The Commentariat -- Sept. 17, 2016

Presidential Race

Harper Neidig of the Hill: "The Commission on Presidential Debates announced on Friday that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and their running mates are the only candidates who will participate in the upcoming debates. This means Trump (R) and Clinton (D) will take part in the Sept. 26 debate at Hofstra University in New York and that Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein have not been invited. -- CW

Burgess Everett of Politico: "In one of the most overt displays of campaign theatrics this year, two separate proposals targeting Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on transparency were blocked on the Senate floor on Thursday. Democrats struck first with an attempt to highlight Trump's opaque financial history. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) took to the floor press for a bill that would force presidential candidates to release three years of their tax returns. Trump, of course, has refused to do so, and Wyden's proposal would have the Treasury secretary release a presidential candidate's returns if he or she refuses to do so.... Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) ... then pushed for a bill written by Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) that would effectively block Clinton from accessing classified information because FBI Director James Comey found Clinton's use of a private email server 'extremely careless.'" -- CW

Evelyn Rupert of the Hill: "Hillary Clinton's campaign said in a statement Friday that Donald Trump's remark that Clinton's bodyguards should be disarmed fit into a 'pattern of inciting people to violence.' 'Whether this is done to provoke protesters at a rally or casually or even as a joke, it is an unacceptable quality in anyone seeking the job of Commander in Chief,' campaign manager Robby Mook said. 'This kind of talk should be out of bounds for a presidential candidate, just like it should be out of bounds for a presidential candidate to peddle a conspiracy theory about the President of the United States for five years.'" -- CW

David Goldstein of McClatchy News: "Two supporters of Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign reportedly shared the claim that then-rival Barack Obama was not born in the United States.... One was a volunteer in Iowa, who was fired, Clinton's former campaign manager said Friday. The other was Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal, according to [James Asher,] a former McClatchy Washington Bureau chief.... There is no evidence that Clinton herself or her campaign spread the story.... Asher tweeted Friday that Blumenthal had 'told me in person' that Obama was born in Kenya. 'During the 2008 Democratic primary, Sid Blumenthal visited the Washington Bureau of McClatchy Co.,' Asher said in an email Friday to McClatchy. 'During that meeting..., he strongly urged me to investigate the exact place of President Obama's birth, which he suggested was in Kenya. We assigned a reporter to go to Kenya, and that reporter determined that the allegation was false." Blumenthal denies Asher's claim. Clinton's 2008 campaign manager Mark Penn also encouraged Clinton to contrast her own Midwestern roots with Obama's Obama's 'lack of American roots.'" -- CW ...

Lauren Gambino of the Guardian: "Michelle Obama used her debut appearance on the campaign trail on Friday to cast Donald Trump as unprepared to succeed her husband in the White House, saying: 'Being president isn't anything like reality TV.' Speaking at George Mason University in Virginia, Obama described the election as a choice between 'one of the most qualified people who has ever endeavored to become president' and someone who did not 'take the job seriously'." -- CW

The Meeting Is the Message. Krissah Thompson of the Washington Post: "Laura Bush & Michelle Obama got together again Friday. During election season, such events featuring political figures are seldom accidental. -- CW

By Driftglass.... Nick Corasaniti, et al., of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump once again raised the specter of violence against Hillary Clinton, calling on Friday for the Secret Service agents who guard her to voluntarily disarm to 'see what happens to her' without their protection. 'I think that her bodyguards should drop all weapons,' Mr. Trump said at a rally in Miami, to loud applause. 'I think they should disarm. Immediately.' He went on: 'Let's see what happens to her. Take their guns away, O.K. It'll be very dangerous.'... He gestured emphatically with his hands as he spoke.... Mr. Trump's comments were a provocative echo of condemned remarks he made at a campaign rally in Wilmington, N.C., in early August." -- CW ...

... Richard Luscombe of the Guardian: "After a bruising day dominated by his non-apology for promoting the 'birther' conspiracy theory, Donald Trump attempted to regain control of the direction of his presidential campaign at a Miami rally in which he appeared to hint at the assassination of Hillary Clinton. In a sometimes bizarre 45-minute speech on Friday night..., the Republican nominee went off-script to call for his opponent's bodyguards to 'disarm immediately' -- adding, 'Let's see what happens to her.'" -- CW

Every Word out of Trump's Mouth Is Meaningless. Marc Caputo of Politico: "Donald Trump once called President Barack Obama's rapprochement with Cuba 'fine' and said that, though he would've cut a better deal, '50 years is enough' for the U.S. embargo. But during a Friday rally in Miami, Trump sounded very much like every other Republican presidential nominee promising to keep a hard line on Cuba as he seeks the support of the influential Cuban-American exile community." -- CW

The New York Times thinks this is top-o'-the-page breaking news: "Donald J. Trump publicly retreated from his 'birther' campaign on Friday, acknowledging that President Obama was born in the United States and saying that he wanted to move on from the conspiracy theory that he has been clinging to for years.... Mr. Trump also falsely accused Hillary Clinton of having first raised questions about Mr. Obama's birthplace during the 2008 Democratic primary." At the end of the story, we read, "In a speech in Washington on Friday before Mr. Trump made his statement, Mrs. Clinton said that Mr. Trump owes Mr. Obama and the country an apology and that it is too late for him to walk back what he has done. 'For five years he has led the birther movement to delegitimize our first black president,' Mrs. Clinton said. 'His campaign was founded on this outrageous lie.' She added, 'There is no erasing it in history.'" -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... The Washington Post makes Clinton's critique of Trump's birtherism a stand-alone story. -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

Here's how NBC Nightly News covered Trump's Biggest Lies of the Day:

... Eli Stokols of Politico: "Donald Trump did not apologize Friday for driving one of the uglier, most blatantly racist narratives in American political culture during the Obama presidency. The most prominent proponent of the birther movement..., [Trump] instead lied about his role in conspiracy theory's popularity and, without any evidence, attempted to pin the blame on Hillary Clinton. With the first general election debate 10 days away, Trump attempted to neutralize a likely Clinton attack line -- that he spent five years questioning the American citizenship of the country's first African-American president. Trump's concession to reality came only after he leveraged the spectacle of his walk-back into 30 minutes of live cable coverage that served as a branding opportunity for his new Trump Hotel in Washington -- where the event was held -- and for himself.... After the event, Trump led a small pool of still photographers and television crews on a tour of his hotel. But when the print pooler was excluded from the tour, the networks voted to pull their camera and erase the footage." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... CW: This is the second time in two days that members of the press have revolted against Trump's manipulations. See the story linked below by Eli Stokols & Hadas Gold of Politico. ...

... Tierney Sneed of TPM Earns the Headline of the Day: "Trump Introduced By A Birther At Event Where He Walked Back Birtherism." CW: So Trump says Obama is a U.S. citizen after all, wink, wink. P.S. For you non-birthers, well, the whole birther thing is Hillary's fault. ...

... Jamelle Bouie: "Donald Trump is still a birther.... It takes a certain audacity to open a press conference about birtherism with a supporter who backs the very conspiracy supposedly being renounced. And although Trump mouthed the words that affirmed Obama's citizenship, he ignored his role in fanning the conspiracy by pointing the finger at [Hillary Clinton].... Birtherism only entered widespread consciousness after Trump adopted it as a cause, revitalizing the conspiracy. Indeed, birtherism was the catapult that launched Trump into conservative fame.... You have Trump's one-sentence disavowal on Friday, delivered alongside two outright lies during a scam of an event at his new hotel.... We can choose to believe Trump. Given the evidence, we shouldn't." ...

