The Commentariat -- August 14, 2016

Presidential Race

Maureen Dowd argues that Hillary Clinton is the perfect Republican presidential nominee. Dowd bases her case on Clinton's foreign policy & ties to Wall Street. -- CW (Also linked yesterday.)

Jessie Hellman of the Hill: "Former U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez[, who served in the Bush II administration,] became one of several Republicans last week to diverge from the party and back the Democratic nominee for president. 'I think... Hillary Clinton, is the best for the country. I'm not thinking about it as a Republican. I'm thinking about it as a U.S. citizen,' Gutierrez said...." -- CW

Nikita Vladimirov of the Hill: "Former governor of New York and state Democratic Party Chairman David Paterson said ... Hillary Clinton could have handled the FBI and Justice Department's decision on her private email server with more humility.... '"When the attorney general absolved Hillary Clinton and said that there were no criminal penalties that she would be held accountable for, she goes and basically takes a victory lap with President Obama,' Paterson said.... 'What if Hillary Clinton had a press conference and said, "You know something, I am really happy that there are no criminal charges being levied against me, but I recognize I did a lot of things wrong, I used poor judgment, and I want the voters to know that I have learned a lesson from this situation and I will never be in violation this way again,'" he said. 'I think that would have been a much better message than what went on that day." CW: He's right. Hillary Clinton's vanity & arrogance have made her one of the most tone-deaf Democrats ever to hit the national stage. (Joe Lieberman.)

You know, when I started reading articles about meetings on the tarmac between the spouse and head of DOJ, or how Hillary forgot yet another slate of work-related emails, or how the FBI actually recommended an investigation into the Clinton Global Initiative and DOJ said no, or the curious connections between Ukrainian money and Russian money and the Clinton Global Initiative or the so many things the Clintons have gotten away with without any consequence ... I think we're living in a series of 'House of Cards.' -- Carly Fiorina, Demon Shepherdess & candidate for RNC chair

Harper Neidig of the Hill: "Vice presidential candidate Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said on Saturday that Donald Trump's efforts to avoid paying taxes show that he is not committed to supporting the military. Pointing to reports that Trump's returns from the '70s and '80s show that he paid no income tax, Kaine said the real estate mogul is not doing his part in funding the armed services -- and floated that as a reason why the GOP nominee is keeping his more recent returns secret." -- CW

Even Richard Nixon released his tax returns to the public. -- Tim Kaine, in a tweet

Uh, Not Exactly, Tim. Lauren Carroll of PolitiFact: "Nixon did not release his tax returns in 1968 or 1972. The IRS audited Nixon in 1973, when questions bubbled up about a fishy charitable donation.... (This happened around the same time as the Watergate investigation but was a separate issue.) Nixon said one of his most well-known lines amid this scandal: 'People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I am not a crook.' Nixon eventually released a slew of financial information to the public in December 1973, including the previous four years of tax returns, to try to quell the criticism.... However, [a] congressional investigation ultimately found that Nixon owed $476,431 (approximately $2.3 million in today's dollars) in unpaid taxes and accrued interest. Oops."

Katie Glueck of Politico: "Donald Trump's poll numbers are faltering in deep-red states from South Carolina to Georgia, his organization is a mess in perhaps the most important county in Ohio, and he admits that he has a 'tremendous problem' in Utah, which hasn't gone Democratic since 1964. And yet, on Saturday, Trump is hosting a rally in Fairfield County, Conn., a county that Mitt Romney lost to Barack Obama by 11 percentage points, in a state that hasn't voted Republican since 1988. It's a move that is flummoxing and infuriating Republicans who believe Trump should be spending time and resources in winnable states...." CW: Nothing to be flummoxed about; I'm sure this is somehow a money-maker for Trump.

