The Commentariat -- August 17, 2017

Afternoon Update:

William Booth, et al., of the Washington Post: "A driver swerved a van onto a pedestrian area Thursday in Barcelona's historic Las Ramblas district, ramming into crowds and leaving at least 13 people dead and more than 50 injured scattered along a stretch of tree-shaded sidewalk. Authorities described the incident as a terrorist attack." ...

... Giles Tremlett of the Guardian: "A van has crashed into a crowd of people in central Barcelona, causing an unknown number of injuries, with local media reporting at least one armed man had subsequently entered a restaurant in the area. Spanish police, who said they were treating the incident as a terrorist attack, said several people were injured in the 'massive crash' on Las Ramblas.... Las Ramblas, a street of stalls and shops that cuts through the centre of Barcelona, is one of the city's top tourist destinations. People walk down a wide, pedestrianised path in the centre of the street, but cars can travel on either side." ...

... The Guardian has live updates here.

Sheri Fink of the New York Times: "A settlement in the lawsuit against two psychologists who helped devise the Central Intelligence Agency's brutal interrogation program was announced on Thursday, bringing to an end an unusual effort to hold individuals accountable for the techniques the agency adopted after the Sept. 11 attacks. Lawyers for the three plaintiffs in the suit, filed in 2015 in Federal District Court in Spokane, Wash., said the former prisoners were tortured at secret C.I.A. detention sites. The settlement with the psychologists, Dr. Bruce Jessen and Dr. James Mitchell, came after a judge last month urged resolving the case before it headed to a jury trial in early September. The plaintiffs -- two former detainees and the family of a third who died in custody -- had sought unspecified punitive and compensatory damages. The terms of the settlement are confidential."

*****

Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump found himself increasingly isolated in a racial crisis of his own making on Wednesday, abandoned by the nation's top business executives, contradicted by military leaders and shunned by Republicans outraged by his defense of white nationalist protesters in Charlottesville, Va.... The president's top advisers described themselves as stunned, despondent and numb. Several said they were unable to see how Mr. Trump's presidency would recover, and others expressed doubts about his capacity to do the job. In contrast, the president told close aides that he felt liberated by his news conference.... On Wednesday, even Fox News, a favorite of the president's, repeatedly carried criticism of Mr. Trump. One Fox host, Shepard Smith, said that he had been unable to find a single Republican to come on-air to defend Mr. Trump's remarks.... One aide who felt energized by the president's actions was ... Stephen K. Bannon...." ...

... Callum Borchers of the Washington Post: "... Republicans are in hiding, apparently unsure how to answer questions about President Trump's response to last weekend's violence in Charlottesville -- and unwilling to try. 'We invited every single Republican senator on this program tonight -- all 52,' Chuck Todd said on MSNBC's 'MTP Daily' on Wednesday. 'We asked roughly a dozen House Republicans, including a bunch of committee chairs, and we asked roughly a half dozen former Republican elected officials, and none of them agreed to discuss this issue with us today.' That's about 70 rejections altogether, and other news anchors had the same experience on Wednesday -- even on Fox News."

      ... Via Patrick. To watch the video, you may have to sign in to prove your age. If so, & that's too much of a hassle, you can view the video here. At 9:30 pm ET Wednesday, the video had nearly 3 million viewers. ...

... Harriet Sinclair of Newsweek: "A neo-Nazi who said he was 'ready for violence' at the deadly rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, has released footage of himself weeping after learning there is allegedly a warrant out for his arrest. Christopher Cantwell, who was followed during the gathering of neo-Nazis, KKK, white supremacists and alt-right for a 22-minute documentary for VICE, showed off his guns to journalist Elle Reeve and boasted: 'I'm carrying a pistol, I go to the gym all the time, I'm trying to make myself more capable of violence.' However, in mobile phone footage uploaded to YouTube on Wednesday, Cantwell said he was terrified after learning the police wanted to speak with him." Includes video.

Ellie Silverman, et al., of the Washington Post: "Those who loved Heather Heyer, along with strangers who have already elevated her into a symbol of defiance in the face of hate, gathered Wednesday at her memorial service to remember her as a born defender of justice who died for showing up when her beliefs demanded it. 'They tried to kill my child to shut her up, but guess what, you just magnified her,' said Heyer's mother, Susan Bro, sparking an ovation from a packed theater in downtown Charlottesville that lasted nearly a minute and a half." ...

... David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Thursday mourned the loss of 'beautiful statues and monuments' in the wake of the violent clashes in Charlottesville during a white supremacist demonstration protesting the planned removal of a statue depicting Confederate military commander Robert E. Lee." ...

... Louis Nelson of Politico: "... Donald Trump slammed Sen. Lindsey Graham Thursday.... 'Publicity seeking Lindsey Graham falsely stated that I said there is moral equivalency between the KKK, neo-Nazis & white supremacists and people like Ms. Heyer,' Trump wrote online, breaking his message up into two posts. 'Such a disgusting lie. He just can't forget his election trouncing. The people of South Carolina will remember!'" ...

... Politico: "... Donald Trump attacked Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake as 'toxic' on Thursday, just days before the president will visit Phoenix for an upcoming rally. 'Great to see that Dr. Kelli Ward is running against Flake Jeff Flake, who is WEAK on borders, crime and a non-factor in Senate. He's toxic!' Trump tweeted Thursday morning, minutes after he also rebuked GOP South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham over criticism of the president's Charlottesville response. Ward, who unsuccessfully ran against Arizona Sen. John McCain in 2016, announced in October that she'll run against Flake in 2018." ...

