;)
The Commentariat -- November 1, 2016
Afternoonish Update:
WTF? Tom LoBianco of CNN: "The FBI on Tuesday -- one week from Election Day -- released heavily redacted files from its 2001 investigation of President Bill Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich.... The release was posted on Twitter by @FBIRecordsVault, an account that posts material from FOIA requests on subjects of public interest.... Prior to Sunday, however, the account hadn't tweeted since October 2015.... Bill Clinton pardoned Rich on his last day in office, one of his most controversial decisions as president. 'Absent a (Freedom of Information Act) litigation deadline, this is odd. Will FBI be posting docs on Trump's housing discrimination in '70s?' tweeted Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Clinton's campaign." Comey had pursued Rich when Rich was a fugitive from the U.S. Thanks to BobbyLee for the heads-up. -- CW: Looking forward to seeing a link to the Starr Report prominently placed on the FBI's home page. And more pix of the blue dress, please. ...
... It Gets Worse. Dara Lind of Vox: "... federal investigators ultimately concluded that the Clintons hadn't done anything wrong. That federal investigation, incidentally, was supervised by then-US Attorney James Comey.... The problem is that the documents the FBI just released don't actually establish that there wasn't any wrongdoing -- because they don't cover the end of the investigation. This is 'part 1' of the document dump (presumably other parts will be released later). Instead, what we get are 64 entirely redacted pages, followed by 100 heavily redacted pages -- with the exception of passages outlining Clinton's pardon of Rich, and saying 'it appears that the required pardon standards and procedures were not followed.'" CW: The unusual release is just a coincidence, I'm sure.
Matt Apuzzo & Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "A federal judge has rejected the settlement of a lawsuit stemming from the New York Police Department's surveillance of Muslims, saying the proposed deal does not provide enough oversight of an agency that he said had shown a 'systemic inclination' to ignore rules protecting free speech and religion." -- CW
What Is Wrong with Us? Liam Stack & Christine Hauser of the New York Times: "Adam Crapser was adopted from South Korea nearly four decades ago, but today he languishes in an immigration detention center in Washington State awaiting deportation because his American parents never filed citizenship paperwork for him.... According to the Adoptee Rights Campaign, an advocacy group, there are about 35,000 people in the United States who were adopted by American couples as children but who do not have citizenship." -- CW
*****
Presidential Race
** "Comey's Blunder Could Make Trump President." Jonathan Chait of New York: "We don't know yet if James Comey's surprise Friday announcement will reshape the race in a similar fashion. But it is entirely plausible to believe that it will. He has revived Clinton's ethics and alleged illegality as the front-and-center question before the voters in the race's final week. To assume Comey's statement will have no effect, as many hopeful Clinton supporters do, is to assume the voters will respond in a way they have not responded before.... It is vanishingly unlikely that Comey had any intent to sway the electorate." --safari ...
... Mark Hensch of the Hill: "... Donald Trump has overtaken ... Hillary Clinton for the first time since May in the ABC News/Washington Post tracking poll. Trump has a 1-point lead over the former secretary of State, 46 to 45 percent, as of Tuesday morning.... Clinton led Trump by 1 point, 46 percent to 45 percent, in the same poll over the weekend. She held a 12-point lead, 50 to 38 percent, in the poll just more than one week ago." Emphasis added. -- CW ...
... Nate Silver: "We got another set of mixed results on Monday on whether the election has tightened further as a result of FBI Director James Comey's letter to Congress about Hillary Clinton's email server. Overall, however, this is a fairly negative set of data for Clinton." -- CW ...
... Greg Sargent speculates on what may happen if Clinton wins a close election. -- CW ...
... Ruby Cramer of BuzzFeed: "Eight days from the election, Hillary Clinton's closing argument now includes a brief aside: 'We are about to enter the final week of this election.... But let me start with this: I am sure a lot of you may be asking what this new email story is about...;.' Kicking off the first of two rallies here in Ohio, during one of her final swings through the crucial battleground state, Clinton diverted from a speech targeting Donald Trump's foreign policy credentials to address the new headlines about the FBI and her private email server." -- CW ...
