The Commentariat -- August 19, 2016
Presidential Race
John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are scheduled to appear on the same stage early next month at a 'commander-in-chief forum' devoted to national security, military affairs and veterans issues. The Democratic and Republican presidential nominees will appear back-to-back Sept. 7 in New York at an event sponsored by the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and broadcast live in prime time on NBC and MSNBC, the sponsors announced Thursday.... Forum organizers said Clinton and Trump will field questions from NBC News personnel as well as an audience consisting mainly of military veterans and active service members. CW: Should provide sort of preview of how Clinton & Trump will negotiate the presidential debates.
Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "Facing criticism for some of the donations given to his family's philanthropy, Bill Clinton said on Thursday that the Clinton Foundation would no longer accept foreign or corporate funds should Hillary Clinton win the presidency in November. Mr. Clinton's decision, which the former president relayed to foundation employees in a meeting on Thursday, followed the recent release of State Department emails mentioning several donors to the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation who had contacts with aides to Mrs. Clinton while she was secretary of state.... During the meeting with staff members in New York, Mr. Clinton explained that should Mrs. Clinton win in November, the charity will be reorganized and rely only on contributions from United States citizens and independent charities...." -- CW
Amy Chozick: "Pressed by the F.B.I. about her email practices at the State Department, Hillary Clinton told investigators that former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell had advised her to use a personal email account. The account is included in the notes the Federal Bureau of Investigation handed over to Congress on Tuesday, relaying in detail the three-and-a-half-hour interview with Mrs. Clinton in early July that led to the decision by James B. Comey, the bureau's director, not to pursue criminal charges against her." CW: Huh, sounds like this leak comes from Democrats. ...
... Julian Hattem of the Hill: "House Republicans are doubling down in their effort to bring perjury charges against Hillary Clinton over her testimony last year to the House Select Committee on Benghazi. GOP lawmakers have claimed that the Democratic presidential nominee broke the law by lying under oath about her private email setup during her marathon appearance in October. Next month, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee plan to make the issue a central part of a hearing with senior officials from the FBI, a committee aide said on Thursday. Legally, the GOP faces a tough case. Politically, however, raising the perjury allegations would be a way to keep the issue of Clinton's truthfulness in the public eye throughout the fall as she battles Republican nominee Donald Trump for the White House." -- CW
** NEW. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Paul Manafort, installed as the chief strategist for Donald J. Trump's campaign after the firing of his original campaign manager, handed in his resignation on Friday morning. Mr. Manafort left nearly a week after a New York Times report about tumult within the Republican presidential nominee's campaign helped precipitate a leadership shake-up.... Mr. Manafort was also dogged by reports about secretive efforts he made to help the former pro-Russian government in Ukraine.... Mr. Manafort's deputy, Rick Gates, is expected to remain on the campaign, for now...." -- CW ...
... CW: Manafort appears to have purposely stomped all over the Trump campaign's assertion from two whole days ago that hiring Bannon & Conway was not a "campaign shake-up." Since Trump reportedly wasn't paying Manafort, Manafort could have maintained the steady-ship fiction by just not showing up for work, or popping in only occasionally to check his messages.
Nick Gass of Politico: "The office of Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards [D] signaled that Donald Trump is welcome to visit Louisiana in the wake of destructive flooding, but ... 'not for a photo-op.'... Edwards ... also said Thursday night that he would prefer that Obama wait at least a week to visit. Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway on Friday called the visit of the Republican nominee and running mate Gov. Mike Pence 'presidential' and 'a decidedly nonpolitical event, no press allowed, going to help people on the ground who are in need.'" -- CW
He's Sorry for ... Something. Jose DelReal, et al., of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump on Thursday expressed regret over causing 'personal pain' through ill-chosen words he has used 'in the heat of debate,' an unexpected and uncharacteristic declaration of remorse for a candidate whose public persona is defined by his combative and bombastic style.... Speaking Thursday [during a campaign rally in Charlotte, N.C.], Trump did not specify what he regretted during his speech Thursday and did not directly apologize to anyone. Trump tore into [Hillary] Clinton during his speech, which he read from prepared remarks on a teleprompter, and called on her to apologize for 'one lie after another.'" -- CW ...
