The Commentariat -- Sept. 6, 2016

Presidential Race

Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump ran virtually parallel campaigns on Monday as they geared up for the final stretch of the presidential race. She ... open[ed] up her campaign plane and chatt[ed] with reporters. He followed suit, inviting a smaller group of reporters onto his plane and answering questions during the 30-minute flight. She took along her running mate, and so did he, as both focused on Ohio and nearly crossed paths in Cleveland. Their motorcades all but passed each other, and all four candidates' planes ended up on the tarmac at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport at the same time. Mrs. Clinton ... met with union leaders in Cleveland while her husband, Bill Clinton, appeared at a Labor Day parade in Detroit. Seeking the backing of progressive voters, she enlisted her primary opponent, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who made his first solo appearance on Mrs. Clinton's behalf at a rally in New Hampshire." -- CW

Enjoli Francis of ABC News: "Hillary Clinton told ABC News' David Muir today that her husband, former President Bill Clinton, should not have to step down before the election from his position at the Clinton Foundation. 'I don't think there are conflicts of interest,' the Democratic presidential nominee said in a joint interview today with running mate Sen. Tim Kaine. 'I know that that's what has been alleged and never proven....' 'I'm very proud of the work that the Clinton Foundation has done,' Clinton said. 'It's a world-renowned charity because of the work that my husband started and many, many people helped him with.... He has made it his life's work, after the presidency. And he has said, if I am so fortunate enough to be elected, he will not be involved. And I think that is appropriate.'" -- CW

Jeff Mason & Mary Milliken of Reuters: "... Hillary Clinton said on Monday she will not accept an invitation from Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto for a visit after rival Donald Trump created what she called a 'diplomatic incident' in his foray there. In a written excerpt from an interview with ABC News that will air Tuesday morning, Clinton simply said 'no' when asked if she would travel to Mexico before the election on Nov. 8, without elaborating further." -- CW

Annie Karni of Politico: "Hillary Clinton on Monday expressed 'a very serious' concern about Russia's apparent tampering with the U.S. election, implying that Vladimir Putin and the 'adversarial foreign power' he governs are actively trying to elect Donald Trump.... After more than a month when she spent most of her time out of sight raising money from mega donors and celebrities in wealthy enclaves from Los Angeles to the Hamptons, Clinton's aggressive stance toward Russia was part of a roaring back to the campaign trail on Labor Day.... Headlining two rallies in two states -- and campaigning through a hacking cough she said was brought on by her seasonal allergies -- Clinton also attempted a reset with the press. She took more than 20 minutes of questions from reporters aboard her plane, ending a 275-day standoff during which she refused to hold a press conference." -- CW

Paul Waldman: "The big difference [in news coverage of Clinton's & Trump's financial histories] is that there are an enormous number of reporters who get assigned to write stories about those issues regarding Clinton.... [But] when it comes to Trump..., a story about some kind of corrupt dealing emerges, usually from the dogged efforts of one or a few journalists;... and then it disappears.... The news organizations don't assign a squad of reporters to look into every aspect of it, so no new facts are brought to light and no new stories get written.... You'd have to work incredibly hard to find a politician who has the kind of history of corruption, double-dealing, and fraud that Donald Trump has. The number of stories which could potentially deserve hundreds and hundreds of articles is absolutely staggering." Waldman provides a partial list. ...

... CW: Here's what I think the real reason for this difference is. You only have to read one story from Waldman's list to be convinced Trump is a dirty rotten crook. Editors have read those stories. They're convinced. Clinton, on the other hand, constantly flies nearly as close to corruption as Icarus flew to the sun, so editors assign reporters to keep hunting till her wings melt. Just look at the the two WashPo stories linked below, the first by Helderman & Lee on Clinton & the second by DelReal & Fahrenthold on Trump. The Clintons' manipulation of rich friends is legion but also keeps coming up shy of illegal; the IRS determined that what Trump did was illegal in more ways than one. The "news" in the DelReal story is that Trump lied (or to be more charitable, either Trump on Bondi's advisors lied; also it depends upon what the meaning of "it" is) "Donald Trump lied about ..." could begin of the headline of every story in which Trump says something. So barely newsworthy. ...

... digby finds yet another motivation for the double standard: "... there is another dynamic at work, born of the same leftish skew among members of the press. We expect our own to adhere to a higher standard than conservatives. We don't expect the right to live up to those standards, and they don't disappoint us when they don't. But when appearances (even false media ones) suggest people like the Clintons have fallen short, we're on a hair trigger for throwing them under the bus. Dirty tricksters on the right know this and exploit it as a weakness." Read her whole post.

Rosalind Helderman & Michelle Lee of the Washington Post: When she was Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton recommended that an invitation to a department dinner on higher education go to "a representative from a for-profit college company called Laureate International Universities, which, she explained in an email to her chief of staff that was released last year, was 'the fastest growing college network in the world.'... The company was started by a businessman, Doug Becker, 'who Bill likes a lot.'... Nine months later, Laureate signed Bill Clinton to a lucrative deal as a consultant and 'honorary chancellor,' paying him $17.6 million over five years until the contract ended in 2015 as Hillary Clinton launched her campaign for president. There is no evidence that Laureate received special favors from the State Department in direct exchange for hiring Bill Clinton.... A close examination of the Laureate deal reveals how Bill Clinton leveraged the couple's connections during that time to enhance their personal wealth...." ...

     ... Kevin Drum: "I hope everyone will excuse me if I ignore this entire story until there's even the slightest hint of some kind of wrongdoing or corruption." ...