You had a group on the other side that came charging in without a permit, and they were very, very violent. . . . You had a lot of people in that [white nationalist] group that were there to innocently protest and very legally protest, because you know -- I don't know if you know -- they had a permit. The other group didn't have a permit. -- Donald Trump, remarks during a news conference on infrastructure, August 15

President Trump twice claimed that counterprotesters lacked a permit to demonstrate in Charlottesville. But they did have permits for rallies -- and they did not need one to go into or gather near Emancipation Park, where white nationalists planned their rally. -- Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post

... Michael Schmidt & Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "President Trump’s personal lawyer on Wednesday forwarded an email to conservative journalists, government officials and friends that echoed secessionist Civil War propaganda and declared that the group Black Lives Matter 'has been totally infiltrated by terrorist groups.' The email forwarded by John Dowd, who is leading the president's legal team, painted the Confederate general Robert E. Lee in glowing terms and equated the South's rebellion to that of the American Revolution against England.... 'You cannot be against General Lee and be for General Washington,' the email reads, 'there literally is no difference between the two men.'... Mr. Dowd received the email on Tuesday night and forwarded it on Wednesday morning to more than two dozen recipients, including a senior official at the Department of Homeland Security, The Wall Street Journal editorial page and journalists at Fox News and The Washington Times.... 'You're sticking your nose in my personal email?' Mr. Dowd told The Times in a brief telephone interview. 'People send me things. I forward them.' He then hung up. The email's author, Jerome Almon, runs several websites alleging government conspiracies and arguing that the F.B.I. has been infiltrated by Islamic terrorists." ...

... AP: "Vice President Mile Pence is cutting short his trip to Latin America so he can join the president at a meeting about North Korea. The White House announced Wednesday that Pence would travel to Camp David with the president on Friday to meet with the White House national security team to discuss South Asia strategy." ...

... Jill Colvin of the AP: "Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday skirted questions about ... Donald Trump's comments voicing sympathy for Charlottesville protesters, but said he stands with the president nonetheless. Pence wouldn't say during a press conference in Chile whether he agrees with Trump that there were 'fine people' among the white supremacists, KKK members and neo-Nazis who took to the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend, and whether 'both sides' were to blame for the deadly violence between white supremacists and counterdemonstrators, as the president claimed." ...

The Army doesn't tolerate racism, extremism, or hatred in our ranks. It's against our Values and everything we've stood for since 1775. -- Gen. Mark Milley, chief of staff of the Army, in a tweet ...

... W. J. Hennigan of the Los Angeles Times: "America's top-ranking military officers spoke out forcefully against racial bigotry and extremism, a rare public foray into domestic politics that revealed growing unease at the Pentagon with some of President Trump's policies and views. The members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- the senior uniformed brass of the Navy, Marine Corps, Army and Air Force -- all posted messages on their official Twitter accounts to denounce the far-right extremists behind Saturday's violence in Charlottesville, Va. The messages did not mention Trump, who is the commander in chief, by name. But the rebuke seemed clear in several posts given the bipartisan furor over Trump's insistence Tuesday that 'both sides' were at fault for the violence." ...

... Jena McGregor of the Washington Post: "President Trump's relationship with the American business community suffered a major setback on Wednesday as the president was forced to shut down his major business advisory councils after corporate leaders repudiated his comments on the violence in Charlottesville this weekend. A slew of corporate chieftans announced they were resigning from the councils in recent days after they said Trump was slow to condemn white supremacy groups. On Twitter, Trump said it was his decision to disband both councils. 'Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum. I am ending both,' he tweeted." At 1:30 pm, this is a breaking news story, which is likely to be expanded later. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... David Gelles, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump's main council of top corporate leaders disbanded on Wednesday following the president's controversial remarks in which he equated white nationalist hate groups with the protesters opposing them. Soon after, the president announced on Twitter that he would end his executive councils, 'rather than put pressure' on executives. The quick sequence began late Wednesday morning when Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chief executive of the Blackstone Group and one of Mr. Trump's closest confidants in the business community, organized a conference call for members of the president's Strategic and Policy Forum. After a discussion among a dozen prominent C.E.O.s, the decision was made to abandon the group altogether, said people with knowledge of the details of the call." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Dan Diamond of Politico: "The president's tweet followed the announcements Wednesday that the leaders of Minnesota-based 3M and Campbell Soup had quit his manufacturing council, while a second strategic and advisory group was on the verge of collapse. 'Racism and murder are unequivocally reprehensible and are not morally equivalent to anything else that happened in Charlottesville,' said Denise Morrison, the head of Campbell Soup, who became the 8th executive to announce in a statement that she was leaving the manufacturing council.... Inge Thulin, the CEO of Minnesota-based 3M, announced earlier in the day that he was leaving the manufacturing council." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Patti Domm & Jacob Pramuk of CNBC: "Members of ... Donald Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum have agreed to disband the group, sources told CNBC, as corporate backlash mounts against the president. The business advisory council made up of top business leaders is separate from Trump's manufacturing council, which several business leaders left this week.... After the members agreed to disband and condemn Trump's statements, the president said he would end both the Strategic and Policy Forum and the manufacturing council." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Russell Berman of the Atlantic: "After Trump finished speaking [Tuesday], the rebukes from congressional Republicans started rolling in all over again. Some, like Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Representative Will Hurd of Texas, criticized the president directly in tweets and statements. Others, like House Speaker Paul Ryan, withheld Trump's name even if their target was obvious. 'We must be clear. White supremacy is repulsive,' Ryan tweeted. 'This bigotry is counter to all this country stands for. There can be no moral ambiguity.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "President Trump's off-the-rails Tuesday news conference -- in which he once again blamed 'both sides' in Charlottesville, effectively undoing his earlier conciliatory remarks -- earned him another wave of backlash from world leaders Wednesday." ...

... Mark Landler of the New York Times: " Mr. Trump's refusal Tuesday to pass an explicit moral judgment on the violence in Charlottesville seemed a genuine reflection of his beliefs. Certainly, it is similar to his refusal to condemn the tactics of autocrats like President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines or President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.... Mr. Trump's predecessors, going back to George Washington, have all tried, with varying degrees of success, to summon Americans to a higher moral purpose.... Barack Obama, appealed to the best in Americans through a heartbreaking succession of police shootings and racially motivated killings. He often invoked the notion of grace -- never more indelibly than in Charleston, S.C., after a white supremacist gunned down nine people, all African Americans, during a prayer service at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church." ...

