abortion rights by denying them communion. The failure to acknowledge this history is a sign of the reflexive false balance that makes it hard for the mainstream media to grapple with the asymmetric extremism of the Republican Party.... There's a moral and psychic cost to participating in the fiction that people who work for Trump are in any sense public servants.... Public shaming ... [is] less a result of a breakdown in civility than a breakdown of democracy.... There's an abusive sort of victim-blaming in demanding that progressives single-handedly uphold civility...." ...

... Scott Lemieux in LG&$: "As a desperate Republican Party does everything they can to prop up a minority coalition with undemocratic means, the concern trolling is particularly misplaced." ...

... Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker: Hospitality traditions notwithstanding, "Sarah Huckabee Sanders's chosen role in life [is] to further [President Trump's] lies, treat lies as truth, and make lies acceptable. This is not just a question of protesting a particular policy; in the end there are no policies, only the infantile impulses of a man veering from one urge to another. The great threat to American democracy isn't 'policy' but the pretense of normalcy. That's the danger, for with the lies come the appeasement of tyranny, the admiration of tyranny, and, as now seems increasingly likely, the secret alliance with tyranny. That's what makes the Trump Administration intolerable, and, inasmuch as it is intolerable, public shaming and shunning of those who take part in it seems just. Never before in American politics has there been so plausible a reason for exclusion from the common meal as the act of working for Donald Trump."

Mike Murphy of Marketwatch: "Speaking at a campaign rally in South Carolina for Gov. Henry McMaster on Monday night, Trump bashed a trio of late-night talk-show hosts who often joke about him as talentless and unfunny. Trump has repeatedly called 'SNL' unfunny, especially Alec Baldwin's portrayal of him in sketches. Trump insulted Jimmy Fallon, host of NBC's ... 'Tonight Show,' in a tweet Sunday, calling him 'whimpering' and saying 'Be a man Jimmy!' The taunts continued Monday.... 'Jimmy Fallon apologized. He apologized for humanizing me,' Trump said Monday at the rally. 'The poor guy.... Now he's going to lose all of us.... He ... was so disappointed to find out it was real, he couldn't believe it,' Trump said. 'That's one of the great things I've got. Everyone used to say my hair is phony, you're wearing a hairpiece. But they never say that anymore.' Trump then shifted to Stephen Colbert.... 'The guy at CBS, what a lowlife, what a lowlife,' Trump said of the South Carolina native. 'This guy on CBS has no talent.' Finally, Trump mocked Jimmy Kimmel.... '... the guy's terrible,' Trump said." ...

... Oh, Why Can't the U.S. Be More Like North Korea. Jonathan Chait: "Donald Trump is taken not only with his skeletal diplomacy with North Korea, but also with the communist kingdom's entire social model, which he has been praising to anybody who will listen. Trump loves the North Korean state media, the 'fervor' demonstrated by its people for their leader upon pain of death, and the way Kim Jong-un's advisers sit up in attention for him (also upon pain of death.) At his rally in South Carolina Monday night, Trump seemed to recognize similarities between his communication style and the North Korean regime. 'They took down anti-United States signs all over North Korea,' he said. '... Anti-U.S. signs, like I put up anti-media signs all over the place.' Well, yes, Trump's method for discrediting the news media is quite similar to North Korea's method of discrediting the United States. How unusually insightful of Trump to recognize the parallels, which would normally discomfit a democratically-elected official. Also at the rally, Trump once again declared the media 'the enemy of the people,' borrowing a classic communist regime term of abuse for any class which the state was murdering in large numbers...." ...

... Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Henry Gomez of BuzzFeed: "Hundreds of President Trump's supporters marched into a high school gymnasium Monday and began blistering their new perceived enemy: CNN's chief White House correspondent. 'Fake News Jim!' they chanted loudly at Jim Acosta as one woman confronted him near his seat in the press pen and then as he positioned himself in front of a camera for a live hit. 'Go home, Jim!' they added later -- a taunt that sounded especially menacing when aimed at a reporter with a Hispanic surname and a father who fled Fidel Castro's Cuba.... But before long..., Acosta posed for selfies, first with a kind woman who genuinely seemed to want one, and then with others who appeared more eager to share the moments ironically on social media. Then ... Acosta began signing autographs.'.. Eventually one of his most persistent hecklers -- a young man with a long, scruffy beard, wearing a MAGA cap backwards and a MAGA flag as a cape -- engaged Acosta in a friendly conversation. By the end of the exchange, the Trump fan was begging Acosta for an on-air shoutout. 'I think it helps calm them down,' Acosta replied when asked why he indulged the same people who had been jeering him. 'If I were to say no, it could make it more venomous.'"