... "Trump's Teleprompter Regret." Jesse Byrnes of the Hill: "'Donald Trump literally started his campaign by insulting people,' Clinton deputy communications director Christina Reynolds said in a statement. 'He has continued to do so through each of the 428 days from then until now, without shame or regret,' she continued. 'We learned tonight that his speechwriter and teleprompter knows he has much for which he should apologize.... But that apology tonight is simply a well-written phrase until he tells us which of his many offensive, bullying and divisive comments he regrets — and changes his tune altogether.'" -- CW ...
... The Long-Awaited "Pivot"? Nope. Greg Sargent: "This morning, Trump released his first general election ad, an ugly and dishonest production which shows he isn't changing a thing. In fact, the new ad is filled with precisely the same sort of dark, dystopian themes and content -- and even some of the same sort of grainy, dark footage depicting illegal immigrants as invaders -- that marked one of the first ads he ran during the GOP primaries." CW: Read on. The ad itself, is embedded below, via Sargent. ...
... Nick Gass of Politico: "Donald Trump's campaign rolled out its first general election ad Friday, part of a buy totaling approximately $4 million in battleground states where he is currently trailing Hillary Clinton." -- CW ...
... CW: The Trump campaign has not posted its ad on YouTube. I embedded a copy of the ad, which an individual had put up on YouTube only three minutes before I copied the code. Minutes later, the Trump campaign took down the YouTube video with a notice that "This video is private." This is the first time in my experience that a campaign has removed an unaltered ad from YouTube, For some reason, most candidates want as many people as possible to see their ads. The Trump campaign seems to be living in a dark, conspiratorial world where even positive coverage is sinister. Yeah, they're nuts. ...
... Update: The Washington Post made its own copy:
... ** Brian Beutler: "Donald Trump is bad at politics.... Case in point: On Wednesday night, Trump returned in characteristically Freudian fashion to Sean Hannity's show on Fox News and announced he would forcibly remove not just immigrants, but citizens from the U.S. if they're found to have extremist views.... Kicking citizens out of the United States for having extreme ideological views is unconstitutional.... This was, in essence, the point Khizr Khan was making at the Democratic convention three weeks ago when he asked Trump, 'Have you even read the United States Constitution?'... Based on a number of things Trump has said -- including that the Constitution has (at least) twelve articles (it has seven) -- Khan was on solid ground." Also, Mark Halperin is an idiot. -- CW
To defeat crime and radical Islamic terrorism in our country, to win trade in our country, you need tremendous physical and mental strength and stamina. Hillary Clinton doesn't have that strength and stamina. -- Donald Trump, speech in West Bend, Wis., Aug. 16
Importantly, she also lacks the mental and physical stamina to take on ISIS. -- Trump, speech in Youngstown, Ohio, Aug. 15
Given Trump's poor track record with the facts, it should be little surprise that, through innuendo, he is trying to surface debunked Internet rumors from the fringes of the right. But these are also half-baked, ridiculous and easily disproved, making it especially shocking that he would try to highlight them in prepared speeches.... Trump has claimed twice, without proof, that Clinton lacks the physical and mental stamina to be president. -- Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post
To give you an idea how generous Kessler is to Trump, he gives credence to that phony "letter from my doctor" Trump released last December. -- Constant Weader
The Phake Philanthropist. David Fahrenthold & Alice Crites of the Washington Post: Numerous times, during taping of his TV show "Celebrity Apprentice," Donald Trump promised to write personal checks to the charities for which the "celebrities" were appearing. "He didn't.... On-air, Trump seemed to be explicit that this wasn't TV fakery: The money he was giving was his own. 'Out of my wallet,' Trump said in one case. 'Out of my own account,' he said in another. But, when the cameras were off, the payments came from other people's money. In some cases..., Trump's 'personal' promise was paid off by a production company. Other times, it was paid off by a nonprofit that Trump controls, whose coffers are largely filled with other donors' money." -- CW
Trump of the Alt-Right. Ultra-conservative Ben Shapiro, in the Washington Post: "Conservatives joked openly for months about 'Trumpbart' and the transformation of Breitbart.com into, essentially, Bannon.com, but it was still something of a surprise that Trump would so publicly embrace [Steve] Bannon, a man who helped transform a mainstream conservative website into a cesspool of the alt-right.... The takeover [of the Republican party], now a virtual fait accompli, represents the dangerous seizure of the conservative movement by the alt-right.... Trump himself has flirted with the alt-right for months.... Like Breitbart[.com], Trump will continue to tacitly embrace the alt-right, hoping, presumably, that adherents of its worldview will propel his campaign in the same way it has boosted Breitbart's traffic by millions of monthly page views." -- CW ...