Paul Bedard of the (right-wing) Washington Examiner: "Republican Donald Trump should win the presidency by a slim margin according to a model that has accurately predicted the popular vote since 1988. Using several standards to make his prediction, Alan Abramowitz's 'Time for Change' model done for the University of Virginia's Center for Politics 'Crystal Ball' shows Trump winning 51.4 percent to 48.6 percent for Hillary Clinton. He added that the model shows a 66 percent chance of a Trump victory.... However, in an unusual move, Abramowitz is throwing his own model under the bus and suggesting that Clinton will win because Trump is so different from past presidential candidates and has such high unfavorability ratings that his election forecast basics can't be trusted." CW: GOTV.

Edward Helmore of the Guardian: "Donald Trump's presidential campaign started recruiting 'election observer' volunteers late Friday, after the Republican nominee claimed the only way he would lose Pennsylvania is 'if cheating goes on' in 'certain areas'. The application form on the campaign website links directly to a page soliciting campaign donations with the text: 'I AM YOUR VOICE.' Trump repeated claims at a Friday night rally, without evidence, that he fears a 'rigged' election perpetrated in part by voter fraud. No Republican candidate for president has won Pennsylvania since 1988, and in 2012 the state’s then Republican government, in court over a voter ID law, admitted in legal papers that its lawyers knew of no instances of in-person voter fraud in the state. The law was struck down in 2014." CW: I'm sure Trump's "observers" will all be very polite, civic-minded people. ...

... Rick Hasen: "With Trump's dangerous and irresponsible hyperventilating about voter fraud and cheating in Pennsylvania potentially costing him the election, it is probably no surprise ... that Trump is seeking 'election observers' to stop 'Crooked Hillary' from 'rigging this election.' However, there's a longstanding consent decree that bars the RNC from engaging in such activities." When the RNC tried to get the consent decree lifted in 2013, The Supreme Court upheld the decree but added a December 1, 2017 expiration date. "If [Trump's] activity violates the consent decree, the DNC can ask for it to be extended for up to another 8 years." -- CW ...

One of the things that this can do is get rogue people riled up. Trump sets the fuse and lets someone else do the explosion. It strikes me as a very dangerous thing to be suggesting, because it does lend itself to the possibility of violence at the polls. It just strikes me as exactly the kind of dirty tricks why the RNC consent decree was put in place in the first place. -- Rick Hasen, to Philip Bump ...

... Update. Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump's campaign nationalized the effort on Saturday morning. Now eager Trump backers can go to Trump's website and sign up to be 'a Trump Election Observer.'... Trump's pointed reference to how voters in 'certain sections of the state' [of Pennsylvania] were likely to cheat was almost certainly a reference to a debunked claim that the vote was rigged in predominantly black parts of Philadelphia.... 'I think the question is: What would he be organizing the election observers to do?' Hasen asked. 'He is gathering names based on the idea that these observers are going to stop "Crooked Hillary" -- his words -- from "rigging" -- his words -- the election. That to me does not sound like observation or GOTV [get out the vote].'" -- CW

Gray Lady Outlines Why Donald Trump Must Never Be President. Alexander Burns & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: On June 20, Donald Trump's top advisors, including his children, staged an intervention to urge him to "end his freestyle digressions and insults," and & agreed to rein it in. "Nearly two months later, the effort to save Mr. Trump from himself has plainly failed. He has repeatedly signaled to his advisers and allies his willingness to change and adapt, but has grown only more volatile and prone to provocation since then.... In private, Mr. Trump's mood is often sullen and erratic, his associates say.... He is routinely preoccupied with perceived slights.... On Tuesday ... his brain trust ... again urged Mr. Trump to adjust his tone and comportment.... Mr. Trump ... responded receptively." Then he went out & suggested "Second Amendment people" off Hillary Clinton & a few liberal judges. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... CW: I've been watching a British series about an autistic child with a well-meaning but dysfunctional family. The little boy responds to coaching by acting out the way Donald Trump does. ...

