The Commentariat -- November 2, 2017

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Binyamin Appelbaum & Ana Swanson of the New York Times: "President Trump nominated Jerome H. Powell to chair the Federal Reserve on Thursday afternoon, bypassing Janet L. Yellen for a second term but turning to a replacement who is expected to stay the course on monetary policy if the economy continues its steady growth.... Mr. Powell, a member of the Fed's board of governors since 2012, has consistently voted with Ms. Yellen, and colleagues consider him a centrist and pragmatist. But his tenure as a central banker has been relatively brief, and he has expressed skepticism in the past about the unconventional measures that the Fed has taken in the wake of the severe recession of 2008 and 2009. Mr. Powell could also depart from the Fed's current trajectory when it comes to regulating banks and other financial institutions -- rules Mr. Trump has said should be loosened."

Juliet Eilperin & Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "The U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientist nominee, Sam Clovis withdrew his name from consideration Wednesday amid revelations that he was among top officials on the Trump campaign who was aware of efforts by foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos to broker a relationship between the campaign and Russian officials.... In a letter to the president Wednesday, Clovis explained that he did not think he could get a fair consideration from the Senate, which was slated to hold a hearing on his appointment on Nov. 9. 'The political climate inside Washington has made it impossible for me to receive balanced and fair consideration for this position,' wrote Clovis, who currently serves as USDA's senior White House adviser. 'The relentless assaults on you and your team seem to be a blood sport that only increases with intensity each day.'" Thanks to MAG for the link. See also Dana Milbank's column on Clovis, et al., linked below. ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: So unfair that meanies are picking on completely unqualified Trump nominees who also may be under suspicion of collaborating with the Kremlin.

Fossil Fuels & Sex Crimes. Avery Anapol of the Hill: "Energy Secretary Rick Perry suggested Thursday that expanding the use of fossil fuels could help prevent sexual assault. Speaking during an energy policy discussion about energy policy..., Perry discussed his recent trip to Africa. He said a young girl told him that energy is important to her because she often reads by the light of a fire with toxic fumes. 'But also from the standpoint of sexual assault,' Perry said. 'When the lights are on, when you have light that shines, the righteousness, if you will on those types of acts.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Sunshine may be the best disinfectant, but apparently solar energy doesn't have the policing power as good ole fossil fuels.

Greg Sargent: "When Trump dismisses discussion of Russian interference in the 2016 election as a hoax, he isn't merely saying the charge of collusion with that meddling is a hoax. He's also saying that the alleged Russian sabotage itself, irrespective of whether his campaign colluded with it, definitively never happened at all and, by extension, doesn't merit any inquiry or discussion. Some new reporting out this morning underscores in a fresh way just how reckless, irresponsible and potentially dangerous to our democracy this stance has become."

Donna Brazile writes a startling confessional in Politico Magazine. The title of the piece is, "Inside Hillary Clinton's Secret Takeover of the DNC." Brazile fingers both Clinton & Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, from whom Brazile took over as DNC chair after the party forced out Wasserman-Schultz.

Jim Tankersley & Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "Republican lawmakers are unveiling the most sweeping rewrite of the tax code in decades, outlining a plan to cut taxes for corporations, reduce them for middle-class families and tilt the United States closer, but not entirely, toward the kind of tax system long championed by businesses, according to talking points circulated on Thursday. The House plan, released after weeks of internal debate, conflict and delay, is far from final and will ignite a legislative and lobbying fight as Democrats, business groups and other special interests tear into the text ahead of a Republican sprint to get the legislation passed and to President Trump's desk by Christmas. The bill keeps a top rate of 39.6 percent for the highest-earners and roughly doubles the standard deduction for middle class families. It expands the child tax credit to $1,600 from $1,000 and will not make any changes to the 401(k) plans. It does propose changes to the popular mortgage interest deduction. Under the Republican plan, existing homeowners can keep their mortgage interest deduction but future purchases will be capped at $500,000. The bill cuts the corporate tax rate to 20 percent, from 35 percent.... One of the biggest flash points will be how the bill treats the state and local tax deduction, which lawmakers are proposing to cap at $10,000. That will not be enough for Republicans in some high-tax states, where middle-class families make heavy use of the deduction." No word yet on the estate tax proposal.

*****

I'm in the office early and leave late; it's very smooth. Honestly, I'm really enjoying it. -- Donald Trump, in a call-in to the failing New York Times, yesterday ...

Trump is at 33 percent in Gallup. You can't go any lower. He's fucked. -- Sam Nunberg, former aide to Trump, to Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair ...

... Maggie Haberman & Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Trump ... insist[ed] to The New York Times that he was not 'angry at anybody' and that investigations into his campaign's links to Russia had not come near him personally. 'I'm not under investigation, as you know,' Mr. Trump said in a brief telephone call late Wednesday afternoon. Pointing to the indictment of his former campaign chief, Paul Manafort, the president said, 'And even if you look at that, there's not even a mention of Trump in there.' 'It has nothing to do with us,' Mr. Trump said. He also pushed back against a report published Monday night by The Washington Post, which the president said described him as 'angry at everybody.'" ...

... Oh Yeah? Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair: "The first charges in the Mueller probe have kindled talk of what the endgame for Trump looks like, according to conversations with a half-dozen advisers and friends of the president. For the first time since the investigation began, the prospect of impeachment is being considered as a realistic outcome and not just a liberal fever dream.... Trump, meanwhile, has reacted to the deteriorating situation by lashing out on Twitter and venting in private to friends.... Speaking to Steve Bannon on Tuesday, Trump blamed Jared Kushner for his role in decisions, specifically the firings of Mike Flynn and James Comey, that led to Mueller's appointment, according to a source briefed on the call. When Roger Stone recently told Trump that Kushner was giving him bad political advice, Trump agreed, according to someone familiar with the conversation. 'Jared is the worst political adviser in the White House in modern history,' [Trump campaign aide Sam] Nunberg said. 'I'm only saying publicly what everyone says behind the scenes at Fox News, in conservative media, and the Senate and Congress.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

"Name Those Goons." Can you ID these three business partners? Hints: They owned a lobbying firm in 1985, when the photo was taken. They're all despicable weasels. (No fair if you've seen the photo before.):

Update: We have a winner! See today's Comments.

... Cecilia Kang, et al., of the New York Times: "Lawmakers released scores of political ads on Wednesday purchased by Russian agents on Facebook and Twitter that showed the extent of the Kremlin's attempts to polarize the American voting public on issues like race, police abuse and religion.... The sampling of ads, some of which had been made public earlier, came during a second day of hearings with the top lawyers for Facebook, Twitter and Google and were intended to show the executives how pervasively Russia used their platforms to further its campaign of misinformation. Lawmakers of both parties expressed frustration with answers that fell short of what they had hoped and insisted that the companies, long the darlings of American technology, do better.... The tech companies also provided new numbers on the reach of Russia's influence campaign. Facebook said an estimated 150 million users of its main site and its subsidiary, Instagram, were exposed to the posts, a larger figure than it provided even as recently as Monday." ...

... Here are some of the Russia-generated ads. ...

... Ben Collins & Kevin Poulsen of the Daily Beast: "Former White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn followed five Twitter accounts based out of the Russian-backed 'troll factory' in St. Petersburg -- and pushed their messages at least three times in the month before the 2016 election.... The Daily Beast had previously discovered Flynn, Donald Trump Jr., Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, and Trump campaign digital director Brad Parscale retweeted Ten_GOP [-- a Russia-generated account --] several times in the month before the election.

** Raphael Satter, et al. of the AP: "The hackers who upended the U.S. presidential election had ambitions well beyond Hillary Clinton's campaign, targeting the emails of Ukrainian officers, Russian opposition figures, U.S. defense contractors and thousands of others of interest to the Kremlin, according to a previously unpublished digital hit list obtained by The Associated Press.... Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskovcalled the notion that Russia interfered 'unfounded.' But the list examined by AP provides powerful evidence that the Kremlin did just that." --safari ...

... Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: "Federal prosecutors have identified more than six Russian government officials involved in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee emails that were dumped online during the 2016 presidential election. The Justice Department has assembled enough evidence to bring charges against the officials, likely next year, according to sources familiar with the investigation, reported the Wall Street Journal. The case would provide the clearest picture yet of how the DNC computers were hacked, and attack that U.S. intelligence services have blamed on their Russian counterparts.... [The] investigation is being conducted separately from special counsel Robert Mueller's probe of the Trump campaign's possible collusion with Russia..." ...