... Gene Robinson: "Shaken by the fact that he's losing, Donald Trump has fled into the parallel universe of the extreme right [[ and apparently plans to stay there for the remainder of the campaign.... [New campaign guru Steve] Bannon runs Breitbart News, a website that creates its own ultranationalist far-right reality -- one that often bears little resemblance to the world as it really is. As I write, the site is claiming that Hillary Clinton has some serious undisclosed health problem (her doctor says she is just fine), that one of Clinton's aides has 'very clear ties' to radical Islam (which is totally untrue) and that Clinton herself has 'clear ties' to Russian President Vladimir Putin (when in fact it is Trump who often reveals his man-crush on the Russian leader).... So if anyone was wondering whether this election cycle could get any worse for the GOP, it just did." -- CW
Sez Who? Margaret Hartmann synthesizes the state-of-mind of the Trump camp. -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Jeff Horwitz & Chad Day of the AP: "A firm run by Donald Trump's campaign chairman [Paul Manafort] directly orchestrated a covert Washington lobbying operation on behalf of Ukraine's then-ruling political party, attempting to sway American public opinion in favor of the country's pro-Russian government, emails obtained by The Associated Press show. Paul Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates, never disclosed their work as foreign agents as required under federal law.... Another goal: undercutting American public sympathy for [Yulia Tymoshenko,] the imprisoned rival of Ukraine's then-president. At the time, European and American leaders were pressuring Ukraine to free her.... None of the firms [DMP International LLC., Mercury, or the Podesta Group], nor Manafort or Gates, disclosed their work to the Justice Department counterespionage division responsible for tracking the lobbying of foreign governments." -- CW
Jen Kirby of New York: "Life-size statues of a completely naked Donald Trump rose in New York's Union Square, along with public spaces in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Cleveland, and Seattle. And yes, the artist buys into the whole 'little hands' theory....The project is called 'The Emperor Has No Balls,' and indeed Naked Donalds lacks those reproductive organs.... Naked Donald Trump lasted about two hours in Union Square, according to DNAinfo, before being felled by Parks Department employees.... The Parks Department ... told us: 'NYC Parks stands firmly against any unpermitted erection in city parks, no matter how small.'" Thanks to Jeanne B. for the lead. -- CW ...