     ... CW: If you're wondering how the Clintons went from "dead broke" and "in debt" when they left the White House to fabulously wealthy when one of them worked for a charity & the other had a couple of lousy government jobs, the WashPo story provides some of the answers.

I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And you know what? When I need something from them, two years later, three years later, I call them, and they are there for me. -- Donald Trump, in a GOP primary debate, August 2015 ...

... Jose DelReal & David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump on Monday dismissed questions about his failure to disclose an improper $25,000 contribution in 2013 to a political group connected to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was at the time considering whether to open a fraud investigation against Trump University. The donation, made by the Donald J. Trump Foundation, violated federal rules that prohibit charities from donating to political candidates. Trump and his team also failed to disclose the gift to the Internal Revenue Service, instead reporting that the donation was given to an unrelated group with a similar name -- effectively obscuring the contribution. '... I never even spoke to her about it at all. She's a fine person. Never spoken to her about it, never,' Trump said Monday.... Marc Reichelderfer -- who worked as a consultant on Bondi's reelection effort -- told the Associated Press in June that Bondi spoke with Trump and solicited the donation herself.... Trump has bragged about making political donations to politicians to curry favor with them and benefit his businesses, regularly using such statements to undermine his critics in both parties." -- CW

By Driftglass.Hill: "In an interview with ABC News..., Donald Trump said people don't care if he releases his tax returns.... 'I don't think anybody cares, except some members of the press.'... Trump told ABC News he's provided the 'most extensive financial review of anybody in the history of politics.'" -- CW ...

... More Crazy Shit. Rebecca Savransky of the Hill: "... Donald Trump in an interview that aired Tuesday touted his temperament while attacking Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for not having a 'presidential look.' 'The single greatest asset I have, according to those that know me, is my temperament,' Trump told ABC's 'Good Morning America.' 'But she came up with this ... line, "Oh, lets talk about his temperament." It's the single greatest asset I have.'" -- CW ...

... Extra Credit Crazy Shit. Jose DelReal: "Donald Trump said Monday that he would have left the G-20 summit in China over a logistical flap that left President Obama disembarking Air Force One onto a plain metal staircase." ...

     ... CW: This is akin to Newt Gingrich's shutting down the U.S. government because then-President Bill Clinton gave him a lousy seat on AF1. ...

     ... Paul Waldman: "It will certainly be impossible for other countries or actors to manipulate President Trump by insulting him." -- CW ...

... Extra, Extra Credit. Jeremy Diamond of CNN: "Donald Trump on Monday refused to rule out granting legal status to undocumented immigrants who remain in the United States, breaking with an immigration proposal he laid out just last week. The Republican nominee vowed last week during a major speech in Phoenix that undocumented immigrants seeking legal status would 'have one route and one route only: to return home and apply for reentry like everybody else.' But asked Monday aboard his plane whether he could rule out a pathway to legal status for undocumented immigrants, Trump declined. 'I'm not ruling out anything,' Trump said. 'We're going to make that decision into the future. OK?'" -- CW ...

... He Can't Stop (Even in a Written Statement). Allegra Kirkland of TPM: "Donald Trump lamented the passing of far-right activist Phyllis Schlafly in a statement on Monday, thanking her for sharing his commitment to an 'America First' agenda.... [Trump] also called Schlafly 'a champion for women.' She was known as a social conservative crusader who led the movement to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment, painted feminists as aggressive 'men' in disguise, and claimed that 'virtuous women' never experienced workplace sexual harassment." -- CW

Stephen Collinson & Maeve Reston of CNN: "Trump's best chance for altering the race lies in the presidential debates.... In front of a vast television audience, the GOP nominee could reshape perceptions of his character and readiness -- if he can avoid being drawn into gaffes and personality clashes by Clinton. He will benefit from rock-bottom expectations, given controversies whipped up by his tempestuous personality and the vast gulf in experience between Trump and Clinton." -- CW

A Man with No Plan. Paul Waldman: Donald Trump's plan to bring back jobs is to bring back jobs. "Now why didn't anybody else think of that? And also 'renegotiating' trade deals, though he never actually says what that renegotiation would entail, other than presumably going to China to say, 'Hey China, give us back our jobs!' ... Fewer than one in 11 Americans now works in manufacturing, and the idea that after a couple of renegotiated trade deals we're all going to be sewing tube socks and assembling iPhones for fantastic wages is, shall we say, less than realistic. We all know that Trump is a spectacularly shallow candidate. But even here, on his supposed area of expertise, it's obvious that 'How?' is a question he is utterly incapable of answering." -- CW

David Cay Johnston on Democracy Now! runs off another laundry list of Trump's shady business dealings and ties to the mob. --safari

The Cowardly Liar, Ctd. Peter Beinart of the Atlantic: When actually in the room with the people he derides, Trump turns from bully to coward." Beinart's observation is similar to one Akhilleus made yesterday:

So far [Trump's] most egregious insults and lies have been delivered in front of audiences of howling supporters, not blacks or Latinos or women. When he finds himself in a position to scream in the face of one of his chosen villains, he backs down in a most obsequious way. Will actually facing Hillary Clinton, well prepped and loaded for bear have an effect on the size of the Trumpesticles?

