The Ledes

Tuesday, October 1, 2024

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


Monday
Jun112018

The Commentariat -- June 12, 2018

Dylan Scott, et al., of Vox: "Voters in Virginia, Nevada, Maine, North Dakota, and South Carolina head to the polls Tuesday for important 2018 primary elections. Nevada Democrats will formally pick their candidate in their bid to unseat Sen. Dean Heller. In Virginia, at least four House Republican incumbents should be vulnerable in November. Maine presents one of Democrats' best chances to retake a governor's mansion as they seek to rebuild the state-level control they lost under President Obama -- and the state will be piloting a fancy new ranked-voting system, the first of its kind in the United States. Here is every June 12 primary election you need to know about, briefly explained."

*****

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

George Stephanopoulos interviews Trump, post-Singapore meetings. Mrs. McC: I would just assume everything coming out of Trump's mouth is somewhere between a lie & pie-in-the-sky:

     ... The transcript of the interview is here. ...

... Steve M.: "Barack Obama pursued deals with Cuba and Iran, but he never gushed over the leadership of either country, even though the right's caricature of him was that he was pro-terrorist and a big ol' commie. Imagine Obam talking about the Iranian or Cuban leadership the way President Trump talked about Kim Jong-un in his post-summit interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos[.]... Trump is rolling over on his back and asking Kim to give him a belly rub. And the deplorables don't care. Trump doesn't have to be tough on North Korea's dictator because the deplorables see this summit as an attack on the real enemy -- us.... Yes, summit skeptics are communist. The EU is communist. Kim Jong-un? Not communist, apparently. Liberals, Democrats, "RINOs," the mainstream media -- we are the right's real enemy. We always have been." ...

... Here's the full text of the Trump-Kim statement, via CNN. ...

... Nicholas Kristof: "It sure looks as if President Trump was hoodwinked in Singapore. Trump made a huge concession -- the suspension of military exercises with South Korea. That's on top of the broader concession of the summit meeting itself, security guarantees he gave North Korea and the legitimacy that the summit provides his counterpart, Kim Jong-un. Within North Korea, the 'very special bond' that Trump claimed to have formed with Kim will be portrayed this way: Kim forced the American president, through his nuclear and missile tests, to accept North Korea as a nuclear equal, to provide security guarantees to North Korea, and to cancel war games with South Korea that the North has protested for decades. In exchange for these concessions, Trump seems to have won astonishingly little.... The most remarkable aspect of the joint statement was what it didn't contain.... Kim seems to have completely out-negotiated Trump, and it's scary that Trump doesn't seem to realize this. For now Trump has much less to show than past negotiators who hammered out deals with North Korea like the 1994 Agreed Framework, which completely froze the country's plutonium program with a rigorous monitoring system.... Trump didn't achieve anything remotely as good as the Iran nuclear deal...." ...

... "Great Negotiator" Gives Away Store. Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "President Trump's pledge on Tuesday to cancel military exercises on the Korean Peninsula surprised not only allies in South Korea but also the Pentagon. Hours after Mr. Trump's announcement in Singapore, American troops in Seoul said they are still moving ahead with a military exercise this fall -- Ulchi Freedom Guardian -- until they receive guidance otherwise from the chain of command. Lt. Col. Jennifer Lovett, a United States military spokeswoman in South Korea, said in an email that the American command there 'has received no updated guidance on execution or cessation of training exercises -- to include this fall's schedule Ulchi Freedom Guardian.' 'We will continue with our current military posture until we receive updated guidance from the Department of Defense,' she added.'" ...

... There Was This. Lisa Rein & John Hudson of the Washington Post: "... nestled in the [joint statement] was a short bullet point that addresses a long-running concern of U.S. veterans groups: the recovery of the remains of thousands of American troops who were killed or captured in North Korea during the Korean War. On Tuesday, the two countries agreed to 'commit' to recovering the remains of fallen troops, 'including the immediate repatriation of those already identified,' according to the document. The statement represents a significant victory for veterans groups that lobbied forcefully behind the scenes for a renewed effort to recover remains in an environment where many non-nuclear issues, including human rights and the return of Japanese abductees, were left unaddressed in the joint statement.... The remains of 5,300 American forces who were killed or captured in North Korea during the war remain unaccounted for north of the demilitarized zone, resting in cemeteries, former labor camps and battle sites." Mrs. McC: I guess it depends upon what the meaning of "commit" is.

Philip Rucker & Anne Gearan of the Washington Post can barely mask their disgust: "President Trump shook his hand for 13 long seconds, patted him on the back and led him down a rich red carpet. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un may be considered the world's greatest human rights abuser and a totalitarian collector of nuclear weapons, but as they met for the first time here Tuesday, Trump declared himself honored.... The extraordinary tableau was a stark contrast to what had transpired three days earlier and half a world away in Canada, where an embittered Trump sat sternly, his arms crossed and his face impassive, as the leaders of America's oldest Western allies pleaded with him not to rupture the established world order with his retaliatory trade policies.... By simply jetting here for the summit, Trump effectively threw a coming-out party for Kim and afforded his rogue state the international prestige it has long sought.... Trump began the historic day on a sour note, tweeting in grievance before dawn here about 'haters & losers' who question his accomplishment in getting this far." ...

     ... Mrs. McC: This may be a "historic day" for North Korea, but it's another normal day for the U.S. in the Age of Trump: somewhere between disastrous & inconsequential, full of sound and bluster, signifying nothing. ...

... Digby, in Salon: "I have written before that any day we are not in a nuclear crisis with North Korea is better than the alternative. In that regard, the Singapore summit was a success. But after Trump's aggression against U.S. allies at the G7 in Quebec and then, in his own words, the 'bond' he formed with the North Korean dictator just days later, nobody should be reassured. It looks as though the more consequential of the two big meetings was the first one...."

Daniel Dale of the Toronto Star: "Escalating his attack on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau..., Donald Trump is now pledging to punish 'the people of Canada' economically because of the post-G7 news conference in which Trudeau criticized Trump's tariffs. 'That's going to cost a lot of money for the people of Canada. He learned. You can't do that. You can't do that,' Trump said Tuesday.... Trump repeated the vague threat in an interview with ABC.... It is not clear why Trump has reacted to Trudeau's post-G7 news conference with such anger. There, Trudeau expressed the same polite criticism of the steel and aluminum tariffs, and same promise to stand up for Canadians, he had been expressing for a full week.... Trump claimed, without any basis, that Trudeau made his comments because he thought Trump could not watch them while flying to Singapore."

Emoluments! Sharon LaFraniere of the New York Times: "A federal judge on Monday sharply criticized the Justice Department's argument that President Trump's financial interest in his company's hotel in downtown Washington is constitutional, a fresh sign that the judge may soon rule against the president in a historic case that could head to the Supreme Court. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, the District of Columbia and the state of Maryland, charge that Mr. Trump's profits from the hotel violate anti-corruption clauses of the Constitution.... The judge, Peter J. Messitte of the United States District Court in Maryland, promised to decide by the end of July whether to allow the plaintiffs to proceed to the next stage, in which they could demand financial records from the hotel or other evidence from the president. The case takes aim at whether Mr. Trump violated the Constitution's emoluments clauses, which prevent a president from accepting government-bestowed benefits.... Until now, the issue of what constitutes an illegal emolument has never been litigated." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Because until now, we've never lived under a pure kleptocracy.

Your Tax Dollars at Work. Amy Taxin of the AP: "The U.S. government agency that oversees immigration applications is launching an office that will focus on identifying Americans who are suspected of cheating to get their citizenship and seek to strip them of it. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director L. Francis Cissna told The Associated Press in an interview that his agency is hiring several dozen lawyers and immigration officers to review cases of immigrants who were ordered deported and are suspected of using fake identities to later get green cards and citizenship through naturalization." Mrs. McC: Francis there should start with Trump's mother & grandfather, & deport Trump.

*****

"Mr. Kim: Build Those Beach Condos." Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: "In off-hand remarks delivered to a press conference in Singapore on Tuesday, Mr Trump said North Korea had great potential for condos and hotels. He also said that from watching coverage of North Korean military drills, it appeared the country boasted 'great' beaches. 'Instead of [testing missiles] you could have the best hotels in the world right there,' Trump said he told Kim. 'Think of it from a real estate perspective. You have South Korea, you have China and they own the land in the middle.'"

Trump Thinks He Did Something. David Nakamura, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump said he 'developed a very special bond' with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during their historic summit here Tuesday and proclaimed the start of a new era that could break a cycle of nuclear brinkmanship and stave off a military confrontation. 'Yesterday's conflict does not have to be tomorrow's war,' Trump said at a news conference in Singapore following more than four hours of talks with Kim. Trump said Kim 'reaffirmed' his commitment to denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and also agreed to destroy a missile site in the country. 'We're ready to write a new chapter between our nations,' the president said. Trump sounded triumphant following his meeting with Kim, expressing confidence that the North Korean leader was serious about abandoning his nuclear program and transforming his country from an isolated rogue regime into a respected member of the world community.... At his news conference, Trump called Kim, an absolute ruler accused of massive human rights violations, a transformational leader for his country."

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Trump held his first real press conference in more than a year. He said the U.S. agreed to stop its joint military exercises with South Korea (which he called "war games"). Could be Trump is actually stabbing allies S.K. President Moon Jae-in & Japanese P.M. Shinzo Abe in the the backs. Update: I was right. According to the WashPo report linked above, "South Korea's presidential office seemed blindsided by the announcement on the joint exercises." ...

     ... Richard Haas called this "a very Trumpian summit": all personal & aspirational except that Trump got to reduce the U.S.'s military footprint abroad. I'll get a report up when one becomes available. Victor Cha: The word "verify" doesn't appear in the "statement"; neither is there anything about a timetable. "Kim got a lot more out of this meeting than Trump." Update: Here's a start re: the presser:

... Zeke Miller, et al., of the AP: "... Donald Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong Un concluded an extraordinary nuclear summit Tuesday with the U.S. president pledging unspecified 'security guarantees' to the North and Kim recommitting to the 'complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.'... Trump and Kim came together for a summit that seemed unthinkable months ago, clasping hands in front of a row of alternating U.S. and North Korean flags, holding a one-on-one meeting, additional talks with advisers and a working lunch. Both leaders expressed optimism throughout roughly five hours of talks, with Trump thanking Kim afterward 'for taking the first bold step toward a bright new future for his people.' Trump added during a free-flowing news conference that Kim has before him 'an opportunity like no other' to bring his country back into the community of nations if he agrees to give up his nuclear program. Trump announced that he will be freezing U.S. military 'war games' with its ally South Korea while negotiations between the two countries continue. Trump cast the decision as a cost-saving measure, but North Korea has long objected to the drills as a security threat." ...