... The Best People, Ctd. Dana Milbank: "Robert Mueller brought to light a huge scandal this week, and it has nothing to do with Russia. He has introduced the world to Sam Clovis. Clovis, we now know, was the Trump campaign official who oversaw George Papadopoulos and encouraged his efforts to meet with Russian officials.... He has been nominated to be the chief scientist at the Agriculture Department, a position that by law must go to 'distinguished scientists,' even though he is, well, not a scientist. He is a talk-radio host, economics professor (though not actually an economist, either) and, most importantly, a Trump campaign adviser.... Among his scientific breakthroughs: being 'extremely skeptical' of climate change, calling homosexuality 'a choice,' suggesting gay rights would lead to legalized pedophilia, pushing the Obama birther allegation, and calling Eric Holder a 'racist bigot' and Tom Perez a 'racist Latino.'" Milbank runs down a short list of "the best people," including "a 'cabana attendant' at Westchester Country Club in Rye, N.Y. According to his résumé, he 'identified and addressed customer's needs in a timely and orderly manner.' This is important, because you never know when somebody at the USDA is going to need a towel." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: It is impossible not to suspect that Trump is purposely making the federal government a running joke. It's not a reality show; it's a comedy series, parodying the presidency. Trump is the producer & star of the series, & Steve Bannon -- one a would-be Hollywood impresario -- is head writer of the spoof. BUT ...

... E. J. Dionne: "It’s essential to recognize that Trump is faithfully following the autocrat's playbook. He's trying to undermine a lawful inquiry that endangers his hold on power. He has suggested that his opponent in the last election deserves to be jailed. He's inventing stories about dark coverups by his enemies to sow confusion about the proven facts of his own team's skulduggery. And now he is blaming his foes for violence and disorder. Even more alarming is the extent to which Republicans in Congress and Trump's media allies are falling into line behind their leader's efforts to obstruct and divert. What's going on cannot be written off as normal partisanship. The push to discredit and derail Mueller risks becoming an existential threat to our democratic values and republican practices. The interference by a foreign adversary in our electoral process is not a routine event. Resistance to uncovering what happened should not be seen as part of the everyday give-and-take of politics."

Peter Baker: "With a Twitter message just before midnight, President Trump introduced a surprise complication that may come to haunt prosecutors in a trial against the suspect charged with mowing down passers-by in New York's deadliest terrorist attack since the World Trade Center was destroyed. 'NYC terrorist was happy as he asked to hang ISIS flag in his hospital room,' Mr. Trump wrote late Wednesday, referring to a report from the F.B.I. about the suspect's expressed admiration for the Islamic State extremist group. 'He killed 8 people, badly injured 12. SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!' Presidents are typically advised never to publicly weigh in on pending criminal cases. Such comments can be used by defense attorneys to argue that their clients cannot get a fair trial -- especially when the head of the executive branch that will prosecute a case advocates the ultimate punishment before a judge has heard a single shred of evidence at trial. But Mr. Trump is not one for cautious detachment, and he has disregarded such advice before. Just this week, a military judge said he would consider similar comments by Mr. Trump as evidence in favor of a lighter sentence for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who pleaded guilty to desertion and endangering fellow troops by walking away from his post in Afghanistan, where he was later captured and held prisoner by the Taliban for five years." ...

     ... New Lede: "President Trump on Thursday backed off his threat to send the suspect in this week's New York terrorist attack to the American military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, but once again called for the man to be executed, a public intervention in the case that could come back to haunt prosecutors in any future trial."

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: For Trump justice is when he gets what he wants. You can see why he admires extra-judicial thugs like Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines & Vladimir Putin. ...

... Peter Baker: "President Trump said on Wednesday that he would consider sending the suspect arrested after the terrorist attack in New York to the American prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and called on Congress to cancel a longstanding immigration program that he blamed for allowing the man into the country. The president's comments came at the beginning of a cabinet meeting a day after an immigrant from Uzbekistan plowed a pickup truck along a crowded bicycle path in Manhattan, killing eight people.... No one arrested on American soil has ever been sent to Guantánamo Bay, and no one captured on foreign soil has been sent there since 2008. Transferring the suspect from New York would raise a host of constitutional and legal issues, and it was not clear that Mr. Trump actually would follow through on the idea since his comment was in reaction to a question rather than part of his prepared remarks.... Mr. Trump's comments came hours after he blamed the attack on Senator Chuck Schumer ... because he supported the diversity visa program enacted 27 years ago." Both Schumer & New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo chided Trump for dividing the country. Cuomo also said that Trump's comments were "not even accurate." "Mr. Schumer supported getting rid of the program as part of a comprehensive plan to overhaul the nation's immigration laws crafted by eight lawmakers and passed by the Senate in 2013." House Republicans blocked the bill. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Benjamin Mueller & Michael Schwirtz of the New York Times: "The driver who sped down a crowded bike path in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday, killing eight people, had been planning the attack for weeks and appeared to have connections to people who were the subjects of terrorism investigations, police officials said on Wednesday. As counterterrorism investigators drilled into whether the attacker, identified by officials as Sayfullo Saipov, had meaningful ties to terrorist organizations, it also became clear that some of those close to the attacker had feared for years that he was heading down the path of extremism." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Benjamin Mueller, et al., of the New York Times: "Federal prosecutors on Wednesday filed charges accusing the driver in the Manhattan truck attack of carrying out a long-planned plot, spurred by Islamic State propaganda videos, to kill people celebrating Halloween. The charges, filed just over 24 hours after the deadliest terror attack on New York City since Sept. 11, 2001, placed the case in the civilian courts even as President Trump denounced the American criminal justice system as 'a joke' and 'a laughingstock.'" ...

... Why, Trump said no such thing. Just ask Mrs. Huckleberry ...

... To Trumpistas, Caught-on-Tape Is No Deterrent. Christina Wilkie of CNBC: "The White House [in the person of Sarah Sanders] on Wednesday flatly denied that ... Donald Trump had ever called the American criminal justice system 'a joke and a laughingstock,' just hours after Trump said precisely that during a televised Cabinet meeting." Mrs. McC: All press secretaries spin -- that's the job. "Bald-faced lie" does not equal "spin." Every word Sanders says is a lie, including "and" and "the." H/T Mary McCarthy

The Audacity of Thugs. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "President Trump slipped something cryptic into his remarks to reporters on Wednesday: It was about his upcoming trip to the Philippines. 'You remember the Philippines -- the last trip made by a president that turned out to be not so good,' Trump said. 'Never quite got to land.' It was, in fact, the second day in a row that Trump mentioned the last administration's failure to 'land' in the Philippines. On Tuesday, he said, 'We're going to the Philippines, which is a strategically important location where the previous administration was not exactly welcome, as you probably remember.'... These asides -- in which he seems to be bragging about his ability to woo Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte in a way Obama didn't -- are exceedingly strange. The first reason is that Obama actually called off his meeting with Duterte -- not the Philippines. So it's unclear what Trump means when he says the Obama administration 'was not exactly welcome.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Yeah, Trump is way better than Obama at making friends with mass murderers. Congratulations, Donaldo. ...

... Andrew Restuccia, et al., of Politico: "... Donald Trump has been holed up in a series of rapid-fire briefing sessions on his upcoming 12-day, five-country tour through Asia -- an effort the White House hopes will help avoid the kind of diplomatic snafus that have dogged his presidency.... Top aides have sought to keep the briefings short to avoid overloading the president with details but have scheduled dozens of them to plan public remarks and outline what he should say about North Korea on defense and China on trade.... The upcoming trip -- which includes stops in Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines as well as China -- will put pressure on Trump's divided advisers to better define what some experts say is a muddled Asia strategy. And it will force the president to navigate a nuanced set of policy issues that have long divided U.S. allies in the region.... The president's advisers acknowledge privately that Trump's unpredictable behavior could complicate the trip in ways big and small, from potentially escalating the crisis on the Korean Peninsula to flouting complicated rules of procedure." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: As we all know, nobody does "nuance" better than President Ham Hand. I'm confident everything will go smoothly. ...

     ... BUT Martin Longman of the Booman Tribune Does Not Share My Confidence: "We all know this is pointless. They can have a thousand two-minute meetings, each one devoted to avoiding just one potential land mine, and the president is still going to screw up and screw up massively and repeatedly.... This trip is supposed to serve as a distraction from the Russian probe at home, but it's only going to intensify the sentiment in favor of impeachment."

Damian Paletta of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Wednesday said congressional Republicans should make a major change to their upcoming tax cut bill by including changes to the Affordable Care Act, an idea that has divided the GOP for months. The idea had already been rejected one day earlier by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Tex.), who had said it risked bogging down the process. But Trump, in two Twitter posts Wednesday, pushed the idea, which has gained currency with some Senate Republicans. The biggest proponent of the idea is Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.)." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: That's fine, Donaldo. Keep mucking up the process. Get your nutty friends to help. As long as your so-called party can't agree on just how to screw the American people, we're good. ...

... Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Some Senate Republicans are pushing for changes to the party's tax-reform bill, fearing it will be portrayed as a handout to the rich that hurts the poor. A group of GOP lawmakers want to leave the lowest tax bracket where it is, rather than raising it from 10 percent to 12 percent. Some senators also support creating a fourth tax bracket to limit the size of the tax cut for millionaires.... Republican senators fear it will be difficult to explain to voters why they're raising the tax rate for low- and middle-income Americans while cutting the tax rate for the wealthiest.... [BUT] 'I never thought anybody should pay over 25 percent,' said Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.). 'People with money save money, create jobs, create risk. People with no money -- I've been there -- create nothing....'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Notice how these senators don't really care about sticking it to the poor & middle class for the benefit of the wealthy; their concern is the perception or the appearance -- which happens to be accurate -- that they're sticking it to the poor & middle class for the benefit of the wealthy. How lucky we are to have honest senators like Shelby who just say outright that rich people deserve tax breaks & the rest of us don't. ...

... Gail Collins talks about taxes -- with her usual twists. "Don Jr. tweeted that he was going to take half of his daughter Chloe's candy and give it to 'some kid who sat at home. It's never to early to teach her about socialism.' The most important thing about that tweet is that Junior misspelled 'too.' His dad does that a lot." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: No, the most important thing is that some people, including kids, know how to share. They don't need to "learn about socialism" to give away half their candy to a hapless child. Besides, if they're as wealthy as Chloe's parents, they know that there are more goodies at home for them when they run out of the posh bon-bons they got from their rich neighbors. These kids already are generous to those who have less. I do not believe for a minute that Junior is capable of sharing with "some kid who sat home." More likely, he would steal his daughter's candy & eat it himself. In no circumstance, short of threats of physical or financial harm, would Junior give the stolen candy to a needy kid. For one thing, he probably doesn't want them to find out about delicious pumpkin-shaped Ghirardelli chocolate truffles. The pathetic little tykes might get wild ideas about better fare than the Dickensian gruel they deserve.

The Foxification of the American Mind. Jason Wilson of the Guardian: "If you are inside the 'alt-right' information bubble, you might be preparing yourself for a civil war to commence this Saturday. Since late September, the idea has been circulating on Facebook groups, subreddit message boards, Twitter, and leading conspiracy media outlets that on 4 November, anti-fascist groups will begin a violent insurrection...Some websites are telling their readers that antifa groups are 'planning to kill every single Trump voter, Conservative and gun owner' this weekend...

Paul Farhi of the Washington Post: "The top newsroom executive at NPR resigned on Wednesday, a day after he was placed on leave by the broadcast news organization following reports that he had harassed at least three women. Michael Oreskes quit as senior vice president and editorial director at Washington-based NPR, the organization announced." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

News Lede

Houston Chronicle: The Houston Astros won baseball's World Series in their seventh game of the series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Commentariat -- November 1, 2017

Afternoon Update:

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Trump said on Wednesday that he would consider sending the suspect arrested after the terrorist attack in New York to the American prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and called on Congress to cancel a longstanding immigration program that he blamed for allowing the man into the country. The president's comments came at the beginning of a cabinet meeting a day after an immigrant from Uzbekistan plowed a pickup truck along a crowded bicycle path in Manhattan, killing eight people.... No one arrested on American soil has ever been sent to Guantánamo Bay, and no one captured on foreign soil has been sent there since 2008. Transferring the suspect from New York would raise a host of constitutional and legal issues, and it was not clear that Mr. Trump actually would follow through on the idea since his comment was in reaction to a question rather than part of his prepared remarks.... Mr. Trump's comments came hours after he blamed the attack on Senator Chuck Schumer ... because he supported the diversity visa program enacted 27 years ago." Both Schumer & New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo chided Trump for dividing the country. Cuomo also said that Trump's comments were "not even accurate." "Mr. Schumer supported getting rid of the program as part of a comprehensive plan to overhaul the nation's immigration laws crafted by eight lawmakers and passed by the Senate in 2013." House Republicans blocked the bill. ...

... Benjamin Mueller & Michael Schwirtz of the New York Times: "The driver who sped down a crowded bike path in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday, killing eight people, had been planning the attack for weeks and appeared to have connections to people who were the subjects of terrorism investigations, police officials said on Wednesday. As counterterrorism investigators drilled into whether the attacker, identified by officials as Sayfullo Saipov, had meaningful ties to terrorist organizations, it also became clear that some of those close to the attacker had feared for years that he was heading down the path of extremism."

Damian Paletta of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Wednesday said congressional Republicans should make a major change to their upcoming tax cut bill by including changes to the Affordable Care Act, an idea that has divided the GOP for months. The idea had already been rejected one day earlier by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Tex.), who had said it risked bogging down the process. But Trump, in two Twitter posts Wednesday, pushed the idea, which has gained currency with some Senate Republicans. The biggest proponent of the idea is Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.)." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: That's fine, Donaldo. Keep mucking up the process. Get your nutty friends to help. As long as your so-called party can't agree on just how to screw the American people, we're good.

Paul Farhi of the Washington Post: "The top newsroom executive at NPR resigned on Wednesday, a day after he was placed on leave by the broadcast news organization following reports that he had harassed at least three women. Michael Oreskes quit as senior vice president and editorial director at Washington-based NPR, the organization announced."

*****

Benjamin Mueller, et al., of the New York Times: "Eight people were killed when a man drove 20 blocks down a bike path beside the Hudson River in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon before he crashed his pickup truck, jumped out with fake guns and was shot by a police officer, the authorities said. Federal authorities were treating the incident as a terrorist attack and were taking the lead in the investigation, a senior law enforcement official said. Two law enforcement officials said that after the attacker got out of the truck, he was heard yelling, 'Allahu Akbar,' Arabic for 'God is great.'" ...

     ... New Lede: "A driver plowed a pickup truck down a crowded bike path along the Hudson River in Manhattan on Tuesday, killing eight people and injuring 11 before being shot by a police officer in what officials are calling the deadliest terrorist attack on New York City since Sept. 11, 2001. The rampage ended when the motorist -- whom the police identified as Sayfullo Saipov, 29 -- smashed into a school bus, jumped out of his truck and ran up and down the highway waving a pellet gun and paintball gun and shouting 'Allahu akbar,' Arabic for 'God is great,' before he was shot in the abdomen by the officer. He remained in critical condition on Tuesday evening." ...

... As P.D. Pepe notes in today's thread, the attack did not deter New Yorkers from enjoying Hallowe'en events, like the fabulous Sixth Avenue parade. The New York Daily News has a slide show, suggesting a bigger-than-usual police presence, about a mile from the site of the attack. ...

... Derek Hawkins & Samantha Schmidt of the Washington Post: "President Trump and some of his allies on the extreme right have found a new culprit in Tuesday's deadly terrorist attack in Manhattan: Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). As details emerged about the incident, prominent right-wing commentators and news outlets seized on an ABC7 story reporting that alleged attacker Sayfullo Saipov had come to the United States from Uzbekistan under a State Department program known as the Diversity Visa Lottery. That story is unconfirmed. Schumer, they claimed, was the brains behind the program and therefore, of course, bears responsibility for the attack. In a flurry of news interviews, blog posts and overnight tweets, critics tried to pin blame on the New York Democrat, saying he was 'responsible' for allowing the 29-year-old suspect's entry into the country. Trump joined the criticism with a series of tweets early Wednesday morning.... Schumer responded by saying: 'I guess it's not too soon to politicize a tragedy.'... The New York Democrat was part of the Senate's Gang of Eight, which in 2013 came up with a sweeping bipartisan proposal to revamp U.S. immigration laws. Among other things, that proposal called for eliminating the diversity lottery. The bill passed the Senate but died in the House. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), another member of the Gang of Eight, defended Schumer on Wednesday[:] 'Actually, the Gang of 8, including @SenSchumer, did away with the Diversity Visa Program as part of broader reforms. I know, I was there https://t.co/QQFJzPyRzC'" ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I swore I would no link to Trump's predictably off-the-wall reaction to the New York mass murder unless that reaction was remarkably crazy. It is. You can read the tweets in the linked WashPo report.

Philip Rucker & Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "Debate intensified in President Trump's political circle Tuesday over how aggressively to confront special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, dividing some of the president's advisers and loyalists.... Despite his growing frustration with a federal probe he has roundly dismissed, Trump has been cooperating with Mueller and lately has resisted attacking him directly, at the urging of his attorneys inside and outside the White House ... are clamoring for a more combative approach to Mueller that would damage his credibility and effectively kneecap his operation by cutting its funding. Still, Bannon and others are not advising Trump to fire Mueller, a rash move that the president's lawyers and political advisers oppose and insist is not under consideration." ...