Crazy Old Men for Trump. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump's campaign will release an open letter on Tuesday from about 90 retired generals and military officials endorsing his presidential campaign, urging a 'long overdue course correction in our national security posture.'" Among them are "Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin of the Army, who was criticized by President George W. Bush for describing the battle against Islamist terrorists as a religious proxy fight between a 'Christian nation' and the 'idol' of Islam" and "Lt. Gen. Thomas G. McInerney of the Air Force, who ... has previously submitted court documents challenging President Obama's place of birth." -- CW

Dave Weigel keeps running into voters who say they "don't know where the presidential candidates stand on the issues" and want the candidates to "cut the mudslinging" and "talk more about the issues people care about." Voter ignorance is not the fault of the candidates or the media; it's the fault of lazy voters who can't be bothered to look up the candidates' policies, which are readily available on their Websites (though Clinton's site has "exponentially" more info than Trump's) or on the Googles. Also, too, it isn't only lazy voters: "Watch those odd ads from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, [a deficit-obsessed, anti-"entitlement" org,] asking candidates for 'a plan' on Social Security, and you would think neither candidate has proposed entitlement plans. (They have.)" -- CW

Other News & Views

Josh Lederman of the AP: "In the wake of another missile launch, President Barack Obama vowed Tuesday to work with the United Nations to tighten sanctions against North Korea, but added that the U.S. was still open to dialogue if the government changes course. Obama signaled the U.S. would redouble its effort to choke off North Korea's access to international currency and technology by tightening loopholes in the current sanctions regime. Obama called the series of ballistic missile launches 'provocations' that flouted international law and would only lead to further isolation." -- CW

William Wan & David Nakamura of the Washington Post: " After being called an obscenity by the president of the Philippines, President Obama canceled a meeting with the leader that had been scheduled for Tuesday. President Rodrigo Duterte had threatened to curse out Obama if he raised the issue of extrajudicial killings by Philippine authorities in a sweeping crackdown on drug trafficking.... Obama earlier said that when speaking with Duterte, he would not shy away from the topic of "international norms" when it comes to due-process rights." -- CW

"In Case We Accidentally Let You Vote, Vote Republican." -- GOP. Gene Robinson: "Every once in a while, the curtains part and we get a glimpse of the ugliest, most shameful spectacle in American politics: the Republican Party's systematic attempt to disenfranchise African Americans and other minorities with voter-ID laws and other restrictions at the polls.... Republicans claim they want support from African Americans, Hispanics and other minorities. They don't deserve the time of day until they stop this appalling effort to keep us from voting at all." -- CW ...

... Washington Post Editors: "In just four states are felons permanently barred from voting absent action by the governor. And in one of them, Virginia, lawmakers are considering an even more restrictive regime that would forever foreclose the possibility of redemption for tens of thousands of citizens. For this essentially racist project, Virginians can credit the ethically challenged majority leader of Virginia's state Senate, Thomas K. Norment Jr. (R-James City). He filed legislation last week that would bar people convicted of violent felonies, in Virginia disproportionately African Americans, from ever having their voting rights restored.... The bill is retribution against Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), who has infuriated Republicans by attempting to restore voting rights to some 200,000 ex-convicts, nearly half of them African Americans...." -- CW

Brian Stelter of CNN: "21st Century Fox has agreed to a settlement with Gretchen Carlson, the anchorwoman who sued Roger Ailes alleging harassment and retaliation in July, Vanity Fair magazine reported Tuesday. Ailes, the powerful Fox News CEO and chairman, resigned in the wake of the allegations, which he has continuously denied. 21st Century Fox, however, is acknowledging harm. In a highly unusual public statement on Tuesday morning, the company said, 'We sincerely regret and apologize for the fact that Gretchen was not treated with the respect that she and all our colleagues deserve.' According to Vanity Fair, Fox's settlement with Carlson is for $20 million. The magazine reports that Fox has also reached settlements with two other women who alleged harassment by Ailes." -- CW ...

... The Vanity Fair story, by Sarah Ellison, is here.

Sydney Ember & Stacy Cowley of the New York Times: "A lawyer for Roger Ailes ... has sent a letter to New York magazine suggesting he might take legal action over its reporting about Mr. Ailes. Lauren Starke, a spokeswoman for the magazine, said that Charles J. Harder, who was Hulk Hogan's lawyer in his successful lawsuit against Gawker Media, had contacted the magazine by email and asked it to preserve documents related to Mr. Ailes in preparation for a possible defamation claim.... Gabriel Sherman, a reporter for the magazine, has written extensively about Mr. Ailes and the sexual harassment allegations by female employees that resulted in his ouster in July as chairman of Fox News. On Friday, New York published a lengthy article by Mr. Sherman about Mr. Ailes and his downfall, and in July Mr. Sherman was the first to report that Rupert Murdoch and his sons, Lachlan and James, had decided to remove Mr. Ailes from his position." -- CW

Jay Michaelson of The Daily Beast: "In an unprecedented show of inter-tribal cooperation not seen, according to one elder, since the Battle of Big Horn, thousands of activists from at least 200 Native American tribes have gathered in a remote part of North Dakota to protest the construction of a new oil pipeline." --safari

Oliver Milman of the Guardian: "The soaring temperature of the oceans is the 'greatest hidden challenge of our generation' that is altering the make-up of marine species, shrinking fishing areas and starting to spread disease to humans, according to the most comprehensive analysis yet of ocean warming...The ocean has absorbed more than 90% of the extra heat created by human activity. If the same amount of heat that has been buried in the upper 2km of the ocean had gone into the atmosphere, the surface of the Earth would have warmed by a devastating 36C, rather than 1C, over the past century." --safari

Beyond the Beltway

Kate Zernike of the New York Times: "The trial in the George Washington Bridge lane-closing scandal, which is scheduled to open on Thursday with jury selection, will play out like a documentary on the rise and fall of [Gov. Chris] Christie's presidential ambitions, a tell-all tale of how he and his aides built his administration and his 2013 re-election campaign with an eye to winning the White House, then scrambled to contain the damage as inquiries into the lane closings began to wreck those hopes." CW: Pretty enjoyable reading for those of us who aren't exactly Christie fans.