... "Floppier than Expected." Joshua Keating of Slate: "The agreement signed in Singapore on Tuesday by President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un does not include any specific commitments on denuclearization or mention of sanctions relief. The two leaders did not, as Trump had suggested they might, negotiate a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean War. However, both probably more or less got what they wanted out of the meeting: a dramatic and historic photo-op. The joint statement notably did not feature the phrase 'complete, verifiable, irreversible, denuclearization' (or 'dismantlement'), which Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had previously suggested was non-negotiable. Instead, Kim vaguely committed to 'work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula' -- which he had already committed to at his meeting with President Moon Jae-in of South Korea in April. The agreement does not include any specific steps or benchmarks for that process, though according to Trump, Kim did agree to destroy a missile engine-testing site 'after the agreement was signed.'... Summing up the reactions of most North Korea watchers this morning, Andrei Lankov, director of the Korea Risk Group, wrote, 'We expected it would be a flop, but it's floppier than anything w expected. The declaration is pretty much meaningless. The Americans could have extracted serious concessions, but it was not done. The North Koreans will be emboldened and the U.S. got nothing.'" Keating also notes the surprise U.S. concession re: military exercises with South Korea.

New York Times reporters are live-updating the Singapore summit. Lede at 1 am ET: "President Trump and Kim Jong-un of North Korea held the first-ever meeting between leaders of their two countries on Tuesday morning in Singapore, getting together initially without any aides as they tried to end seven decades of hostility and the threat of a nuclear confrontation." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump said their meeting was "fantastic" & it was "a great honor to be with" Kim & that they were going to a "signing" of ... something. ...

     ... Update: The "something" Trump & Kim signed was a joint statement, the text of which Trump did not release, which is odd. (The purpose of a "statement" is to, um, say something.) According to the NYT, "In the joint statement, Mr. Trump 'committed to provide security guarantees' to North Korea. Mr. Kim 'reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.' But the statement was short on details and did not lay out potential next steps or a timetable. The joint statement was not immediately released to reporters, but it was legible in a photo of Mr. Trump holding it up at the ceremony. The statement said the two nations would hold 'follow-on negotiations' led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a high-level North Korean official 'at the earliest possible date, to implement the outcomes' of the summit meeting. The statement also said the two nations would 'join their efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime' on the divided Korean Peninsula, meaning talks to reduce military tensions that could eventually lead to a formal peace treaty to end the Korean War." ...

... Mark Landler of the New York Times: "President Trump concluded a historic meeting with North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, on Tuesday, saying that denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula would begin 'very quickly.' In a televised ceremony held in Singapore, the two leaders signed a joint statement that Mr. Trump called 'comprehensive.' In the statement, Mr. Trump 'committed to provide security guarantees' to North Korea, and Mr. Kim 'reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Um, I thought Trump was supposed to produce something better than the Iran nuclear deal. By that standard, the Singapore statement is a big zero or less: a concession to N.K. with nothing in return. "The Art of the Deal" is apparently nothing but an unreality show.

... S.V. Date of the Huffington Post: "The first-ever North Korea-United States summit will start with a one-on-one meeting between a brutal dictator known for breaking his word and a president famous for his daily dishonesties. With two unreliable narrators in Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump, how will Americans know what they actually said and agreed to with each other? 'We won't,' said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. 'The whole Trump team has been an unreliable narrator throughout this process. It's like "Rashomon," but really stupid.'" ...

... Ken Dilanian of NBC News: "When Trump meets Kim Jong Un in Singapore on Tuesday, he will be sitting down with the leader of one of the most brutal and repressive regimes in modern history -- a country that has committed 'unspeakable atrocities' on a vast scale in a manner reminiscent of Nazi Germany, according to a 2014 United Nations investigation. But two administration officials tell NBC News the U.S. has decided not to bring up human rights at the summit. And Trump has made clear he would be willing to offer security guarantees and financial aid to Kim if he gives up his nuclear arsenal."

... Another Summit Where Trump Expects to Be the Big Loser. Eric Levitz of New York: "Donald Trump has decided to leave his historic summit with Kim Jong-un 15 hours earlier than expected, flying back to Washington on Tuesday night instead of Wednesday morning. The White House says that this change of plans is a product of talks moving more quickly than expected. But there's reason to suspect that it is because they are barely moving at all. On Monday evening in Singapore, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters that complete denuclearization 'is the only outcome that the United States will accept' from Pyongyang, and that the latter will enjoy no economic relief until it has met that demand. By contrast, Pompeo did suggest that the U.S. was prepared to make unspecified concessions to North Korean security concerns before the total dismantling of its nuclear program was achieved.... The summit will open at 9 a.m. Tuesday in Singapore (which is 9 p.m. tonight in Washington) with Kim and Trump shaking hands and taking a walk in the view of the media, according to an official who spoke with Bloomberg News. The two leaders will then meet one on one (with only translators listening in), before being joined by their top aides. Among those flanking Trump will be Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton, whose belligerent rhetoric toward North Korea briefly derailed the summit last month." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Greg Sargent: Trump's behavior at & after the G-6+1 summit "was about salvaging a bit of face for Trump, and about laying the groundwork for a further escalation of Trump's trade war. And if that trade war does escalate, it is likely to cost many more U.S. jobs than it saves. Trump's conduct this weekend was rooted in fabrications, and nothing whatsoever about it was pro-worker." See also Akhilleus's commentary on this in today's thread. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Jeet Heer of the New Republic: "Donald Trump unifies the nation (Canada, that is).... As reporter Paul Wells of Maclean's magazine notes, every major political party in Canada from the social democratic New Democratic Party to the pro-business Conservatives agrees with Trudeau's stance on trade with the United States[.]" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Chuck Todd, et al., of NBC News: "Remember when Republican leaders and prominent GOP politicians criticized an American president for alienating global allies? We sure do -- during the Obama years.... But after a weekend when President Trump called Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau 'very dishonest and weak,' after he refused to sign the joint communique from the G-7 summit, and after a top Trump aide said 'there's a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door' -- those same Republican leaders have been silent. (What did Trudeau do, by the way, to earn that condemnation from Team Trump? He said that Canada would respond with reciprocal tariffs on the U.S. tariffs the Trump administration imposed on Canada -- nothing he and his government haven't said before, including on 'Meet the Press' a week ago.)... And there's only one explanation for that Republican silence: Trump has bullied the entire party into submission.... Foreign-policy expert Richard Haass says that Kim Jong Un has all of the leverage heading into the Singapore summit with Trump, because the U.S. president can't afford to be seen as blowing up two back-to-back summits." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Jim Tankersley & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Larry Kudlow, President Trump's top economic adviser, suffered a heart attack on Monday evening and was at Walter Reed Medical Center, Mr. Trump said in a tweet.... The White House issued a statement late Monday evening saying that Mr. Kudlow had a 'very mild heart attack.'"


Peter Stone & Greg Gordon of McClatchy News: "Several prominent Russians, some in President Vladimir Putin's inner circle or high in the Russian Orthodox Church, now have been identified as having contact with National Rifle Association officials during the 2016 U.S. election campaign, according to photographs and an NRA source. The contacts have emerged amid a deepening Justice Department investigation into whether Russian banker and lifetime NRA member Alexander Torshin illegally channeled money through the gun rights group to add financial firepower to Donald Trump's 2016 presidential bid. Other influential Russians who met with NRA representatives during the campaign include Dmitry Rogozin, who until last month served as a deputy prime minister overseeing Russia's defense industry, and Sergei Rudov, head of one of Russia's largest philanthropies, the St. Basil the Great Charitable Foundation. The foundation was launched by an ultra-nationalist ally of Russian President Putin. The Russians talked and dined with NRA representatives, mainly in Moscow, as U.S. presidential candidates vied for the White House. Now U.S. investigators want to know if relationships between the Russian leaders and the nation's largest gun rights group went beyond vodka toasts and gun factory tours, evolving into another facet of the Kremlin's broad election-interference operation."

George Conway in Lawfare, writes a long rebuttal to the argument that the special counsel is unconstitutional. He concludes, "It isn't very surprising to see the president tweet a meritless legal position, because, as a non-lawyer, he wouldn't know the difference between a good one and a bad one.... But the 'constitutional' arguments made against the special counsel do not meet [a standard of being well-grounded in law & fact] and had little more rigor than the [Trump] tweet that promoted them. Such a lack of rigor, sadly, has been a disturbing trend in much of the politically charged public discourse about the law lately, and one that lawyers -- regardless of their politics -- owe a duty to abjure." Mrs. McC: If you think Conway's name sounds familiar, that's because he is the spouse of Mrs. Alternative Facts. Apparently, there's Alternative Law, too.

Trump v. the Law, Ctd. Jonathan Chait: "Anybody who had predicted when Trump took office that the president's lawyers would officially proclaim his right to start or stop any federal investigation would have been dismissed as a paranoid worrywart. Yet here we are. Trump's authoritarian doctrine has not been tested by the courts, and seems unlikely to prevail. Still, the fact that it has gotten as far as it has, without producing any serious blowback from his own party, is a measure of how far the peril has advanced. The rule of law in the United States is like a suspension bridge -- still upright, but with cables snapping, one by one."

Wherein Dana Milbank looks forward to a Very Trumpy G-8. Thanks to MAG for the link. Mrs. McC: Maybe it helps to laugh while Trump turns the country into an imitation North Korea.

Lisa France of CNN: Robert De Niro "ended up getting bleeped Sunday night at the Tony Awards when he dropped some f-bombs about ... Donald Trump while introducing a performance by Bruce Springsteen. 'First, I wanna say, "f**k Trump,'" De Niro said. 'It's no longer "Down with Trump," it's 'f**k Trump.'" The comments, which were not censored in the Australian telecast, earned De Niro a standing ovation from the crowd at New York's Radio City Music Hall...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Watch the standing O:

... Steve M.: "My initial reaction to [De Niro's declaration] was that it was adolescent and counterproductive[.]... But [then I read] Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic with some insight into this administration, which we're being asked to treat with respect[.]... If this is how the Trumpers talk and think, then fuck them. ...

... Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic: "Many of Donald Trump's critics find it difficult to ascribe to a president they consider to be both subliterate and historically insensate a foreign-policy doctrine that approaches coherence. A Trump Doctrine would require evidence of Trump Thought, and proof of such thinking, the argument goes, is scant.... Over the past couple of months, I've asked a number of people close to the president to provide me with short descriptions of what might constitute the Trump Doctrine.... The second-best self-description of the Trump Doctrine I heard was this, from a senior national-security official: 'Permanent destabilization creates American advantage.'... The best distillation of the Trump Doctrine I heard, though, came from a senior White House official with direct access to the president and his thinking.... 'The Trump Doctrine is "We're America, Bitch."'... What is mainly interesting about 'We're America, Bitch' is its delusional quality. Donald Trump is pursuing policies that undermine the Western alliance, empower Russia and China, and demoralize freedom-seeking people around the world. The United States could be made weaker -- perhaps permanently -- by the implementation of the Trump Doctrine."

The Quisling's Enablers. Paul Krugman: "This ... is ... about the people who are enabling [Trump's] betrayal of America: the inner circle of officials and media personalities who are willing to back him up whatever he says or does, and the wider set of politicians -- basically the entire Republican delegation in Congress -- who have the power and constitutional obligation to stop what he's doing, but won't lift a finger in America's defense.... Why are Republican politicians unwilling to discharge their constitutional responsibilities?... On one side, tax cuts for the rich have become the overriding priority for the modern G.O.P., and Trump is giving them that, so they're willing to let everything else slide. On the other side, the party's base really does love Trump, not for his policies, but for the performative cruelty he exhibits toward racial minorities and the way he sticks his thumb in the eyes of 'elites.'... The problem facing America runs much deeper than Trump's personal awfulness. One of our two major parties appears to be hopelessly, irredeemably corrupt. And unless that party not only loses this year's election but begins losing on a regular basis, America as we know it is finished."

Jesse Drucker & Agustin Armendariz of the New York Times: "Even after they ascended to top White House positions, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner continued to benefit from an extraordinary number of investment deals carried out by the companies they once ran, ethics filings released Monday evening showed. During their first year in government service, Ms. Trump and Mr. Kushner remained investors through various vehicles and trusts, which bought and sold as much as $147 million of real estate and other assets." ...

... Washington Post: "Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner ... brought in at least $82 million in outside income while they served as senior White House advisers last year, according to new financial disclosure forms released Monday afternoon.... The filings show how the couple is collecting immense sums from other enterprises while serving in the White House, an extraordinary income flow that ethics experts have warned could create potential conflicts of interests. This is a developing story. It will be updated." ..

     ... The story has been updated, with Amy Brittain at the top of the byline: "... while Kushner divested some holdings, he and his wife have maintained large stakes in businesses with domestic and foreign ties. Kushner's family real estate company has properties around the country, including thousands of apartment units in states including New Jersey and Maryland. Trump's eponymous clothing and accessories line is produced exclusively in foreign factories in countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia and China."

Olivia Exstrum of Mother Jones: "In April, President Donald Trump nominated Patrick Wyrick, currently a justice on the Oklahoma Supreme Court [and Scott Pruitt protégé], to an Oklahoma district court judgeship.... He is expected to be confirmed. At 37 and with little more than a year of experience on the bench, if confirmed, Wyrick would be the youngest federal judge of the 42 so far confirmed under Trump. Wyrick is also on the president'sshortlist for the Supreme Court.... Wyrick's record is in line with the administration’s goals of rolling back reproductive rights and ending environmental protections." --safari

Katie Benner of the New York Times: "Attorney General Jeff Sessions said on Monday that fear of domestic violence is not legal grounds for asylum in a closely watched immigration case that could have a broad effect on the asylum process, women who have endured extreme violence and the independence of immigration judges. Mr. Sessions reversed a decision by a Justice Department immigration appeals court that had given asylum to a woman from El Salvador who had been raped and abused by her husband. The appeals court decision had overruled earlier orders in similar cases. 'The prototypical refugee flees her home country because the government has persecuted her,' Mr. Sessions wrote in his decision. 'An alien may suffer threats and violence in a foreign country for any number of reasons relating to her social, economic, family, or other personal circumstances. Yet the asylum statute does not provide redress for all misfortune,' Mr. Sessions wrote.... His decision echoes remarks he made earlier Monday morning at a gathering of immigration judges in Virginia.... In his speech on Monday, he also said that the Obama administration had created 'powerful incentives' for people to 'come here illegally and claim a fear of return.'... Immigration courts are housed under the Justice Department..., meaning Mr. Sessions has the authority to refer cases to himself and overturn earlier decisions." ...

     ... The story has been updated, also adding Caitlin Dickerson to the byline. New Lede: "Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday made it all but impossible for asylum seekers to gain entry into the United States by citing fears of domestic abuse or gang violence, in a ruling that could have a broad effect on the flow of migrants from Central America." The original story made no mention of Sessions' disallowing gang violence as justification for asylum. ...

... Maria Sachetti of the Washington Post: "Attorney General Jeff Sessions signaled Monday that victims of domestic abuse and gang violence generally will not qualify for asylum under federal law, a decision that advocates say will endanger tens of thousands of foreign nationals seeking safety in the United States.... 'Generally, claims by aliens pertaining to domestic violence or gang violence perpetrated by non-governmental actors will not qualify for asylum,' he wrote." ...

... Dara Lind of Vox: "Tens of thousands of people who are currently waiting for their asylum cases in the US to be resolved -- or waiting for their chance to apply -- just got the door all but slammed on them.... Sessions is using his traditional, but rarely used, powers of self-referral to reshape the way that immigration courts work.... Because immigration courts aren't fully independent courts, the decision Sessions just issued is now law for all immigration judges in the US -- and everyone else considering asylum cases.... [Sessions' decision] could even trap some of the families separated in the last few weeks by the Trump administration's new 'zero-tolerance' border policy -- depriving the parents of any way to stay in the country, and drastically reducing their chances of relocating their children before they're deported.... Sessions isn't just raising the standard for who can ultimately get asylum. He's raising the standard for who can pass the initial screening at the border to apply for asylum.... It's generally accepted that the governments of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala don't have sufficient control to keep their residents safe from gang violence -- in fact, they're often compromised by gang ties. But Sessions argues that the burden of proof still lies on the asylum seeker[.]" ...

... Matt Ford of the New Republic: "Even for an administration whose immigration policy is defined by cruelty, Sessions's unilateral move stands out for its heartlessness.... Advocates for domestic-abuse survivors had long feared that Sessions, an avowed foe of legal and undocumented immigration alike, would use his powers to deny safety to women fleeing abusive households. In Monday's ruling, those fears became a reality." ...

... "First They Came for the Migrants." Michelle Goldberg: "We still talk about American fascism as a looming threat, something that could happen if we’re not vigilant. But for undocumented immigrants, it's already here. There are countless horror stories about what's happening to immigrants under Trump.... But what really makes Trump's America feel like a rogue state is the administration’s policy of taking children from migrants caught crossing the border unlawfully, even if the parents immediately present themselves to the authorities to make asylum claims.... The human consequences have been horrific.... What is happening is the sort of moral enormity that once seemed unthinkable in contemporary America.... Senator [Jeff] Merkley [D-Ore.] told me he asked people working in the detention center if they were concerned about the impact that family separation would have on the children who had been put under their authority. The answer, he said, was, 'We simply follow the orders from above.'"

... Madison Pauly & Noah Lenard of Mother Jones outline how "the decision is in line with other steps Sessions and the Trump administration have taken to undercut the American asylum system."

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Monday upheld Ohio’s aggressive efforts to purge its voting rolls. The court ruled that a state may kick people off the rolls if they skip a few elections and fail to respond to a notice from state election officials. The vote was 5 to 4, with the more conservative justices in the majority.... Federal laws prohibit states from removing people from voter rolls 'by reason of the person’s failure to vote.' But they allow election officials who suspect that a voter has moved to send a confirmation notice. The central question in the case was whether a failure to vote could be the reason to send out the notice. Ohio is more aggressive than any other state in purging its voter rolls. After skipping a single federal election cycle, voters are sent a notice. If they fail to respond and do not vote in the next four years, their names are purged from the rolls.... A Reuters study in 2016 found that at least 144,000 people were removed from the voting rolls in recent years in Ohio’s three largest counties, which are home to Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus." Thanks to Ken W. for the lead. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Richard Hasen, in Slate: In her dissent to Justice Alito's majority opinion, "Justice Sotomayor pointed out that another provision of the Motor Voter law requires that any removal program 'be uniform, nondiscriminatory, and in compliance with the Voting Rights Act,' and this part of the law provides a potential path forward. As more states enact laws like Ohio's, it will become further apparent that these laws have discriminatory effects.... Justice Alito's response to Justice Sotomayor is quite telling. He rightly noted that the challenge in this case was not about whether Ohio's law was discriminatory. But he added that Justice Sotomayor did not point 'to any evidence in the record that Ohio instituted or has carried out its program with discriminatory intent.' Contrary to Justice Alito's intimation, plaintiffs alleging a violation of the Voting Rights Act need not prove discriminatory intent; discriminatory impact is enough. Justice Alito may be subtly signaling where the Court's conservative majority is likely to go in future years. At some point the Court may well consider striking down as unconstitutional that part of the Voting Rights Act that holds it is illegal for states to pass voting laws that have a discriminatory impact."

Way Beyond the Beltway

David Agren of the Guardian: "Fernando Purón had just finished an election debate with his rival congressional candidates in the Mexican border city of Piedras Negras, when ... [he was] shot ... in the head.... Purón was the 112th political candidate murdered in Mexico since September 2017, according to Etellekt, a risk analysis consultancy. And the country is bracing for more bloodshed before 1 July elections, when voters will pick a new president, renew congress and fill hundreds of state and local positions.... Mexico registered a record number of homicides in 2017 --; the 11th year of a militarized crackdown on organized crime.... Analysts offer varying theories to explain the growing number of attacks on politicians, including efforts by organized crime to infiltrate local institutions and the growing amount of cash in local government." --safari

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Monday
Jun112018

The Commentariat -- June 11, 2018

Afternoon Update:

Another Summit Where Trump Expects to Be the Big Loser. Eric Levitz of New York: "Donald Trump has decided to leave his historic summit with Kim Jong-un 15 hours earlier than expected, flying back to Washington on Tuesday night instead of Wednesday morning. The White House says that this change of plans is a product of talks moving more quickly than expected. But there's reason to suspect that it is because they are barely moving at all. On Monday evening in Singapore, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters that complete denuclearization 'is the only outcome that the United States will accept' from Pyongyang, and that the latter will enjoy no economic relief until it has met that demand. By contrast, Pompeo did suggest that the U.S. was prepared to make unspecified concessions to North Korean security concerns before the total dismantling of its nuclear program was achieved.... The summit will open at 9 a.m. Tuesday in Singapore (which is 9 p.m. tonight in Washington) with Kim and Trump shaking hands and taking a walk in the view of the media, according to an official who spoke with Bloomberg News. The two leaders will then meet one on one (with only translators listening in), before being joined by their top aides. Among those flanking Trump will be Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton, whose belligerent rhetoric toward North Korea briefly derailed the summit last month."