... John Wagner, et al., of the Washington Post: "Top aides for Hillary Clinton on Monday accused FBI Director James Comey of a 'double standard' in his handling of the investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server as secretary of state. Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook called on Comey to explain why he rushed to disclose new information about the status of the investigation into Clinton, while reportedly opposing, on the grounds that it would be too close to the election, a public statement by the FBI that the Russian government was seeking the influence the presidential race. 'It is impossible to view this as anything less than a blatant double standard,' Mook said.... Clinton's press secretary, Brian Fallon, said that Comey 'set a standard for narrating a play-by-play for matters involving Hillary Clinton,' but has not set the same standard for inquiries into Russian hacking and potential ties to Republican nominee Donald Trump's campaign. 'Director Comey owes the public an explanation for this inconsistency,' Fallon said." -- CW ...
... Patrick Caldwell of Mother Jones elaborates on the Clinton campaign's conference call with reporters." -- CW ...
... ** The Guardian's story, by Dan Roberts & others, is here. ...
... ** Eamon Javers of CNBC: "FBI Director James Comey argued privately that it was too close to Election Day for the United States government to name Russia as meddling in the U.S. election and ultimately ensured that the FBI's name was not on the document that the U.S. government put out, a former bureau official tells CNBC. The official said some government insiders are perplexed as to why Comey would have election timing concerns with the Russian disclosure but not with the Huma Abedin email discovery disclosure he made Friday. In the end, the Department of Homeland Security and The Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued the statement on Oct. 7." --safari (See also the WashPo's expanded story, linked below, by Sari Horwitz, et al.,.) ...
It's important that [federal] authorities are tempered by longstanding practice and norms that limit public discussion of facts that are collected in the context of those investigations.... And there are a lot of good reasons for that. The president believes that it's important for those guidelines and norms to be followed. -- John Earnest, press briefing, Monday ...
... Michael Schmidt, et al., of the New York Times: "The F.B.I. on Monday began loading a trove of emails belonging to a top aide to Hillary Clinton into a special computer program that would allow bureau analysts to determine whether they contain classified information, law enforcement officials said.... Whether they will be able to complete their review by Election Day is unclear.... Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said on Monday that the White House did not have an official position on Mr. Comey's decision to alert Congress. But Mr. Earnest came close to suggesting that President Obama saw Mr. Comey's decision as problematic." CW: Nice to know Comey gets to drop an election-altering bombshell on Friday, but he doesn't put his agents on weekend OT to clean up his mess, even as millions of Americans are voting. ...
... Sari Horwitz & Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department sent a brief letter to six lawmakers Monday, saying that the department will work closely with the FBI to take 'appropriate steps as expeditiously as possible' in the renewed investigation into emails potentially tied to Hillary Clinton's private email server. The three paragraph letter written by Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs Peter J. Kadzik said that the department and FBI will 'dedicate all necessary resources' to the investigation, but provided no further details about the contents of the emails or whether they are significant. The short statement on behalf of Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch and FBI Director James B. Comey represents an effort by the Justice Department to stabilize and assert control over a politically explosive situation....' -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... The story has been expanded. "Justice officials said there will be no further statements or news conferences about the Clinton investigation until it is completed.... Comey’s disclosure about the Clinton probe is particularly striking, national security officials said, because he had argued against the administration publicly accusing Russia of trying to meddle in the 2016 election as a move that would seem too political too close to Election Day." -- CW ...
... Ed Kilgore: "... it will be hard to unring that bell [Comey rang Friday], just as it will be difficult for Comey to make it sound like he had no choice but to toss a stink bomb into the presidential campaign in late October." -- CW ...
... Betty Cracker of Balloon Juice: "Comey is either willfully injecting himself into the presidential race, too chickenshit to stand up to partisan dickheads like Jason Chaffetz and rogue agents who allegedly threatened to leak investigation details or lacks the judgment to comprehend the effect of his actions. Whether through partisan hackery, cravenness or naiveté, he's not fit to lead the FBI." -- CW ...