... Gail Collins: "What we have here is a candidate for president of the United States who makes stuff up all the time, but is either incapable of realizing that he's telling a lie, or constitutionally unable to take blame for being untruthful. Yet, according to the polls, Hillary Clinton's biggest problem is that the public thinks she's dishonest. Amazing." CW: For once, Collins treats a threat to the republic as a serious matter instead of delivering her usual tee-hee-hee Erma Bombeck column. Maybe Trump's birther scam really will be his undoing, which couldn't be more fitting. ...

... Patrick Caldwell of Mother Jones: "When Donald Trump tried to pin the birther movement on Hillary Clinton..., the media jumped in to factcheck.... Late Friday afternoon, the Trump campaign sent a press release to reporters in an attempt to back up its claims -- but instead it only contradicted the GOP candidate's entire argument.... The campaign pointed to a Friday CNN interview with Clinton's 2008 campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, in which she said when a low-level volunteer coordinator with the campaign sent an email advancing the birther conspiracy, the Clinton campaign immediately fired the person." -- CW ...

... Charles Pierce: "In an interview with The Washington Post's Robert Costa, Donald Trump again declined to speculate on the president's birthplace. This set off a scramble in the court of the Czar, which culminated in a statement from its communications director that fairly well suits what Mary McCarthy once said about Lillian Hellman and the truth -- every word of the statement is a lie, except (perhaps) the communications director's name.... And then, of course, there was the farce in which [Trump] engaged on Friday morning.... [He] gave a three-sentence statement on the alleged topic du jour. Two of the sentences were lies.... The Trump campaign believes that the elite political media is as much of a dumb beast as the Trump campaign believes the voters are. There is no longer any reason to cover this campaign as anything but a truthless danger to the American republic." -- CW ...

... ** Libby Nelson of Vox: "Donald Trump promised a major statement about his embrace of conspiracy theories about President Obama's birthplace. Instead, he fooled the three major cable news networks into airing a 20-minute infomercial about his hotel and his candidacy. With the 'breaking news' chyron on, MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN played footage of veterans praising Trump and Trump praising his own hotel. And then Trump showed up on stage for less than two minutes to say that Obama was born in the United States. This is what people mean when they complain about how 'the media' has covered the Trump campaign." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump ... held the media hostage for nearly an hour after promising a major news announcement.... While they waited, and waited, Trump provided what amounted to a campaign infomercial and shamelessly promoted his new Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington. When it was over, and he had said the absurdly obvious -- that he now accepts that President Obama was born in the United States -- there was, at least, some long overdue indignation.... CNN's [John] King..., Jake Tapper and Gloria Borger denounced the way Trump had played the media. And they flatly denounced Trump's notion that [Hillary] Clinton started the birther rumors.'CNN and others were pulled into the whole three-ring circus -- I've never seen anything as crass and disingenuous,' said Frank Sesno, a former CNN Washington bureau chief.... Meanwhile..., [Clinton] was doing something unexciting, substantial and workmanlike: addressing the Black Women's Agenda Symposium, talking about the economic challenges faced by women of color. It got, of course, only a fraction of the media's attention." -- CW ...

... Contributor Nancy wrote yesterday, "Trump-loving media: Like a country bumpkin in the big city, marked by the con on the corner. Now will you stop covering this guy?" ...

... New York Times Editors: "Did he apologize to Mr. Obama and the American people for the political poison he spread for so long? Of course not. Being Mr. Trump, he instead substituted a lie for a lie. He falsely accused Hillary Clinton of starting the birther myth, then further claimed he had nobly 'finished' it off by badgering the White House for proof that Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii, not Africa." -- CW

... Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "Mr. Obama's citizenship was never in question. No credible evidence ever suggested otherwise.... Yet it took Mr. Trump five years of dodging, winking and joking to surrender, finally on Friday, to reality after a remarkable campaign of relentless deception that tried to undermine the legitimacy of the nation's first black president.... Surrounded by, and in many ways shielded by, decorated veterans in his new Washington, D.C., hotel, he could not resist indulging in another falsehood -- that his opponent, Hillary Clinton, had started the so-called birther movement. She did not.... [The birther lie] this lie was different from [his other lies from] the start, an insidious, calculated calumny that sought to undo the embrace of an African-American president by the 69 million voters who elected him in 2008." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Andrew Prokop of Vox: "Finally, on Friday, Trump himself begrudgingly gave an extremely brief statement that "President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period,' and again dishonestly blamed [Hillary] Clinton for supposedly starting the controversy. But he shouldn't be allowed to worm out of this so easily, because birtherism is in many ways the urtext of Trump's presidential campaign. It demonstrates his willingness to mainstream fringe racism, his desire to flout the norms of political discourse, his ability to play the media, and his imperviousness to facts. And Trump has never truly been held to account for it during this campaign." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Tim Murphy of Mother Jones: "... virtually every line of the statement [Donald Trump's campaign released before his birther brief/infomercial] is a lie." -- CW

Robert O'Harrow, Jr., of the Washington Post: "During his run for the White House, Trump has maintained he always operated aboveboard as a real estate developer and casino operator, at a time when corruption and organized crime were rampant in New York and Atlantic City. But the details of Trump's relationships with [FBI informant Daniel] Sullivan and [FBI agent Walt] Stowe show that he worked with men with underworld connections to further and protect his business interests. In doing so, Trump risked his reputation and his dream of becoming a tycoon. He entered into a land deal with Sullivan and an organized crime figure who was later targeted for a hit. He agreed to finance Sullivan's purchase of a company under FBI investigation for racketeering. And he collaborated on a plan with Stowe and other FBI agents to allow an undercover operation at his first casino." -- CW (Also linked yesterday.)

Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "Food poisoning will make America great again! Or, at least, that's what Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump appears to be banking on with a new proposal released on Thursday. Trump's campaign distributed a fact sheet outlining 'specific regulations to be eliminated.' Among other things, this fact sheet took aim at 'the FDA Food Police.'... America has already tested the idea that we can have safe foods without adequate regulation." Millhiser relates a short history of the American ketchup market. "As it turns out, the invisible hand of the market delivered moldy, rancid ketchup that used vinegar and spice to cover up the flavor of decay. It took regulation, the very kind of regulation that Trump now seems to be out to get, to enable Americans to trust their food." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Ben Schreckinger of Politico: "Nude photos at the center of questions about Melania Trump's immigration history were first published in early 1997, timing that contradicts previous reports but is consistent with Trump's own timeline of her immigration. Trump has consistently said she came to the United States in 1996, but in August, the New York Post published nude photos of her that the newspaper reported were taken in New York in 1995 for the January 1996 issue of Max Magazine, a publication that is now defunct." -- CW

Maxwell Strachan of the Huffington Post: Late-nite host Jimmy Fallon invites white supremacist on his show, kids around with him & ruffles his orange hair. CW: This would be a good place to post the HuffPost's disclaimer on all things Trump: Editor's note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims -- 1.6 billion members of an entire religion -- from entering the U.S." Yeah, go ahead, kid around with that guy, Jimmy.

Other News & Views

Thomas Gibbons-Neff of the Washington Post: "U.S. Special Operations forces have begun partnering with Turkish troops and a contingent of Syrian opposition groups for a new operation in northern Syria, defense officials said Friday. The move comes just weeks after Turkey launched a blitz operation over the Turkish border, seizing the northern city of Jarabulus and injecting a new dynamic into the five-year-old conflict." -- CW

They warned us about this type of behavior and said, 'You must report it,' but the reality was that people had to meet their goals. They needed a paycheck. -- Khalid Taha, a former Wells Fargo personal banker who resigned in July ...

... Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Michael Corkery & Stacy Cowley of the New York Times: "Three years after the first false accounts were exposed publicly and the authorities began investigating, Wells [Fargo] ... said it was still firing employees over the questionable accounts well into this year. Some former employees say the explanation is simple: Wells has continued to push the sales goals that caused employees to break the rules in the first place. In fact, the goals at the center of a $185 million civil settlement and investigations by prosecutors in three states are not set to be phased out for another three months." -- CW ...

... Jonnelle Marte & Renae Merle of the Washington Post: "Wells Fargo is hardly alone in aggressively pushing accounts, industry veterans say. Consumers have filed more than 31,000 complaints since 2011 about the opening, closing and management of their accounts and issues dealing with unauthorized credit cards, according to an analysis of complaints filed with the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The complaints name many of the nation's largest institutions.... Efforts to combat the problem have been episodic, and few top executives have been held accountable.... At the center of the bad behavior appears to be an effort by banks to persuade customers to sign up for multiple products, known as 'cross-selling.'" -- CW

Andrew Roth & Dana Priest of the Washington Post: "The recent spate of embarrassing emails and other records stolen by Russian hackers is President Vladimir Putin's splashy response to years of what he sees as U.S. efforts to weaken and shame him on the world stage and with his own people, according to Russia experts here and in the U.S. intelligence world and academia. Putin is seeking revenge and respect...." -- CW

Winnie Hu of the New York Times: "Six former New York City correction officers returned to Rikers Island -- this time as inmates -- after being sentenced on Friday to prison terms of from four and a half years to six and a half years for their roles in the brutal beating of an inmate there in 2012. The sentencing of the former officers in State Supreme Court in the Bronx came three months after they were convicted of first-degree attempted gang assault, the most serious offense, and other charges. The case opened a window on a pervasive culture of violence at Rikers, the troubled city jail complex that houses 8,000 inmates, at a time when many critics, including Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, have called for it to be closed." -- CW

The Commentariat -- Sept. 16, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Honest to Pete, the New York Times thinks this is top-o'-the-page breaking news: "Donald J. Trump publicly retreated from his 'birther' campaign on Friday, acknowledging that President Obama was born in the United States and saying that he wanted to move on from the conspiracy theory that he has been clinging to for years.... Mr. Trump also falsely accused Hillary Clinton of having first raised questions about Mr. Obama's birthplace during the 2008 Democratic primary." At the end of the story, we read, "In a speech in Washington on Friday before Mr. Trump made his statement, Mrs. Clinton said that Mr. Trump owes Mr. Obama and the country an apology and that it is too late for him to walk back what he has done. 'For five years he has led the birther movement to delegitimize our first black president,' Mrs. Clinton said. 'His campaign was founded on this outrageous lie.' She added, 'There is no erasing it in history.'" -- CW ...

... The Washington Post makes Clinton's critique of Trump's birtherism a stand-alone story. -- CW ...

... Eli Stokols of Politico: "Donald Trump did not apologize Friday for driving one of the uglier, most blatantly racist narratives in American political culture during the Obama presidency. The most prominent proponent of the birther movement..., [Trump] instead lied about his role in conspiracy theory's popularity and, without any evidence, attempted to pin the blame on Hillary Clinton. With the first general election debate 10 days away, Trump attempted to neutralize a likely Clinton attack line ' that he spent five years questioning the American citizenship of the country's first African-American president. Trump's concession to reality came only after he leveraged the spectacle of his walk-back into 30 minutes of live cable coverage that served as a branding opportunity for his new Trump Hotel in Washington -- where the event was held -- and for himself.... After the event, Trump led a small pool of still photographers and television crews on a tour of his hotel. But when the print pooler was excluded from the tour, the networks voted to pull their camera and erase the footage." -- CW ...

... CW: This is the second time in two days that members of the press have revolted against Trump's manipulations. See the story linked below by Eli Stokols & Hadas Gold of Politico. ...

... ** Libby Nelson of Vox: "Donald Trump promised a major statement about his embrace of conspiracy theories about President Obama’s birthplace. Instead, he fooled the three major cable news networks into airing a 20-minute infomercial about his hotel and his candidacy. With the 'breaking news' chyron on, MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN played footage of veterans praising Trump and Trump praising his own hotel. And then Trump showed up on stage for less than two minutes to say that Obama was born in the United States. This is what people mean when they complain about how 'the media' has covered the Trump campaign." -- CW ...

... Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "Mr. Obama's citizenship was never in question. No credible evidence ever suggested otherwise.... Yet it took Mr. Trump five years of dodging, winking and joking to surrender, finally on Friday, to reality after a remarkable campaign of relentless deception that tried to undermine the legitimacy of the nation's first black president.... Surrounded by, and in many ways shielded by, decorated veterans in his new Washington, D.C., hotel, he could not resist indulging in another falsehood -- that his opponent, Hillary Clinton, had started the so-called birther movement. She did not.... [The birther lie] this lie was different from [his other lies from] the start, an insidious, calculated calumny that sought to undo the embrace of an African-American president by the 69 million voters who elected him in 2008." -- CW ...

... Andrew Prokop of Vox: "Finally, on Friday, Trump himself begrudgingly gave an extremely brief statement that "President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period,' and again dishonestly blamed [Hillary] Clinton for supposedly starting the controversy. But he shouldn't be allowed to worm out of this so easily, because birtherism is in many ways the urtext of Trump's presidential campaign. It demonstrates his willingness to mainstream fringe racism, his desire to flout the norms of political discourse, his ability to play the media, and his imperviousness to facts. And Trump has never truly been held to account for it during this campaign." -- CW

Robert O'Harrow, Jr., of the Washington Post: "During his run for the White House, Trump has maintained he always operated aboveboard as a real estate developer and casino operator, at a time when corruption and organized crime were rampant in New York and Atlantic City. But the details of Trump's relationships with [FBI informant Daniel] Sullivan and [FBI agent Walt] Stowe show that he worked with men with underworld connections to further and protect his business interests. In doing so, Trump risked his reputation and his dream of becoming a tycoon. He entered into a land deal with Sullivan and an organized crime figure who was later targeted for a hit. He agreed to finance Sullivan's purchase of a company under FBI investigation for racketeering. And he collaborated on a plan with Stowe and other FBI agents to allow an undercover operation at his first casino." -- CW

Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "Food poisoning will make America great again! Or, at least, that's what Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump appears to be banking on with a new proposal released on Thursday. Trump's campaign distributed a fact sheet outlining 'specific regulations to be eliminated.' Among other things, this fact sheet took aim at '"the FDA Food Police.'... America has already tested the idea that we can have safe foods without adequate regulation." Millhiser relates a short history of the American ketchup market. "As it turns out, the invisible hand of the market delivered moldy, rancid ketchup that used vinegar and spice to cover up the flavor of decay. It took regulation, the very kind of regulation that Trump now seems to be out to get, to enable Americans to trust their food." -- CW

*****

Presidential Race

CW: Here's a hard, depressing analysis of the electorate, with which I am inclined to agree: Charles Pierce: "Had the Republican Party nominated someone more dedicated to the hard work of demagoguery, someone more committed to the craft of being a dictator, instead of the scatterbrained dilettante currently campaigning as a performance piece, that candidate would be even money to defeat anyone the Democrats put up in opposition. A substantial portion of this country wants someone not to govern, but to rule, to defeat the imaginary enemies they have concocted so as not to bestir themselves to resist the forces that actually are working against their interest.... Largely due to the presence in it of this ridiculous man and his ridiculous campaign, the American people have proven themselves profoundly unworthy of being called citizens." ...