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Monday upheld Ohio's aggressive efforts to purge its voting rolls. The court ruled that a state may kick people off the rolls if they skip a few elections and fail to respond to a notice from state election officials. The vote was 5 to 4, with the more conservative justices in the majority.... Federal laws prohibit states from removing people from voter rolls 'by reason of the person's failure to vote.' But they allow election officials who suspect that a voter has moved to send a confirmation notice. The central question in the case was whether a failure to vote could be the reason to send out the notice. Ohio is more aggressive than any other state in purging its voter rolls. After skipping a single federal election cycle, voters are sent a notice. If they fail to respond and do not vote in the next four years, their names are purged from the rolls.... A Reuters study in 2016 found that at least 144,000 people were removed from the voting rolls in recent years in Ohio's three largest counties, which are home to Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus." Thanks to Ken W. for the lead.

Lisa France of CNN: Robert De Niro "ended up getting bleeped Sunday night at the Tony Awards when he dropped some f-bombs about ... Donald Trump while introducing a performance by Bruce Springsteen. 'First, I wanna say, "f**k Trump,'" De Niro said. 'It's no longer "Down with Trump," it's 'f**k Trump.'" The comments, which were not censored in the Australian telecast, earned De Niro a standing ovation from the crowd at New York's Radio City Music Hall...." Watch the standing O:

Greg Sargent: Trump's behavior at & after the G-6+1 summit "was about salvaging a bit of face for Trump, and about laying the groundwork for a further escalation of Trump's trade war. And if that trade war does escalate, it is likely to cost many more U.S. jobs than it saves. Trump's conduct this weekend was rooted in fabrications, and nothing whatsoever about it was pro-worker." See also Akhilleus's commentary on this in today's thread.

Jeet Heer of the New Republic: "Donald Trump unifies the nation (Canada, that is).... As reporter Paul Wells of Maclean's magazine notes, every major political party in Canada from the social democratic New Democratic Party to the pro-business Conservatives agrees with Trudeau's stance on trade with the United States[.]"

Chuck Todd, et al., of NBC News: "Remember when Republican leaders and prominent GOP politicians criticized an American president for alienating global allies? We sure do -- during the Obama years.... But after a weekend when President Trump called Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau 'very dishonest and weak,' after he refused to sign the joint communique from the G-7 summit, and after a top Trump aide said 'there's a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door' -- those same Republican leaders have been silent. (What did Trudeau do, by the way, to earn that condemnation from Team Trump? He said that Canada would respond with reciprocal tariffs on the U.S. tariffs the Trump administration imposed on Canada -- nothing he and his government haven't said before, including on 'Meet the Press' a week ago.)... And there's only one explanation for that Republican silence: Trump has bullied the entire party into submission.... Foreign-policy expert Richard Haass says that Kim Jong Un has all of the leverage heading into the Singapore summit with Trump, because the U.S. president can't afford to be seen as blowing up two back-to-back summits."

Trump v. the Law, Ctd. Jonathan Chait: "Anybody who had predicted when Trump took office that the president's lawyers would officially proclaim his right to start or stop any federal investigation would have been dismissed as a paranoid worrywart. Yet here we are. Trump's authoritarian doctrine has not been tested by the courts, and seems unlikely to prevail. Still, the fact that it has gotten as far as it has, without producing any serious blowback from his own party, is a measure of how far the peril has advanced. The rule of law in the United States is like a suspension bridge -- still upright, but with cables snapping, one by one."

*****

Pot to Kettle. Trump Warns Staff Against Making "Fucking Crazy Talk." Sarah Burris of the Raw Story: "... Donald Trump doesn't want to hear anything inappropriate coming out of his White House and administration, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. 'Mike, you got it?' Trump reported told his vice president, according to one official. 'No f*cking crazy talk from anybody in the administration.' Trump has spent recent months starting online wars with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. In a bizarre twist, he canceled the planned summit, only to then renege on pulling out of the summit when Kim reached out. But in recent weeks, Trump has toned down his typical tough talk and asked members of the administration to do the same. Ironically, Trump then started a trade war with Canada and the European Union during recent G-7 meetings.... Trump tried to reassure the world that he has 'been preparing all my life' for the sit-down with Kim. He did not explain how hotel and condo development prepared him for such peace talks, however." ...

... Juan Cole: "[I]f the US proved so feckless with regard to Iran and the G7, why should N. Korea now trust any deal Trump makes? The answer is that N. Korea doesn't trust Trump at all and is not planning to make any deal with him to give up its nuclear weapons entirely. Kim Jong Un wants the prestige that would come from a two-way summit with the world's sole superpower. Even if the talks go nowhere, Pyongyang will have seen a permanent rise in its world standing." --safari ...

... A Fox "News" Gaffe Perfect for the Occasion. David Edwards of the Raw Story: "Abby Huntsman, host of the Fox News morning show Fox & Friends, on Sunday said that summit between North Korea leader Kim Jong-un and... Donald Trump is a meeting between 'two dictators.'" Anthony Scaramucci, who was a guest on the show, "agreed that Trump is a 'disruptive' force in the world." Huntsman later apologized for her "dictator" characterization -- um, of both Trump & Kim.

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "Mr. Trump's strategy for pressuring Mr. Kim to give up his nuclear weapons has depended on isolating North Korea, but he arrived in Singapore looking isolated himself.... Mr. Trump ... weighed in again on Sunday night with a cascade of fresh tweets targeting Canada, Germany and the European Union, accusing them of unfair trade practices and of not spending enough on their security. He cited a series of selective statistics about Canadian-American trade, adding derisively, 'Then Justin acts hurt when called out!' Left unclear was what exactly Mr. Trudeau had said that so offended Mr. Trump. During his Saturday news conference, the prime minister was relatively measured but repeated his position that Canada 'will not be pushed around' and would respond to American tariffs with tariffs of its own.... Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain issued a statement through an aide saying she was 'fully supportive of Justin Trudeau.' The German foreign minister, Heiko Maas, on Sunday called on European nations to stick together following Mr. Trump's announcement. 'It's actually not a real surprise,' Mr. Maas told reporters in Berlin. 'We have seen this with the climate agreement or the Iran deal. In a matter of seconds, you can destroy trust with 280 Twitter characters. To build that up again will take much longer.'... Mr. Trump never really wanted to attend the Group of 7 meeting, but aides pressed him to go even as they feared it would be a disaster because he was being forced to do something he did not want to do. He rebelled by showing up late and leaving early. During closed-door meetings, Mr. Trump largely listened through most issues, firmly crossing his arms and swiveling a bit in his seat, according to people who were in the room.... But he came alive whenever trade was mentioned, mocking and insulting other leaders, particularly Mr. Trudeau, Mr. Macron and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, according to the witnesses." ...

... Axios: "In a series of Sunday night tweets, President Trump repeated his claims of unfair international trade practices against the United States' closest allies in the G7, saying that 'Fair Trade is now to be called Fool Trade if it is not Reciprocal' -- and singling out Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau." ...

... Reality Chek. Ana Swanson of the New York Times: "Behind Mr. Trump's outrage is his belief that the United States is at a disadvantage when it comes to global trade and is on the losing end of tariffs imposed by other nations. But to many of the country's trading partners, the president's criticisms ring hollow given that the United States places its own tariffs on everything from trucks and peanuts to sugar and stilettos.... Instead of viewing trade as a mutually beneficial relationship, the president has described trading relationships as a zero-sum game, in which the United States loses out when other countries have more favorable terms. Mr. Trump has seized on trade policy to prop up industries that he has promised to revitalize, such as manufacturing, by limiting foreign competition.... On average, American tariffs are on par with those of other rich, developed countries, which tend to be low, according to the World Bank and the United Nations. Among the developed nations that make up the Group of 7 that met in a resort town near Quebec City this weekend, the United States has tariffs that are slightly higher, on average, across all its imported products than Canada or Japan and exactly equivalent to the four European nations in the G-7.... The approach risks upending the United States' longstanding embrace of free trade and its use of trading relationships to help power economic growth in the United States and the world economy writ large. Since the Second World War, the United States has cut its tariff rates in step with other developed countries. It also gave some less-developed countries access to its markets, with the idea of increasing wages and improving quality of life." ...

... Michael Nienaber of Reuters: "Europe will implement counter-measures against U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum just like Canada, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday, voicing regret about President Donald Trump's abrupt decision to withdraw support for a G7 communique.... 'So we won't let ourselves be ripped off again and again. Instead, we act then too,' Merkel said in an unusually combative tone.... Merkel ... repeated that Europe could no longer rely on its ally and should take its fate into its own hands." --safari ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: So sayeth the Leader of the Free World, because the President* of the United States of America relinquished that title in a tweet on Saturday. And it ain't something he can get back by playing nice once in a while.

**Guardian Editors: "The failure of the G7 meeting in Charlevoix, Quebec, marks a watershed for the 21st-century democracies. It is the moment when Donald Trump's disruption of the international order moved from annoying threat to damaging reality.... The US is the cornerstone of the post-1945 international order. If Mr Trump wishes to remove that cornerstone everything else is threatened. That has not yet happened.... But a fissure is growing.... Without the US the other G7 nations lack as much clout to make the system work.... But the rest of the G7 must try. If not, Europe, Canada and Japan risk becoming standing invitations to humiliation by Russian disruption, Chinese strategic authoritarianism and Trumpian nativism. This puts the liberal value system of democracy, peace, trade, liberty and the rule of law at risk.... Shockingly, today's threat comes from our wartime ally, the US, in the shape of President Trump." --safari

To our allies: bipartisan majorities of Americans remain pro-free trade, pro-globalization & supportive of alliances based on 70 years of shared values. Americans stand with you, even if our president doesn't. -- Sen. John McCain, in a tweet ...