... Amber Phillips of the Washington Post: "Comey's GOP critics seem to be piling up by the hour. On Monday, one of the most conservative members of Congress criticized Comey's timing. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) chairs the hard-line conservative House Freedom Caucus and has been agitating for Clinton to be investigated for perjury related to her use of a private email server. But he told told Fox News Radio: 'I think this was probably not the right thing for Comey to do -- the protocol here -- to come out this close to an election, but this whole case has been mishandled, and now it is what it is.' Jordan was the first sitting GOP member of Congress to publicly criticize Comey, a Republican appointed by President Obama. But within minutes, others joined him." -- CW
... New York Daily News Editors: "FBI Director James Comey's democracy-bending decision to inform America, 11 days before its presidential election, that the bureau is digging into a trove of additional emails demands the highest condemnation. And he must resign." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... New York Times Editors: "... thanks to Mr. Comey's breathtakingly rash and irresponsible decision, the Justice Department and F.B.I. are scrambling to process hundreds of thousands of emails to determine whether there is anything relevant in them before Nov. 8 -- all as the country stands by in suspense. This is not how federal investigations are conducted. In claiming to stand outside politics, Mr. Comey has instead created the hottest political football of the 2016 election.... In an election that has featured the obliteration of one long-accepted political or social norm after another, it is sadly fitting that one of the final and perhaps most consequential acts was to undermine the American people's trust in the nation's top law enforcement agencies." -- CW ...
... Dana Milbank: Comey has clammed up. So "let's imagine what a fully transparent Comey might say about the mess he made." Pretty funny. "What I would like to do today is tell you three things: what we did, why we did it and what we found. The answers: 'We screwed up,' 'I was trying to cover my backside' and 'Darned if I know.'" -- CW ...
... Conservative WashPo columnist Jennifer Rubin reads Comey the riot act. She even spells out what Comey could have written if he really felt such a compelling need to suck up to Congressional Republicans. As Kevin Drum points out, linked below, even crazy winger Joe Walsh tweeted that "what [Comey] just did 11 days b4 the election is wrong & unfair to Hillary." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... J. Edgar Comey. Digby in Salon: Comey has a history of bad acts going back to the Whitewater witch hunt. "... it wasn't long [after his appointment as director] until he showed that he wasn't going to adhere to the normal rules. Indeed, Comey is the first FBI director since J. Edgar Hoover to flout institutional processes, ignore scientific data and independently wield his authority however he chooses. Since taking office on 2013 he’s battled with the executive branch on sentencing reform and how to handle the Black Lives Matter movement. He's defied the White House in its attempt to create new policy on cybersecurity issues. He's gone around the country ginning up hysteria about ISIS infiltration in small-town America. And then there's the Clinton email investigation.... Law enforcement and justice officials have for years worried that his independent, authoritarian style was dangerous, making him politically unassailable in the same way that Hoover was back in the bad old days.... Unfortunately the damage [Comey did Friday] is already done. It's a mess that can be only cleaned up with Comey's resignation." -- CW ...
... Nancy LeTourneau of the Washington Monthly: "... we are witnessing the politicization of the FBI -- something that is extremely dangerous to our Constitutional order. What Comey (and AG Loretta Lynch) are now facing is something very similar to what has come to be known as the 'Saturday Night Massacre' when Attorney General Elliot Richardson resigned rather than politicize the Watergate investigation. The difference is that in that case, the pressure came from the president rather than rogue elements in the FBI. This goes way beyond what is/isn't contained in these new emails. That is why the focus has shifted from Hillary Clinton to Comey's FBI." -- CW ...
... CW BTW: If I were a minority voter, I would identify in Comey's stunt exactly what law enforcement does to me every day: rushes to cast suspicion on me because of who I am. ...
... AND Robin Lakoff, in a Time op-ed: "Emailgate is a bitch hunt, but the target is not Hillary Clinton. It's us. The only reason the whole email flap has legs is because the candidate is female. Can you imagine this happening to a man? Clinton is guilty of SWF (Speaking While Female), and emailgate is just a reminder to us all that she has no business doing what she's doing and must be punished, for the sake of all decent women everywhere.... James Comey ... has repeatedly talked down to Clinton, admonishing her as a bad parent would a 5-year-old. He has accused her of 'poor judgment' and called her use of a private email server 'extremely careless.'... If the candidate were male, there would be no scolding and no 'scandal.'" -- CW ...