... Ashley Parker & Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "The uproar [over Trump's support of white supremacists] -- which has consumed not only the White House but the Republican Party -- left [Chief of Staff John] Kelly deeply frustrated and dismayed just over two weeks into his job, said people familiar with his thinking. The episode also underscored the difficult challenges that even a four-star general faces in instilling a sense of order around Trump, whose first instinct when cornered is to lash out, even self-destructively.... Some aides and confidants privately described themselves as sickened and appalled, if not entirely surprised, by Trump's off-the-cuff comments. And the president watched, furious, as a cascade of chief executives distanced themselves from him, prompting the dissolution of his major business advisory councils.... Those close to [top economic advisor Gary] Cohn described him as 'disgusted' and 'frantically unhappy,' although he did not threaten to resign." ...

... Gail Collins: "Admit it -- during the campaign you did not consider the possibility that if a terrible tragedy struck the country involving all of our worst political ghosts of the past plus neo-Nazism, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz would know the appropriate thing to say but Donald Trump would have no idea. George W. Bush would have been at the funeral for the slain civil rights demonstrator in a second. About the best Trump could do was to praise Heather Heyer's mother, Susan Bro, for writing 'the nicest things' about him. Bro did indeed express appreciation for the president's denunciation of 'those who promote violence and hatred.' That was his written-by-someone-else statement, which preceded the despicable impromptu version."

... Marc Fisher of the Washington Post: "From his first public controversy in the 1970s, when the federal government sued Trump and his father over discriminatory rental practices in their New York real estate empire, to the opening salvo in his 2016 presidential campaign, when he said that Mexicans entering the United States were criminals and 'rapists,' Trump has regularly fanned the flames of racial controversies.... Those who've worked with Trump for many years say he also has a history of making rough, stereotyping comments about racial minorities. John O'Donnell, who was president of Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, said Trump blamed blacks for his financial problems.... 'The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.... Laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is; I believe that. It's not anything they can control.'"

     ... Lyrics by Woody Guthrie, who was a tenant of Fred Trump's, performance by Ryan Harvey.

I suppose that Old Man Trump knows just how much racial hate
He stirred up in that bloodpot of human hearts
When he drawed that color line
Here at his Beach Haven family project

... Jonathan Swan of Axios: "On Tuesday night, while Gary Cohn was fuming about President Trump's latest comments, Steve Bannon was excitedly telling friends and associates that the 'globalists' were in mass freakout mode. Today, Bannon reveled in the disbanding of the president's business council, seeing this as yet more evidence that the Trump administration is at odds with the 'Davos crowd,' as Bannon often calls these corporate elites, in a voice dripping with contempt.Bannon saw Trump's now-infamous Tuesday afternoon press conference not as the lowest point in his presidency, but as a 'defining moment,' where Trump decided to fully abandon the 'globalists' and side with 'his people.' Per a source with knowledge: 'Steve was proud of how [Trump] stood up to the braying mob of reporters' in the Tuesday press conference." ...

... Margaret Hartmann: "Previously on the Bizarro World version on The West Wing, Steve Bannon's far-right campaign to get the national security adviser [H. R. McMaster] fired appeared to be backfiring.... But Wednesday's episode ended with a shocking twist: in a call back to the dramatic departure of Anthony Scaramucci after he called The New Yorker to share some profane thoughts about his co-workers, Bannon called Robert Kuttner of The American Prospect and shared his own unfiltered, possibly career-ending musings." Hartmann reports various theories about what Bannon game was. ...

... Robert Kuttner of the American Prospect was "stunned" to get an unsolicited email from Steve Bannon's aide requesting a meeting re: U.S.-China trade policy. A phone interview ensued: "Contrary to Trump's threat of fire and fury, Bannon said: 'There’s no military solution [to North Korea's nuclear threats], forget it....'... Bannon explained that his strategy is to battle the trade doves inside the administration while building an outside coalition of trade hawks that includes left as well as right.... He dismissed the far right as irrelevant and sidestepped his own role in cultivating it: 'Ethno-nationalism -- it's losers. It's a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more.' 'These guys are a collection of clowns,' he added. From his lips to Trump's ear. 'The Democrats,' he said, 'the longer they talk about identity politics, I got 'em. I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats.'" ...

... Jonathan Chait questions the rationales of Trump's aides who have tried to cover up his rampant racism & other horrible views. ...

Nolan McCaskill & Marc Caputo of Politico: "Attorney General Jeff Sessions came to Miami to trash Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. In a 30-minute speech on Wednesday criticizing Chicago's 'sanctuary city' policy, Sessions used Miami-Dade County as a foil to accuse Emanuel of neglecting murder rates associated with undocumented immigrants and putting federal funds at risk.... Sessions rebutted the claim from Chicago officials that sanctuary-city policies help reduce crime by pointing to a lack of evidence and the city's low murder investigation clearance rate.... Emanuel responded swiftly, vowing not to 'cave to the Trump administration's pressure' because they are morally, factually and legally wrong.... Miami-Dade County in January went out of its way to accommodate ... Donald Trump's new policy by agreeing to honor detainee requests for all inmates booked into the county jail."

Trump Wars. Episode 4: A New Hope. Jeff Zeleny, et al., of CNN: "Senior communications adviser Hope Hicks has been named as the interim White House communications director, a White House official told pool reporters Wednesday. The official added in a statement that the administration will 'make an announcement on a permanent communications director at the appropriate time.' The role of communications director has been vacant since Anthony Scaramucci was ousted from the position shortly after John Kelly took over as chief of staff last month.... The White House has had difficulty filling the role of communications director." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Akhilleus: "Difficulty filling the role...?" I wonder why. So here we have another rank amateur taking over one of the most important jobs in any administration. I'm sure her experience working on fashion lines and resort PR projects will come in handy. "Nazis in Charlottesville? Oh, I don't know about Nazis, but over here we have a lovely champagne pink peignoir, an Ivanka original, sure to make the little woman in your life feel desirable!" Poor Hope. More Trump chum. And I don't mean as a buddy. Her primary job, if I remember correctly, was printing out online stories about Trump's greatness and circling his name in yellow hi-liter to comfort his roiling ego. The Trump White House is rapidly coming to resemble a crumbling monarchy in its last days, the dyspeptic, paranoid monarch cutting off heads right and left, and surrounding himself with obsequious, sycophantic lackeys who help pour boiling oil on the heads of peasants trying to storm the castle.