... Griff Witte & James McAuley of the Washington Post: "On the day after the Group of Seven summit blew up in spectacular fashion, with Trump using idle time on an airport runway to insult his host and repudiate an agreement he had made with allied leaders only hours earlier, emotions were far easier to divine. Allies were indignant. They were defiant. Yet they were hardly shocked by the outcome of a critical global gathering that had gone worse than any that longtime foreign policy players had seen. 'It was not a surprise,' said Norbert Röttgen, chair of the foreign affairs committee in Germany's parliament, the Bundestag. 'The president acted and reacted in the childish way he could be expected to.' To the U.S.'s closest partners, the pattern has become disturbingly familiar. Trump's abandonment of the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear agreement and his decision to impose protectionist tariffs on European steel and aluminum products have established a level of animosity between the United States and Europe that, by many measures, surpasses even the rift over the Iraq War. The depth of exasperation showed in a Sunday afternoon statement from French President Emmanuel Macron's office. 'International cooperation cannot be dictated by fits of anger and throwaway remarks,' the statement said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Damian Paletta & Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post: "President Trump left America's closest allies in a state of shock and outrage Sunday after a verbal barrage against Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who had just hosted Trump and other leaders from the Group of Seven industrial nations. Trump's rhetorical assault on Trudeau, characteristically delivered on Twitter, was echoed by two top White House advisers who took to the Sunday talk shows to go after the leader of the United States' neighbor to the north. The bizarre aftermath of the G-7 summit in Quebec was a political calculation, meant to show muscularity in advance of the historic summit in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, one of those advisers acknowledged Sunday. There has rarely been such a coordinated and acerbic series of attacks by White House advisers aimed at a U.S. ally, revealing the extent to which Trump possibly felt slighted by Trudeau as he left for his North Korea talks. '"POTUS is not gonna let a Canadian prime minister push him around,' Trump's chief economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, said on CNN's 'state of the Union.' 'He is not going to permit any show of weakness on the trip to negotiate with North Korea.'... Another of Trump's top advisers, Peter Navarro, intensified the attack on Trudeau in an interview on 'Fox News Sunday.' 'There's a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door,' Navarro said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I don't think the Twittertantrum was as much about North Korea as it was that Trudeau hurt Trump's feelings by telling the truth -- in a rather measured way, IMO. (As Trudeau himself said at his presser, "Canadians, we're polite, we're reasonable, but we also will not be pushed around.") Trump, as we all know, can't handle the truth. ...

... Here's what that nasty Trudeau said to drive Trump & Co. off the deep end:

... Here's the deep end:

... Maia de la Baume of Politico: "France pledged on Sunday to stand by the G7 summit statement disowned by Donald Trump and took a swipe at the U.S. president by declaring that international cooperation could not depend on 'fits of anger' or 'little words.' Apparently incensed by remarks about U.S. tariffs at the closing press conference on Saturday by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump -- who had already left the gathering in Quebec -- tweeted that he had instructed U.S. officials not to endorse the final communiqué, which had already been agreed and published. In a statement on Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron's office said all of Europe would continue to stand behind the communiqué...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

...Jonathan Swan of Axios: "In their bilateral meeting in the White House's Cabinet Room, on April 24, [Emmanuel ] Macron said to Trump, 'Let's work together, we both have a China problem,' according to a source in the room. The source said Trump responded that the European Union is 'worse than China.'" [Emphasis added] --safari...

... David Frum of the Atlantic: "Whether or not the president's demands made any sense even from the most parochial American point of view, his demands were to a considerable extent accommodated. Trump had issued orders, sent his people out to war, and won victories for his idiosyncratic approach to foreign affairs. As late as 3:30 on Saturday afternoon, all the conferees thought that the facade of Western unity had survived another day, another summit.... Vexed by the criticism [of his ZTE pay-for-play deal], Trump struck back at the readiest targets: America's closest friends and allies. Rule-of-law democracies cannot deliver the emoluments Trump collects from more authoritarian regimes. They cannot expedite Ivanka Trump's trademarks to gain favor. They don't book their national-day celebrations in Washington's Trump International Hotel.... Trump's attacks on Trudeau will only boost the prime minister's popularity. But this is more than a personal story. Trump is day by day abdicating U.S. leadership.... He bullies traditional friends and allies; he cringes to adversaries, dictators, and potential funding sources for Trump enterprises. Bullying the G7 was the weekend's story; cringing to North Korea -- and behind it, China -- will be the story of the week ahead." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... "Debacle in Quebec." Paul Krugman buttresses the fear & dismay I realized yesterday -- and that was before Trump went on his anti-Trudeau TwitterWhine: "... there has never been a disaster like the G7 meeting that just took place. It could herald the beginning of a trade war, maybe even the collapse of the Western alliance. At the very least it will damage America's reputation as a reliable ally for decades to come; even if Trump eventually departs the scene in disgrace, the fact that someone like him could come to power in the first place will always be in the back of everyone's mind.... Maybe he was just acting out because he couldn't stand having to spend hours with powerful people who will neither flatter him nor bribe him by throwing money at his family businesses -- people who, in fact, didn't try very hard to hide the contempt they feel for the man leading what is still, for the moment, a great power." Thanks to P.D. Pepe for the link. (Also linked yesterday afternoon. ...

... ** David Leonhardt of the New York Times: "The alliance between the United States and Western Europe has accomplished great things. It won two world wars in the first half of the 20th century. Then it expanded to include its former enemies and went on to win the Cold War, help spread democracy and build the highest living standards the world has ever known. President Trump is trying to destroy that alliance.... If a president of the United States were to sketch out a secret, detailed plan to break up the Atlantic alliance, that plan would bear a striking resemblance to Trump's behavior.... For American voters, [Trump's actions mean] understanding the real stakes of this year's midterm elections. They are not merely a referendum on a tax cut, a health care plan or a president's unorthodox style. They are a referendum on American ideals that are older than any of us." ...

... Yeah But. Here's how Trudeau really upset Trump -- by posing with him & other leaders for the Girther photo seen 'round the world:

     ... Nathan Francis of the Inquisitr: "Donald Trump's official White House physical claims that he is 6-foot-3, one full inch taller than Canadian leader Justin Trudeau. But a photo of the two men together this weekend says otherwise. In the picture, taking from the G7 summit, Trump is standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Canadian prime minister, with Trudeau appearing to be at least an inch taller than Trump. Trudeau is listed as 6-foot-2. The picture has also helped to reignite the controversy over Donald Trump's official physical, which many critics said purposely overestimated the president's height and underestimated his weight to save Trump the embarrassment of admitting that he was obese. Had Trump been one inch shorter, he would have been classified as obese rather than overweight." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: Safari has found the original picture of Merkel, Abe, Macron, et al., v. Trump & Bolton before Merkel politely doctored it. Special thanks to Mark Kermode & his contributors. Trouble is, I'm not sure which is the original. So you decide. It could be this one:

... Maggie Haberman & Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "... back home, [President Trump] left behind a West Wing where burned-out aides are eyeing the exits, as the mood in the White House is one of numbness and resignation that the president is growing only more emboldened to act on instinct alone. Mr. Trump ... may soon be working with a thinned-out cast in the middle of Season 2, well before the midterm elections. Several high-profile aides, including John F. Kelly, the president's chief of staff, and Joe Hagin, a deputy of Mr. Kelly's, are said to be thinking about how much longer they can stay. Last week, Mr. Kelly told visiting senators that the White House was 'a miserable place to work,' according to a person with direct knowledge of the comment. The turnover, which is expected to become an exodus after the November elections, does not worry the president, several people close to him said. He has grown comfortable with removing any barriers that might challenge him -- including, in some cases, people who have the wrong chemistry or too frequently say no to him." ...

... MEANWHILE, on the Other Side of the Globe. Andrew Higgins of the New York Times: "President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said on Sunday during a visit to China that he would meet President Trump 'as soon as the American side is ready' but insisted Russia was in no hurry to win readmission to the Group of 7 nations because it already belongs to a Chinese-led grouping that he described as more important. Putting a brave face on a failed effort by Mr. Trump to have Russia readmitted to the world's most exclusive diplomatic club, Mr. Putin said the G-7 ... represented fewer people and had less economic heft than the Shanghai Cooperation Organization." ...

... Steve Levine of Axios: "Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin are strategizing how to reposition themselves for a new, more powerful future amid a rapid deterioration of the U.S.-led global order.... Such spectacles [as Trump's Twittertantrum Saturday] feed Xi's and Putin's conviction that 'the West is in free fall,' says Mathew Burrows, former counselor at the National Intelligence Council, and now at the Atlantic Council. He tells Axios, 'Both Xi and Putin have been surprised and shocked by the rapidity of the U.S. decline.'" ...

... Trump Really Hates the E.U. Jonathan Swan of Axios: "In their bilateral meeting in the White House's Cabinet Room, on April 24, Macron said to Trump, 'Let's work together, we both have a China problem,' according to a source in the room. The source said Trump responded that the European Union is 'worse than China.' 'He then went on a rant about Germany and cars,' the source added."

Trump v. the Law. Annie Karni of Politico: "Under the Presidential Records Act, the White House must preserve all memos, letters, emails and papers that the president touches, sending them to the National Archives for safekeeping as historical records. But White House aides realized early on that they were unable to stop Trump from ripping up paper after he was done with it and throwing it in the trash or on the floor, according to people familiar with the practice. Instead, they chose to clean it up for him, in order to make sure that the president wasn't violating the law. Staffers had the fragments of paper collected from the Oval Office as well as the private residence and send it over to records management across the street from the White House for Larkey and his colleagues to reassemble.... [Records management analysts Solomon Lartey and Reginald Young, Jr.] described a system that stands in stark contrast to how records management was conducted under the Obama administration, which ran a structured paperwork process.... Lartey, 54, and Young, 48, were career government officials who worked together in records management until this spring, when both were abruptly terminated from their jobs. Both are now unemployed and still full of questions about why they were stripped of their badges with no explanation and marched off of the White House grounds by Secret Service." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The fact that these guys were fired for obeying the law makes me wonder if the same happened to the White House employees who were feeding them the torn-up documents. There's no reason to assume that presidential documents have been preserved since the White House fired Lartey & Young. Congress must investigate, & Bob Mueller should add "destruction of evidence" to his list of questions for Trump. And I'll just add that this is another instance in which "The Emails!" look ridiculous. P.S. What do you suppose happened to all those Russia docs Trump got his hands on? ...

... Scott Lemieux agrees: "Sounds like the habits of a scrupulously ethical individual who has never had any shady practices to hide! What's funny about this is that the media decided the most important issue facing the country in 2016 was Hillary Clinton's compliance with information security best practices. Well, not ha-ha funny." ...

... So does David Atkins: "It is not clear if anyone is now preserving the President's paper as the law requires. It's worth noting that destroying documents in violation of the Records Act and firing the only people who were trying to preserve them is also an impeachable offense -- certainly a more problematic offense than sending work emails on a private server. But in Trumpworld where every day is a struggle to contain the burgeoning messes and historic scandals of an overgrown petulant child, something like this barely merits a wry also-ran piece on a lazy Sunday. Still, it's a perfect metaphor for this presidency."