... CW: I don't know how Lakoff could write that. After all, the reason we're in this mess now is that Jim Comey was not about to listen to what a black woman told him to do just because the black woman was, you know,, his boss.
Hadas Gold of Politico: "CNN says it is 'completely uncomfortable' with hacked emails showing former contributor and interim DNC chair Donna Brazile sharing questions with the Clinton campaign before a debate and a town hall during the Democratic primary, and has accepted her resignation. Hacked emails posted by WikiLeaks show Brazile, whose CNN contract was suspended when she became interim DNC chair over the summer, sharing with the Clinton campaign a question that would be posed to Hillary Clinton before the March CNN Democratic debate in Flint, and sharing with the campaign a possible question prior to a CNN town hall also in March." CW: In her story, Gold doesn't bother to repeat what she herself has reported before: that Brazile denied giving the Clinton campaign a heads-up on questions and claimed she never had access to the questions in the first place. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... CW Update: I was wrong about Gold's report. In earlier reporting, she nailed Brazile for lying. Brazile's denial is bull.
... Michael Grynbaum's New York Times story makes it seem Brazile did in fact leak questions to the Clinton campaign, right down to the description of the voter who would ask the question. -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Tim Hains of Real Clear Politics: "At a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Donald Trump comments on the latest twist in the Hillary Clinton email saga. 'Thank you, Huma,' he declared to Hillary Clinton's top aide Huma Abedin. 'Good job, Huma.' To her husband he said: 'Thank you, Anthony Weiner!' '650,000 emails. You know what I call that? That's the motherlode,' he said about the emails discovered by the FBI on a computer owned by Anthony Weiner." -- CW
** The Biggest Tax Cheat. David Barstow, et al., of the New York Times: "Stretching the Law Beyond Recognition." Donald J. Trump proudly acknowledges he did not pay a dime in federal income taxes for years on end. He insists he merely exploited tax loopholes legally available to any billionaire -- loopholes he says Hillary Clinton failed to close during her years in the United States Senate.... But newly obtained documents show that in the early 1990s, as he scrambled to stave off financial ruin, Mr. Trump avoided reporting hundreds of millions of dollars in taxable income by using a tax avoidance maneuver so legally dubious his own lawyers advised him that the Internal Revenue Service would most likely declare it improper if he were audited. Thanks to this one maneuver, which was later outlawed by Congress, Mr. Trump potentially escaped paying tens of millions of dollars in federal personal income taxes. It is impossible to know for sure because Mr. Trump has declined to release his tax returns, or even a summary of his returns, breaking a practice followed by every Republican and Democratic presidential candidate for more than four decades." Read on. -- CW
** Ken Dilanian, et al., of NBC News: "The FBI has been conducting a preliminary inquiry into Donald Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort's foreign business connections, law enforcement and intelligence sources told NBC News Monday. Word of the inquiry, which has not blossomed into a full-blown criminal investigation, comes just days after FBI Director James Comey's disclosure that his agency is examining a new batch of emails connected to an aide to Hillary Clinton. And it comes a day after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid criticized Comey's revelation and asserted that Comey possesses 'explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government.'" CW: Of course, Comey is not talking about that. At all. Because that would be wrong. ...
... David Corn of Mother Jones: "... a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence tells Mother Jones that in recent months he provided the bureau with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump -- and that the FBI requested more information from him.... A senior US government official not involved in this case but familiar with the former spy tells Mother Jones that he has been a credible source with a proven record of providing reliable, sensitive, and important information to the US government." Part of the spy's report to the FBI reads, "Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in western alliance." -- CW ...
... Hunter of Daily Kos: "Slate's Franklin Foer is reporting that computer experts say they've detected something very, very odd: A computer registered to Donald Trump's company that seems to have been set up to send and receive emails exclusively from a Russian bank." CW: I've linked to Hunter's post because Foer's is long & technical. You'll find it here. ...