... Peter Holley of the Washington Post: "... members of the anarchist collective INDECLINE decided they would showcase the aspirant president in the most humiliating way they could imagine: without his clothes.... The job of conceptualizing and creating the statues fell to a man who goes by the name 'Ginger,' a Las Vegas-based artist. Ginger told The Post that he has a long history of designing monsters for haunted houses and horror movies." -- CW
... You're welcome. -- CW
She's Not a Doctor, But She Plays One on TV. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "The Trump campaign's concerted effort to pump up questions about Hillary Clinton's health using innuendo and unfounded speculation now includes an official diagnosis: dysphasia. [Trump] spokeswoman [Katrina Pierson] alleged Thursday that Clinton suffers from the language disorder, with which she has never been diagnosed.... Pierson in this case appears to be passing along the kind of conspiracy theory website content that has colored so much of the Trump campaign.... Pierson's dysphasia diagnosis is clearly part of a cynical effort to raise questions about Clinton's health -- an effort that is taking place outside the bounds of what's generally been acceptable in a presidential campaign." -- CW
"I Fired the Jews." Marisa Taylor & William Douglas of McClatchy News: "Allegations of anti-Semitism have surfaced against one of Donald Trump’s foreign policy advisers, raising further questions about the guidance the Republican presidential nominee is receiving. Joseph Schmitz, named as one of five advisers by the Trump campaign in March, is accused of bragging when he was Defense Department inspector general a decade ago that he pushed out Jewish employees.... All three people who have cited the remarks, including one who testified under oath about them, have pending employment grievances with the federal government.... The revelations feed two themes that his opponent Hillary Clinton has used to erode Trump's credibility: That he is a foreign policy neophyte, and that his campaign, at times, has offended Jews and other minorities." -- CW ...
... digby: "I'm beginning to think we needn't worry about his 'extreme, extreme, vetting' because this man couldn't vet his way out of a paper bag. Of course it's just as likely that he did vet this fellow and found his anti-Semitic qualifications to be sterling." -- CW ...
... Steve M. has more on Schmidt's family tree. -- CW ...
... CW: Akhilleus writes in today's Comments that Trump played Not-Hitler for a day. Turns out Trump outsourced that job to an advisor. (Here, I was going to write something Schmidt said. But what he said was too sickening to type.)
CW: So many GOP operatives have announced they won't vote for Trump or will vote for Clinton that I have quit linking to the stories. But here's a funny one. Paulina Firozi of the Hill: "Ivanka Trump's brother-in-law will not be voting for the Republican nominee. In a profile in Esquire magazine of Ivanka's husband Jared Kushner, a spokesman said that his younger brother Josh Kushner was a 'lifelong Democrat' and 'would not be voting for Donald Trump in November.' The magazine did not specify whether Josh Kushner planned to vote for Hillary Clinton ."
Other News & Views
David Sanger of the New York Times: "The State Department conceded for the first time on Thursday that it delayed making a $400 million payment to Iran for several hours in January 'to retain maximum leverage' and assure that three American prisoners were released the same day. For months the Obama administration had maintained that the payment was part of a settlement over an old dispute and did not amount to a 'ransom' for the release of the Americans.... But at a briefing on Thursday, John Kirby, the State Department spokesman, said the United States 'took advantage of the leverage' it felt it had that weekend in mid-January to obtain the release of the hostages and 'to make sure they got out safely and efficiently.'... The acknowledgment by Mr. Kirby on Thursday touched off a torrent of criticism from Republicans." CW: That would be because the entire Republican party is a playpen for whiney babies who can't stand it when the Obama administration effects good outcomes.
Lizette Alvarez & Pam Belluck of the New York Times: "A cluster of Zika cases most likely transmitted by local mosquitoes has been identified in Miami Beach, and federal and state officials are considering whether to advise pregnant women to avoid traveling to the city and possibly even all of Miami-Dade County, a health official said Thursday." -- CW ...
... Brady Dennis of the Washington Post: "... in a study in mice, researchers have found evidence that suggests adult brain cells critical to learning and memory also might be susceptible to the Zika virus." -- CW
Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department plans to end its use of private prisons after officials concluded the facilities are both less safe and less effective at providing correctional services than those run by the government. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates announced the decision on Thursday in a memo that instructs officials to either decline to renew the contracts for private prison operators when they expire or 'substantially reduce' the contracts' scope." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Pema Levy of Mother Jones: "The announcement comes on the heels of a Mother Jones investigation of a private prison in Louisiana that found serious deficiencies in staffing and security. It also documented a higher rate of violence than the prison reported. Last week's DOJ report found that private prisons are more violent than federal prisons. As of December 2015, private prisons incarcerated about 22,600 federal inmates. The news of the DOJ's decision prompted a quick downturn in stock prices for the two largest private prison companies." -- CW ...