This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.

Nico Hines of The Daily Beast: "The extent of Russia's interference in the 2016 votes for Trump and Brexit has been investigated by intelligence agencies, congressional and parliamentary inquiries, the FBI and ... Robert Mueller's office for more than a year. For much of that time, a reporter in England [Isabel Oakeshott] has been in possession of extraordinary details about Russia's cultivation and handling of Brexit's biggest bankroller [Arron Banks].... Banks, who ran the Leave.EU campaign group, was one of the first foreign political figures to visit Donald Trump -- accompanying Nigel Farage to Trump Tower -- soon after the shock presidential election of 2016.... Oakeshott says she did not discover the stunning extent of Banks' true dealings with Russia until last year. Even then, she decided not to publish saying she wanted to wait until the publication of her next book White Flag? in August." --safari

** Brazen. Lachlan Markay of The Daily Beast: "A Russian government adviser who aims to wage an 'information war' in the U.S. and Europe is running a new media venture a block from the White House that cybersecurity experts say has ties to the country's infamous disinformation apparatus.... In April, Russia's Federal News Agency (FAN) announced the creation of an American outlet called 'USA Really.'... At the helm of the project is Alexander Malkevich, a Russian media executive and a member of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, a body created by President Vladimir Putin in 2005 to advise government policymaking.... According to security researchers, the FAN has ties to the Internet Research Agency (IRA), the Russian social media office that the Justice Department indicted in February for its role in Kremlin efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election [and] once operated out of the same St. Petersburg office building as the IRA." Read on. --safari

Lesley Stahl interviewed Trump campaign chair Brad Parscale for "60 Minutes." Big takeaway: during the 2016 campaign, Parscale's digital operation had employees of Facebook, Twitter & Google "embedded inside our offices." These tech employees self-identified as Trump supporters. Facebook made a similar offer to the Clinton campaign, but Clinton turned down the offer.


Weaponizing Children. Franco Ordoñez of McClatchy DC: "The Trump administration will now fingerprint and run immigration checks on the mothers and fathers who come forward to claim custody of unaccompanied migrant children stopped at the border under a new policy that is stoking new fears in immigrant communities nationwide.... Under the new policy, the government would no longer provide exceptions to the parents or any other relatives. But some migrant advocates worry it could deter families from claiming children, and migrant parents already appear less willing to do so. The percentage of unaccompanied youths claimed by parents has dropped from 60 percent four years ago to 41 percent in 2017 after increasing crackdowns, including raids.... Last year, Health and Human Services assumed custody of more than 40,000 immigrant children and released more than 93 percent to sponsors. Of those, 49 percent were parents and 41 percent were close relatives." --safari ...

... Trump's "Animals". Steph Solis of USA Today: "[Cloyd] Edralin, 47, [father of four] who has lived legally in the United States for three decades, was leaving his house to go to work on Monday morning when he was stopped by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. They told Edralin, a green card holder, that he was being detained over an 11-year-old firearms conviction.... He was convicted of unlawful possession of an airsoft pistol, which fires plastic pellets.... Edralin isn't the first green card holder to be detained years after a criminal conviction. In January, a Polish doctor who has lived in the United States for 40 years was detained over two 26-year-old misdemeanors." --safari

Arnold Isaacs of Tom's Dispatch, via Juan Cole, documents the takeover of xenophobic and anti-Islam bigots crowding into the Trump administration. --safari ...

... Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "A group of lawmakers and public officials in Washington state denounced the Trump administration Saturday for its policy of separating immigrant families at the Mexican border, accusing the administration of causing undue trauma to children and parents who might be legally seeking asylum in the United States. Although Seattle is some 1,500 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, the debate over family separations hit closer to home for the Evergreen State after dozens of immigrants were transferred last week to the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac, near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Nearly all of those immigrants -- 174 out of 206 -- were women, said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who spent about three hours Saturday morning meeting with the recently moved detainees at the SeaTac facility. Most of them were from Cuba, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, she said, but there were also immigrants from as far away as Eritrea. Many spoke of fleeing threats of rape, gang violence and political persecution, Jayapal said.... Jayapal said detainees relayed disturbing accounts of being held at Border Patrol facilities in fenced cages (referred to as the 'dog pound') or in the 'ice box,' so nicknamed for the facilities' cold temperatures and lack of blankets or sleeping mats. She also said many women spoke of being deprived of clean water and experiencing verbal abuse while in Border Patrol custody.... On Saturday afternoon, Jayapal issued a withering statement describing her visit -- 'The mothers could not stop crying when they spoke about their children,' she wrote -- and called for the Trump administration to reunite the detained and separated families."

Slo Movies. Tony Romm of the Washington Post: "Two pivotal developments this week could dramatically expand the power and footprint of major telecom companies, altering how Americans access everything from political news to 'Game of Thrones' on the Internet. Monday marks the official end of the U.S. government's net neutrality rules, which had required broadband providers such as AT&T, Charter, Comcast and Verizon to treat all Web traffic equally. The repeal is part of a campaign by Ajit Pai, the Republican chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, to deregulate the telecom industry in a bid to boost its investments -- particularly in rural areas.... One day after the net neutrality changes, a federal judge is set to rule on Tuesday on whether AT&T can buy Time Warner. AT&T, already the country's second-largest wireless network, stands to gain a content trove from Time Warner that includes HBO and CNN -- leading the Justice Department, which filed the lawsuit, to argue that the company could harm its rivals.... The expiring net neutrality protections, adopted at the FCC under President Barack Obama in 2015, for years prevented the likes of AT&T and Comcast from slowing Web connections, blocking access to sites and services, or charging content companies for faster delivery of streaming movies or videos." ...

... David McCabe of Axios: "Net neutrality backers describe a multi-pronged strategy to restore the strong rules they prefer.... On Capitol Hill, Democrats in the House are trying to get enough Republican signatures to force a vote on a resolution that would restore the FCC's rules. The measure already passed in the Senate, but the House is more difficult.... Public interest groups and Silicon Valley companies are among those who are suing over the repeal of the rules. Oral arguments in the case could come later this year in federal court, they say.... Democrats hope to make net neutrality a campaign-trail issue in the months before the midterm election, and state officials have tried to institute their own rules.... The end of the rules is far from the end of this story. Additional consolidation in the telecom space ... and developments over the court case will keep advocates and opponents of net neutrality regulations busy."

"Grab Bag o' Excuses". Jeremy Miller in the Guardian: "A January Gallup poll found that Trump's approval among Mormons had risen to 61%, higher than any other religious group surveyed, and 13 points higher than among the next group, comprised of Protestants and others.... Utah has become the epicenter of Trump's public lands policies.... [A conservative political operative named Don] Peay, who is Mormon] thinks that support for the president is on the rise among Utah's Mormon Republicans, despite the administration's growing list of scandals, because of Trump's policies on public lands and monuments.... As for Stormy Daniels, Peay said that Mormons were not puritans." --safari (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: And you were wondering why formerly Never-Trump Romney has suddenly embraced the Worse President* Ever.

Masha Gessen of the New Yorker seeks ways to counter George Orwell's prediction that totalitarianism would kill literature of all kinds, save perhaps poetry. (Also linked yesterday.)

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Saturday
Jun092018

The Commentariat -- June 10, 2018

Afternoon Update:

To our allies: bipartisan majorities of Americans remain pro-free trade, pro-globalization & supportive of alliances based on 70 years of shared values. Americans stand with you, even if our president doesn't. -- Sen. John McCain, in a tweet ...

... Griff Witte & James McAuley of the Washington Post: "On the day after the Group of Seven summit blew up in spectacular fashion, with Trump using idle time on an airport runway to insult his host and repudiate an agreement he had made with allied leaders only hours earlier, emotions were far easier to divine. Allies were indignant. They were defiant. Yet they were hardly shocked by the outcome of a critical global gathering that had gone worse than any that longtime foreign policy players had seen. 'It was not a surprise,' said Norbert Röttgen, chair of the foreign affairs committee in Germany's parliament, the Bundestag. 'The president acted and reacted in the childish way he could be expected to.' To the U.S.'s closest partners, the pattern has become disturbingly familiar. Trump's abandonment of the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear agreement and his decision to impose protectionist tariffs on European steel and aluminum products have established a level of animosity between the United States and Europe that, by many measures, surpasses even the rift over the Iraq War. The depth of exasperation showed in a Sunday afternoon statement from French President Emmanuel Macron's office. 'International cooperation cannot be dictated by fits of anger and throwaway remarks,' the statement said." ...

... Damian Paletta & Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post: "President Trump left America's closest allies in a state of shock and outrage Sunday after a verbal barrage against Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who had just hosted Trump and other leaders from the Group of Seven industrial nations. Trump's rhetorical assault on Trudeau, characteristically delivered on Twitter, was echoed by two top White House advisers who took to the Sunday talk shows to go after [Trudeau].... The bizarre aftermath of the G-7 summit in Quebec was a political calculation, meant to show muscularity in advance of the historic summit in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, one of those advisers acknowledged Sunday. There has rarely been such a coordinated and acerbic series of attacks by White House advisers aimed at a U.S. ally, revealing the extent to which Trump possibly felt slighted by Trudeau as he left for his North Korea talks. 'POTUS is not gonna let a Canadian prime minister push him around,' Trump's chief economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, said on CNN's 'state of the Union.'... Another of Trump's top advisers, Peter Navarro, intensified the attack on Trudeau in an interview on 'Fox News Sunday.' 'There's a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door,' Navarro said." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I don't think the Twittertantrum was as much about North Korea as it was that Trudeau hurt Trump's feelings by telling the truth -- in a measured way. (As Trudeau himself said at his presser, "Canadians, we're polite, we're reasonable, but we also will not be pushed around.") Trump, as we all know, can't handle the truth. ...

Maia de la Baume of Politico: "France pledged on Sunday to stand by the G7 summit statement disowned by Donald Trump and took a swipe at the U.S. president by declaring that international cooperation could not depend on 'fits of anger' or 'little words.' Apparently incensed by remarks about U.S. tariffs at the closing press conference on Saturday by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump -- who had already left the gathering in Quebec -- tweeted that he had instructed U.S. officials not to endorse the final communiqué, which had already been agreed and published. In a statement on Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron's office said all of Europe would continue to stand behind the communiqué...."