     ... Thanks to Patrick for the link. It would never, of course, occur to DiJiT that bigbizguy might be upset and lacrimose about seeing a moron sitting in the big chair, and wondering WTF is happening to our country. Never. -- Patrick

Matt Phillips of the New York Times: "The [bond market's] so-called yield curve is perilously close to predicting a recession -- something it has done before with surprising accuracy -- and it's become a big topic on Wall Street." Phillips explains the yield curve, which is the difference between long- and short-term T-bills. "On Thursday, the gap between two-year and 10-year United States Treasury notes was roughly 0.34 percentage points. It was last at these levels in 2007 when the United States economy was heading into what was arguably the worst recession in almost 80 years.... if it keeps moving in this direction, eventually long-term interest rates will fall below short-term rates. When that happens, the yield curve has 'inverted.' An inversion is seen as 'a powerful signal of recessions.'... Every recession of the past 60 years has been preceded by an inverted yield curve, according to research from the San Francisco Fed." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Bye-Bye: The Sound of a Harley Backfiring. Arnie Tsang of the New York Times: "Harley-Davidson, the American motorcycle manufacturer, said on Monday that it was shifting some of the production of its bikes outside the United States to avoid European Union tariffs imposed as part of a widening trade dispute. The announcement, made in a public filing, is an early sign of the financial cost to companies on both sides of the Atlantic as the United States and Europe impose tariffs and counter-tariffs on each other. The moves have raised the specter of a full-blown trade war as the Trump administration pursues a protectionist tack.... Last week, the European Union imposed penalties on $3.2 billion worth of American products, many of which are produced in areas that form the heart of President Trump's political base, in response to steel and aluminum tariffs added by the White House. Harley-Davidson said on Monday that European Union tariffs on its motorcycles had increased to 31 percent, from 6 percent. It estimated that the higher tariffs would add about $2,200 on average to every motorcycle exported from the United States to the bloc, so it said it would move the production of bikes bound for Europe outside the United States." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: It wasn't so long ago that Trump was telling Harley-Davidson executives their already-successful company would grow even bigger because of "a new American spirit that had emerged since his election." Earlier this year, Trump whined repeatedly about India's "unfair" tariffs on Harleys, so it's kinda funny that Harley is likely to move more of its production to -- you guessed it -- India. Who knew trade wars were so complicated? (Also linked yesterday.) ...

Politico: "... Donald Trump warned Harley-Davidson on Tuesday that its iconic American motorcycles 'should never be built in another country.'... 'A Harley-Davidson should never be built in another country-never! Their employees and customers are already very angry at them. If they move, watch, it will be the beginning of the end - they surrendered, they quit! The Aura will be gone and they will be taxed like never before!' the president tweeted. Earlier in the morning, the president also claimed that the American motorcycle manufacturer is using the EU's retaliatory tariffs as an 'excuse' to move some production overseas. 'Early this year Harley-Davidson said they would move much of their plant operations in Kansas City to Thailand. That was long before Tariffs were announced. Hence, they were just using Tariffs/Trade War as an excuse. Shows how unbalanced & unfair trade is, but we will fix it,' the president wrote online in a series of tweets. 'We are getting other countries to reduce and eliminate tariffs and trade barriers that have been unfairly used for years against our farmers, workers and companies. We are opening up closed markets and expanding our footprint. They must play fair or they will pay tariffs!'" ...

Surprised that Harley-Davidson, of all companies, would be the first to wave the White Flag. I fought hard for them and ultimately they will not pay tariffs selling into the E.U., which has hurt us badly on trade, down $151 Billion. Taxes just a Harley excuse - be patient!-- Donald Trump, in a tweet, Monday ...