... Maurice Chammah of the Marshall Project details some facts & implications of the administration's decision. BTW, "Donald Trump has said, 'I do think we can do a lot of privatizations and private prisons. It seems to work a lot better.'" As president, he could reverse the DOJ's decision, announced today. -- CW
The Trouble with ObamaCare -- Republicans. Paul Krugman: "...there's nothing wrong with Obamacare that couldn't be fairly easily fixed with a bit of bipartisan cooperation. The only thing that makes this hard is the blocking power of politicians who want reform to fail." CW: Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) is a world-class jerk, but he was right about the "Republican health care plan: die quickly." Every Democrat should (and should have) run against the God's Option Party; i.e., if the Lord wants you to get sick and die, sucker, amen, amen, amen.
Annals of Journalism, Ctd. J.K. Trotter of Gawker: "After nearly fourteen years of operation, Gawker.com will be shutting down next week. The decision to close Gawker comes days after Univision successfully bid $135 million for Gawker Media's six other websites, and four months after the Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel revealed his clandestine legal campaign against the company. Nick Denton, the company's outgoing CEO, informed current staffers of the site's fate on Thursday afternoon, just hours before a bankruptcy court in Manhattan will decide whether to approve Univision's bid for Gawker Media's other assets. Staffers will soon be assigned to other editorial roles, either at one of the other six sites or elsewhere within Univision." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "Gawker and its writers, despite some steps backward, made the web better. It made the web what it is." -- CW ...
... Will Oremus of Slate: "Who would dare [to call out Silicon Valley excesses], now that [tech billionaire Peter] Thiel has set a precedent for Silicon Valley's ruling class to wield their fortunes to exact revenge on publications that offend them? Who would want to, now that he has successfully made the Gawker mothership so toxic that a new owner would rather shutter it than keep the lights on?" -- CW
** Margaret Talbot of the New Yorker: "To some researchers who've studied sexual harassment..., the Fox News scenario doesn't look like that much of an outlier. For one thing, some studies have found that women in positions of authority, especially in workplaces that are dominated by men, may be more likely to experience sexual harassment than women in lower-status positions.... [One researcher, Heather McLaughlin,] says that these findings make sense because she believes workplace sexual harassment isn't really about sex; it's about power.... The allegations of sexual harassment at Fox News ... are a reminder of what a serious disruption harassment can be to a career." -- CW ...
... CW: As anyone who has been the victim of unfair treatment -- that is, probably everybody -- knows, the effects of the victimizating act most often don't end with the incident but can be life-altering.
Beyond the Beltway
Frank Main & Fran Spielman of the Chicago Sun-Times: "Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson is seeking to fire seven officers -- including the partner of Officer Jason Van Dyke -- for allegedly lying in their accounts of what happened in Van Dyke's fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald. Johnson originally planned to announce Thursday that he would move to fire eight of the 10 officers that city inspector general had recommended for termination, but one of them then retired. Another one, Deputy Chief David McNaughton, had retired on Monday." -- CW
Way Beyond
Simon Romero of the New York Times: "In his original account [to NBC News], [U.S. swimmer Ryan] Lochte said the [taxi in which he & three other U.S. swimmers were riding] had been pulled over by armed men, one of whom put a gun against his head before taking the cash from his wallet. But police investigators said Thursday that Mr. Lochte and the others had acted more like small-minded vandals than the victims they claimed to be. Making a stop around 6 a.m. Sunday at a Shell gas station, the men were obviously drunk, the station's owner said. The[y] broke a soap dispenser in the bathroom, damaged a door, tore down a sign and urinated around the premises, the owner told reporters.... [Swimmers Gunnar] Bentz and [Jack] Conger, who were pulled off their plane by the police on Wednesday in Rio, offered testimony on Thursday that contradicted Mr. Lochte's accounts, police investigators said." -- CW ...