Brad Reed of RawStory: "Mike Krawitz, a New Jersey Republican who is running for a spot on the West Deptford Township Committee..., told Daily Beast reporter Olivia Nuzzi on Facebook that he hopes she gets raped by a Syrian refugee." -- safari ...

     ... Update. Matt Friedman of Politico: Nuzzi said [Krawitz] has been harassing her on Facebook for over a year. "'Fuck. You. Olivia,' he wrote [on Facebook]. 'I. Hope. Somebody. Rapes. You. Today.:). A minute later, he wrote 'Hope. You. Get. Raped. By. A. Syrian. Refugee. :).'...Now the West Deptford[, New Jersey,] GOP claims his account was hacked -- on a different social media site[: Twitter, not Facebook]." -- CW: It's kind of magical. Some awful person who owns Krawitz's Facebook page has been harassing a female reporter for a year because Krawitz's Twitter account was hacked.

The Commentariat -- Sept. 5, 2016

The Way We Were.

Presidential Race

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.

In his first turn as a presidential debate moderator, Fox "News"'s Chris Wallace does not intend to commit journalism, as MAG points out in today's Comments. Sarah Burris of the Raw Story: Wallace said on Howard Kurtz's Fox "News" show: "'I do not believe it is my job to be a truth squad. It's up to the other person to catch them on that. I certainly am going to try to maintain some reasonable semblance of equal time. If one of them is filibustering, I'm going to try to break in respectfully and give the other person a chance to talk. But I want it to be about them -- I want it to be as much of a debate, people often talk that it's simultaneous news conferences.' Wallace said that he hopes the event will become more of a debate between the candidates and not a debate between the candidate and moderators armed with facts." ...

... CW: Wallace prefaced his promise to let the candidates lie by making this analogy: "I view it as kind of being a referee in a heavyweight championship fight." Referees, Wallace must know, are charged with enforcing fight rules. Wallace is saying then that lying is not an infraction, thus the ref/moderator does not need to call out the candidates' lies. He also is admitting something we all know: that the Fox "News" standard sanctions lying. The debates committee would have done better to employ some print journalists to moderate the debates rather than the pretty teevee-star kind.

David Edwards of the Raw Story: "Former CNN host Soledad O'Brien blasted the cable news business over the weekend for profiting off the hate speech that has fueled Donald Trump's political rise. According to O'Brien, the media had gone through 'contortions to make things seem equal all the time' when comparing Trump to ... Hillary Clinton." O'Brien slammed the she-said/he-said "journalism" employed where there's no equivalency. She said the cable news networks have "normalized white supremacy" by "softening the ground for ... white supremacists..., white nationalists, who would self-identify that way...." -- CW ...

     ... digby: "The idea that Clinton and Trump surrogates are equally dishonest is bullshit. Simple bullshit. But they have to do it. You can see the reflex there at work perfectly in Mark Leibovitz's obvious discomfort [in the segment above] at presenting Trump as something uniquely outrageous." -- CW ...

... Paul Krugman: The press is grading Donald Trump "on a curve. If he manages to read from a TelePrompter without going off script, he's being presidential. If he seems to suggest that he wouldn't round up all 11 million undocumented immigrants right away, he's moving into the mainstream. And many of his multiple scandals, like what appear to be clear payoffs to state attorneys general to back off investigating Trump University, get remarkably little attention. Meanwhile, we have the presumption that anything Hillary Clinton does must be corrupt, most spectacularly illustrated by the increasingly bizarre coverage of the Clinton Foundation.... If reports about a candidate talk about how something 'raises questions,' creates 'shadows,' or anything similar, be aware that these are all too often weasel words used to create the impression of wrongdoing out of thin air." ...

     ... CW: That's Krugman biting the hand that feeds him. Good for him. ...

... Judd Legum of Think Progress: "Hillary Clinton has faced consistent scrutiny for her role in the Clinton Foundation.... Much of the controversy about the Clinton Foundation focuses on ... whether [Secretary Clinton] was complicit in 'selling access' in return for donations to the foundation. These charges were elevated to prominence by Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute..., the non-profit arm of Breitbart.com.... Schweizer's book failed to uncover any clear evidence of wrongdoing  -- and was rife with errors --  but it did succeed in focusing mainstream media attention on the alleged issue.... Meanwhile, on September 1, news broke that the Trump Foundation 'violated tax laws by giving a political contribution to a campaign group connected to Florida's attorney general.' It was required to pay a $2500 fine to the IRS. The details of the case are even more unseemly.... The story has something that none of the Clinton Foundation stories have: Actual evidence of illegal conduct [and] a formal finding of wrongdoing by the IRS. And yet, coverage of the Trump Foundation, even in the few short days since the story of the IRS fine broke, has been scant." ...

     ... CW: Take a look at Legum's chart to see the difference in coverage of the Clinton & Trump foundations. ...

... Steve M.: "... the Clinton campaign should make an ad about the Trump Foundation. It may not be a message that wins over voters in key states, but ads become news of their own these days, and maybe the slap in the face the media needs on this subject is a Clinton paid ad. God forbid the press should do its job without that prodding." Also, Trump has said he won't talk about birtherism, "and the press has been completely deferential to his wish to avoid the subject." -- CW ...

... John Ziegler in Mediaite: "... perhaps the most amazing example of the news media largely letting Trump off the hook regarding a topic which should be a clear disqualifier for the presidency is his 'Birtherism' crusade against President Barack Obama.... Trump, according to The New York Times, lied about having investigators which had uncovered important new data on the topic." -- CW ...