... The Best People, Ctd. Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: "Former Trump campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis is facing renewed opposition to his nomination to serve as the Agriculture Department's chief scientist amid revelations that he encouraged a campaign adviser to foster ties with Russian officials. On Tuesday, several thousand scientists and researchers affiliated with two national organizations that have rallied against Clovis's nomination signed letters urging the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry not to confirm him, calling him unfit for the post.... Clovis, who is not a trained scientist, is a climate change skeptic who has said protecting gay rights could lead to the legalization of pedophilia.... Mike Lavender, senior Washington representative for the Food and Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement that 'emerging evidence of Clovis' potential involvement with the Trump campaign's Russian connections should be the final nail in the coffin for his confirmation.' The Center for Science in the Public Interest sent the committee a similar letter Tuesday." ...

... TBD. Dan Friedman of Mother Jones: Senate Agriculture "Committee chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) on Tuesday would not say if Clovis' confirmation hearing will go ahead as planned. 'To be determined,' Roberts told Mother Jones when asked if the nomination would be withdrawn. Roberts had previously criticized Clovis' statements about crop insurance but had suggested that the nominee should be given an opportunity to explain his views." ...

... Catherine Boudreau & Josh Dawsey of Politico: "Sam Clovis ... has been 'a fully cooperative witness' in the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, Senate Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts told Politico.... Victoria Toensing, a lawyer representing Clovis, said in an e-mailed statement that after an initial meeting of the advisory panel, all of [George] Papadopoulos' communications with the campaign were 'self-generated,' and that Clovis did not believe an improved relationship with Russia should be a foreign policy focus of the campaign. 'Dr. Clovis always vigorously opposed any Russian trip for Donald Trump or staff,' Toensing said. 'However, if a volunteer made any suggestions on any foreign policy matter, Dr. Clovis, a polite gentleman from Iowa, would have expressed courtesy and appreciation.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I could buy Toensing's claim that a comment like "Great work!" might be nothing more than a courtesy -- or even a jibe, as in "Thanks, Donaldo!" -- if not for the fact that Clovis later told Papadopoulos, 'Make the trip, if it is feasible.' ("Make the trip" uses the command form of the verb.) As Aaron Blake of the Washington Post writes, "Er, okay. So basically, Clovis told someone to do something he opposed and was against campaign rules because he was only being a polite Midwesterner and he couldn't technically prevent him from doing it. (As a Minnesotan, I'll gladly try to use this excuse going forward.)"

... Ken Dilanian & Mike Memoli of NBC News: "Sam Clovis, the former top Trump campaign official who supervised [George Papadopoulos]..., was questioned last week by special counsel Robert Mueller's team and testified before the investigating grand jury, a person with first-hand knowledge of the matter told NBC News.... The court documents unsealed Monday describe emails between Papadopoulos and an unnamed 'campaign supervisor.' The supervisor responded 'Great work' after Papadopoulos discussed his interactions with Russians who wanted to arrange a meeting with Trump and Russian leaders.... [Clovis] is currently serving as an unpaid White House adviser to the Agriculture Department, awaiting Senate confirmation before the Agriculture Committee for the scientist job. He is not a scientist. [His attorney, Victoria] Toensing confirmed that Clovis was the campaign supervisor in the emails." ...

Collusion is what Papadopoulos did. Collusion is what Trump Jr. and others in that meeting did. It's meeting and discussing and seeing what common interests they can advance for each other. -- John Q. Barrett, an independent counsel in the Iran-Contra case ...

... Greg Farrell, et al., of Bloomberg: "... George Papadopoulos [claimed] ... in an email [that] top Trump campaign officials agreed to a pre-election meeting with representatives of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The message, if true, would bolster claims that Trump's campaign attempted to collude with Russian interests. But it's unclear whether Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty to lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was merely boasting when he sent the July 14, 2016, email to a Kremlin-linked contact. There's also no indication such a meeting ever occurred. The email is cited in an FBI agent's affidavit supporting criminal charges against Papadopoulos.... But it's not included in court documents that detailed his secret guilty plea and his cooperation with Special Counsel Robert Mueller.... Writing to the Russian contact a week before the Republican National Convention, Papadopoulos proposed a meeting for August or September in the U.K. that would include 'my national chairman and maybe one other foreign policy adviser' and members of Putin's office and Russia's foreign ministry. 'It has been approved by our side,' Papadopoulos wrote." ...

... Josh Marshall: "A former federal prosecutor with highly relevant experience weighs in on what we learned from yesterday. Upshot: Manafort's strategy is a pardon. '... given the apparent strength of the case against Manafort, he's really only got two options to avoid spending a significant amount of time in jail: cooperate or get a pardon/sentence commutation. His lawyer's statements yesterday sucking up to Trump suggest strongly to me that he is playing for a pardon or commuted sentence. The very real possibility of Trump going that direction is a real problem for Mueller and potentially saps his leverage,' [said the former prosecutor]. ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: BUT remember that Trump cannot pardon Manafort for charges the New York State Attorney General may bring against him. Per Politico's Josh Dawsey (August 30): "Special counsel Robert Mueller's team is working with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on its investigation into Paul Manafort and his financial transactions, according to several people familiar with the matter." ...

Yes, there is a [foreign policy] team. There's not a team. I'm going to be forming a team. -- Donald Trump, on 'Morning Joe,' March 8, 2016 ...

Positive proof that Trump can make two mutually exclusive declarative statements in immediate succession. The Times reporters (below) describe Trump's "Morning Joe" statement as "confusing." No, it's flat-out nuts. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

... The Best People, Ctd. Matthew Rosenberg, et al., of the New York Times: "Mr. Trump's solution [to his lack of foreign policy expertise] was to cobble together a list of men who were almost immediately written off as a collection of fringe thinkers and has-beens and unknowns in Washington foreign policy circles. Some from that group have now created far deeper problems for Mr. Trump, providing federal and congressional investigators with evidence of suspicious interactions with Russian officials and their emissaries.... The fact that so many of Mr. Trump's foreign policy aides from that period have now acknowledged contacts with Russian officials or their intermediaries hints at Moscow’s eagerness to establish links to his campaign." ...

     ... Then There's This. Matt Shuham of TPM: "Former Donald Trump campaign adviser Michael Caputo on Tuesday blamed simple youthful indiscretion for efforts by former campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos and Donald Trump Jr. to meet with Russians promising dirt on Hillary Clinton. 'He was the coffee boy,' Caputo told CNN's Chris Cuomo, referring to Papadopoulos." Mrs. McC: So the man formerly known as "Excellent Guy" was "Coffee Boy" in disguise. Thanks for recommending the Russian coffee, George, but before noon I prefer hazelnut black. ...

... Sameera Chan of ProRepublica has a rundown of some of the best reporting of Paul Manafort, Rick Gatesand George Papadopoulos. --safari

... Matt Flegenheimer of the New York Times profiles Andrew Weissman, "Robert Mueller's top lieutenant." ...

... Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha.

... Nancy LeTourneau of the Washington Monthly: "We all watched last week as the right wing attempted to weaponize stories that would undermine Robert Mueller, the FBI, and the investigation into possible ties between Russia and Trump. Specifically, it came on two fronts: 1. A story from John Solomon that revived the debunked lies about Clinton, Russia, and uranium by pointing to an FBI investigation into Russians involved in uranium transport. 2. The news that the DNC and the Clinton campaign paid for the Steele dossier.... [Eli] Lake's argument [in Bloomberg] ... is premised on the idea that Russians tried to help the Democrats. To the extent that some individual Russians were willing to talk to sources [Christopher] Steele had developed in that country based on his time as a British spy, it would be like claiming that the Nixon administration helped Woodward and Bernstein based on the information passed on to them via 'Deep Throat' (hat tip to Jay Bookman for that one)." ...

... Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: "As the country grapples with a still more serious affront to American democracy, the agreement on the basic facts in the mainstream news media does not extend to Rupert Murdoch's media empire and other important parts of the conservative media.... As [Robert] Mueller and his team home in on people connected to President Trump..., the president and his allies in the conservative media sphere are pointing at the Democrats and Hillary Clinton.... The counternarrative was particularly pronounced in the outlets controlled by Mr. Murdoch.... Adding to the problem is the recent behavior of the tech companies...." ...

... Oliver Darcy of CNN: "Some employees at Fox News were left embarrassed and humiliated by their network's coverage of the latest revelations in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election meddling, according to conversations CNN had with several individuals placed throughout the network. 'I'm watching now and screaming,' one Fox News personality said in a text message to CNN.... 'I want to quit.' 'It is another blow to journalists at Fox who come in every day wanting to cover the news in a fair and objective way,' one senior Fox News employee told CNN of their outlet's coverage, adding that there were 'many eye rolls' in the newsroom over how the news was covered. The person said, 'Fox feels like an extension of the Trump White House.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Apparently these Fox "News" have never watched the network before today. Could someone tell them about Hannity? Could someone tell them that Fox hired Laura Ingraham to more-or-less replace the $32-million sex abuser & general in the War on Christmas? Could someone introduce them to Steve Doucy & Brian Kilmeade? ...