... Kevin Drum credits this sudden interest in Trumpy the Putin Puppet to Harry Reid's "A+ troll" of Comey. ...
... BUT. FBI Immediately Exonerates Trump. Eric Lichtblau & Steven Myers of the New York Times: "For much of the summer, the F.B.I. pursued a widening investigation into a Russian role in the American presidential campaign. Agents scrutinized advisers close to Donald J. Trump, looked for financial connections with Russian financial figures, searched for those involved in hacking the computers of Democrats, and even chased a lead -- which they ultimately came to doubt -- about a possible secret channel of email communication from the Trump Organization to a Russian bank. Law enforcement officials say that none of the investigations so far have found any conclusive or direct link between Mr. Trump and the Russian government. And even the hacking into Democratic emails, F.B.I. and intelligence officials now believe, was aimed at disrupting the presidential election rather than electing Mr. Trump." CW: Could we be having another Judith Miller moment? Just asking. I'm not a partisan hack, you know. ...
... Josh Marshall of TPM: "Such an effort [Russia has made] to manipulate a US election by a hostile foreign government is all but unprecedented.... When you put it together with Trump's close support of Russian government policies on almost every front, his financial ties to Russian, and the number of close advisors with close ties to Putin and his allies, it's more than enough to ring every alarm bell.... If Trump is advocating for Russia in the US political arena (he is), and Russia is conducting an espionage and disruption campaign on Trump's behalf in the US political area (highly likely), do I need to know if they're actually talking to each other while both these things are happening? I'm not sure I do." -- CW
Kurt Eichenwald of Newsweek. "Over the course of decades, Donald Trump's companies have systematically destroyed or hidden thousands of emails, digital records and paper documents demanded in official proceedings, often in defiance of court orders. These tactics ... have enraged judges, prosecutors, opposing lawyers and the many ordinary citizens entangled in litigation with Trump.... Trump and entities he controlled also erected numerous hurdles that made lawsuits drag on for years, forcing courtroom opponents to spend huge sums of money in legal fees as they struggled -- sometimes in vain -- to obtain records. This behavior is of particular import given Trump's frequent condemnations of Hillary Clinton ... for having deleted more than 30,000 emails from a server she used during her time as secretary of state.... Trump has suggested repeatedly on the campaign trail that they were government documents Clinton was trying to hide and that destroying them constituted a crime." Clinton has asserted the deleted e-mails were not related to official business. -- Akhilleus (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
AND Trump Stiffs His Pollster. Matea Gold of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump's hiring of pollster Tony Fabrizio in May was viewed as a sign that the real estate mogul was finally bringing seasoned operatives into his insurgent operation. But ... [Trump] appears to have taken issue with some of the services provided by the veteran GOP strategist, who has advised candidates from 1996 GOP nominee Bob Dole to Florida Gov. Rick Scott. The Trump campaign's latest Federal Election Commission report shows that it is disputing nearly $767,000 that Fabrizio's firm says it is still owed for polling." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... German Lopez & Andrew Prokop of Vox: "There are hundreds of accusations that Trump refused to pay contractors and workers what they were owed, which the Wall Street Journal and USA Today compiled this year. 'The actions in total paint a portrait of Trump's sprawling organization frequently failing to pay small businesses and individuals, then sometimes tying them up in court and other negotiations for years,' USA Today's Steve Reilly wrote. 'In some cases, the Trump teams financially overpower and outlast much smaller opponents, draining their resources.'... This is, apparently, how Trump has long done business. And it's only one small part of his long history of shady business practices and even outright corruption." -- CW
Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: "Author Salman Rushdie reminded voters that Trump will stand trial later this month in a racketeering lawsuit and then again next month as part of a lawsuit filed by a woman who claims the Republican presidential nominee raped her when she was 13 years old. 'He is a sexual predator, hasn't released his tax returns, and has used his foundation's money to pay his legal fees,' Rushdie posted Sunday on his Facebook page. 'He has abused the family of a war hero and ... oh, but let's talk about some emails Hillary didn't send from someone else's computer, that weren't a crime anyway, because that's how to choose a president. Come on, America. Focus.'' -- CW
Eric Levitz & James Walsh of New York provide you a run-down on some of the craziest shit that has come out of the Trump campaign, just so you don't forget for election day. --safari
Henry Gomez of Cleveland.com: "Gov. John Kasich, who had vowed not to vote for ... Donald Trump, voted Monday by absentee ballot. His choice? Sen. John McCain of Arizona.... The vote essentially is a symbolic gesture. Because McCain is not among the 18 certified write-in candidates in Ohio, Kasich's vote for president will not count." -- CW
Meet Your Trump Supporters, Ctd. Gideon Resnick of the Daily Beast: "Prominent white nationalist William Johnson, an ardent supporter of Donald Trump's campaign who was previously listed as a California delegate for the Republican National Convention, has paid for a new robocall targeting #NeverTrump independent candidate Evan McMullin in Utah." In the robocall, scheduled to have begun last night, Johnson says McMullin's mother is a lesbian, and "I believe Evan is a closet homosexual." "Johnson has previously paid for robocalls on behalf of Trump, including one in February of this year where he implored voters not to support a 'Cuban' -- a reference to Trump's primary opponent Marco Rubio." -- CW
Senate Races
Another Confederate Confesses Bloodlust for Hillary Clinton. Manu Raju of CNN: "Sen. Richard Burr privately mused over the weekend that gun owners may want to put a 'bullseye' on Hillary Clinton, according to audio obtained by CNN. The North Carolina Republican, locked in a tight race for reelection, quipped that as he walked into a gun shop 'nothing made me feel better' than seeing a magazine about rifles 'with a picture of Hillary Clinton on the front of it.'...'I was a little bit shocked at that -- it didn't have a bullseye on it,' he said Saturday to GOP volunteers, prompting laughter from the crowd...But he also bluntly said that if Clinton is elected, he will do everything in his power to deny her the right to fill the vacant Supreme Court slot, aligning himself with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's position on the issue." This man is truly despicable. --safari ...
... Colin Campbell of the Raleigh News & Observer: "U.S. Sen. Richard Burr apologized Monday for saying he was surprised a magazine about guns didn't put a 'bullsey' on Hillary Clinton's face.... 'The comment I made was inappropriate, and I apologize for it,' Burr said in a written statement.... Libertarian Senate candidate Sean Haugh weighed in on Twitter: 'Yet another way @SenatorBurr and I are the exact opposite -- I'm firmly against assassinating my opponents.'... In other highlights from the leaked recording: Burr says he'll oppose any Clinton Supreme Court nominee: 'If Hillary becomes president, I'm going to do everything I can do to make sure that four years from now, we're still going to have an opening on the Supreme Court,' he said.... He's proud of blocking President Barack Obama's court appointment: ... 'I had the longest judicial vacancy in the history of the United States on the Eastern District of North Carolina. Not many people know that.'" -- CW ...
... Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Press? Callum Borchers of the Washington Post: "Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) is taking [Donald Trump's media] blacklist to a new level. He is not merely withholding press passes from the News & Observer of Raleigh; he is refusing to even give the newspaper a schedule of events for his reelection campaign. The move, according to News & Observer reporter Colin Campbell, is 'effectively limiting the newspaper from reporting on Burr's public appearances.' It's tough to cover events you don't know about." -- CW
I'm just a politician from Missouri and proud of it. -- Harry Truman
New York Times Editors: Sen. Roy Blunt (R), in a tight race for re-election against Democrat Jason Kander, is "strapped to Donald Trump."
Election News & Views
** David Leonhardt of the New York Times on What to Do about Drumpf: Make a plan to vote. Tell your friends about it and ask them about theirs. Follow up. CW P.S.: If your friends are white guys of a certain age and POV, alter the plan.
So what's your plan?