     ... CW: That is, with perhaps exceptions in a few isolated Zip codes, half (or more) of your neighbors -- people you like, people you'd invite over for a Sunday barbecue -- are pathetic, ignorant jerks.

Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "A rested Hillary Clinton returned to the campaign trail [in Greensboro, N.C.,] on Thursday after three days of recovering at home from pneumonia, and vowed a different approach on the final stretch of the campaign, one more focused on her own positive vision for the country, rather than eviscerating her rival.... 'People like me, we're lucky,' she [said.] 'When I'm under the weather, I can afford to take a few days off. Millions of Americans can't.'" --CW ...

... Abby Phillip & Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "Hillary Clinton returned to the campaign trail on Thursday..., giving an address on improving the welfare of children and families that is part of an effort by the Democratic candidate to refocus the presidential race on her credentials.... Clinton said that being off the trail gave her time to reflect on the core issues that brought her into public service in the first place. She noted that many families aren't able to take paid time off in the event of sickness.... 'I have met so many people living on a razor's edge -- one illness away from losing their job; one paycheck away from losing their home.'... 'I want to give Americans something to vote for, not just against,' Clinton later told reporters traveling with her. 'We are offering ideas, not insults,' she said. 'Plans that will make a difference in people's lives.'" -- CW

Abby Phillip: "Hillary Clinton denounced Donald Trump for his continued refusal to acknowledge that President Obama was born in the United States. 'He was asked one more time: "Where was President Obama born?" And he still wouldn't say Hawaii. He still wouldn't say America,' Clinton said at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute gala dinner in Washington. 'This man wants to be our next president? When will he stop this ugliness, this bigotry?'" CW: See Robert Costa's report below.

Jonathan Martin & Amy Chozick: "Hillary Clinton and her Democratic allies, unnerved by the tightening presidential race, are making a major push to dissuade disaffected voters from backing third-party candidates, and pouring more energy into Rust Belt states, where Donald J. Trump is gaining ground.... Her campaign and affiliated Democratic groups are shifting their focus to those voters, many of them millennials, who recoil at Mr. Trump ... but now favor the Libertarian nominee, Gary Johnson, or the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein." -- CW ...

... Russell Berman of the Atlantic: "Hillary Clinton, the 68-year-old Democratic nominee for president, has a problem with young voters, and she's turning to the big guns for help: 75-year-old Bernie Sanders and 67-year-old Elizabeth Warren. The Clinton campaign is sending those two liberal senior citizens on a college tour of Ohio this weekend in a bid to whip up enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket among millennials." CW: Couldn't the campaign have added Sherrod Brown to the team, who at 63, is only 43 years older than the average college student? Also, too, his librul creds are unimpeachable. He was my first pick for president this year. Instead, they're sending Chelsea Clinton into Ohio, whose vapidity would be unmatched among candidates' offspring in most races where Donald Trump is not running. ...

... Jim Newell of Slate outlines the many, many reasons, both practical & ideological, the kids should not vote for Gary Johnson. CW: I'm guessing all they know about him is that he's pro-weed. They should see the rest of his platform.

** Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Paul Waldman: "If you dropped into our presidential campaign last weekend knowing nothing about it, you probably would have been puzzled at why everyone was making such a big deal out of the fact that one of our major party nominees got light-headed one day -- the result, we later learned, of pneumonia and probably dehydration, conditions that are easy to treat. What exactly was so momentous about this event, that it should have the news media so worked up? The answer is just about everything that's wrong with the way the 2016 campaign has been covered." CW: Please read on.

I don't care. My facts are good. My facts are good. I don't get enough credit for having my facts right. They'll say I'm wrong even when I'm right. -- Donald Trump, on the possibility debate moderators will fact-check the candidates ...

... Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump said in an interview [in Canton, Ohio,] that he remains unwilling to say that President Obama was born in the United States, that he is more bullish than ever on his chances to win and that he is not exploring the launch of a new media company in case he loses the race.... 'I'll answer that question [about Obama's birthplace] at the right time,' Trump said. 'I just don't want to answer it yet.'... In the interview, Trump defended his wife's immigration history; attacked targets including CNN host Anderson Cooper and Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.); and said he had been 'respectful' since Clinton fell ill but 'that doesn't mean that I'm going to stay there.'... Since Clinton fell ill Sunday..., Trump has been mixed in his responses. He has sounded taunting in some of his recent remarks.... 'The alt-right. You know they came up with the term "alt-right,"' Trump said, blaming Clinton and her allies, although the term has been used within the movement for years.... Trump said [Dr. Harold] Bornstein's letter will be the final document that he will release on his health before the election.'" CW: It's nice to see that Costa, who is a right-wing guy, is fact-checking Trump. ...

... Philip Bump of the Washington Post: Meanwhile, "... Trump's campaign said that [Trump] acknowledged [that President Obama was born in the U.S.], in a statement that was itself riddled with falsehoods." First, the statement repeatedly blamed Hillary Clinton for putting the issue out there, which is false. Then it claimed Trump was an heroic "closer" for forcing Obama to release his long-form birth certificate. BTW, in a December 2013 tweet, Trump suggested the president had had Hawaii's health director killed in a plane crash to cover up the fact that the birth certificate was a fake. And as recently as December 2014, Trump was still claiming the birth certificates Obama produced were fakes. CW: So, um, if Obama's birth certificates are fakes, how is that a win for our heroic closer?

Michael Finnegan of the Los Angeles Times: "Donald Trump released a new doctor’s letter Thursday saying he is 'in excellent physical health,' but offered limited details about his medical history apart from his use of a drug that lowers cholesterol.... Trump's campaign released a statement claiming incorrectly that Trump was 'setting records for number of events, size of crowds, and breadth of travel on the campaign trail.' Presidential candidates routinely travel more than Trump does, and President Obama's crowds in 2008 were far larger than Trump's. For months, Trump has said Clinton lacks the strength and stamina to lead the nation. 'We are pleased to disclose all of the test results which show that Mr. Trump is in excellent health, and has the stamina to endure -- uninterrupted -- the rigors of a punishing and unprecedented presidential campaign and, more importantly, the singularly demanding job of president,' his statement said." -- CW ...

... Max Rosenthal of Mother Jones: "The letter Donald Trump released on Thursday from his longtime physician, Dr. Harold Bornstein, featured one strange-but-Trumpian detail: his testosterone level. That unusual data point got big applause when Trump appeared on the Dr. Oz Show on Tuesday, seemingly fueling his self-proclaimed case that he's in excellent health and feels like Tom Brady. According to Dr. Vito Imbasciani, a urologist who's the current president of the Los Angeles County Medical Association, testosterone would not normally be ordered as part of a routine physical or health checkup." Imbasciani said there were two reasons that a person would get a testosterone test: if there was a concern about (1) his bone density or (2) infertility. He said Trump's testosterone level, as reported in Dr. Bornstein's letter, "perfectly, absolutely, boringly average and normal." "Imbasciani does say the public should take Bornstein's word with a grain of salt given Bornstein's apparent exaggerations about his credentials. 'He's not telling the truth about his credentials,' Imbasciani says. 'Therefore anybody, doctor or not, would have to question what he says.'" ...