Li Zhou & John Hendel of Politico: "Antitrust lawyer Joseph Simons is ... Donald Trump's pick to lead the Federal Trade Commission, according to three people familiar with the decision. Simons is co-chairman of the antitrust group at the law firm Paul Weiss and served as director of the FTC's competition bureau during the George W. Bush administration."

Perry Stein of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration has dismantled aspects of Obama's legacy, big and small -- including the Capital Bikeshare station that was installed on the White House grounds at the request of the Obama administration."

John Solomon of the Hill: "Julian Assange told a U.S. congressman on Tuesday he can prove the leaked Democratic Party documents he published during last year's election did not come from Russia and promised additional helpful information about the leaks in the near future. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican who is friendly to Russia and chairs an important House subcommittee on Eurasia policy, became the first American congressman to meet with Assange during a three-hour private gathering at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where the WikiLeaks founder has been holed up for years. Rohrabacher recounted his conversation with Assange to The Hill.... Rohrabacher said he had information to share privately with ...Donald Trump. Assange has suggested in the past that Russia wasn't the source of his leaked information. Tuesday marked the first time he has engaged with a U.S. lawmaker."

Ari Berman of Mother Jones: "On Tuesday..., a federal court ruled that congressional districts drawn by Texas Republicans after the 2010 election were enacted with 'racially discriminatory intent' against Latino and African American voters. This is the seventh time since 2011 that a federal court has found that Texas intentionally discriminated against minority voters, through its redistricting plans and strict voter ID law. This repeated finding of intentional discrimination means that federal courts could once again require Texas to clear any changes to voting laws or procedures with the federal government -- a requirement that was in place until the Supreme Court struck down part of the Voting Rights Act in 2013." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Margaret Hartmann: "The mayor of Phoenix, Arizona said on Wednesday that one good way to keep the peace would be delaying a visit from the president. Hours earlier, President Trump promoted his Phoenix rally, which is scheduled for Tuesday night.... Mayor Greg Stanton, a Democrat, released a statement saying he's 'disappointed' that Trump is holding a campaign rally so soon after the violence in Charlottesville, and requesting that he delay the visit. He added that if President Trump is coming to Phoenix to pardon Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of criminal contempt for defying an order to stop using racial profiling, then it will be clear that his true intent is to enflame emotions and further divide our nation.'"

... Beyond the Beltway

Janell Ross, et al., of the Washington Post: "City officials across the country are nervously trying to figure out how to avoid becoming the next Charlottesville as alt-right leaders and white nationalist groups vow to stage more rallies in coming days.... Cities also are grappling with what to do about their Confederate monuments, an issue that has suddenly become much more urgent.... Violence is at the center of the concerns, and the Charlottesville rally showed law enforcement authorities that they need to be better prepared. Darrel Stephens, executive director of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, noted that many of the people who came to Charlottesville wore helmets and carried shields. 'These guys, the shields that they showed up with ... you don't bring that stuff to a demonstration to just express a view,' Stephens said. 'You bring that there prepared for violence. Why else would you have them?'... Colleges have been resisting attempts to have rallies on their campuses, and in the days after the Charlottesville violence, schools including Texas A&M and the University of Florida canceled events tied to white nationalist groups that were scheduled for the week of Sept. 11." ...

... Erin Edgemon of al.com: "The Alabama Attorney General's Office has filed a lawsuit against the city of Birmingham and Mayor William Bell for violating state law and covering a Confederate monument in Linn Park.... Bell told reporters Wednesday afternoon that the city's legal department reviewed the law. He said the plywood barrier doesn't break the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act.... Following the violent incident involving white supremacists and counter protesters in Charlottesville, Va., Bell said the plywood barrier was installed to protect the monument from possible vandalism from either side.... The Alabama Memorial Preservation Act, passed by the Alabama Legislature and signed into law in 2017, prohibits the relocation, removal, alteration, renaming, or other disturbance of any architecturally significant building, memorial building, memorial street, or monument located on public property which has been in place for 40 or more years, the AG's office stated."

The Commentariat -- August 16, 2017

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Jena McGregor of the Washington Post: "President Trump's relationship with the American business community suffered a major setback on Wednesday as the president was forced to shut down his major business advisory councils after corporate leaders repudiated his comments on the violence in Charlottesville this weekend. A slew of corporate chieftans announced they were resigning from the councils in recent days after they said Trump was slow to condemn white supremacy groups. On Twitter, Trump said it was his decision to disband both councils. 'Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum. I am ending both,' he tweeted." At 1:30 pm, this is a breaking news story, which is likely to be expanded later. ...

... David Gelles, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump's main council of top corporate leaders disbanded on Wednesday following the president's controversial remarks in which he equated white nationalist hate groups with the protesters opposing them. Soon after, the president announced on Twitter that he would end his executive councils, 'rather than put pressure' on executives. The quick sequence began late Wednesday morning when Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chief executive of the Blackstone Group and one of Mr. Trump's closest confidants in the business community, organized a conference call for members of the president's Strategic and Policy Forum. After a discussion among a dozen prominent C.E.O.s, the decision was made to abandon the group altogether, said people with knowledge of the details of the call." ...

... Dan Diamond of Politico: "The president's tweet followed the announcements Wednesday that the leaders of Minnesota-based 3M and Campbell Soup had quit his manufacturing council, while a second strategic and advisory group was on the verge of collapse. 'Racism and murder are unequivocally reprehensible and are not morally equivalent to anything else that happened in Charlottesville,' said Denise Morrison, the head of Campbell Soup, who became the 8th executive to announce in a statement that she was leaving the manufacturing council.... Inge Thulin, the CEO of Minnesota-based 3M, announced earlier in the day that he was leaving the manufacturing council." ...