Andy Sullivan of Reuters: "Democratic Party officials sued ... Donald Trump in four battleground states on Monday, seeking to shut down a poll-watching effort they said was designed to harass minority voters in the Nov. 8 election. In lawsuits filed in federal courts in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona and Ohio, Democrats argued that Trump and Republican Party officials were mounting a 'campaign of vigilante voter intimidation' that violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act and an 1871 law aimed at the Ku Klux Klan." -- CW
Marc Caputo of Politico: "After the first full weekend of in-person early voting ended Sunday, African-American turnout failed to meet expectations -- or historic precedent -- leaving top Democrats and activists fuming or worried that Clinton's campaign isn't living up to the hype in Florida." CW: Yo, Clinton campaign: Can't you remind Florida voters that Jim Comey fucked up the presidential election because he refused to do what his boss -- a black woman -- advised him to do? Wake up, people.
Other News & Views
"Trump's Appeasers." Frank Rich: "Once [aviator/fascist Charles] Lindbergh signed on to America First in April 1941, his pronouncements sounded like the Ur-text for much of Trump's America First campaign.... If Trump, who took to talking about 'the illusion of democracy,' often sounds like a dumbed-down version of [Lindburgh, so the Vichy Republicans supporting Trump use some of the same arguments Lindbergh and his fellow appeasers trotted out to rationalize their support of Hitler.... Some Hitler appeasers also judged Hitler as a lesser evil to FDR. As Hitler's bombs were raining down on England in 1940, Senator Robert Taft of Ohio argued that 'there is a great deal more danger of the infiltration of totalitarian ideas from the New Deal circles in Washington than there will ever be' from the Nazis. This is of a piece with the Vichy Republicans who claim that a Trump presidency is preferable to letting Clinton nominate justices to the Supreme Court.... " Read on. -- CW
David Gelles of the New York Times: "... the extreme right has a problem with Chobani: In its view, too many of those employees are refugees. As [owner & founder Hamdi] Ulukaya has stepped up his advocacy -- employing more than 300 refugees in his factories, starting a foundation to help migrants, and traveling to the Greek island of Lesbos to witness the crisis firsthand -- he and his company have been targeted with racist attacks on social media and conspiratorial articles on websites including Breitbart News.... Tthe mayor of Twin Falls[, Idaho,] has received death threats, partly as a result of his support for Chobani." CW: I have three tubs of Chobani in the fridge right now. Guess I'll go buy some more.
Beyond the Beltway
Ted Sherman & Matt Arco of NJ.com: "After six weeks and 35 witnesses, the defense and prosecution in the Bridgegate trial finished summations Monday, handing the case over to seven women and five men who will determine the fate of two former Christie administration insiders charged in a bizarre scheme of Jersey-style political retribution. In a dramatic final day, defense attorney Michael Critchley decried the government's chief witness as someone with 'a sick mind' whom he dubbed as the 'Bernie Madoff of New Jersey politics.' At the same time, prosecutors, in their rebuttal, told jurors the evidence showed that 'when they thought no one else was watching,' the two defendants engaged in a scheme to punish a mayor over his failure to support Gov. Chris Christie." -- CW
Capitalism is "Awesome", Ctd. Oil barons edition. Check out the allegedly sleazy tricks used by the oil companies trying to quell the Native American protests. In the backdrop of the Bundy Brothers acquittal, it's amazing to see how both issues have been completely buried by the establishment media, given the serious long-term implication of each one. --safari
Way Beyond
Loveday Morris & Mustafa Salim of the Washington Post: "Iraqi commanders on Tuesday said they were fighting inside an industrial district on the outer edge of Mosul, making their first breach into the northern Iraqi city that has been under Islamic State control for more than two years. Bringing the fight across the city lines does not change the overall challenges facing Iraqi troops trying to oust the militants from their last major stronghold in the country. But it reflects the steady advances by Iraqi soldiers and allied forces -- backed by U.S. airstrikes -- since the campaign to recapture Mosul was launched last month." -- CW
Capitalism is "Awesome", Ctd. Rob Evans, et al. of the Guardian: "Rolls-Royce plc, Britain's leading manufacturing multinational, hired a network of agents to help it land lucrative contracts in at least 12 different countries around the world, sometimes allegedly using bribes. An investigation by the Guardian and the BBC has uncovered leaked documents and testimony from insiders that suggest that Rolls-Royce may have benefited from the use of illicit payments to boost profits for years. The network of agents is now the focus of large-scale investigations by anti-corruption agencies in the UK and the US." --safari
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