... CW: The obvious point is that Hillary Clinton likely has a much lower testosterone level, making her unfit to be president. I suspect that Trump sought the presidency as a reaction to his horror at his waning virility. There are photos of Trump -- like the one above & in the Heil Trump pic to the right -- where he appears to have a "widow's stoop," or "dowager's hump," which is indicative of osteoporosis. Just saying. Too bad these photos aren't producing left-wing conspiracy rants -- "Trump is Falling Apart!", "Likely to Crack Any Minute!" "Dense Head; Undense Body".

Nothing Is Sacred. Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: Speaking on Fox "News," "Donald J. Trump said on Thursday that the pastor who interrupted his remarks at an African-American church in Flint, Mich., was 'a nervous mess' when she introduced him and that he thought 'something was up' with her.... 'Everyone plays their games, it doesn't bother me,' Mr. Trump said, claiming Pastor [Faith Green] Timmons was shaking when she came up to him.... 'The audience was saying "let him speak, let him speak,"' Mr. Trump said. 'The audience was so great.' But a pool reporter who was traveling Mr. Trump disputed his account, describing a scene where several members of the audience actually heckled Mr. Trump and questioned him about reports that he had discriminated against black people as a landlord." ...

     ... CW: In the Realm of the Mad Trump, the Worst Person in the World is someone who even mildly rebukes him for pulling some stunt. As contributor Diane wrote yesterday, "Trump was nearly speechless and went all wobbly when Pastor Timmons redirected him. Others should take note. Trump is a coward." Among the others gleefully taking note will be anti-American heads-of-state who can hardly wait to steamroll the Chickenshit Blowhard of the Free World. ...

... Nick Gass of Politico: "Donald Trump's newfound commitment to message discipline and restraint showed some cracks on Thursday, with [Trump ... attacking an African-American pastor who cut off his political speech in a Flint, Michigan, church.... Trump's slam on [the Rev. Faith Green] Timmons was a return to form, after the brash billionaire scorched through the Republican primary field with a steady delivery of incendiary comments about minorities, women and his GOP rivals.... [Trump] initially refrained from delivering an 'I told you so' when [Hillary] Clinton nearly collapsed after appearing at a 9/11 memorial service [during a bout of pneumonia]... But on Wednesday night, Trump apparently couldn't resist, and he again questioned Clinton's stamina during a rally in Canton, Ohio.... Trump's children also offered up some unhelpful headlines." CW: Read on. I like the parts where Trumpelthinskin Junior more-or-less walked out on a Pittsburgh WTAE reporter when the questions got tougher than "How great is the old man?", and, as we learned yesterday, Ivanka Trump did walk out on a Cosmo interviewer who wouldn't stick to questions about how pretty Ivanka's line of dresses were. See also stories about Junior's gaffes below.

Eli Stokols & Hadas Gold of Politico: "DonaldTrump on Thursday mocked his traveling press corps for being late to his rally, even though his campaign is responsible for arranging the pool's travel. 'I have really good news for you,' [he] ... told supporters [in Laconia, N.H.], according to a livestream of the rally.... 'I just heard the press is stuck on their airplane. They can't get here. I love it. So they're trying to get here now. They're going to be about 30 minutes late. They called us and said could you wait? I said absolutely not. Let's get going, New Hampshire.' While television cameras continued to roll live on the rally, still photographers already at the venue opted not to shoot any images of the event out of solidarity with their pool colleagues." Reporters were furious. "The reporters said they had yet to receive an explanation or response as to why they were left behind." -- CW

Lydia Wheeler of the Hill: "Donald Trump floated rolling back food safety regulations if he wins the White House in November.... The fact sheet [containing the proposals] was later removed from the website and a new fact sheet detailing Trump's economic agenda did not include mention of the FDA." CW: Luckily for me, I have enough land to become a subsistence farmer. Guess I'll have to lobby the town to allow chickens.

Trumpus, Aspiring War Criminal. Tim Egan: Donald Trump has "already called for war crimes -- killing family members of terrorists, torturing suspects. He would further violate the Geneva Conventions by making thieves out of a first-class military.... Under Trump's plan, American men and women would die for oil, victims of endless rounds of lethal sabotage and terror strikes.... For this kind of plunder, there is in fact a precedent for Trump's plan: Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.... Of course, the Mideast would be aflame with violent anti-Americanism if Trump's troops sat on the oil wells in the desert.... But, by then, Trump would already be at war with Iran, as he suggested in another of his overlooked recent statements.... Trump would become a war criminal, a role he seems to relish -- typical for a man who has never served a day in the military.... But Trump would have an ally in kleptocracy with his favorite world leader, the former K.G.B. operative Vladimir Putin." -- CW

Courtney Weaver of Financial Times: "Putin finds a fan base in Trump country." "Right now there are a lot of people who are very frustrated and very angry that have been cast aside. They're looking for someone to come around and be forceful ... and have someone at the helm." This is not unlike why women seem to prefer "bad boys." ~LT

Because he's got a 12,000-page tax return that would create .. financial auditors out of every person in the country asking questions that would detract from (his father's) main message. -- Donald Trump, Jr., on why Trump won't release his tax reports ...

... Matt Yglesias of Vox: "Donald Trump has thus far declined to follow the precedent set by the past 40 or so years' worth of presidential campaigns and release copies of his recent tax returns. He says the reason for this is that his returns are under audit by the IRS, an explanation that lawyers and accountants find baffling -- there's no reason audited returns can't be released to the public. Speaking to the Pittsburgh Tribune, Trump;s son cleared things up admirably. Donald Trump Jr. said the real reason Trump won't release his returns is that if he released them, then the public would get a chance to see what they say, and Trump doesn't want the public to see what they say and ask questions about it." CW: Read on: Yglesias speculates on a number of reasons Trump doesn't want the public to know what an anti-American tax cheat he is. Here's one point: "... what seems ... probable to me is that he'd like to avoid scrutiny of how much he's abused the charitable deduction to claim breaks for giveaways of little social value."

The media has been [Clinton's] No. 1 surrogate in this. Without the media, this wouldn't even be a contest, but the media has built her up. They've let her slide on every indiscrepancy, on every lie, on every DNC game trying to get Bernie Sanders out of this thing. If Republicans were doing that, they'd be warming up the gas chamber right now. -- Donald Trump, Jr., suggesting that the American media were the new Nazis

Junior's gift for Stormfront metaphors proves (again) that the one great uncovered story of this campaign is what truly horrible people these are. -- Charles Pierce ...

... Louis Nelson of Politico: "Donald Trump's campaign lashed out at the media on Thursday after some construed a comment from Donald Trump Jr. as a Holocaust joke.... Conservative independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin [wrote ] ... on Twitter that it was 'an unsurprising Nazi reference from the 'alt-right' movement's presidential campaign. This is the real Trump.' [Hillary] Clinton then ... retweet[ed] McMullin's message.... The National Jewish Democratic Council also weighed in with a statement, arguing that Trump's comments were unsurprising given his campaign's track record.... 'Donald Trump Jr.'s reference to gas chambers is outrageous....'... But Trump spokesman Jason Miller said..., 'The liberal dishonest media is so quick to attack one of the Trumps that they never let the truth get in the way of a good smear....'" ...

     ... CW: So McMullin, Clinton & the NJDC are part of the "liberal dishonest media"? As for Pierce's commentary, guess what the chances are we'll see a front-page headline "Donald Trump and Family Are Horrible People, Analysis Indicates."