... Stephen Brown of the New York Daily News: "Donald Trump has blasted Hillary Clinton for accepting money from Saudi Arabia through her foundation, but a Daily News investigation reveals he has padded his bank account with cash from the same country. Trump sold the 45th floor of Trump World Tower to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for $4.5 million in June 2001, according to a city Finance Department spokeswoman.... Rebecca Ocampo, who alleged in court papers she helped broker the deal between Trump and the Saudis, said the apartments were about more than money -- they were also about 'access' to a new, potentially lucrative market in the Middle East.... In 1985, Osama Bin Laden's half-brother Shafiq Bin Laden paid an $8,500 security deposit for an apartment in Trump Tower." ...

... CW: So it's horrible for the Clintons to take Saudi money for charity, but A-Okay for Trump to take Saudi money for profit.

Kathleen Gray of the Detroit Free Press: Bill "Clinton will march with organized labor down Michigan Avenue in Detroi this morning and greet union members along the way. He's not scheduled to speak at the end of the parade." ...

     ... CW: Probably because Hillary Clinton's health is so precarious she can't walk down the street, so she's sending her husband, who has had quadruple bypass surgery, out in the noonday sun to do her job. Oh, wait, "Hillary Clinton and her running mate -- Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine -- are participating in a Labor Day Festival in Cleveland today. Clinton also plans on attending a Salute to Labor program in Hampton, Ill., while Kaine will be joined by [Vice President] Biden at a Labor Day parade in Pittsburgh."

I think that anytime that we hear intolerance, anytime that we hear policy measures that are contrary to our values, banning certain classes of people, because of who they are or what they look at, what faith they practice, then we have to be pretty hard about saying no to that. And I think that America will do that this time as well. -- President Obama, in an interview ...

... Obama: Trump's a Jerk, But He's a Copycat Jerk. Louis Nelson of Politico: "The America-first, nationalistic tones upon which Donald Trump has built his campaign are nothing new, President Barack Obama said in an interview that aired Sunday morning...."

By Driftglass.Cyra Master of the Hill: "... Donald Trump took to Twitter Sunday night to again attack rival Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server.... 'Lyin' Hillary told the FBI that she did not know the "C" markings on documents stood for CLASSIFIED. How can this be happening?' he tweeted.... However, several people on social media noted that FBI Director James Comey has said the 'C' stands for confidential." CW: That is, Trump lied in a tweet in which he called Clinton a liar. SOP.

Cyra Master: "... Donald Trump lashed out at Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) Sunday on Twitter. He tweeted that the Republican Party needs 'strong and committed leaders, not weak people such as @JeffFlake' in order to address illegal immigration.... Earlier Sunday, Flake reiterated on CNN's 'State of the Union' that he would not be voting for Trump in November." -- CW

Louis Nelson"... Chuck Todd worked hard to nail down Republican vice-presidential candidate Mike Pence on his running mate's immigration plan, asking the Indiana governor more than 10 times during Sunday's installment of NBC's 'Meet the Press' what would happen to undocumented immigrants who had not committed a crime in a Donald Trump administration. But each time Todd asked a variation of the question, Pence demurred.... In an interview on ABC's 'This Week,' Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway similarly declined to offer a concrete answer to the question of what the Manhattan billionaire would do with undocumented immigrants who have not committed a crime...." CW: Might be the only time we read the clause "Chuck Todd worked hard".

"Trump Card." Donald Even Rigged His Stupid Beauty Pageants. Lucia Graves of the Guardian: "Miss Universe judge Jeff Lee admitted in GQ that Trump -- who from 1996 to 2015 owned or co-owned both Miss Universe and Miss USA -- frequently had a say in which women made the final round. According to the story's author, Burt Helm: 'Lee will tell you that from 2005 until Donald Trump sold the Miss Universe pageant last year, the billionaire quietly handpicked as many as six semifinalists -- "Trump cards", they were called.'" But when Trump contestant Sheena Monnin wrote about the fix on her Facebook page, Trump disparaged her character, then sued her for $10MM. "... last year, Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen bragged to the Daily Beast about the time he 'destroy[ed]' Monnin's life. Because her lawyer didn't show up or even tell her about a scheduled arbitration meet, a judge ruled for Trump, ordering Monnin had to pay Trump $5MM, though Monnin ended up paying nothing after she sued her incompetent attorney.

Wayne Barrett, in the New York Daily News, on the long, seamy relationship between Donald Trump & his top surrogate Rudy Giuliani: CW: It's impossible to decide which of them is more despicable.

Vincente Fox (former president of Mexico) in the Guardian: "The Republican presidential candidate arrived in my country offering diplomacy as fake as a $3 bill...[W]ith this visit to my country he has confirmed that he is without a doubt someone who cannot be trusted...He used the president of Mexico and all of the country's citizens to his own benefit...Well, even though I'm against walls, I’d gladly build one around Trump, to spare the world from people like him. We don't need you." --safari

**The Other Terrorism. Contributors of Juan Cole: "[A] study from The Program on Extremism at The George Washington University analyzed accounts from prominent white nationalist organizations such as the American Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan. It found that from 2012 to 2016 these accounts had a 600 percent increase in followers, now estimated to stand at around 22,000 up from around 3,500 in 2012...The study also found that people who follow white nationalist accounts were unsurprisingly 'invested in Donald Trump's presidential campaign.' White nationalist followers used Trump hashtags more than any other white nationalist related hashtag except for #whitegenocide." --safari

James Kirchick of The Daily Beast: "Trump is a living repudiation of everything religious conservatives claim to believe in. A thrice-married, epically greedy, congenitally dishonest serial adulterer who brags about his sexual conquests and exalts the rich and powerful while heaping scorn upon the weak and vulnerable, Trump is the villain of Sunday school parables made real...[Yet] according to a July Pew poll, 78 percent of white evangelicals have expressed support for him, compared to just 73 percent who backed Mitt Romney at the same time in 2012." --safari