... Alvin Chang of Vox: "To put it bluntly: As Mueller brings charges against top Trump officials, Fox News is trying to plant doubt in its viewers' minds. We analyzed the past week of Fox News transcripts, measuring them against those of Fox's cable news rivals CNN and MSNBC.... Fox News was unable to talk about the Mueller investigation without bringing up Hillary Clinton, even as federal indictments were being brought against top Trump campaign officials. Fox also talked significantly less about George Papadopoulos ... whose plea deal with Mueller provides the most explicit evidence thus far that the campaign knew of the Russian government's efforts to help Trump -- than its competitors. Fox News repeatedly called Mueller's credibility into question, while shying away from talking about the possibility that Trump might fire Mueller." ...

... Steve M.: "Politico notes that Rupert Murdoch's media properties -- even the ones that have sometimes criticized President Trump -- are now unified in their demand for an end to Robert Mueller's investigation[.]... With Fox, I get it -- Fox's core audience has been primed by twenty years of Fox propaganda to believe that every Republican officeholder is the victim of an evil liberal juggernaut. But you'd think some of the New York Post's readers would be moderate or even liberal, and that many of the Journal's readers would at least prefer a textbook conservative like Mike Pence to Trump. But I guess Murdoch sees his competition now as Breitbart and InfoWars, not CNN and The New York Times, so his media properties have to toe the crazy party line." ...

     ... The Politico story, by Jason Schwartz, is here. ...

... Cecilia Kang, et al., of the New York Times: "Executives from Facebook, Google and Twitter appeared on Capitol Hill for the first time on Tuesday to publicly acknowledge their role in Russia's influence on the presidential campaign, but offered little more than promises to do better. Their reluctance frustrated lawmakers who sought stronger evidence that American elections will be protected from foreign powers. The hearing, the first of three in two days for company executives, served as an initial public reckoning for the internet giants. They had emphasized their role as public squares for political discourse but are being forced to confront how they were used as tools for a broad Russian misinformation campaign." ...

... ** Stephen Marche, in the New Yorker, asks & answers why Americans are so susceptible to media distortion. "Marshall McLuhan predicted that the Third World War would be 'a guerrilla information war with no division between military and civilian participation,' and that's exactly what it has turned out to be. America seems more vulnerable than other developed countries to the kind of distortion that Facebook and Twitter bring to news and politics.... Self-determination is the source of America's oldest political commitments and its deepest clichés -- 'Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,' the cowboy, the astronaut, Thoreau at Walden, Emerson on 'Self-Reliance.' In America, everyone is entitled to his or her own vision of the universe.... The Trump-Putin breed of celebrity authoritarianism operates on a crude double strategy -- control the media you can, muddy the rest. The Russian disinformation campaigns are based not just on promoting the viewpoints that it wants promoted but by destabilizing entire systems of meaning.... The latest technology has revealed an ancient crisis. The most glorious feature of American life is also a great weakness -- a glamorous flaw. Nobody is going to tell Americans what to think. They have to work it out for themselves."

Molly Roberts of the Washington Post: "John Kelly's comments about the Civil War, according to historians, were 'strange,' 'sad' and 'wrong.' One thing they shouldn't be, however, is surprising.... [Kelly & other administration officials serve at the pleasure of Trump.] Last week, while many Democrats still were fawning over Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) for calling on conservatives to condemn Trump, Flake was back on the Senate floor voting to make it harder for consumers to sue the financial industry. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), another unlikely 'resistance' hero, was doing the same thing. So were Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). These senators are also all likely to back a tax bill that, however it comes out, will help rich Americans and drag down the rest of the economy.... The disaster of Trump has led to a widespread lowering of standards. Kelly, in the end, has proved unable to reach a bar that now rests close to the ground. But even those [Republicans] who meet that diminished mark don't deserve wholesale approval from liberals who, independent of Trump, wouldn't agree with most of the things they stand for. If we fall into that trap, we're in for many more unpleasant 'surprises.'" ...

... NEW. Charles Pierce: "Being the first guest on the debut of Laura Ingraham's new electric teevee show should be a black-enough mark on your professional history for anyone, but White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, fresh off slandering a sitting congresswoman and lecturing the nation on the demise of chivalry, decided to blow up what was left of his reputation by opining on how tragic was the American Civil War.... [Compromise is] a tool. It can be constructive or destructive, and, in the long view of history, one has to conclude that the compromises leading to the Civil War were little more than the foundation for the destruction to follow. 'Compromise' as an airy goal to be pursued without an appreciation of the consequences has embedded a terrible ambivalence in our history -- and an awful kind of amnesia into the bargain." ...

... ** Kashana Cauley in a New York Times op-ed: "... our country's tortured attempt to find some kind of balance on whether it was right to enslave African-Americans wasn't limited to the Three-Fifths Compromise. To argue that the Civil War came about because Americans couldn't compromise ... would require us to ignore at least six other major compromises on slavery, from the first fugitive slave law in 1793, which said that escaped slaves in any state could be caught, tried and returned to their masters, to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which allowed residents of the two territories to vote on whether to allow slavery. Slaveowners and abolitionists compromised on slavery over and over again, throwing black people's rights onto the bargaining table like betting chips in a casino.... Someone should tell John Kelly that our history is based on too much compromise concerning slavery and black lives, not too little." Read it all. ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The bit about Nixon is prelude to all that has followed in the GOP. In fact, the "Southern Strategy" itself was another Great Compromise, this one made entirely by Republicans. Nixon was a racist, but there were many Republicans back in the day who were not, or at least not virulently so. Still, these Republicans were willing to bend their own moral values right to the point of breaking in order to blindly follow their party. They made up lots of fake excuses for ideologies and policies -- that were obviously racist in effect. Lyndon Johnson is supposed to have said, "We [Democrats] have lost the South for a generation," when he signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But the real devastation to our two-party system came not to the Democratic party but to the Republicans. The Republican party lost its soul. It moved from being the Party of Lincoln to becoming the Party of Haters & Hypocrites, first by gobbling up the South & then by spreading Southern-style racism around the country, particularly to western states.

Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "Two collisions between Navy destroyers and commercial vessels in the Western Pacific earlier this year were 'avoidable' and the result of a string of crew and basic navigational errors, the Navy's top officer said in a report to be made public on Wednesday. Seven sailors were killed in June when the destroyer Fitzgerald collided with a container ship near Japan. The collision in August of the John S. McCain -- another destroyer, named after Senator McCain's father and grandfather -- and an oil tanker while approaching Singapore left 10 sailors dead. In the case of the Fitzgerald, the Navy determined in its latest reports that the crew and leadership on board failed to plan for safety, to adhere to sound navigation practices, to carry out basic watch practices, to properly use available navigation tools, and to respond effectively in a crisis.... In the case of the John S. McCain, the investigation concluded that the collision resulted from 'a loss of situational awareness' while responding to mistakes in the operation of the ship's steering and propulsion system while in highly trafficked waters."

Zachary Fryer-Biggs of Newsweek: "Defense Secretary James Mattis, testifying on Monday evening before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was asked repeatedly about a preemptive strike against North Korea, and specifically about the use of nuclear weapons. 'I will just tell you that we have not been discussing this sort of thing in any kind of an actionable way,' Mattis said.... A separate senior Pentagon official confirmed to Newsweek that there has been 'no meaningful conversation on the matter,' adding that efforts and plans thus far remain diplomatic.'" --safari...

... The Costs of War. Jay Cassano of International Business Times, via RawStory: "The Department of Defense periodically releases a 'cost of war' report.... American taxpayers have spent $1.46 trillion on wars abroad since September 11, 2001. The Afghanistan War from 2001 to 2014 and Iraq War from 2003 to 2011 account for the bulk of expenses: more than $1.3 trillion. The continuing presence in Afghanistan and aerial anti-ISIS operations in Iraq and Syria since 2014 have cost a combined $120 billion.... [The report] most notably does not include the expense of veteran's benefits for troops who serve in these wars or the intelligence community's expenses related to Global War on Terror. A 2011 paper from Harvard Kennedy School professor Linda Bilmes estimated the cost of veterans' benefits as $600 billion to $1 trillion over the next 40 years." --safari...

... Fletcher of RawStory: "Modernizing and maintaining the U.S. nuclear arsenal over the next 30 years will cost more than $1.2 trillion, according to a report released on Tuesday by the Congressional Budget Office." --safari

Jesus Loves Greed and Pollution. Rebecca Leber of Mother Jones: "Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt on Tuesday used the Bible to explain his major changes to the composition of the agency's independent science advisory committees, which play an important role in guiding and advising the EPA's regulatory work.... What the 'Joshua Principle' means for the EPA is that scientists who receive agency grants for their research are now barred from serving on any of its independent advisory boards.... Well-known climate change deniers [Lamar] Smith and Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) joined a parade of white men who gave speeches at the EPA headquarters heralding the new era of its scientific review." --safari...