Other News & Views

Paul Krugman: Middle-class incomes rise, thanks to "socialist, redistributionist" Obama. -- CW

Beyond the Beltway

Richard Perez-Pena of the New York Times: "Officials in Columbus, Ohio, appealed for calm, patience and investigative help Thursday, hours after a white police officer fatally shot a 13-year-old African-American boy who had apparently brandished a firearm that was later determined to be a BB gun. Speaking at a news conference, the mayor, the police chief and other officials offered few details about what led to the death Wednesday night of the teenager, Tyree King. They cautioned that the investigation, which will be presented to a grand jury, will not be quick. So far, they said, they do not know of any video recording of the shooting." -- CW ...

... The Columbus Dispatch story is here.

News Lede

New York Times: "Edward Albee, widely considered the foremost American playwright of his generation, whose psychologically astute and piercing dramas explored the contentiousness of intimacy, the gap between self-delusion and truth and the roiling desperation beneath the facade of contemporary life, died Friday at his home in Montauk, N.Y. He was 88." -- CW

The Commentariat -- Sept. 15, 2016

Presidential Race

Giovanni Russonello of the New York Times: "With less than eight weeks before Election Day, Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton are locked in a tight contest, with both candidates still struggling to win the confidence of their respective bases, the latest New York Times/CBS News poll finds." -- CW

Nahal Toosi of Politico: "Hillary Clinton says she's planning to meet with several foreign leaders during the U.N. General Assembly next week. Your move, Donald Trump.... Trump's campaign did not immediately say whether he is scheduling any meetings during the General Assembly. But [Trump] ... is widely disliked overseas and has little foreign policy experience...." CW: How about a two-shot of Trump & Putin kissing?

Nick Gass of Politico: "Hillary Clinton is keeping quiet about the contents of newly leaked messages from the personal email account of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who had harsh criticisms of the Democratic nominee, the former Bush administration, and Donald Trump. 'I'm not going to comment on anything that is said in a private email,' Clinton told the The Tom Joyner Radio Show in an interview taped Wednesday and aired Thursday morning. Clinton ... said she has 'a great deal of respect for Colin Powell, and I have a lot of sympathy for anyone whose emails become public.'" More on the, um, highlights of Powell's hacked e-mail under News & Views below. -- CW

Greg Sargent: "Hillary Clinton's campaign just admitted she has a real problem.... A statement released late last night by Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri [read in part,] 'Our campaign readily admits that running against a candidate as controversial as Donald Trump means it is harder to be heard on what you aspire for the country's future and it is incumbent on us to work harder to make sure voters hear that vision.'" -- CW

Amy Chozick & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump acknowledged on Wednesday that he was overweight and taking a cholesterol-fighting drug, and Hillary Clinton elaborated on the circumstances that led to her contracting pneumonia and the medicine she was taking to recover. Mrs. Clinton's doctor said she 'continues to improve' after contracting a 'mild, noncontagious' form of pneumonia diagnosed on Friday.... In a letter released by the Clinton campaign..., Dr. Lisa R. Bardack, said she had evaluated Mrs. Clinton several times since Sunday, including on Wednesday.... 'She continues to remain healthy and fit to serve as president of the United States.'... Despite fanning conspiracy theories about Mrs. Clinton's health, Mr. Trump provided scant information about his own.... At about 6-foot-2, Mr. Trump would have a body mass index of 30.3. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute defines obesity as a B.M.I. of 30 or more.... Mr. Trump has yet to make public as much personal medical information as Mrs. Clinton has." -- CW ...

... Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump on Wednesday expressed doubt about Hillary Clinton's ability to campaign for an extended period of time in a hot, crowded room, making his remark at a time when the health of both presidential candidates is under intense scrutiny.... During a rally at a civic center [in Canton, Ohio,] Wednesday evening..., Trump said..., 'In this beautiful room that's 122 degrees. It is hot, and it's always hot when I perform because the crowds are so big.... I don't know folks -- you think Hillary would be able to stand up here for an hour and do this? I don't know. I don't know. I don't think so. I don't think so.' The temperature inside the venue was cool...." -- CW ...

By Driftglass.... Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "After a whiplash-inducing morning of mixed messages, Donald J. Trump on Wednesday gave a small window into some of the results from his most recent physical examination in a taped appearance with the television celebrity Dr. Mehmet Oz. The quick run-through of results, which Mr. Trump is said to have given to the doctor to read from a piece of paper, came after the Republican presidential nominee's aides had said he would, and then that he wouldn't, broach the topic with the doctor on the 'Dr. Oz Show.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... This is a version of a story that has been updated -- and ruined. In the original version, Haberman gave a brief account of Oz's brilliant career. She couched the nutty stuff in the familiar "critics say" copout, but among the "critics" was the FDA. If you didn't read the original story, Akhilleus, in yesterday's Comments section provides some background, though narrower in scope -- and of course more opinionated -- than Haberman's rundown. ...

     ... Update. Nancy Cook of Politico has a rundown of Oz's greatest hits: "Mehmet Oz -- Ivy League-trained surgeon and daytime TV star -- has been called a charlatan by fellow physicians for promoting 'quack' medical cures. He's been investigated by Congress for fraudulently promoting 'magic' weight loss pills. And more than half of his medical advice is unsubstantiated -- or flat out wrong -- according to the top British medical journal. But for Donald Trump, Oz's show is a safe space, a haven shielded from tough questions that offers a platform to say, in effect, whatever he wants.... Oz is hardly an impartial figure to evaluate the health and fitness of the next potential resident of the White House. He's been pilloried for years for making dubious medical claims on-air and for placing greater importance on the financial or business opportunities of his TV show than on solid, scientific medical research." -- CW ...

... Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post has a somewhat more detailed report on the Trumpy & Oz Magical Medical Mystery Show, on Oz's quackery & on the hijinks leading up to the show, the content of which has been teased but not released. It seems obvious that one way Trump controls the media is by changing his story hourly, forcing reporters to report on his latest flip-flop multiple times a day. ...

... CW P.S.: The expert medico who wrote the extensive two-page report Trump showed to the Wizard of Oz is Dr. Harold Bornstein, who has previously declared, in an ever-so-professional "report," that Donald Trump "will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency." And, as a gastroenterologist, he can attest that "His [Trump's] mental health is excellent. He thinks he's the best."

Sean Sullivan & Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump encountered resistance Wednesday during his first campaign trip to [Flint, Michigan, a] majority African American city that suffered a water-contamination crisis, as a pastor who invited him to appear at her church asked him to stop politicking.... Some of the [church] attendees were unhappy with the political tone of parts of his speech and called out their displeasure as he spoke.... Flint Mayor Karen Weaver (D) was not happy about the GOP nominee's trip. She issued a statement on her Facebook page saying that neither Trump nor his staff have reached out since the crisis was declared an emergency." -- CW

Jenna Johnson & Mary Jordan of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump made what his campaign billed as two major disclosures on Wednesday. First, an attorney provided a timeline of [Trump's] Slovenia-born wife's immigration status [without documentation]. Then, amid questions about his health during a television interview, Trump pulled some medical test results out of his blazer pocket. Yet despite these high-profile gestures, Trump remains the least transparent major presidential nominee in modern history.... At the same time, Trump and his aides are criticizing rival Hillary Clinton as secretive and demanding more information from her about her emails and health." CW: I recommend reading the full article to appreciate the extent of Trump's secretiveness, fakery & hypocrisy.