... Heather Long of the Washington Post: "The first casualties of President Trump's trade war are 60 workers at Mid-Continent Nail, America's largest nail manufacturer. They lost their jobs on June 15 at a factory in a part of Missouri that voted overwhelmingly for Trump.... Mid-Continent Nail blames the layoffs on Trump's tariffs and the company says all 500 employees could lose their jobs by Labor Day.... This is a potential game changer in Trump's trade strategy, especially if it marks the start of more companies announcing layoffs. On Monday, Harley-Davidson said it will be moving some 'production' offshore because of the trade war (Europe hit Harley with a 31 percent tariff in response to Trump's steel tariffs on Europe). Harley won't confirm if jobs are leaving the United States, but the union representing many Harley workers, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, is worried. The Trump administration has argued that these tariffs will save jobs and that the cost to America will be minor. But now there are real job losses. The political pressure on Trump to stop the tariffs (especially on America's allies) is likely to escalate. In Missouri, a state with a close U.S. Senate race, the layoffs are already becoming a hot election issue. Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) is planning a rally by the nail plant on Friday." ...

... Paul Krugman: "I predict that as the downsides of hard-line trade policy become apparent, we'll see a nasty search by President Trump and company for people to scapegoat. In fact, that search has already started.... First, the administration has no idea what it's doing.... Second, this administration is infested -- I use that word advisedly -- with conspiracy theorists.... A a lot of American jobs -- more than 10 million, according to the Commerce Department -- are supported by exports.... And the damage wouldn't be limited to export industries: More than half of U.S. imports, and 95 percent of the Chinese goods about to face Trump tariffs, are ... things that U.S. producers use to make themselves more efficient.... I predict ... [the administration] will start seeing villains under every bed. It will attribute the downsides of trade conflict ... to George Soros and the deep state." ...

     ... Krugman points out that Wilbur Ross has already scapegoated "'antisocial' speculators engaged in 'profiteering.'" He doesn't mention that Trump himself has scapegoated Harley-Davidson execs for using E.U. tariffs as an "excuse" to move jobs overseas & are "waving the white flag." It's not his fault; it's theirs. Ingrates!

This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.

** Trump Team Won't Help Tech Companies Combat Russian Election Meddling. Sheera Frenkel & Matthew Rosenberg of the New York Times: "Eight of the tech industry's most influential companies, in anticipation of a repeat of the Russian meddling that occurred during the 2016 presidential campaign, met with United States intelligence officials last month to discuss preparations for this year's midterm elections. The meeting, which took place May 23 at Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., was also attended by representatives from Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Oath, Snap and Twitter.... The company officials met with Christopher Krebs, an under secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, as well as a representative of the [FBI]'s newly formed 'foreign influence' task force.... The meeting ... was initiated by Facebook.... But the people who attended described a tense atmosphere in which the tech companies repeatedly pressed federal officials for information, only to be told -- repeatedly -- that no specific intelligence would be shared.... One attendee of the meeting said the encounter led the tech companies to believe they would be on their own to counter election interference.... Part of the problem, [U.S.] officials say, is that the White House has expressed little interest in the problem of Russian interference, and that the apathy has had a trickle-down effect." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The only reasonable conclusion one can draw is that Trump is inviting further foreign election interference as he believes -- probably correctly -- that malicious foreigners are likely to help Republicans. This isn't incompetence; it's strategy. And it's treasonous.

Chris Strohm & Shannon Pettypiece of Bloomberg: "Special Counsel Robert Mueller is preparing to accelerate his probe into possible collusion between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russians who sought to interfere in the 2016 election, according to a person familiar with the probe. Mueller and his team of prosecutors and investigators have an eye toward producing conclusions -- and possible indictments -- related to collusion by fall, said the person.... He'll be able to turn his full attention to the issue as he resolves other questions, including deciding soon whether to find that Trump sought to obstruct justice." The reporters list "the players and their known interactions, with links to previous news stories."

James Meek of ABC News: "Special Counsel Robert Mueller is digging deeper into Trump ally and Blackwater founder Erik Prince, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the matter. Prince, America's most famous private military contractor, acknowledged last week that he 'cooperated' with Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election after falling under scrutiny amid questions about an alleged effort to establish a backchannel between the Trump administration and the Kremlin, something Prince has vehemently denied. ABC News has since learned that Mueller is also reviewing Prince's communications, a sign that Mueller could try to squeeze Prince, as he has others, probing potential inconsistencies in his sworn testimony in an attempt to pressure him to turn into a witness against other targets of the investigation.... In April 2017, the Washington Post reported that Prince, whose sister Betsy DeVos is .... Donald Trump's education secretary, had traveled to the Seychelles in January following Trump's election for a secret meeting with a Russian official with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Prince testified before the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in November that he hadn't made the trip ;to meet any Russian guy' and described his meeting with Kirill Dmitriev, the Putin-appointed head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, as a chance encounter 'over a beer.' ABC News reported earlier this year that Mueller has obtained evidence that calls that testimony into question."