... Umair Irfan of Vox: "The Environmental Protection Agency announced new rules Tuesday that will force out science advisers who have received grants from the agency and pave the way to replace them with researchers from industry.... By changing the makeup of EPA's science advisory boards this way, Pruitt will be able to change how the government builds the foundation for environmental regulations." --safari...

Ed Kilgore: "[A]fter having all year to prepare for 2017's big barbecue of tax cuts, and on the very eve of the House GOP's unveiling of its version of 'tax reform,' the process has apparently devolved into sweaty madness, with a strong possibility the whole show will have to be delayed." --safari

... "Capitalism if Awesome", Ctd. Michael Slezak of the Guardian: "Global negotiations seeking to implement the Paris agreement have been captured by corporate interests and are being undermined by powerful forces that benefit from exacerbating climate change, according to a report released ahead of the second meeting of parties to the Paris agreement -- COP23 -- next week. The report, co-authored by Corporate Accountability, uncovers a litany of ways in which fossil fuel companies have gained high-level access to negotiations and manipulated outcomes." --safari

Paul Farhi of the Washington Post: "NPR is investigating allegations by two women who said the head of its news department made unwanted physical contact with them while he was employed by [the New York Times] nearly two decades ago. The women, both journalists at the time of the alleged incidents, made the accusations in recent weeks against Michael Oreskes, senior vice president of news and editorial director at the Washington-based public broadcasting organization. In response to the allegations, NPR said Tuesday that it has placed Oreskes on indefinite leave.... In a memo to employees on Wednesday, NPR chief executive Jarl Mohn said he asked Oreskes to resign because of 'inappropriate behavior.'... NPR reported late Tuesday that an NPR employee, Rebecca Hersher, had registered a complaint about Oreskes in October 2015, a few months after Oreskes was hired by NPR from a senior management position at the Associated Press. Hersher characterized Oreskes's behavior as an inappropriate conversation."

Congressional Elections

Dana Milbank: "I called some of my favorite strategists, both Republican (who were happy to be named) and Democrat (who were not), for this column, to see how they thought the Party of [Will] Rogers would, as one Democratic operative put it, 'seize defeat from the jaws of victory.' Bernie backers and 'establishment' types will chop each other to pieces in primaries even if their ideology is much the same. Democrats will overplay the Russia scandal rather than simply letting special counsel Robert S. Mueller III do his job. Underfunded party committees won’t vet the flood of new candidates, some of whom will turn out to have played guitar in nudist colonies. And Democrats will struggle, as out-of-power parties do, with the absence of a leader."

The Commentariat -- October 31, 2017

Many thanks to safari for his essential contributions on a Big News Day. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

** Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "Despite Trump's hysterical denials and attempts at diversion, the question is no longer whether there was cooperation between Trump's campaign and Russia, but how extensive it was.... Trump, more gangster than entrepreneur, has long surrounded himself with bottom-feeding scum, and for all his nationalist bluster, his campaign was a vehicle for Russian subversion.... We've had a year of recriminations over the Clinton campaign's failings, but Trump clawed out his minority victory only with the aid of a foreign intelligence service. On Monday we finally got indictments, but it's been obvious for a year that this presidency is a crime. ...

... David Graham of The Atlantic: "Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, and George Papadopoulos should have never been anywhere near a major presidential campaign, and their hiring reinforces concerns about President Trump's judgment. Trump is not a policy expert...his real sell to voters was that he would be an effective manager and dealmaker.... The campaign's hiring processes suggest grave lapses in the president's personnel decision and his judgment." --safari ...

... Eric Levitz of New York: "Donald Trump promised American voters that his keen eye for talent ... would give him the insight necessary 'to hire the best people.'... Imagine if Hillary Clinton had campaigned for the presidency on a promise to make superlative hiring decisions -- and then, the FBI indicted two of the highest ranking members of her campaign for being undisclosed agents of a hostile foreign regime.... How would congressional Republicans respond to such a development?... If they had possession of undisputed facts this damning, there's no way congressional Republicans would encourage the public to focus on an elusive, hypothetical smoking gun connecting Putin and Clinton.... That would be doing the Democrats a favor by helping them move the goalposts of what constitutes a ruinous scandal.... And yet, at various points Monday, the Democratic leadership did the Trump administration that kindness." --safari ...

... New York Times Editors: "... whether Mr. Trump was aware of any of the specific details in the indictment [of Paul Manafort] is beside the point. He certainly must have known what he was getting in hiring Mr. Manafort. A Republican lobbyist and political consultant, Mr. Manafort has a long history of enriching himself working for some of the world's most unscrupulous and dictatorial leaders, including Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, Jonas Savimbi in Angola and Mobutu Sese Seko of the Democratic Republic of Congo -- not a list most American presidential candidates would want to be on. More recently, he helped to elect the pro-Kremlin Viktor Yanukovych as president of Ukraine.... Mr. Manafort, in other words, embodies the sort of amoral, self-dealing denizen of the swamp that Mr. Trump pledged to drain when he got to Washington." ...

... Susan Hennessey & Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare: "President Trump, in short, had on his campaign at least one person, and allegedly two people, who actively worked with adversarial foreign governments in a fashion they sought to criminally conceal from investigators. One of them ran the campaign. The other, meanwhile, was interfacing with people he 'understood to have substantial connections to Russian government officials' and with a person introduced to him as 'a relative of Russian President Vladimir Putin with connections to senior Russian government officials.' All of this while President Trump was assuring the American people that he and his campaign had 'nothing to do with Russia.' The release of these documents should, though it probably won't, put to rest the suggestion that there are no serious questions of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.... It also raises a profound set of questions about the truthfulness of a larger set of representations Trump campaign officials and operatives have made both in public and, presumably, under oath and to investigators.... Things are only going to get worse from here." ...

... Mallory Shelbourne of the Hill: "President Trump on Tuesday dismissed the latest wrinkle in the special counsel's investigation into Russia's election meddling, saying the alleged actions of his former campaign chairman occurred prior to his involvement with the Trump campaign. 'The Fake News is working overtime. As Paul Manaforts lawyer said, there was 'no collusion' and events mentioned took place long before he.......came to the campaign,' Trump wrote on Twitter.... Trump also dismissed the volunteer foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in the course of its investigation into Russia's election meddling. 'Few people knew the young, low level volunteer named George, who has already proven to be a liar. Check the DEMS!' Trump added.... Trump then added that he hopes 'people will start to focus' on tax reform." ...

... Scott Shane of the New York Times: "The guilty plea of a 30-year-old campaign aide — so green that he listed Model United Nations in his qualifications -- shifted the narrative on Monday of the Trump campaign's interactions with Russia: Court documents revealed that Russian officials alerted the campaign, through an intermediary in April 2016, that they possessed thousands of Democratic emails and other 'dirt' on Hillary Clinton. That was two months before the Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee was publicly revealed and the stolen emails began to appear online. The new court filings provided the first clear evidence that Trump campaign aides had early knowledge that Russia had stolen confidential documents on Mrs. Clinton and the committee...." ...

... Robert Costa, et al., of the Washington Post report a "portrait of Trump and his White House on a day of crisis is based on interviews with 20 senior administration officials, Trump friends and key outside allies, many of whom insisted on anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters." Mrs. McC: Especially fun to read if you're prone to feelings of schadenfreude. ...

... ** Marcy Wheeler of The Intercept: "The biggest news of Mueller Monday ... may involve someone not named explicitly in either indictment: Attorney General Jeff Sessions. That's because Sessions has repeatedly testified to the Senate that he knows nothing about any collusion with the Russians.... But the Papadopoulos plea shows that Sessions -- then acting as Trump's top foreign policy adviser -- was in a March 31, 2016, meeting with Trump, at which Papadopoulos explained 'he had connections that could help arrange a meeting between then-candidate Trump and President Putin.'.... To be sure, Papadopoulos's plea perhaps hurts Trump the most. After all, Trump was in the March 31 meeting too, along with Sessions.... But unlike Trump, Sessions's claims about such meetings came in sworn testimony to the Senate." --safari...

... Ezra Klein of Vox: "At this point, it would be a truly remarkable coincidence if two entities that had so many ties to each other, that had so much information about what the other was doing, and that were working so hard toward the same goal never found a way to coordinate." -- safari: Klein runs down a timeline of major events. ...

... Edward-Isaac Dovere of Politico: "... after eight years running one of the biggest and most active public corruption operations as the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, [Preet] Bharara knows a little about how to read indictments and plea deals, and with Monday's big news out of the Mueller investigation, it looks to him like much more is coming. 'Hard to tell, but the George Papadopoulos guilty plea tells us (a) Mueller is moving fast (b) the Mueller team keeps secrets well (c) more charges should be expected and (d) this team takes obstruction and lying very, very seriously,' Bharara said.” Includes audio. ...