... Dave Sheinin & Dom Phillips of the Washington Post: "While decorated American swimmer Ryan Lochte remained safely in the United States, his three American teammates, blocked from leaving Rio de Janeiro by Brazilian authorities, faced additional questioning Thursday as Lochte's harrowing story of an armed robbery at gunpoint Sunday morning began to unravel.... Several media outlets Thursday reported the existence of a surveillance video from a Rio de Janeiro gas station early Sunday showing Lochte and his teammates damaging property. The Daily Mail, a British news outlet, reported -- citing Brazilian police -- that Lochte and the other swimmers refused to pay for the damage until a security guard waved a gun at them and demanded payment. Brazilian news outlet O Globo reported, also citing police sources, that Lochte and his teammates urinated on the gas station's building and vandalized the property." -- CW (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Julia Jacobo & Emily Shapiro of ABC News: "The U.S. Olympic Committee Thursday night apologized to Brazil for the 'distracting ordeal' stemming from what Brazilian authorities call a fabricated claim of a gunpoint robbery by a group of swimmers in Rio de Janeiro. 'The behavior of these athletes is not acceptable, nor does it represent the values of Team USA or the conduct of the vast majority of its members,' the statement said. 'We will further review the matter, and any potential consequences for the athletes, when we return to the United States.' Their behavior was also blasted by the head of USA Swimming, Chuck Wielgus Thursday night.... On Thursday, police in Rio de Janeiro recommended that U.S. Olympic swimmers Ryan Lochte and James Feigen face charges of false reporting of a crime, a civil police spokesperson said." -- CW ...
... Matt Bonesteel of the Washington Post: "Jimmy Feigen, who has been accused by Brazilian authorities of fabricating a robbery claim along with Ryan Lochte and two other U.S. swimming teammates, will pay about $10,800 to an unnamed Brazilian charity and then leave the country, his attorney told the Associated Press early Friday. According to attorney Breno Melaragno, Brazilian law allows people charged with minor offenses to make a donation to charity to avoid criminal prosecution." -- CW
... Mark Giannatto of the Washington Post: "Sérgio Riera, the lawyer who succeeded in getting American swimmers Gunnar Bentz and Jack Conger permission from a judge to leave Brazil on Wednesday night, told The Post's Dom Phillips that his clients had not lied to police about an alleged robbery involving American swimming star Ryan Lochte on Sunday night.... 'They did not lie. They did not talk to the press.... They did not go to the police station and they were not told to appear at the police station,' Riera said in an interview once both men had gone through check-in at Rio's international airport.... They knew it was a lie. But they did not have to go public,' Riera said. 'They thought this would be forgotten. They did not think it would have a more serious consequence.'" -- CW ...
... Scott Allen of the Washington Post: "How Ryan Lochte's robbery story went from unbelievable to simply not believable." -- CW ...
... Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post: "Ryan Lochte is the dumbest bell that ever rang. The 32-year-old swimmer is so landlocked in juvenility that he pulled an all-nighter with guys young enough to call him uncle. His story to NBC's Billy 'what-are-you-wearing' Bush had the quality of a kid exaggerating the size of a fish, and notice how he was the hero of every detail.... There is a special category of obnoxious American 'bro' that Lochte represents, in his T-shirt and jeans and expensive suede footwear, which he showed off on social media that night at the party along with the price tag. 'We're 6k deep here,' he captioned it. Is there anything Is there anything worse, in any country, than a bunch of entitled young drunks who break the furniture and pee on a wall?" -- CW ...
... CW: As much as I hate to make comments about people's personal appearances (unless about someone like Donald Trump who has made a career of demeaning other people's looks), let me just say that if Lochte is not as dumb as Jenkins lets on and thus can memorize lines & find his marks, he looks like the perfect guy to play the cruel Nazi lieutenant in low-budget movies about WWII. My apologies to any readers who look something like Lochte, but do think about dying your hair a darker color & committing your life to good works.
News Lede
New York Times: "Gen. John W. Vessey Jr., a soldier's soldier who lied about his age to enlist in the service, won his commission on a battlefield in World War II and became a four-star general and then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Reagan administration, died Thursday night at his home in North Oaks, Minn. He was 94." -- CW