... Patti Domm & Jacob Pramuk of CNBC: "Members of ... Donald Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum have agreed to disband the group, sources told CNBC, as corporate backlash mounts against the president. The business advisory council made up of top business leaders is separate from Trump's manufacturing council, which several business leaders left this week.... After the members agreed to disband and condemn Trump's statements, the president said he would end both the Strategic and Policy Forum and the manufacturing council." ...

... Russell Berman of the Atlantic: "After Trump finished speaking [Tuesday], the rebukes from congressional Republicans started rolling in all over again. Some, like Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Representative Will Hurd of Texas, criticized the president directly in tweets and statements. Others, like House Speaker Paul Ryan, withheld Trump's name even if their target was obvious. 'We must be clear. White supremacy is repulsive,' Ryan tweeted. 'This bigotry is counter to all this country stands for. There can be no moral ambiguity.'"

Trump Wars. Episode 4: A New Hope. Jeff Zeleny, et al., of CNN: "Senior communications adviser Hope Hicks has been named as the interim White House communications director, a White House official told pool reporters Wednesday. The official added in a statement that the administration will 'make an announcement on a permanent communications director at the appropriate time.' The role of communications director has been vacant since Anthony Scaramucci was ousted from the position shortly after John Kelly took over as chief of staff last month.... The White House has had difficulty filling the role of communications director." ...

     ... Akhilleus: "Difficulty filling the role...?" I wonder why. So here we have another rank amateur taking over one of the most important jobs in any administration. I'm sure her experience working on fashion lines and resort PR projects will come in handy. "Nazis in Charlottesville? Oh, I don't know about Nazis, but over here we have a lovely champagne pink peignoir, an Ivanka original, sure to make the little woman in your life feel desirable!" Poor Hope. More Trump chum. And I don't mean as a buddy. Her primary job, if I remember correctly, was printing out online stories about Trump's greatness and circling his name in yellow hi-liter to comfort his roiling ego. The Trump White House is rapidly coming to resemble a crumbling monarchy in its last days, the dyspeptic, paranoid monarch cutting off heads right and left, and surrounding himself with obsequious, sycophantic lackeys who help pour boiling oil on the heads of peasants trying to storm the castle.

Ari Berman of Mother Jones: "On Tuesday..., a federal court ruled that congressional districts drawn by Texas Republicans after the 2010 election were enacted with 'racially discriminatory intent' against Latino and African American voters. This is the seventh time since 2011 that a federal court has found that Texas intentionally discriminated against minority voters, through its redistricting plans and strict voter ID law. This repeated finding of intentional discrimination means that federal courts could once again require Texas to clear any changes to voting laws or procedures with the federal government -- a requirement that was in place until the Supreme Court struck down part of the Voting Rights Act in 2013."

*****

Michael Shear & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump angrily defended himself on Tuesday against criticism that he did not specifically condemn Nazi and white supremacist groups following the weekend's deadly racial unrest in Virginia.... In a long, combative exchange with reporters at Trump Tower in Manhattan, the president repeatedly rejected a torrent of bipartisan criticism for waiting several days before naming the right-wing groups and placing blame on 'many sides' for the violence on Saturday that ended with the death of a young woman after a car crashed into a crowd.... And he criticized 'alt-left' groups that he claimed were 'very, very violent' when they sought to confront the nationalist and Nazi groups that had gathered in Charlottesville, Va., to protest the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee from a park. He said there is 'blame on both sides.' 'Many of those people were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee,' Mr. Trump said. 'This week, it is Robert E. Lee and this week, Stonewall Jackson. Is it George Washington next? You have to ask yourself, where does it stop?' he said, noting that the first American president had owned slaves.... The president's breathtaking statements inflamed and stunned people across Twitter...." ...

... David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "President Trump said Tuesday that counterprotesters at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville acted violently and should share the blame for the mayhem that left a woman dead and many injured.... 'You had a group on one side that was bad and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent,' Trump said. 'No one wants to say that, but I'll say it right now: You had a group on the other side that came charging in without a permit and they were very, very violent.'... Trump called the driver of the car that killed counterprotester Heather Heyer, 32, and injured 19 a 'disgrace to himself, his family and the country,' but he stopped short of declaring the action a case of 'domestic terrorism,' calling that an exercise in semantics.... David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, praised Mr. Trump's comments as a condemnation of 'leftist terrorists.'" ...

     ... Politico has a rush transcript of Trump's remarks. ...

... Andrew Rafferty, et al., of NBC News: "A senior White House official told NBC News Tuesday that President Trump wasn't supposed to answer any questions <>Monday [Tuesday]. His team went into the event with the understanding that they would discuss infrastructure only and the president would take no questions.... But once in front of reporters, the president 'went rogue,' the official said, and members of the team were stunned by the president's actions." ...

... Max Greenwood of the Hill: "National Economic Council director Gary Cohn is said to be deeply dismayed by President Trump's statements in the wake of the violence at a white nationalist demonstration in Charlottesville, Va. The New York Times' White House correspondents Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush tweeted Tuesday that Cohn is upset with the president's comments over the past four days, but is not planning to leave the administration.... Cohn, who is Jewish, is considered among the more moderate voices in Trump's White House." ...

John Kelly, WH chief of staff, listen as President Donald Trump speaks at Trump Tower lobby this afternoon. pic.twitter.com/EBNPx1UJbv -- Al Drago August 15, 2017

... Molly Ball of the Atlantic: "On Tuesday evening, a few hours after the president's inflammatory press conference defending white nationalist protesters in Charlottesville, the [White House communications] office issued an 'evening communications briefing [to Republican members of Congress].... It encourages members to echo the president's line, contending that '[The president was entirely correct --] both sides ... acted inappropriately, and bear some responsibility.'" Ball includes a complete transcript of the talking points. ...