... Moving Goalposts. Judd Legum of ThinkProgress: "Trump's personal attorney [Jay Sekulow] went on CNN on Monday afternoon and defended the Trump campaign's secret communications with Russian government cutouts about emails stolen from the Clinton campaign.... According to Sekulow, there was absolutely nothing wrong with Papadopoulos having these conversations. His only error was lying about the conversations to the FBI.... In other words, Sekulow is defending the Trump campaign's discussions with a Russian intermediary to damage the campaign of Hillary Clinton with stolen emails." [Emphasis added] --safari ...

... Cristian Farias of New York: "Just as the president was screaming on Twitter that he or his campaign hadn't colluded with the Russians, Robert Mueller ... unsealed a criminal case against George Papadopoulos, who has already pled guilty to one count of lying to the FBI for ... attempting to collude with the Russians.... But by every objective measure, Papadopoulos, minor actor though he seems to be, is the biggest bombshell of Monday's revelations -- and Mueller's first major signal of what he's been up to since his appointment last May...[D]uring a March 31, 2016, meeting to discuss national security policy with the campaign, he 'in sum and substance,' according to Mueller's prosecutors, boasted to Trump and others gathered for the occasion that he could hook up a meeting between the then-candidate and Putin.... In addition, as USA Today's Brad Heath rightly notes, though Papadopoulos was convicted in early October, he was arrested and charged in July.... [T]he former campaign aide, who by then had already done enough to merit a federal charge, 'met with the Government on numerous occasions to provide information and answer questions.'" --safari ...

... Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos' guilty plea Monday appears to hint toward even more threads of the ongoing Russia collusion investigation than what the court revealed. Lawyers from the Justice Department's special counsel office have repeatedly hinted at how Papadopoulos would contribute to a larger, sensitive investigation. 'The criminal justice interest being vindicated here is there's a large-scale ongoing investigation of which this case is a small part,' Aaron Zelinsky of the special counsel's office said during Papadopoulos' October 5 plea agreement hearing, records of which were unsealed Monday." --safari ...

... Jacqueline Thomson of The Hill: "Former Trump campaign aide Carter Pagesays he 'probably' discussed Russia in emails with fellow ex-staffer George Papadopoulos, who has pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents about his contacts. Page told MSNBC's Chris Hayes on Monday night that the two had met a couple times during the early days of the campaign and that he was 'probably' in 'a few' email chains with Papadopoulos." --safari ...

... The Hits Just Keep on Coming. Politico: "A former foreign policy adviser to ... Donald Trump's 2016 campaign secretly pleaded guilty earlier this month to lying to the FBI about his outreach to Russian officials, court records made public on Monday show. George Papadopolous, 30, entered the guilty plea in a closed courtroom in Washington on Oct. 5, special counsel Robert Mueller's office announced. Unlike the just-unsealed indictment against Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and adviser Rick Gates for money laundering and other charges, the single felony count against Papadopolous directly relates to 2016 presidential campaign activity." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... The charging document against Papadopoulos, unsealed yesterday, is here. Update: Far more interesting, the unsealed "Statement of Offense." Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post runs down the who's-who in the statement. ...

...Zack Beauchamp of Vox: "Monday's big Russia-related news shows that special counsel Robert Mueller is treating his probe into election collusion like a mob case -- with President Donald Trump potentially playing the role of Al Capone." --safari...

     ... Matt Apuzzo has the New York Times story: "A professor with close ties to the Russian government told an adviser to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in April 2016 that Moscow had 'dirt' on Hillary Clinton in the form of 'thousands of emails,' according to court documents unsealed Monday. The adviser, George Papadopoulos, has pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about that conversation. The plea represents the most explicit evidence connecting the Trump campaign to the Russian government's meddling in last year's election." (Also linked yesterday.)

... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Well, that's funny, because President Lizalot keeps tweet-screaming, "there is NO COLLUSION!" (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Rebecca Savransky of the Hill: "President Trump on Monday called for the focus to be shifted to Hillary Clinton after his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort turned himself into the FBI after being indicted on 12 counts, including conspiracy against the United States. 'Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort was part of the Trump campaign. But why aren't Crooked Hillary & the Dems the focus?????' Trump tweeted. 'Also, there is NO COLLUSION!'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Yes, I too was wondering why there hasn't been more focus on stuff Trump made up. ...

... Good Riddance. Addy Baird of ThinkProgress: "Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort surrendered to the FBI Monday morning, and he could face up to 40 years in prison if he is found guilty on all charges." --safari ...

... Nancy LeTourneau of the Washington Monthly: "Keep in mind that the pressure to flip will be huge on Manafort and Gates due to the fact that Mueller closed the pardon loophole by partnering with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Betsy Woodruff of The Daily Beast: "Mueller's investigators dug into the not-too-distant past, dredging up allegations of tax evasion, money laundering, and lobbying done in secret. 'NO COLLUSION!' the president tweeted. But seasoned observers quickly saw that the charges were more ominous for the White House than they at first appeared.... For special counsel Robert Mueller and his team of seasoned federal prosecutors, not much is off limits. And that could spell all kinds of trouble for a president who has sought to keep his finances private, surrounded by top aides who have all kinds of interesting financial entanglements of their own." --safari ...

... BUT. The "Adult" Is Delusional. Reuters: "White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said on Monday [in an interview on Fox News] a special counsel should be appointed to investigate Democrats over a uranium deal during the Obama administration and a dossier compiled on Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign." --safari (See more on Kelly's bright ideas in Maggie Astor's NYT story, linked below.) ...

... AND. Jonathan Chait: "The [Republican] party apparatus is gearing up for a frontal attack on Mueller in particular, and the idea that a president can be held legally accountable in general.... Republicans have developed a bizarre theory of alt-collusion, which holds that the real interference was Russia feeding false allegations against Donald Trump to private investigator Christopher Steele. Since the FBI investigated Steele's charges, the FBI is the agency that colluded. And since Robert Mueller is close with the FBI, Mueller, too, is tainted.... In today's [Wall Street] Journal op-ed page, two Republican former Department of Justice staffers, David Rivkin and Lee Casey, who frequently pop up in the media to defend party-line arguments..., urge Trump to issue sweeping pardons to everybody involved in the scandal, himself included, so as to hopefully neuter Mueller's investigation.... Two courses of action -- neutering investigations into himself, and ordering them against Democrats -- seem to be linked in Trump's lizard brain.... [Paul] Ryan, of course, is tacitly allowing his chamber's investigative bodies to run point for Trump.... We are watching an important marker in the GOP's slow metamorphoses into an authoritarian party[.]" (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... AND. Jamiles Lartey & Jon Swaine of the Guardian: "Republicans and conservatives outside the party are increasingly split on special counsel Robert Mueller's fitness to lead the investigation into possible illegal contact between Trump campaign aides and Russian actors during the 2016 election.... The fracture flared over the weekend.... [T]he Wall Street Journal, New York Post and Fox News -- all owned by Rupert Murdoch -- suggested Mueller ought to resign.... Such calls were not directly tied to the news of charges. Rather, they were triggered by the report late last week that Hillary Clinton's campaign helped fund the infamous 'Steele dossier.'... They were echoed by New Jersey's Republican governor, Chris Christie, who said on Fox News on Friday that someone of Mueller's integrity 'will step aside, and should'." --safari ...

... AND. Alternate Universe. Jason Wilson of the Guardian: "In the symbiosis between Trump and conservative media, it's hard to tell who is leading and who is following.... Like Trump himself, conservative media figures attempted to distance the administration from Trump's former campaign manager, and barely mentioned the guilty plea of former Trump adviser George Papadopoulos, at all...Breitbart News was also uncharacteristically reticent on Monday. There were initially only two stories on the Manafort indictment.... Rush Limbaugh, had a fresh approach to reframing the story.... Rush hinted that Mueller had only charged Manafort in order to tighten the screws on Tony Podesta.... For now, the mission is distract, reframe, and try to refocus on Democrats." --safari (See Anna Palmer's related story on Podesta, linked below.) ...

... AND. Conservative Media Assisted by Friendly Russian Trolls. Denise Clifton of Mother Jones: "In the days before charges against three former Trump campaign officials were unsealed on Monday, Russian influencers tracked by the Hamilton 68 dashboard were pushing stories on Twitter about 'collusion' between Russia and Hillary Clinton -- a narrative regarding a 2010 sale of uranium rights that has long since been debunked.... Since Friday, when news reports made clear that the special counsel's team was moving ahead with indictments, the dashboard began registering a sharp increase in attacks specifically against Mueller." --safari ...

... Bipartisan Swampsters. Betsy Woodruff & Spencer Ackerman of The Daily Beast: "The indictment of former Trump campaign boss Paul Manafort is likely causing bipartisan headaches.... The indictment describes a cozy, coordinated relationship between Manafort, Ukraine's Putin-friendly president Viktor Yanukovych, and two unnamed Washington lobbying firms, beginning in 2012.... Multiple lobbyists tell The Daily Beast they are confident that the Podesta Group and Mercury LLC are the two firms the indictment refers to ... 'Manafort and Tony [Podesta] were inseparable and driving the same train,' added a person familiar with the Mueller probe.... Tony Podesta was a major fundraiser for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. His brother John ... chaired that campaign." --safari ...