Other News & Views

Dana Priest, et al., of the Washington Post: "U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies are probing what they see as a broad covert Russian operation in the United States to sow public distrust in the upcoming presidential election and in U.S. political institutions, intelligence and congressional officials said.... The effort to better understand Russia's covert influence operations is being spearheaded by James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence." -- CW

William Wan & Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to reach a deal Monday on a cease-fire for Syria, but the two sides have agreed to continue negotiating even as Syrian government forces close in on the beseiged city of Aleppo. Meeting with Putin on the sidelines of the G20 meeting [in Hangzhou, China], Obama emphasized the humanitarian importance and urgent need for a ceasefire but was adamant about not striking an agreement that wouldn't meet his long-term objectives in Syria, a White House official said...." ...

... Rebecca Morin of Politico: "President Barack Obama 'wouldn't overcrank the significance' of the altercations between Chinese and White House officials over press access that greeted Air Force One on Saturday after it landed in Hangzhou, China, for the G20 summit. At a news conference Sunday with British Prime Minister Theresa May, Obama said this is not the first time there have been issues with security and press access. The president said the U.S. provides access to the press pool that "other countries may not insist on.... After the arrival of Obama and White House officials, Chinese and White House officials had several disagreements, such as whether the press pool could be on the tarmac for the president's arrival." -- CW ...

... Mark Landler & Jane Perlez of the New York Times have the backstory on President Obama's bumpy arrival in China, which is more complicated that previously reported. -- CW

Way Beyond

Tom Phillips & Eric Cheung of the Guardian: "Two years after tens of thousands of young people poured on to the streets of Hong Kong to issue an unprecedented call for political change, a new generation of pro-democracy activists has gained a foothold in power in the former British colony. At least four radical young activists who support greater political autonomy or outright independence from China claimed seats in Hong Kong's 70-member legislative council, or Legco, after a record 2.2 million people went to the polls on Sunday." --safari

Juan Cole has a good summary of the ironclad rule of the recently deceased Uzbekistan president Islam Karimov. A little taste: " Karimov was only one dog-eaten uncle short of running a North Korea." --safari

News Lede

NBC News: "Storm warnings were in effect Monday from Long Island to Nantucket as post-Tropical Cyclone Hermine drifted slowly up the Atlantic, promising near hurricane-strength winds, floods and beach erosion. The National Weather Service said large waves will pound the East Coast from the mid-Atlantic states to southern New England through the end of Labor Day. Life-threatening rip currents are expected at least into the middle of the week, it added. At 5 a.m. ET, Hermine was about 305 miles southeast of the eastern tip of Long Island, N.Y. The storm was 'drifting northward' at 3 mph and 'expected to meander off the mid-Atlantic coast during the next day or two,' according to the National Weather Service." -- CW

The Commentariat -- Sept. 4, 2016

Mark Landler & Jane Perlez of the New York Times: "President Obama and President Xi Jinping of China formally committed the world's two largest economies to the Paris climate agreement [in Hangzhou, China] on Saturday, cementing their partnership on climate change and offering a rare display of harmony in a relationship that has become increasingly discordant.... On multiple fronts, like computer hacking and maritime security, ties between China and the United States have frayed during the seven and a half years of Mr. Obama's presidency.... Yet the fact that [they]... could set aside those tensions to work together yet again on a joint plan to reduce greenhouse gases attests to the pragmatic personal rapport they have built, as well as to the complexity of the broader United States-China relationship...." -- CW ...

... Mark Landler: "... the reception that President Obama and his staff got when they arrived [in China] Saturday afternoon was bruising, even by Chinese standards." CW: The Chinese must have been practicing for Trumpelthinskin. Their rude "greeting" to Obama certainly would rile Trumpus. ...

... Tom Phillips of the Guardian: "China's leaders have been accused of delivering a calculated diplomatic snub to Barack Obama after the US president was not provided with a staircase to leave his plane during his chaotic arrival in Hangzhou before the start of the G20.... When Obama did find his way on to a red carpet on the tarmac below there were heated altercations between US and Chinese officials, with one Chinese official caught on video shouting: 'This is our country! This is our airport!'" CW: Very Trumpy.

... President Obama speaks to Julie Davis of the New York Times:

... Justin Gillis of the New York Times: "For decades, as the global warming created by human emissions caused land ice to melt and ocean water to expand, scientists warned that the accelerating rise of the sea would eventually imperil the United States' coastline. Now, those warnings are no longer theoretical: The inundation of the coast has begun. The sea has crept up to the point that a high tide and a brisk wind are all it takes to send water pouring into streets and homes. Federal scientists have documented a sharp jump in this nuisance flooding -- often called 'sunny-day flooding' -- along both the East Coast and the Gulf Coast in recent years." -- CW ...