Eric Levitz of New York: "On Monday, Trump named former CIA director James Woolsey as his campaign's senior national-security adviser. Woolsey is a hawk, even among neoconservatives.... Trump may have a neo-isolationist streak. But evidence strongly suggests that, before anything else, the GOP nominee is a narcissist with little interest in the workaday requirements of executing policy. As a Republican president, Trump's path of least resistance will be to outsource foreign affairs to his party's neoconservative Establishment. Woolsey's hiring strongly suggests he'll take that path." --safari

Kevin Sack & Steve Eder of the New York Times: "... documents obtained this week by The New York Times, including a copy of Mr. Trump's check [to Florida AG Pam Bondi's campaign, show that ] it was actually dated and signed by Mr. Trump four days before [an Orlando Sentinel] article [about Bondi's potential investigation of Trump University] appeared.... His $25,000 gift to ... the committee supporting Ms. Bondi, is among his largest.... Ms. Bondi, meanwhile, has failed to explain why she accepted Mr. Trump's check even after learning that her office was examining the New York case against Trump University." -- CW ...

Tax Cheat, Ctd. David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "In 2007, Donald Trump spent $20,000 that belonged to his charity -- the Donald J. Trump Foundation -- to buy a six-foot-tall portrait of himself during a fundraiser auction at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida.... the portrait has been the center of a mystery: What did Trump do with the painting after he bought it?... On Wednesday, a new clue emerged. A former production manager for the portrait's painter told The Post that he had shipped the painting -- at the request of Trump's wife, Melania -- to Trump National Golf Club Westchester in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y. tax experts say that [such] an arrangement ... could violate Internal Revenue Service rules.... The Post ... tried to view the portrait at Trump National but was turned away at the club's entrance." -- CW ...

... Washington Post Editors: "THE TRUMP campaign believes this editorial is not journalism. It is 'badgering.' That is how campaign manager Kellyanne Conway described on Tuesday some simple questions The Post and others have asked Mr. Trump and his circle over the past several months about his supposed philanthropic activities. If anyone has an authenticity problem, it is Mr. Trump. The facts on the table suggest he is not a great philanthropist -- he is a scam artist.... The [Trump Foundation's] potential violations of the law seem to be less significant than what Mr. Trump appears to have done legally: duped people into believing in another one of his self-aggrandizing shams." ...

... CW: Yeah, and nearly half of U.S. voters appear to be ready to vote for that scam artist because thanks to the "neutral" mainstream media, including the Post, Hillary Clinton has "clouds" and "shadows" hanging over her. ...

... David Graham of the Atlantic: "The breadth of Trump's controversies is truly yuge, ranging from allegations of mafia ties to unscrupulous business dealings, and from racial discrimination to alleged marital rape.... To catalogue the full sweep of allegations would require thousands of words and lump together the trivial with the truly scandalous. Including business deals that have simply failed, without any hint of impropriety, would require thousands more.... [Graham provides] a snapshot of some of the most interesting and largest of those scandals." -- CW

Jamelle Bouie of Slate: "Trump, simply put, doesn't know anything, and we don't know anything about him. He is a political cipher who exists outside traditional performance standards for presidential candidates, and as a result he has dictated the terms on which the political press judges him. Think of this as Trump's first public works project: He has built the curve on which he is being graded.... Given the tenor of coverage in this election, it is fair to say that there is a double standard at work. Clinton is covered like a presidential nominee, while Trump is still treated like a sideshow, as if he'll never be president." --safari

Conservative Reihan Salam of Slate: "Donald Trump has just unveiled a new set of proposals designed to help working parents meet their child care needs.... [W]hether he's sincere or not, Trump's championing of these proposals is a significant moment in the history of the modern Republican Party.... Over the course of his presidential campaign, Trump has repudiated many aspects of Republican economic orthodoxy.... The difference between the pre-Trump GOP and today's Republican Party, however, is that small-government conservatives have lost their intellectual monopoly.... Trump's child care speech may well be remembered as the first shot in an ideological civil war that will define GOP politics for years to come." --safari

Ed Kilgore: "It is possible ... that Trump is opening up multiple paths to victory.... Those who have laughed off Donald Trump's chances while believing his election would represent a turn for the worse in their own lives should be nervous right now." --safari

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Paul Farhi of the Washington Post: On Tuesday, "Newsweek published a much-discussed story by [Kurt Eichenwald] about the Trump Organization.... Eichenwald teased the story by tweeting on Tuesday afternoon, 'My big cover story in @Newsweek that could change the dialogue about this election season will be published online tomorrow.'... "A few minutes later," Eichenwald tweeted, 'I believe Trump was institutionalized in a mental hospital for a nervous breakdown in 1990, which is why he won't release medical records.'... He later ... deleted the tweet about Trump's mental health 'because people were confusing it' with his forthcoming Newsweek story. But Eichenwald never said he did so because it was wrong." Eichenwald provided no evidence of Trump's hospitalization, and Farhi calls the tweet "bizarre and apparently erroneous." ...

... CW: There are several things wrong with the mental health tweet. First, of course, is Eichenwald's failure to cite any evidence, beyond his "belief," which of course is good enough for Republicans when it's their beliefs. Second, it's ridiculous to assume that a person is unqualified to be president because decades ago s/he had received treatment for a psychological problem. Third, assuming Trump hasn't been treated continuously for psychological problems (and it would be way better if he had!), a 1990 diagnosis & treatment would not factor into his refusal to release his medical records, as Eichenwald theorizes. If Trump released, say, ten years of medical history that demonstrated more-or-less normal health, he would be more transparent than most candidates (except for John McCain, who in 2008 released almost 1,200 pages of his records). Absent evidence, Eichenwald's tweet is an irresponsible conspiracy theory.

John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "For perhaps the first time in the campaign, the full spotlight is on Pence, a man who likes to portray himself as an aw-shucks Midwesterner, and who among some Republicans is regarded as the acceptable face of the Trump campaign.... It is easy to imagine that the Trump campaign wants to keep the 'basket of deplorables' story going, even if reporters and the Clinton campaign want to keep bringing up [David] Duke. On Tuesday, Pence tried to turn Clinton's tweet on its sender, saying the original 'deplorables' remark should disqualify her from the Presidency. [I]t would surely have been easier for Pence to say that Duke and the K.K.K. were deplorable, despicable anything stronger than 'bad' -- and move on. But, for whatever reason, that is a step he is still refusing to take -- which is itself deplorable." --safari

David Corn of Mother Jones: "Immediately after the news broke that Hillary Clinton had said that half of Donald Trump's supporters were racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, or Islamophobic and belonged in a "basket of deplorables," [Trump campaign manager] Kellyanne Conway ... tweeted: 'One day after promising to be aspirational & uplifting, Hillary insults millions of Americans.' And then she went on the warpath" against Clinton. CW: That's way surprising, because in 2008, Corn reports, Conway likened Americans who rely on credit cards & took out huge mortgages to "a bunch of pigs," and another time said Americans "live like a pig off my credit cards (which most people won't admit in this country)...." Corn concludes, "Using her own standards of this week, you might even call these statements deplorable." -- CW

Erik Wemple of the Washington Post: "Cosmo rips the halo off Ivanka Trump." Her interview with Prachi Gupta for the magazine did not go well. First, she evaded answering several questions. When asked about a comment Donald Trump made in 2004 about pregnancy being "inconvenient" for business, Ivanka Trump complained, "So I think that you have a lot of negativity in these questions.... So I don't know how useful it is to spend too much time with you on this if you're going to make a comment like that." Then she cut & ran.

Other News & Views

Timothy Cama of the Hill: "President Obama will create a new national monument Thursday off the coast of Massachusetts, protecting a nearly 5,000-square-mile area. The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, in the Atlantic Ocean 130 miles southeast of Cape Cod, will conserve deep-sea canyons and undersea mountains that host unique ecosystems that the Obama administration says are significantly impacted by climate change." CW: Based on Cama's report of the national monument location, I'd guess (and it's only a guess) that this would not nix locating windfarms off the Cape.