... Glenn Thrush & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump buoyed the white nationalist movement on Tuesday as no president has done in generations -- equating activists protesting racism with the neo-Nazis and white supremacists who rampaged in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend. Never has he gone as far in defending their actions as he did during a wild, street-corner shouting-match of a news conference in the gilded lobby of Trump Tower, angrily asserting that so-called alt-left activists were just as responsible for the bloody confrontation as marchers brandishing swastikas, Confederate battle flags, anti-Semitic banners and 'Trump/Pence' signs.... Members of the president's staff, stunned and disheartened, said they never expected to hear such a voluble articulation of opinions that the president had long expressed in private.... Since the 1960s, Republican politicians have made muscular appeals to white voters, especially those in the South, on broad cultural grounds. But as a rule, they have taken a hard line on the party's racist, nativist and anti-Semitic fringe. Ronald Reagan, George Bush and George W. Bush roundly condemned white supremacists." ...

... John Bowden of the Hill: "Cory Keenan, who worked for [President] Obama from 2007 to 2017, joked on Twitter that a bad presidential press conference used to mean wearing a tan suit -- a reference to a widely mocked White House press briefing in 2014, during which Obama wore a tan suit."

... Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "... Donald Trump does not have plans to visit Charlottesville, Virginia in the wake of the the white-supremacist and neo-Nazi gathering that took place in the city over the weekend.... Two senior Trump aides, speaking on the condition of anonymity..., had earlier told The Daily Beast that there was no serious sign that West Wing staffers were even exploring a Charlottesville visit at this point. 'Why the hell would we do that?' one White House official bluntly said, stating that whatever the president did in Charlottesville at this stage would be 'used against' him by critics and media voices." ...

... Rob Tornoe of philly.com: "A fourth CEO has announced he is walking away from President Trump's American Manufacturing Council over Trump's initially muted response to racial violence in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend that was fueled by groups promoting white supremacy, putting pressure on the remaining executives ... to do the same. Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, said on Twitter he was leaving the panel because 'it's the right thing for me to do.'... Paul announced his decision Tuesday, minutes after Trump lashed out at the other executives who have chosen to withdraw from his council, labeling them 'grandstanders.'" ...

... Erica Pandey of Axios: "Richard Trumka, the CEO of AFL-CIO, along with AFL-CIO's deputy chief of staff, Thea Lee, stepped down Tuesday evening from Trump's manufacturing council, claiming that Trump's remarks this afternoon about the violence on 'both sides' in Charlottesville 'repudiate his forced remarks yesterday about the KKK and neo-Nazis.'" ...

You had a group on one side that was bad and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent. And nobody wants to say that. But I'll say that right now. You had a group on the other side that came charging in -- without a permit -- and they were very, very violent.... You had people ... who were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name. -- Donald Trump, Tuesday

... Amy Sorkin of the New Yorker: "The bad group was the white nationalists; the 'very violent' group was those who had come to object.... Trump wasn't putting the two sides on the same level; he was saying that the counter-protesters were worse. His outrage at the counter-protesters' lack of a permit stood out all the more, given that he had spent the beginning of the briefing, which was meant to be about infrastructure..., complaining about how permits slowed down him and other builders. He promised to do away with as many as he could.... Trump didn't pause to ask why the statue of Robert E. Lee would be so very, very important, nor did he mention the other name: Emancipation Park. Instead, he had reduced a moral crossroads for the country to a question of naming rights." ...

... Mehdi Hasan of the Intercept: "Much of the frenzied media coverage of what CNN dubbed '48 hours of turmoil for the Trump White House' has overlooked one rather crucial point: Trump doesn't like being forced to denounce racism for the very simple reason that he himself is, and always has been, a racist.... Over ... four decades, Trump burnished his reputation as a bigot.... Yes, the U.S. has had plenty of presidents in recent decades who have dog-whistled to racists and bigots, and even incited hate against minorities ... but there has never been a modern president so personally steeped in racist prejudices, so unashamed to make bigoted remarks in public and with such a long and well-documented record of racial discrimination." Hasan documents Trump's record. So can we stop playing this game where journalists demand Trump condemns people he agrees with and Trump then pretends to condemn them in the mildest of terms?" ...

Paul Dallison of Politico: "U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday added her voice to criticisms of Donald Trump over his response to the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, the Telegraph reported.... Speaking in Portsmouth[, England,] at a ceremony to mark the arrival of a new aircraft carrier, May said: 'I see no equivalence between those who propound fascist views and those who oppose them. I think it is important for all those in positions of responsibility to condemn far-right views wherever we hear them.'" ...

... Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: "For a few visceral minutes on Tuesday, television’s partisan lines dissolved as dumbfounded anchors reacted on-air -- some in clearly personal ways -- to Mr. Trump's fiery remarks, in which the president seemed to cast equal blame on white supremacists and the demonstrators who marched against them during the weekend’s deadly clash in Charlottesville, Va. On Fox News, normally a redoubt of Trump support, the 5 p.m. co-hosts of 'The Specialists' shook their heads, with the anchor Guy Benson saying that Mr. Trump 'lost me' when he insisted that some 'very fine people' participated in the white supremacist rally.... His co-host, [Kat] Timpf, a conservative pundit who contributes to National Review Online, exhaled deeply. 'It was one of the biggest messes that I've ever seen,' she said. 'I can't believe it happened.' Disbelief dominated the early reaction on CNN and MSNBC, too.... Later, the network evening newscasts ran long, unexpurgated clips of Mr. Trump's appearance, rather than the usual short clips. CBS devoted its entire half-hour 'Evening News' to the president's comments and the aftermath of the weekend's rioting." ...

... Negassi Tesfamichael of Politico: "The status of Steve Bannon's job is still undecided..., Donald Trump said on Tuesday, amid an ongoing review of White House staffing and as his chief strategist has become increasingly isolated in the West Wing. 'We'll see what happens with Mr. Bannon,' Trump said at a news conference on infrastructure at Trump Tower in New York City. 'He is a good person, and I think the press treats him frankly unfairly.'" ...

... Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker: "If Trump finally pushes Bannon out of the White House, the nationalist policy project will be all but dead. The new chief of staff, John Kelly, is far more moderate on immigration and has pushed Trump to abandon the idea of a physical border wall. Economic policy will be fully under the control of Cohn, and the heretical idea of raising taxes on the wealthy will have no champion. Trump himself has always been more animated by the xenophobia of Bannonism than by its populist economic views. A Trump White House without Bannon will be no more radical in its coddling of far-right groups -- [Tuesday], Trump showed again that he needs no encouragement -- but it will be more captured by the traditional small-government agenda of the G.O.P. that Bannon hoped to destroy."

... Jessica Schulberg of the Huffington Post: "Weeks before a violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, led to three deaths and 19 injuries, the Trump administration revoked a grant to Life After Hate, a group that works to de-radicalize neo-Nazis. The Department of Homeland Security had awarded the group $400,000 as part of its Countering Violent Extremism program in January, just days before former President Barack Obama left office.... Trump aides, including Katharine Gorka, a controversial national security analyst known for her anti-Muslim rhetoric, were already working toward eliminating Life After Hate's grant and to direct all funding toward fighting what the president has described as 'radical Islamic terrorism.'... Gorka and her husband, Sebastian Gorka, also a Trump White House official, have collaborated on numerous writings about the threat of radical Islam.... The day after Trump won the election, Sebastian Gorka said, 'I predict with absolute certitude, the jettisoning of concepts such as CVE.... Once Trump entered the White House in January, the office of then-DHS Secretary John Kelly ordered a full review of the Countering Violent Extremism program.... While that review was underway, DHS and the FBI warned in an internal intelligence bulletin of the threat posed by white supremacy.... DHS also revoked funding from the Muslim Public Affairs Council, an American Muslim advocacy organization that was told in January it would receive a $393,800 grant to create community resource centers throughout the country." ...

... Bob Moser of the New Republic: "Unite the Right, the 'alt-right' rally in Charlottesville that attracted the largest contingent of white supremacists in recent American history ... -- had everything to do with ... Donald Trump. This was not a rally in support of a Confederate statue; as The Atlantic's Matt Thompson put it, it was a 'pride march' for America's resurgent white supremacists.... The ideology on parade not only has official sanction and mainstream respectability in 2017; it also happens to be the ideology of the president of the United States. 'From this day forward a new vision will govern our land,' Trump promised in his apocalyptic 'American Carnage' inaugural address. 'From this day forward, it's only going to be America first, America first.' It was, as Slate's Jamelle Bouie wrote, the 'one real, coherent defining theme for his administration -- the only thing that counts is America. And the only Americans who count are white.'" ...

... Jamelle Bouie: "It's clear from all accounts of the violence in Virginia that the 'Unite the Right' demonstrators came heavily armed and prepared for conflict, chanting racist slogans and antagonizing counterprotesters. For Trump, however, the opposite was true. It was counterprotesters who came charging with 'clubs,' attacking the white supremacists and neo-Nazis.... Comparing Robert E. Lee to George Washington also reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the issues at stake.... Those statues [of Lee & other Confederate "heroes"] weren't placed as historical markers. The vast majority were erected decades after the end of the Civil War, built to valorize the Confederacy and mark the establishment of Jim Crow. It's no accident they were placed in parks and other prominent spaces near courthouses and seats of government. They marked and memorialized white supremacy, and served as a warning to anyone -- black or white -- who would challenge it. Confederate 'heroes' like Robert E. Lee hold no historical significance outside the Confederacy and the myth of the 'Lost Cause.' To erect monuments in their honor is to celebrate both." ...

... Tom Kludt of CNN: "Months before a man allegedly turned his vehicle into a weapon and plowed through a group of protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, an article that made the rounds in conservative media encouraged readers to do something similar. Originally published by The Daily Caller and later syndicated or aggregated by several other websites, including Fox Nation, an offshoot of Fox News' website, it carried an unsubtle headline: 'Here's A Reel Of Cars Plowing Through Protesters Trying To Block The Road.' Embedded in the article was a minute-and-a-half long video showing one vehicle after another driving through demonstrations. The footage was set to a cover of Ludacris' 'Move Bitch.'... As the outrage grew on Twitter, Fox News took action, deleting the version Fox Nation had published.... Within hours, the Daily Caller had deleted the original post. That version had been published by Mike Raust, who was then a video editor at The Daily Caller.... Lawmakers in several states have proposed laws this year intended to ease the liability for drivers who hit protesters. A bill in North Dakota's state legislature ... failed to pass in February." ...

... Sean Welsh & Colin Campbell of the Baltimore Sun: "Confederate statues in Baltimore were removed from their bases overnight, as crews using heavy machinery loaded them onto flat bed trucks and hauled them away, an end to more than a year of indecision surrounding what to do with the memorials. The action comes after Mayor Catherine Pugh pledged to remove four statues linked to the Confederacy from public spaces in the city and the Baltimore City Council unanimously passed a resolution to tear them down after a national conversation was renewed following a deadly act of terror during a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. on Saturday.... The quick overnight action was designed in part to avoid violent conflicts over their removal like what Charlottesville experience." The statues the city took down were vandalized effigies of "Robert E. Lee & 'Stonewall' Jackson Monument at Wyman Park Dell near Johns Hopkins University..., the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Mount Royal Avenue, the Confederate Women's Monument on West University Parkway and the Roger B. Taney Monument on Mount Vernon Place. Gov. Larry Hogan on Tuesday said the long-debated statue to Taney -- the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who ruled in the Dred Scott case -- at the State House in Annapolis should come down."

Robert Pear & Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "Premiums for the most popular health insurance plans would shoot up 20 percent next year, and federal budget deficits would increase by $194 billion in the coming decade if President Trump carries out his threat to end certain subsidies paid to insurance companies for the benefit of low-income people, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday. The subsidies reimburse insurers for reducing deductibles, co-payments and other out-of-pocket costs that low-income people pay when they visit doctors, fill prescriptions or receive care in hospitals. Even before efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act collapsed in the Senate last month, Mr. Trump began threatening to cut off the subsidies, called cost-sharing reductions. He said the health care law would 'implode' and Democrats would have no choice but to negotiate a replacement plan. Mr. Trump described his strategy as, 'Let Obamacare implode, then deal.'"