... Ian Livingston of the Washington Post: "... [Tropical Storm] Hermine's assault on the East Coast is just beginning. By the time it finishes during the week ahead, significant impact is anticipated up-and-down the coastline." The story includes updates. -- CW

Reuters: "U.S. President Barack Obama told Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan Sunday that his administration would work with Turkey to help ensure that those responsible for an attempted coup are brought to justice.... Obama and Erdogan met on the sidelines of the G-20 summit under way in eastern China's Hangzhou city." -- CW

Elisabetta Polvoledo of the New York Times: Pope Francis made Mother Teresa a saint at a "canonization ceremony in St. Peter's Square. The canonization marked a highlight of the Jubilee year that Francis had proclaimed to celebrate the theme of mercy. On Saturday, he told thousands of cheering volunteers gathered in St. Peter's Square that Mother Teresa was a 'witness to mercy in our time.'" -- CW

Presidential Race

Jordan Weissmann of Slate: "Hillary Clinton already had a plan to lower prescription drug costs. In fact, it was one of the first pieces of her agenda that she rolled out. But following the furor over Mylan's decision to increase EpiPen prices by some 500 percent, her campaign has released a new proposal specifically aimed at stopping 'unjustified' price spikes on pharmaceuticals. And it's surprisingly bold.... Clinton would create a task force of regulators with the power to ... mete out punishments to companies that were trying to profiteer, potentially with fines." -- CW

Campaigning with the Rich & Famous. Amy Chozick & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Mr. Trump has pointed to Mrs. Clinton's noticeably scant schedule of campaign events this summer to suggest she has been hiding from the public. But Mrs. Clinton has been more than accessible to those who reside in some of the country's most moneyed enclaves and are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to see her. In the last two weeks of August, Mrs. Clinton raked in roughly $50 million at 22 fund-raising events, averaging around $150,000 an hour, according to a New York Times tally." -- CW ...

... CW BTW: Hillary Clinton's clever strategy of running out the clock, is, unsurprisingly, not going well. Hillary should recall the Michael Dukakis campaign. I remember one poll, taken right after the Democratic convention, that had Dukakis up by 25 points over Bush Pere. Then Dukakis went home to Massachusetts to do his governor thing & did little campaigning for the month of August.

Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "Under attack from Republicans over pay-for-play allegations, Hillary Clinton's campaign on Friday took the opportunity to punch back, ripping Donald Trump over his own foundation's run-in with the Internal Revenue Service. Trump's foundation -- which the Clinton campaign refers to as the one 'that has been caught in an actual pay-to-play scandal' -- was forced to pay the IRS a $2,500 penalty this year following the revelation that the Trump Foundation improperly donated $25,000 to a political committee supporting Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi in 2013. The foundation failed to document the payment in its IRS filings. The fine was first revealed Thursday by the Washington Post." -- CW

Sam Frizell of Time: "Colorado Democrats are setting up a taco truck outside of Donald Trump's campaign office in Denver to register voters after a Trump surrogate said that more Mexicans moving to the United States would lead to 'taco trucks on every corner.'... The Arizona Democratic Party has changed its sign to say 'Taco Trucks On Every Corner.'" -- CW

Yamiche Alcindor & Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump ... visited a black church for the first time.... Flanked by a few black supporters, including Ben Carson ... and Omarosa Manigault, a former contestant on 'The Apprentice,' Mr. Trump cut a subdued figure here at Great Faith Ministries International.... In Detroit, Mr. Trump did not express regret for, or even acknowledge, the actions and remarks that had opened a gulf between him and black voters. Instead, reading from prepared remarks, he hailed the Christian values and political contributions of black Americans and told his audience he cared about making their lives better.... Mr. Trump's appearance on Saturday ... was swathed in uncertainty up to the last minute.... Plans for stops in nearby neighborhoods were announced, then retracted; Mr. Trump ultimately paid a short visit to Mr. Carson's childhood home before flying out of Detroit. And a scheduled interview with [Bishop Wayne T.] Jackson, Mr. Trump's host on Saturday, became a source of embarrassment when it was revealed that both the questions and Mr. Trump's answers had been scripted in advance." -- CW ...

... Ryan Felton & Amber Jamieson of the Guardian: "After [Bishop Wayne T] Jackson spoke about the need for love and called on parishioners to hug and love each other, Trump could be seen hugging and greeting churchgoers himself. He posed for selfies and held up a baby.... Reading from a script and adopting a milder tone than that familiar from campaign rallies and debates, [Trump]... said: 'We're all brothers and sisters and we're all created by the same God.'" -- CW ...

... Chas Danner of New York gives the best account of Trump's brief visit to Detroit. It's titled, "Trump Successfully Reads Prepared Remarks at Black Church in Detroit," and includes tidbits like this: "Ben Carson, for his part during the brief stop, gave a live interview to CNN during which he walked away for a time because he was worried about his luggage." ...

... The full speech, which Trump claimed he wrote himself, is here. Near the end, Trump read a verse from 1 John. The audience clapped & cheered when he said "First John" instead of "One John." Trump seemed not to understand (or at least pretended not to understand) the reason for the applause. -- CW ...

... Lindsay Gibbs of Think Progress: "Protesters, including pastors from the community, greeted Trump as he arrived at the church. 'What do you have to lose?' the crowd asked. 'Everything,' they answered." -- CW

Callum Borchers of the Washington Post: Donald Trump has not committed to participating in the presidential debates. "One reason for the holdout: 'I'll have to see who the moderators are,' the Republican nominee told Time magazine last month. 'Yeah, I would say that certain moderators would be unacceptable, absolutely.'" Now that the debate committee has announced the moderator line-up, will Trump commit? His campaign would not respond to the Post. Borchers reprises some of Trump's interactions with the moderators named.

Harper Neidig of the Hill: "Donald Trump this week railed against allowing Syrian refugees to settle in Detroit as a way of rebuilding the city, calling it 'unfair to the people that are living there.'. 'I think it's crazy,' Trump told Breitbart of the idea, floated by former President Bill Clinton in February. 'I mean, these people are getting started -- I think it's a very, very hard place to get your start. We shouldn't have them in the country,' Trump added, referring to Syrian refugees. 'We don't know who these people are. We have no idea. This could be the all time great Trojan horse. We have no idea who they are.'" ...