... Anna Palmer of Politico: "Democratic power lobbyist Tony Podesta, founder of the Podesta Group, is stepping down from the firm that bears his name after coming under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. Podesta announced his decision during a firm-wide meeting Monday morning and is alerting clients of his impending departure.... The investigation into Podesta and his firm grew out of investigators&r' examination of [Paul] Manafort's finances. Manafort organized a PR campaign on behalf of a nonprofit called the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine. Podesta Group was one of several firms that were paid to do work on the PR campaign to promote Ukraine in the U.S."

... Indictments? What Indictments? Esme Cribb of TPM: "House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) on Monday said charges brought against members of ... Donald Trump's campaign are not going to have any effect on Congress. 'I really don't have anything to add, other than: Nothing is going to derail what we're doing in Congress,' Ryan said on conservative Wisconsin talk radio station WTAQ." Mrs. McC: All we care about is cutting taxes on the rich & shoving the rest of you lazy bastards out of your hammocks of complaceny and dependence. ...

... Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Adam Peck of ThinkProgress: "On Monday morning, when it was revealed that ... Paul Manafort and an associate were the target of the indictment Fox & Friends were busy discussing Google's hamburger emoji. But the outlet's smokescreen campaign took a darker -- and far more deplorable -- turn on Monday afternoon with the publication of an anonymous article attacking two judges who are involved in the indictments, including the only black magistrate judge in the nation's capital." --safari ...

... Reuters: "Facebook Inc said on Monday that Russia-based operatives published about 80,000 posts on the social network over a two year period in an effort to sway U.S. politics, and that about 126 million Americans may have seen the posts during that time.... The 80,000 posts were published between June 2015 and August 2017 and most of them focused on divisive social and political messages such as race relations and gun rights, Facebook said." --safari

** Julian Borger of the Guardian: "The Trump administration is working on a nuclear weapons policy that is intended to mark a decisive end to the era of post-cold war disarmament, by bolstering the US arsenal and loosening the conditions under which it would be used.... The document is still being debated with a target for completion by the end of this year or the beginning of next.... The White House denied the report but it has repeatedly made clear it aims to adopt a more aggressive nuclear stance." --safari

John Kelly -- If Only Northerners Had Been Nicer about Slavery. Maggie Astor of the New York Times: "If, by appearing on Laura Ingraham's show on Monday night, John F. Kelly was trying to do damage control after the indictments of Trump associates earlier in the day, it did not work. Instead, Mr. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, resurrected the debate over Confederate monuments -- previously fueled by his boss, President Trump, over the summer -- and the Confederacy itself. He called Robert E. Lee 'an honorable man who gave up his country to fight for his state,' said that 'men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them make their stand,' and argued that 'the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War.'... The reaction was swift and unforgiving, with many commenters ridiculing Mr. Kelly for suggesting that slavery was an issue on which a compromise could or should have been reached." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Let's be clear: Kelly isn't "tone-deaf." Rather, he thinks slavery is no big deal, something that people "of good faith" can disagree on -- kinda like anchovies on pizza. Sorry, Gen. Johnny, "compromising" on enslaving human beings is not like ordering anchovies on only half the pizza. P.S. It might be a good idea if you Googled "3/5ths Compromise" & "Missouri Compromise." And and and. Asshole. ...

Oh, and the general will take questions now. But only from reporters who had family members who fought and died for slavery.... -- Akhilleus, in today's thread ...

... Mallory Shelbourne of The Hill: "The former White House ethics chief [Walter Schaub] on Tuesday slammed chief of staff Gen. John Kelly as 'a racist' after the top advisor to President Trump said the Civil War started due to 'the lack of an ability to compromise.' 'It appears John Kelly is going as a racist for Halloween. I suspect he's also going as one for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday...'" --safari ...

... Brent Griffiths of Politico: "White House chief of staff John Kelly defended his criticism of Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) on Monday night by continuing to insist she was insensitive and self-congratulatory during a ceremony to dedicate an FBI building in Florida. 'Well, I'll go back and talk about ... her comments and at the reception afterwards,' Kelly told Fox News host Laura Ingraham. 'Well, I'll apologize if I need to. But for something like that, absolutely not. I stand by my comments.'" Evidence quickly emerged after Kelly's press conference earlier this month that he made false statements about Wilson. Mrs. McC: It's okay for a white guy to lie about a black female official. Did I mention that Kelly is an asshole?

Swampster. E.A. Crunden of ThinkProgress: "On Monday, nonprofit watchdog group the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) accused [Ryan] Zinke's dormant congressional campaign of dodging rules prohibiting individuals from converting political donations into individual revenue. According to an official Federal Election Commission complaint, the campaign allegedly purchased an RV from Zinke's wife, then sold it to a friend at a steeply discounted price a year later, lowering the car's price from $59,100 to $25,000. The recipient, Ed Buttrey, is a Montana state senator rumored to be in the running to be nominated Interior assistant secretary.... Zinke's other ethical close-calls, as the CLC noted, are plentiful." --safari

Tax Cuts Profiting No One. Paul Krugman: "The wealthy donors for whom the G.O.P. will apparently do anything, up to and including covering up for possible treason, will get no joy from their tax cuts. I don't mean that history will judge them harshly, although it will. I don't even mean that plutocrats as well as plebeians will eventually suffer if America becomes a lawless, authoritarian regime. I mean that a few hundred thousand dollars extra will do little if anything to make the already wealthy more satisfied with their lives.... The party's willingness to turn a blind eye to corruption with a hint of treason would be horrifying whatever the motivation. Still, there seems to me to be an extra dimension of awfulness to the whole situation once you realize that all this betrayal serves no real purpose, not even a bad one."

Justin Juvenal of the Washington Post: "A federal judge in Washington blocked the Trump Administration's proposed transgender military ban, writing in a strongly worded opinion that the policy 'does not appear to be supported by any facts.' U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued the preliminary injunction Monday, finding that a group of transgender service members would have a strong chance of prevailing in their lawsuit to have the ban declared unconstitutional. The injunction remains in place until the lawsuit is resolved or a judge lifts it.... Department of Justice spokeswoman Lauren Ehrsam issued a statement, saying the department is 'currently evaluating the next steps.' Department attorneys had previously asked for the suit to be dismissed."

Jonathan Watts of the Guardian: "The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased at record speed last year to hit a level not seen for more than three million years, the UN has warned. The new report has raised alarm among scientists and prompted calls for nations to consider more drastic emissions reductions at the upcoming climate negotiations in Bonn." --safari

Oliver Darcy of CNN: "NBC News and MSNBC have severed ties with 'Game Change' co-author and veteran journalist Mark Halperin, days after multiple women told CNN he sexually harassed or assaulted them during his time at ABC News. An MSNBC spokesman told CNN on Monday morning that Halperin's contract with both had been terminated. (Also linked yesterday.)

Beyond the Beltway

AP: "Two [NYPD] detectives threatened an 18-year-old woman with arrest over a bottle of prescription pills, handcuffed her, drove her around in their police van and then raped her, authorities said Monday in announcing charges against the two. The detectives, Eddie Martins and Richard Hall, were arraigned Monday on a 50-count indictment that included rape and kidnapping counts, said the acting Brooklyn district attorney, Eric Gonzalez. He said DNA recovered from the woman matched both defendants." --safari

Long Ago & Far Away

A Quincentennial of a Significant European Event. John Gjelten of NPR: "Five hundred years after a rebellious act by a single German monk divided the Christian world, religious leaders on both sides of that split have finally agreed their churches share responsibility for the historic rupture. On Oct. 31, 1517, an outspoken university lecturer and Augustinian monk named Martin Luther posted a list of objections to the dominant Roman Catholic beliefs and practices of his time. Chief among his grievances was the church's claim that Christians could buy their way out of punishment for sin -- and thus shorten their time in purgatory -- by purchasing a letter of 'indulgence' from their local parish. In practice, much of the money went into the pockets of corrupt local princes." ...

... Brandow Withrow of the Daily Beast: "Luther's belief that Scripture alone is the sole authority for doctrine enabled him to question the church. Scripture, he argued, said that Christ's death fully satisfied the penalty of sin. The Protestant mantra became: justification is by grace alone, through faith alone, because of Christ alone. At the time, Luther had no intention of leaving the church he hoped to reform, but his theological fury led to his inevitable excommunication as a heretic and the splintering of Christendom. But now that chasm between Protestants and Catholics appears to be closing. Pope Francis once surprised reporters by calling Luther a 'reformer,' who rightly protested the 'corruption of the Church,' though 'some methods were not correct.'"