Louis Nelson of Politico: "... Donald Trump lashed out again Wednesday morning at the online retailer Amazon.... 'Amazon is doing great damage to tax paying retailers. Towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt - many jobs being lost!' the president wrote online just after 6 a.m. Wednesday morning.... The president's tax-related allegations against Amazon are unclear, since the company has been collecting sales tax in each state that has one since the beginning of April.... Trump has also made a regular habit of attacking Amazon over its connection to The Washington Post...."

Andrew Kramer & Andrew Higgins of the New York Times: A Ukrainian "hacker, known only by his online alias 'Profexer...,' wrote computer code ... and quietly sold his handiwork on the anonymous portion of the internet known as the Dark Web. Last winter, he suddenly went dark entirely. Profexer's posts, already accessible only to a small band of fellow hackers and cybercriminals looking for software tips, blinked out in January -- just days after American intelligence agencies publicly identified a program he had written as one tool used in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee. But while Profexer's online persona vanished, a flesh-and-blood person has emerged: a fearful man who the Ukrainian police said turned himself in early this year, and has now become a witness for the F.B.I.... There is no evidence that Profexer worked, at least knowingly, for Russia's intelligence services, but his malware apparently did.... It does not suggest a compact team of [Russian] government employees who write all their own code and carry out attacks..., but rather a far looser enterprise that draws on talent and hacking tools wherever they can be found."

Choe Sang-Hun of the New York Times: "With his public alarmed by President Trump's recent threats to North Korea, President Moon Jae-in of South Korea issued an unusually blunt rebuke to the United States on Tuesday, warning that any unilateral military action against the North over its nuclear weapons program would be intolerable. 'No one should be allowed to decide on a military action on the Korean Peninsula without South Korean agreement,' Mr. Moon said in a nationally televised speech. As a candidate for the presidency, Mr. Moon, a liberal who took office in May, said he would 'say no to the Americans' if necessary. But he has aligned South Korea more closely with its military ally than many had expected. Though he suspended the deployment of a United States missile defense system opposed by China, he reversed that decision last month after North Korea tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles."

Jessica Estepa of USA Today: "President Trump's re-election campaign said CNN had blocked its latest campaign ad, accusing the network of censorship. But the network said it has not rejected the ad.... The ad in question blasts Democrats, the media and career politicians. Additionally, it implies that members of the media are 'the president's enemies.' During a voiceover using that phrase, the ad features clips of journalists, many of whom work for CNN.... 'Today, CNN provided further proof that the network earns this mistrust every day by censoring President Trump's message to the American people by blocking our paid campaign ad,' [Trump campaign executive director Michael Glassner] said in a statement. 'Clearly, the only viewpoint CNN allows on the air is CNN's.'... According to the network, it verbally asked for changes in order to make the ad factual, something it does with all ads. The campaign asked for the change requests to be made in writing, but according to CNN, it then issued a press release before CNN sent over the changes. A CNN spokesperson said, 'CNN would accept the ad if the images of reporters and anchors are removed. Anchors and reporters don't have "enemies," as the ad states, but they do hold those in power accountable across the political spectrum and aggressively challenge false and misleading statements and investigate wrong-doing.'..."

Rafael Bernal of the Hill: "Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) and about 30 other protesters were arrested Tuesday outside the White House during a rally commemorating the fifth anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Gutiérrez, a vocal advocate for immigrant rights, was arrested after he and other protesters sat on the White House sidewalk. The rally was being held at Lafayette Square across Pennsylvania Avenue. Doug Rivlin, a spokesman for Gutiérrez, said the congressman was taken by U.S. Park Police, who have jurisdiction over the area surrounding the White House."

Senate Race

Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "Republican voters [in Alabama] put a bitter Senate campaign into overtime, forcing Sen. Luther Strange (R-Ala.) into a runoff with conservative jurist Roy Moore for the right to represent Attorney General Jeff Sessions's old seat. Strange was endorsed by President Trump, the National Rifle Association and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's super PAC, which spent $2.5 million on TV ads to boost him in Tuesday's primary. That helped push him past Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), saving national Republicans from an embarrassment in a unique mid-summer election marked by low turnout. Democrats, who have not won a Senate race in Alabama since 1992, nominated former U.S. attorney Doug Jones over a field of fringe candidates, according to a projection by the Associated Press."

Employment Opportunity

Posted by Akhilleus

JOB LISTING: Federal Government Posting: Attorney General of the United States. Apply White House.

REQUIREMENTS: Do what you're told. Step on minorities. Degrade women. Excoriate LGBTQ community. Find legal (or not) ways to screw people who won't vote for Republicans. Attack voting rights. Prosecute leakers. Vilify the media. Do what you're told. Cover president's ass at all times. Forget recusals, no matter what. Never investigate president. Ever. Take any and all legal bullets meant for White House. Never utter the word "Russian" except when ordering a drink. Never admit anything to Democrats in congress. Do what you're told.

EXPERIENCE: None required (see Secretary of Energy, State, Education, Housing and Urban Development, EPA, Treasury, Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, etc.)

QUALIFICATIONS: Knowledge of law or the Constitution not needed. Primary qualification is unquestioning obedience and mindless loyalty to the Leader. He will provide any and all legal justifications needed to fulfill job requirements. Trust him. He knows all the best laws.

Additional: Pay no attention to the way the current AG is being treated. It's all fake news. If you qualify, you won't have to worry about being publicly humiliated, thrown under multiple buses, called names, lied about, or have your judgement and mental capacity challenged. That's a promise.

Salary: TBD--based on loyalty (with "small" kickback to president for re-election campaign fund and assorted "philanthropic" organizations, Donald J. Trump Foundation, eg.)

Perks: Dwell in the presence of greatness. Inside tips on hair coloring and the best self-tanning products.