Matt Egan of CNN: "Get ready for fireworks next week when Elizabeth Warren grills Wells Fargo's CEO over the bank's mind-boggling creation of millions of fake accounts. The powerful Senate banking committee plans to hold a Wells Fargo ... hearing on September 20 at 10 a.m. ET, according to the office of Senator Richard Shelby, the committee's Republican chairman. Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf has accepted an invitation to testify, a spokesperson for the bank told CNNMoney.... After meeting Tuesday with Wells Fargo President Tim Sloan, Rep. Elijah Cummings [D-Md.], the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, requested a batch of documents on the bank's sales practices and the salaries and positions of those fired for improper sales tactics. Cummings also asked Wells Fargo to justify the huge $124 million in stocks and options that community banking head Carrie Tolstedt is set to walk away with when she retires at the end of the year. Tolstedt led the division that created millions of fake accounts...." -- CW

Jonathan Bernstein of Bloomberg: "We're about to see ... if the small group of [House] radicals can bully mainstream conservatives into casting irresponsible and counterproductive votes on two measures. First, the House Freedom Caucus zealots are intent on forcing a vote this week on impeaching the Internal Revenue Service commissioner, John Koskinen. Even if they had a case against him -- and they don't -- it's an abuse of their power to go through with an impeachment procedure with no chance for a conviction in the Senate.... Then sometime before the end of the month, the House will need to bring up a bill to keep the government running after the current fiscal year ends on Sept. 30.... Though there is nothing substantive to be gained by voting with the radicals, it requires standing up to them and risking being called a 'moderate' or 'RINO.'" --CW ...

Governing by "Moral Outrage." Paul Waldman on how Planned Parenthood has replaced ObummerCare as the reason to shut down the government. "... earlier this year, Congress passed a bill that would have both repealed the ACA and defunded Planned Parenthood, in a kind of passing of the baton from the former to the latter. The final vote, to override President Obama's veto, came in February; it was the 63rd time Republicans had voted to repeal the ACA, and it fittingly occurred on Groundhog Day.... If Hillary Clinton gets elected, we could well see a rotating menu of legislative outrage.... It's Planned Parenthood now, but if they decide that it's lost its punch as a way to show their constituents how strong and noble they are, something else will take its place. But it will always be something." -- CW

CW: Hey, Kids! Now's your chance to weigh in on women's rights. If you sound sensible -- and in favor of insurance coverage of contraception care -- you have a chance to get cited in a government brief that John Roberts might feel compelled to read. Also, if you went to Catholic school & want a chance to whack Sister Mary Elephant, et al., with a virtual ruler, this is it. Linda Greenhouse has the contest details. The government is inviting public comment on the case of Zubik v. Burwell, a/k/a "the Little Sisters case," even tho Zubik is not a nun. Enter here. But hurry. The contest -- I mean "comment period" -- "closes at 11:59 p.m. next Tuesday, Sept. 20." And so far the comments, which have been encouraged by Misogynists, Inc., run to "expert advice" -- which really is what the government is seeking -- on health care for women like, providing coverage is "the most egregious violation of religious liberty in the history of our nation."

**Scott Walker and Democracy's Cancer. Ed Pilkington of th Guardian: "The pervasive influence of corporate cash in the democratic process, and the extraordinary lengths to which politicians, lobbyists and evenjudges go to solicit money, are laid bare in sealed court documents leaked to the Guardian.... Last year the Wisconsin supreme court ordered that all the documents should be destroyed, though a set survived that has now been obtained by the news organisation. The files open a window on a world that is very rarely glimpsed by the public, in which millions of dollars are secretly donated by major corporations and super-wealthy individuals to third-party groups in an attempt to sway elections." --safari

Dirty Laundry. Christopher Massie & Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "Condoleezza Rice privately criticized Bush administration Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to Colin Powell last year in an exchange about the handling of the Iraq War, according to Powell's personal emails seen by BuzzFeed News...The website DCLeaks.com -- which has reported, but not confirmed, ties to Russian intelligence services -- obtained Powell's emails." --safari ...

... Michael Shear of the New York Times: "... a hack of Mr. Powell's email this week has ripped away the diplomatic jargon and political niceties to reveal his unvarnished disdain of Donald J. Trump as a 'national disgrace,' his personal peeves with Hillary Clinton and his lingering, but still very raw, anger with the Republican colleagues with whom he so often clashed a decade ago." -- CW ...

... Also, Powell wrote he believed that Bill Clinton, post-presidency, was still "dicking bimbos" and that Hillary Clinton was "greedy" and possessed by "unbridled ambition." CW: Powell himself of course did not lack for ambition: you don't get to be a general & chairman of the joint chiefs on effectiveness alone; rising in the ranks requires a lot of toadying.

... Powell also had an exchange with Democratic donor Jeffrey Leeds, in which Powell wrote that "On HD tv she [Hillary Clinton] doesn't look good. She is working herself to death,' Powell said, adding: 'She will turn 70 her first year in office.' Leeds then recounted something Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) told him about a joint event at which, according to Leeds's recounting of Whitehouse's comments, Clinton 'could barely climb the podium steps.'" CW: I read about this exchange yesterday, first reported on insane conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' Website, so I didn't know if there was any veracity to it. However, the e-mail quotes here, along with quite a few other juicy ones, are now being reported by Aaron Blake of the Washington Post, so I'm presuming, not necessarily correctly, that they're accurate. ...

... Kathrine Gregg of the Providence (Rhode Island) Journal: "Asked about this account on Wednesday, Whitehouse's spokeswoman Meaghan McCabe said: "Mr. Leeds is a friend of the Senator's, but he doesn't recall that specific conversation." CW: That's a standard-form non-denial denial.

Nick Gass of Politico: "The Atlantic Coast Conference is following the NCAA's lead in announcing Wednesday that it has decided to relocate its neutral-site championship events from North Carolina because of the state's recently enacted legislation regarding gender and bathrooms." -- CW

Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Rupert Neate of the Guardian: "German chemical giant Bayer has agreed to a $66bn (£50bn) deal to buy controversial US agrochemical giant Monsanto and create the world's largest seeds and pesticides company. The proposed deal, the biggest corporate takeover deal so far this year, follows a wave of consolidation in the seeds and agriculture industry and has raised concerns among scientists, regulators, farmers and activists who called the deal a 'marriage made in hell.'... The proposed takeover is likely to face intense regulatory scrutiny in the US and Europe, particularly as it quickly follows two other mega-deals in the agriculture industry and would leave control of almost two-thirds of the world's seeds and pesticides in the hands of three firms." --safari

Beyond the Beltway

AP: "A 77-year-old man shot three people at a [Cheyenne, Wyoming,] senior citizens' apartment complex where he lived, killing one before taking his own life as officers closed in, police said. Larry Rosenberg fled after the shootings on Wednesday armed with a handgun and rifle. He killed himself as officers approached him in a neighborhood about a mile away...." -- CW

Way Beyond

Emily Rauhala of the Washington Post: "In an extraordinary hearing in the Philippine Senate, a witness claimed Thursday that President Rodrigo Duterte paid him to carry out executions that involved feeding a body to a crocodile, chopping up corpses and dumping slashed bodies into the sea. The witness, Edgar Matobato, 57, spoke to Filipino lawmakers at Senate hearings investigating a recent wave of extra-judicial killings that has claimed more than 3,000 lives as part of the president's anti-drug campaign." -- CW