... David Frum of the Atlantic: "Whether or not the president's demands made any sense even from the most parochial American point of view, his demands were to a considerable extent accommodated. Trump had issued orders, sent his people out to war, and won victories for his idiosyncratic approach to foreign affairs. As late as 3:30 on Saturday afternoon, all the conferees thought that the facade of Western unity had survived another day, another summit.... Vexed by the criticism [of his ZTE pay-for-play deal], Trump struck back at the readiest targets: America's closest friends and allies. Rule-of-law democracies cannot deliver the emoluments Trump collects from more authoritarian regimes. They cannot expedite Ivanka Trump's trademarks to gain favor. They don't book their national-day celebrations in Washington's Trump International Hotel.... Trump's attacks on Trudeau will only boost the prime minister's popularity. But this is more than a personal story. Trump is day by day abdicating U.S. leadership.... He bullies traditional friends and allies; he cringes to adversaries, dictators, and potential funding sources for Trump enterprises. Bullying the G7 was the weekend's story; cringing to North Korea -- and behind it, China -- will be the story of the week ahead." ...

... "Debacle in Quebec." Paul Krugman buttresses the fear & dismay I realized yesterday -- and that was before Trump went on his anti-Trudeau TwitterWhine: "... there has never been a disaster like the G7 meeting that just took place. It could herald the beginning of a trade war, maybe even the collapse of the Western alliance. At the very least it will damage America's reputation as a reliable ally for decades to come; even if Trump eventually departs the scene in disgrace, the fact that someone like him could come to power in the first place will always be in the back of everyone's mind.... Maybe he was just acting out because he couldn't stand having to spend hours with powerful people who will neither flatter him nor bribe him by throwing money at his family businesses -- people who, in fact, didn't try very hard to hide the contempt they feel for the man leading what is still, for the moment, a great power." Thanks to P.D. Pepe for the link.

"Grab Bag o' Excuses". Jeremy Miller in the Guardian: "A January Gallup poll found that Trump's approval among Mormons had risen to 61%, [link fixed] higher than any other religious group surveyed, and 13 points higher than among the next group, comprised of Protestants and others.... Utah has become the epicenter of Trump's public lands policies.... [A conservative political operative named Don] Peay, [who is Mormon] thinks that support for the president is on the rise among Utah's Mormon Republicans, despite the administration's growing list of scandals, because of Trump's policies on public lands an monuments.... As for Stormy Daniels, Peay said that Mormons were not puritans." --safari ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: And you were wondering why formerly Never-Trump Romney has suddenly embraced the Worse President* Ever.

Masha Gessen of the New Yorker seeks ways to counter George Orwell's prediction that totalitarianism would kill literature of all kinds, save perhaps poetry.

*****

Screw you, Donald. "The photo first appeared on Merkel's official Instagram account around noon Saturday. 'Day two of the G-7 summit in Canada: spontaneous meeting between two working sessions,' part of the German leader's caption stated in English."Michael Shear & Catherine Porter of the New York Times: "President Trump abruptly upended two days of global economic diplomacy late Saturday, refusing to sign a joint statement with America's allies, threatening to escalate his trade war on the country's neighbors and deriding Canada's prime minister as 'very dishonest and weak.' In a remarkable pair of acrimony-laced tweets from aboard Air Force One as he flew to a summit with North Korea's leader, Mr. Trump lashed out at Justin Trudeau, the prime minister who hosted the Group of 7 summit, accusing him of making false statements. Literally moments after Mr. Trudeau's government released the joint statement, saying it had been agreed to by all seven countries, Mr. Trump blew apart the veneer of cordiality that had been in place throughout the two days of meetings in a resort town on the banks of the St. Lawrence River. 'Based on Justin's false statements at his news conference, and the fact that Canada is charging massive Tariffs to our U.S. farmers, workers and companies, I have instructed our U.S. Reps not to endorse the Communiqué as we look at Tariffs on automobiles flooding the U.S. Market! Mr. Trump wrote. A few hours earlier, Mr. Trudeau had announced that the seven nations had reached broad agreements on a range of economic and foreign policy goals, but he acknowledged that deep disagreements remained between Mr. Trump and the leaders of the other nations, especially on trade.... 'PM Justin Trudeau of Canada acted so meek and mild during our @g7 meetings,' Mr. Trump said in a second tweet, 'only to give a news conference after I left saying that, "US Tariffs were kind of insulting" and he "will not be pushed around." Very dishonest & weak. Our Tariffs are in response to his of 270% on dairy!'" ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: This is an update to a story linked yesterday by Shear. In that story, Shear wrote, "Mr. Trump also blamed former President Barack Obama for Russia's invasion, in which the country sent troops into Crimea. Mr. Trump said that it was Mr. Obama who should take responsibility for Russia's actions. 'Crimea was let go during the Obama administration, and you know, Obama can say all he wants, but he allowed Russia to take Crimea,' the president said. 'I may have had a much different attitude, but, so, you really have to ask that question to President Obama. You know, why did he do that?'" In fact, in the wake of the Russian invasion in 2014, it was Mr. Obama who led the other six nations in the Group of 7 to expel Russia in a joint statement known as The Hague Declaration."FDR caused WWII; Wilson caused WWI. ...

     ... Jennifer Hansler of CNN: "On Saturday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he told Trump that asking Russia to rejoin the G7 is 'not something we are even remotely looking at.' German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at a press conference Friday that there was consensus that Russia should not return to the G7.... French President Emmanuel Macron told journalists on Saturday that Russia could rejoin the summit if Moscow implemented the Minsk agreements, which were intended to enforce a solution the crisis in Ukraine.... Lawmakers in the United States have condemned Trump's comments, which some have taken as the latest example of the US President's failure to condemn Russia for its interference in the 2016 election. 'The President has inexplicably shown our adversaries the deference and esteem that should be reserved for our closest allies,' Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona said in a scathing statement Friday....Former Vice President Joe Biden denounced Trump's remarks, writing on Twitter, 'Putin's Russia invaded its neighbors, violated our sovereignty by undermining elections, and attacks dissidents abroad. Yet our President wants to reward him with a seat at the table while alienating our closest democratic allies. It makes no sense.'Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Friday that Trump was turning US foreign policy 'into an international joke, doing lasting damage to our country.'" ...

... Peter Baker & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Shortly before leaving the annual meeting of major world powers on Saturday, President Trump boasted that it had been 'tremendously successful' and that on a scale of 0 to 10, 'the relationship is a 10.' Fewer than nine hours later, the relationship was plummeting toward a zero. With a petulant tweetstorm from Air Force One, Mr. Trump all but blew up the Group of 7 nations that the United States has led for more than four decades and essentially declared open political war on America's closest neighbor.... Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, the host of the meeting, and President Emmanuel Macron of France rebuffed Mr. Trump's positions in public comments, followed by Mr. Trump's abrupt refusal to sign the carefully crafted final communiqué.... Mr. Trump's view of the world, and his country's oldest and most important partners, is so infused by suspicion and grievance that he could not resist his pugilistic impulses even for a day.... Mr. Trump signaled his disdain for the Group of 7 meeting by arriving late and leaving early. By departing before the end on Saturday, he skipped sessions about climate change, oceans and clean energy -- ceding not only America's leadership on those topics, but also its very seat at the table. And with no warning on Friday, Mr. Trump deepened that rift by calling for Russia to be reinstated as a member without insisting on any of the conditions the West has demanded in terms of ending its intervention in Ukraine." Meanwhile, DNI Dan Coats was in Normandy, France, blasting Russia for its annexation of Crimea & other bad acts. ...

... Damian Paletta & Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "President Trump told foreign leaders at the Group of Seven summit that they must dramatically reduce trade barriers with the United States or could risk losing access to the world's largest economy, delivering his most defiant trade threat yet to his counterparts from around the globe. But there were numerous signs here that leaders of other countries stood their ground, having stiffened after months of attacks and insults.... If they don't back down and Trump does try to stop -- or at least slow -- the flow of trade, it could impact the flow of hundreds of billions of dollars in goods, potentially impacting millions of jobs in the United States and around the world. Trump, in a news conference before leaving for Singapore, described private conversations he held over two days with the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada. He said he pushed them to consider removing every single tariff or trade barrier on American goods and that, in return, he would do the same for products from their countries. But if steps aren't taken, he said, the penalties would be severe." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... David Herszenhorn of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Friday floated the idea of ending all tariffs and trade barriers between the U.S. and its G-7 allies -- an unexpected pitch that comes amid a tit-for-tat trade war Trump recently launched. Trump offered the aspirational proposal at the end of a contentious meeting on trade disputes at the G-7 summit in Quebec, an annua gathering of the leaders from seven major industrialized nations. During the private gathering, Europe's major economic powers pushed back hard against Trump's repeated assertions that the U.S. is a victim of unfair trade practices." ...

... Chas Danner of New York: "Even if Trump's [free-trade] proposal is taken at anywhere near face value, it's not clear how such an agreement would or could be reached and what impact it would have -- nor is it clear that the president understands any of the trade numbers he tosses around to begin with.... America's allies appear to have become fed up with the combative and chaotic Trump administration, and are shifting their strategy from trying to reach and educate Trump about the complexities of international trade, to seeking to punish the U.S. economy instead." ...

... Julian Borger & Anne Perkins of the Guardian: "The president departed a summit of the G7 major industrialised democracies in Quebec the same way he arrived, firing off threats of a trade war. His fellow leaders were warned not to respond to the steel and aluminum tariffs he has imposed on them. 'If they retaliate, they're making a mistake,' Trump told reporters before leaving several hours early, ducking sessions on climate change and the oceans. In a tense session on trade on Friday, European and Canadian leaders had sought to defuse the gathering conflict, rolling out statistics on how many US jobs depended on their countries' trade and investment and arguing that the US had more barriers to trade than its partners. The discussion had no effect on Trump, who stuck to the claims he made throughout his election campaign: that the US was being ripped off. 'The European Union is brutal to the United States,' he railed. 'And they understand that. They know it. When I'm telling them, they're smiling at me. You know, it's like the gig is up.' Canada too, the president said, 'can't believe it got away' with its trade deal with the US. 'We're like the piggy bank that everybody's robbing. And that ends,' Trump said. The president even threatened to stop doing business with US partners if they did not change their policies. 'And it's going to stop,' Trump said. 'Or we'll stop trading with them. And that's a very profitable answer, if we have to do it.' The disparaging tone towards leaders seen by all former administrations as America's closest allies was in marked contrast to the hopeful language he used in anticipation of Tuesday's planned summit with Kim Jong-un." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Benjamin Hart of New York: "During the few hours he spent at the G7 Summit in Quebec, President Trump effectively acted as a one-man turd in the punch bowl, distancing America from its supposed allies at just about every opportunity. On Saturday morning, Trump threw in straight-up rudeness to his list of offenses, showing up conspicuously late to a meeting assembled by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the topic of women's empowerment -- which, admittedly, is not high on Trump's list of concerns." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: If Democratic "leaders" had any sense, they would form a coalition, inviting internationalist Republicans to joint them, that created something of a shadow government supporting our former alliances with Western democracies & condemning Trump's petulant retreat from its world leadership. The coalition would maintain direct, public communications with G-6 leaders and other allies. The president largely gets to make foreign policy, but our allies need to hear repeatedly that this particular President* is not forever. ...