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is appealing a judge's decision to jail him over charges that he attempted to tamper with the testimony of two potential witnesses against him. Ten days after U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson revoked Manafort's house arrest and ordered him jailed, his defense attorneys filed an official notice Monday appealing her ruling to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Manafort's defense team also filed another appeal Monday over a decision Jackson issued nearly two months ago tossing out a civil suit Manafort hoped to use to block any further prosecutions of him by special counsel Robert Mueller."

Another Big Deal Comey Screwed up. John Solomon in the Hill: "One of the more devastating intelligence leaks in American history -- the unmasking of the CIA's arsenal of cyber warfare weapons last year — has an untold prelude worthy of a spy novel. Some of the characters are household names...: James Comey, fired FBI director. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Department of Justice (DOJ) official Bruce Ohr. Julian Assange, grand master of WikiLeaks. And American attorney Adam Waldman, who has a Forrest Gump-like penchant for showing up in major cases of intrigue. Each played a role in the early days of the Trump administration to try to get Assange to agree to 'risk mitigation' -- essentially, limiting some classified CIA information he might release in the future. The effort resulted in the drafting of a limited immunity deal that might have temporarily freed the WikiLeaks founder from a London embassy where he has been exiled for years, according to interviews and a trove of internal DOJ documents turned over to Senate investigators. But an unexpected intervention by Comey -- relayed through Warner -- soured the negotiations, multiple sources tell me. Assange eventually unleashed a series of leaks that U.S. officials say damaged their cyber warfare capabilities for a long time to come." Solomon goes into the particulars.

<Andrew Kirell, et al., of the Daily Beast: "David Bossie, the former deputy campaign manager for Donald Trump and current outside adviser to the president, has been suspended from his contributor gig at Fox News, three sources familiar with the situation tell The Daily Beast. The suspension is set to last two weeks. Appearing Sunday on Fox & Friends Weekend," Bossie said to Joel Payne, who is black, "You're out of your cotton-picking mind." Mrs. McCrabbie: I'll have to admit that, having grown up white in the South, I never thought of "you're out of your cotton-picking mind" as a racist remark, & I may have said it myself. If I have, I certainly didn't intend to be making a slur.

Justin Story of the Bowling Green Daily News: "U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Bowling Green has filed a lawsuit against the neighbor who admitted to assaulting him in front of his house. In the civil complaint, filed Friday in Warren Circuit Court, the Republican senator seeks an unspecified amount of compensatory and punitive damages from Rene Boucher for 'physical pain and mental suffering' resulting from Boucher's tackle of Paul as the senator was mowing his yard Nov. 3 in the Rivergreen subdivision in Bowling Green. Paul sustained multiple rib fractures and dealt with recurrent pneumonia in the aftermath of the incident."

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Monday told a lower court to reconsider the case of a florist in Washington State who had refused to create a floral arrangement for a same-sex wedding. The justices vacated a decision against the florist from the Washington Supreme Court and instructed it to take a fresh look at the dispute in light of this month's ruling in a similar dispute involving a Colorado baker. The case, Arlene's Flowers v. State of Washington, No. 17-108, started in 2013, when the florist, Barronelle Stutzman, turned down a request from a longtime customer, Robert Ingersoll, to provide flowers for his wedding to another man, Curt Freed. Ms. Stutzman said her religious principles did not allow her to do so.... The Washington Supreme Court ruled that Ms. Stutzman had violated a state anti-discrimination law by refusing to provide the floral arrangement. The Supreme Court ... decid[ed] the Colorado case on narrow grounds specific to the dispute, saying the baker there had faced religious hostility from members of a state civil rights commission that had ruled against him." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Sounds as if the Supremes are punting again. The narrow grounds in which the Court decided the Colorado case do not apply to the Washington matter, so I don't see how "a fresh look" at the Colorado case will help the Washington State Supremes. It seems as if the Washington Supremes ruled consistent with this part of Kennedy's opinion in the Colorado case: “Our society has come to the recognition that gay persons and gay couples cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth. For that reason the laws and the Constitution can, and in some instances must, protect them in the exercise of their civil rights." (Also linked yesterday.)