     ... CW: This is part & parcel of Trump's lack of knowledge of macroeconomics. Population increases fuel economic growth. Detroit has been depopulating for decades, so one way to repopulate it is with immigrants.

All the Best People. Sophie Tatum of CNN: "A top Donald Trump surrogate admitted to falsifying some of his professional accomplishments after a contentious confrontation with CNN anchor Victor Blackwell. South Carolina preacher Mark Burns, who regularly introduces Trump at his campaign events, had listed on his church's website that he had a Bachelor of Science degree and served six years in the Army Reserve.Burns, however, was never in the Army Reserve. He was in the South Carolina National Guard, from which he was discharged in 2008, CNN found. As far as a Bachelor's degree, North Greenville University told CNN he only attended the school for one semester. Burns admitted that he did not finish his degree when CNN asked him about it." -- CW ...

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post has a few highlights: "Confronted with an apparently bogus claim that he was a member of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, Burns initially says he 'started the process' of joining the fraternity. Then he argues that such facts were added to his bio by a hacker.... When confronted with his claim to have graduated with a bachelor of science degree from North Greenville University, Burns tries to argue that the interview was and had been off the record.... Asked about his claim to be pursing a master's degree from Andersonville Theological Seminary, where he enrolled in 2008 but hasn't advanced, Burns's explanation shifts. Now standing and swaying, he explains: "Do you know how old this [bio] is?... Then, perhaps predictably, Burns walks away, mid-interview." -- CW

Kevin Baker in Politico Magazine: How Rudy Giuliani, boy liberal Democrat, became a raving, lying maniac. "What lies at the heart of Trumpism, and Rudyism, is the same, nostalgic impulse that has driven reactionary Republican populism for a half-century now -- 'The shining city on the hill!' as Giuliani managed to splutter at the convention, just before, 'Greatness!' It's no coincidence that Trump and Giuliani both came of age in the New York of the 1960s and -70s, the time when the dream seemed to die, during the nihilistic, wholesale destruction of our cities." -- CW

Sorry to be so late with this. Tim Egan: "In the hate speech that Donald Trump gave on immigration in Phoenix on Wednesday night, he all but deported the Statue of Liberty, laying out one of the darkest visions of the American experience that any major-party nominee has ever given. Despite the media misread by some who presented the speech as a pivot, it got rave reviews from neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan supporters, and prompted some of Trump's few Latino advisers to resign in protest. 'Excellent speech,' said David Duke, the former Klan leader.... [Trump]laid out a test for political correctness, in the most authoritarian sense of the term. 'I call it extreme vetting,' said Trump. 'Right? Extreme vetting. I want extreme.'... He said 'an ideological certification' would be required." -- CW ...

... Amy Davidson of the New Yorker on Trump's "new immigration commission," whose charter would be "to select immigrants based on their likelihood of success in U.S. society, and their ability to be financially self-sufficient. . . . To choose immigrants based on merit, skill, and proficiency." Davidson thought that sounded good till she learned a bit about Great Britain's experiment with a similar program: experts who had served on the commission said the effect was that "a hugely disproportionate number of these 'entrepreneurs' [who were admitted] were wealthy people from Russia -- 'I believe the polite term is "oligarchs,"' and China. 'There were a lot of Subway franchises,' another said." ...

     ... CW: The U.S. already has a similar program, and frankly, the effect is the same. There's a good reason gas stations & motels are run or owned by foreign-born individuals & Florida is crawling with mini-oligarchs. If you think the petite bourgeoisie & dirty, rotten crooks form the best possible models for future generations, you might like this part of Trump's plan. ...

... Steven Rosenfeld of AlterNet, republished in Salon: "Donald Trump's pledge this week to speedily deport 'anyone who has entered the United States illegally' would require the creation of a vast police state that harkens back to the early 20th century, with Nazi Germany's roundups and deportations of millions of Jews and others deemed undesirable." Rosenfeld supplies stats to support his assertions. He also addresses the "economic devastation" the Trump "plan" would cause. -- CW ...

... ** Matthew Sheffield in the Washington Post: "According to [Hillary] Clinton -- and many conservative intellectuals who oppose Trump -- the conspiratorial, winking-at-racists campaign he has been running represents a novel departure from Republican politics. That's not quite true, though. Trump's style and positions -- endorsing and consorting with 9/11 truthers, promoting online racists, using fake statistics -- draw on a now-obscure political strategy called 'paleolibertarianism,' which was once quite popular among some Republicans, especially former presidential candidate Ron Paul.... There's no question that the paranoid and semi-racialist mien frequently favored by Trump originates in the fevered swamps that ... Paul dwelled in for decades." Read on. -- CW ...

... Richmond Times-Dispatch Editors: "Neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton meets the fundamental moral and professional standards we have every right to expect of an American president. Fortunately, there is a reasonable -- and formidable -- alternative. Gary Johnson is a former, two-term governor of New Mexico and a man who built from scratch a construction company that eventually employed more than 1,000 people before he sold it in 1999. He possesses substantial executive experience in both the private and the public sectors." -- CW

Beyond the Beltway

Corey Jones of the Tulsa World: "Oklahoma's second magnitude-5.0 earthquake in 2016 and third in five years has renewed concerns a 6.0 may strike after Saturday's temblor revealed another undiscovered fault line. The magnitude-5.6 -- which fired off at 7:02 a.m. Saturday about nine miles northwest of Pawnee -- is tied with one near Prague in 2011 for the state's strongest quake. That seismicity triggered state regulators, in an unprecedented move, to mandate that 37 disposal wells [from fracking] in a 725-square-mile area shut down operations for an indefinite period of time." -- CW