... Motoko Rich of the New York Times: "Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, arrived in Singapore on Sunday, two days ahead of his planned summit meeting with President Trump." ...

... His Touch, His Feel. David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "President Trump predicted Saturday that he will know almost immediately when meeting Kim Jong Un whether the North Korean leader is serious about negotiating a nuclear deal, suggesting his intuition is enough to size up the leader of the world's most opaque authoritarian regime. 'Within the first minute, I'll know. My touch, my feel -- that's what I do,' Trump said during a news conference in Quebec as he prepared to depart the Group of Seven summit en route to Singapore, where he is scheduled to meet Kim on Tuesday. 'You know the way they say you know if you like somebody in the first five seconds?' he added. 'Well, I think very quickly I'll know whether something good is going to happen. I think I'll also know whether it will happen fast.' Trump's remarks came two days after he said he didn't need to do a lot of preparation ahead of the historic summit because the interpersonal relationship between the two leaders would be the more important factor." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Jonathan Swan & Mike Allen of Axios: "President Trump is willing to consider establishing official relations with North Korea and even eventually putting an embassy in Pyongyang, according to two sources familiar with preparations for the Singapore summit. 'It would all depend what he gets in return,' said a source close to the White House. 'Denuclearization would have to be happening.' The sources stressed that this is one of many topics that could be discussed at the summit, and that certainly nothing like that has been decided or is necessarily expected to emerge from Trump's historic mano a mano with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un." Mrs. McC: Not to worry; Trump will never get around to appointing an ambassador. ...

... Triumph of Ignorance. Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "As President Trump prepares to meet Kim Jong-un of North Korea to negotiate denuclearization, a challenge that has bedeviled the world for years, he is doing so without the help of a White House science adviser or senior counselor trained in nuclear physics. Mr. Trump is the first president since 1941 not to name a science adviser, a position created during World War II to guide the Oval Office on technical matters ranging from nuclear warfare to global pandemics.... The lack of traditional scientific advisory leadership in the White House is one example of a significant change in the Trump administration: the marginalization of science in shaping United States policy. There is no chief scientist at the State Department, where science is central to foreign policy matters such as cybersecurity and global warming. Nor is there a chief scientist at the Department of Agriculture: Mr. Trump last year nominated Sam Clovis, a former talk-show host with no scientific background, to the position, but he withdrew his name and no new nomination has been made. These and other decisions have consequences for public health and safety and the economy."

"The Low I.Q. Bunch." David Smith of the Guardian: "[A]t a conference organised by the Faith and Freedom Coalition, a rightwing Christian group[, s]peaker after speaker extolled Trump's accomplishments in banishing the legacy of Barack Obama and furthering the Republican agenda. He was, they said, giving them exactly what they wanted -- indeed, more than they had dared dream of. Such adulation and hero worship -- Trump has the second-highest 'own party' approval rating (87%) of any postwar president at the 500-day mark, behind only George W Bush after 9/11 -- send a message of positive reinforcement crucial to understanding his swaggering self-confidence, lack of self-doubt and airy sense of impunity.... With a mix of demagoguery, policy expediency and anti-liberal sentiment, reinforced by Fox News and other conservative media, Trump has a tighter grip on his party than most past presidents had." --safari ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Not sure that these right-wing evangelicals have, on average, lower IQs than the rest of us (although it's possible); but they surely are close-minded, incurious, & in most cases biased against "the others."...

JeffBo Finds Something Else Indefensible. Louis Lucero of the New York Times: "The Justice Department late Friday night responded to Texas' request for an injunction in its challenge of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, agreeing with the state and several others that the program is 'unlawful.' Texas and six other states are suing the federal government to dismantle the immigration policy, which was put in place by the Obama administration in 2012. It enables individuals who were brought to the United States illegally as children to remain in the country without fear of deportation and grants them work permits. While the Justice Department on Friday called the program 'an open-ended circumvention of immigration laws,' it requested a delay if an injunction is issued. If ordered, the government argues, such an injunction would conflict with separate nationwide injunctions that have already been issued by courts in California and New York, and subject the agency to 'inconsistent obligations.' Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whose tenure as the nation's top law enforcement official has been broadly defined by his pursuit of immigration restrictions, remains deeply opposed to DACA." Mrs. McC: Thursday, JeffBo also decided not to defend a challenge to the Affordable Care Act. ...

**Political Ratf#cking. Tierney Sneed of TPM: "Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach personally urged Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to add a citizenship question to the Census, documents released late Friday revealed. Kobach -- in July 2017 -- cited specifically the desire to exclude certain non-citizens from U.S. congressional apportionment. Such a move would have drastic political implications, and would shrink the representation of states with large immigrant populations -- many of which are Democratic states -- in the U.S. House of Representatives. That rationale is different from the one Ross pointed to when he announced he was added the question: a Justice Department request for the data for Voting Rights Act enforcement. Kobach also proposed asking non-citizens whether they had a green card. The Kobach emails ... also indicated that Kobach and the Commerce secretary had spoken over the phone about the issue 'at the direction of Steve Bannon.'" -- safari: Even when their corruptive schemes come to light, they still go ahead, because IOKIYAR. ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This looks like nearly slam-dunk evidence against the government & for the plaintiff-states in the suit they've brought challenging the move to add the question.

... Michael Miller of the Washington Post: "For the first time, federal courtrooms ... across the Southwest are being flooded with distraught mothers and fathers who have been charged with misdemeanor illegal entry and separated from their children -- a shift in policy touted by the administration as a way to stop families from trying to reach the United States but decried by critics as traumatizing and inhumane. Last month a Honduran father separated from his wife and 3-year-old son killed himself in a Texas jail cell, The Washington Post reported Saturday.... Family separations were rare under the Bush and Obama administrations." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Amid the confusion, it looks as if JeffBo & Co. may have devised a Catch-22: urge the parents to plead guilty to a misdemeanor border-crossing before they apply for asylum, then deny them asylum because they're criminals. Not sure this is true, but even the public defenders who are trying to help the asylum-seekers don't know for certain. ...

... Values Voters' Approved. Ryan Koronowski of ThinkProgress: "A Honduran father who was arrested and forcibly separated from his wife and child while trying to enter the United States, killed himself in a padded cell, according to a new report from the Washington Post.... [Marco Antonio] Muñoz, his wife, and their three-year-old son crossed the Rio Grande at the small Texas town of Granjeno on May 12, seeking to apply for asylum, according to border patrol agents the Post spoke with about the matter.... Once they were taken to McAllen to a processing stating, they were told they would be separated, and Muñoz 'lost it' according to the agent.... Honduras has one of the highest murder rates on the planet." --safari

Michael Stratford of Politico: "Education Secretary Betsy DeVos earlier this year reinstated an accreditor of for-profit colleges despite findings by her agency's career staff that the organization failed to meet federal standards, an internal document shows. The report, released by the Education Department on Friday in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, shows that career department analysts had serious concerns about restoring the federal recognition of the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools just a month before DeVos issued an order reinstating the accreditor's federal status.... Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) this year also raised concerns about several of the schools that ACICS approved, criticizing the 'lax oversight' of institutions he said were operating as 'visa mills.'"

This Russia Thing -- the British Connection. Carole Cadwalladr & Peter Jukes of the Guardian: "Arron Banks, the millionaire businessman who bankrolled Nigel Farage]s campaign to quit the EU, had multiple meetings with Russian embassy officials in the run-up to the Brexit referendum, documents seen by the Observer suggest. Banks, who gave £12m of services to the campaign, becoming the biggest donor in UK history, has repeatedly denied any involvement with Russian officials, or that Russian money played any part in the Brexit campaign. The Observer has seen documents which a senior Tory MP says, if correct, raise urgent and troubling questions about his relationship with the Russian government. The communications [also] suggest ... continued extensive contact in the run-up to the US election when Banks, his business partner and Leave.EU spokesman Andy Wigmore, and Nigel Farage campaigned in the US to support Donald Trump's candidacy.... Banks and Wigmore inviting the [Russian] ambassador [to the U.K., Alexander Yakovenko] and a senior Russian diplomat to attend an evening with business contacts in a pub, and even to watch the results of the referendum at Leave.EU headquarters in Millbank, although the ambassador said he had to decline because of commitments in Moscow. The invitations continued after the referendum during the time in which Banks, Wigmore and Farage began travelling regularly to America to support Donald Trump's bid for the presidency, according to the documents. Ambassador Yakovenko met Wigmore and Banks on 19 August, the day Steve Bannon became Trump's campaign manager. It was days before they travelled to Mississippi with Nigel Farage for a rally on 25 August at which Donald Trump introduced him to the crowds as 'Mr Brexit'."

Michael Kranish of the Washington Post: "George Soros, the billionaire investor and liberal donor, sat in his hotel suite by Lake Zurich this week, lamenting the turn much of the world has taken in recent years: 'Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.' His favored presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, lost to President Trump, whose 'America First' platform runs counter to the globalism Soros embraces. Trump, he said, 'is willing to destroy the world.' The European Union, which Soros once hoped would be so successful that he could end his charitable work in the region, is contending with the impending loss of Britain and a rise of anti-immigrant sentiment. And Soros himself has emerged as a political target in elections from Hungary to California, where his donations have been used as a cudgel against the causes he supports.... But rather than recede from public life in his twilight years, Soros has decided to push even harder for his agenda, he told The Washington Post in a rare interview. 'The bigger the danger, the bigger the threat, the more I feel engaged to confront it,' Soros said Thursday.... 'So in that sense, yes, I redouble my efforts.'"

Shannon Van Sant of NPR: "Seventeen-year-old Lulabel Seitz was a model student, and the first in her family to graduate from high school. With an above 4.0 GPA, she was class valedictorian at Petaluma High School in northern California, which meant she would give the commencement speech at her graduation.... About four minutes into her speech, Seitz began to talk about sexual assault allegations at the school. Officials then disconnected her microphone.... People in the audience began yell, 'Let her speak!' School officials did not turn her microphone back on." --safari

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