The Deciders Decide Not to Decide Another Gerrymandering Case. Josh Gerstein of Politico: "The Supreme Court on Monday said it is declining, for now, to wade into a dispute over a North Carolina redistricting plan that a lower court had found violated the Constitution by overly favoring Republicans. The justices had already passed up chances to issue sweeping decisions in cases from Wisconsin and Maryland involving claims of partisan gerrymandering. Instead, the high court ruled on narrow, technical grounds that steered clear of the central issue of when legislative districts are so skewed to favor one party that they violate voters' constitutional rights. In January, the justices blocked a lower court's order forcing a redraw of the North Carolina congressional map. Monday’s order returned the case to the lower court for further consideration of a legal standing issue the court addressed in the Wisconsin case." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... ** Update. But This Is Really Bad. Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court on Monday largely upheld Texas congressional and legislative maps that a lower court said discriminated against black and Hispanic voters. The lower court was wrong in how it considered the challenges, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote in the 5 to 4 decision. The majority sided with the challengers over one legislative district. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent that was longer than Alito’s majority decision. She said the decision 'does great damage to the right of equal opportunity. Not because it denies the existence of that right, but because it refuses its enforcement.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Never Forget. Paul Waldman in the Washington Post: "As African American political organizers often say to African American audiences, if voting wasn't important, Republicans wouldn’t work so hard to prevent them from doing it. And while Democrats are asking themselves whether they should avoid being rude to people who work for President Trump, the Republican majority on the Supreme Court just delivered another victory to the broad and deep GOP effort to make sure that American elections are rigged in conservatives' favor.... This is only the latest in a string of cases that have either upheld Republican efforts to rig the electoral system through things like partisan gerrymandering and voter purges, or at the very least delayed deciding on the question while those tactics remain in force. In other words, the Supreme Court is a key component of the GOP election-rigging project.... We must never forget that the court that keeps delivering these 5-to-4 decisions in favor of Republican efforts to rig the electoral system was itself rigged in favor of Republicans." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Waldman mentions several ways Democrats can "correct" the Supremes, but he doesn't say anything about the most obvious, short-term one: install Democratic governors & state legislators. If there be gerrymandering, let that gerrymandering favor Democrats. So in November, vote for your Democratic candidates, even if they're jerks (and you can be assured that some of the Democrats running for state houses are jerks -- it's kinda the nature of the job). ...

... Cristian Farias of New York: "... a 5-to-4 conservative majority on the Supreme Court has chosen to hand down a decision in a contentious racial gerrymandering case from Texas. Even though it didn't have to. Even though a lower court had found that a number of congressional and state legislative maps had been drawn with discriminatory intent, had a racially discriminatory effect, or were unlawful under the Voting Rights Act. Even though last summer the same conservative majority aggressively intervened to prevent any remedial maps from even being considered.... To Justice Samuel Alito and his conservative cohorts on the Supreme Court, the lower court that decided Abbott v. Perez in the first place made 'a fundamental legal error' that needed to be corrected.... Alito [assumed] 'the presumption of legislative good faith,' under which the government is given the benefit of the doubt.... (In a short concurrence written by Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Neil Gorsuch made a bit of news: He endorsed Thomas's extreme, if lonely, view that the Voting Rights Act can't be used to police racially discriminatory redistricting plans. Not even Jeff Sessions's Justice Department, which isn't exactly friendly to civil rights, endorses that view.)"

Adam Liptak: "American Express did not violate the antitrust laws by insisting in its contracts with merchants that they do nothing to encourage patrons to use other cards, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday. The decision has implications not only for what one brief called 'an astronomical number of retail transactions' but also for other kinds of markets, notably ones on the internet, in which services link consumers and businesses. Such 'two-sided platforms,' the court said, require special and seemingly more forgiving antitrust scrutiny. The vote was 5 to 4, with the court's more conservative members in the majority. Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, said the specialized nature of credit-card transactions justified what in other circumstances might have been anti-competitive conduct."

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