... Harper Neidig: "Donald Trump on Saturday pushed back against [the Times report linked above].... 'I am truly enjoying myself while running for president,' Trump wrote [in a tweet]. 'The people of our country are amazing - great numbers on November 8th!'" "The failing @nytimes has become a newspaper of fiction. Their stories about me always quote non-existent unnamed sources. Very dishonest!" Trump also tweeted. -- CW

... Kurt Eichenwald of Newsweek reviews some of the whoppers Donald Trump has told in sworn depositions. "He never tries to make his lies or delusions or fantasies make sense. He just spews to explain away the inexplicable.... Trump ... [now blames] the media for applying the rules of grammar and sentence structure to him...." CW: Oddly, Eichenwald frames his column in the form of a letter to Paul Ryan, urging Ryan to dump Trump, as if Ryan himself had the personal integrity & love of country to do the right thing. (If he does, he's been hiding it for a long time.) Thanks to Akhilleus for the link. (Also linked yesterday.)

... Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "The unraveling of Donald Trump’s candidacy continues apace, a long and steady decline since the high point three months ago. If he were deliberately trying to avoid winning the election, he could hardly be doing a better job. The hole he has dug for himself is wide and deep.... Rather than looking at weaknesses in his support and trying to find ways to win a few percentage points among particular groups of voters, his words and behavior do the opposite." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Eli Stokols & Ken Vogel of Politico: "Publicly, Republican Party officials continue to stand by Donald Trump. Privately, at the highest levels, party leaders have started talking about cutting off support to Trump in October and redirecting cash to saving endangered congressional majorities." -- CW

Nicholas Kristof: "Trump’s harsh rhetoric tears away the veneer of civility and betrays our national motto of 'e pluribus unum.' He has unleashed a beast and fed its hunger, and long after this campaign is over we will be struggling to corral it again.... The Southern Poverty Law Center ... issued a report documenting how Trump's venom has poisoned schools across the country.... [A] teacher reported that a fifth grader told a Muslim student 'that he was supporting Donald Trump because he was going to kill all of the Muslims if he became president!'" CW: The SPLC, which tracks hate groups, has pretty much identified a major political party presidential candidate as his very own hate group. That is extraordinary. ...

... Here's the SPLC report titled, "The Trump Effect -- the impact of the presidential campaign on our nation's schools." "Our report found that the campaign is producing an alarming level of fear and anxiety among children of color and inflaming racial and ethnic tensions in the classroom. Many students worry about being deported." -- CW

Trump's "Remix" of the GOP's Southern Stragegy: Robert Jones in the Atlantic: "One glaring, underreported clue about the method behind the post-primary Trump madness is his selection of Paul Manafort as chair of his national campaign.... Along with credentials earned from working with top GOP politicians (and a raft of international dictators from the Philippines to Somalia), Manafort also brought decades of experience as an overseer of the Southern Strategy.... It was Manafort who arranged for Ronald Reagan to kick off his post-convention presidential campaign at the Neshoba County Fair just outside of Philadelphia, Mississippi, where three young civil rights workers were brutally murdered in 1964." -- CW ...

... How Kindly Grandpas Became Hateful Lunatics. Bob Cesca, in Salon, highlights how Trump is successfully exploiting the "right rage" that right-wing media have been stoking for decades: "Since at least the Clinton administration, white men have been slowly indoctrinated and, in too many cases, brainwashed by conservative media and its rather loose grip on reality." -- CW

Trump Magazine Survivor Tells All. (And is lucky to be alive to tell it.) Carey Purcell in Politico Magazine: "I had been at Trump magazine for only four months when my first paycheck bounced. We'd heard rumors of the company's financial troubles, but I had no idea how bad it really was until my landlord called me one afternoon to tell me that my rent check hadn't cleared. I logged into my online banking account and saw, to my amazement, that the magazine I worked for -- the one with the billionaire's name on the cover -- had stiffed me.... It felt like I was living in an Onion article: 'Luxury Lifestyle Magazine Can't Pay Its Own Employees.'... By [the] time [the magazine folded], I had been diagnosed with cancer and -- thanks to Trump -- lost my health coverage." -- CW

Daria Sito-Sucic of Reuters: "U.S. actor and producer Robert De Niro said on Saturday that ... Donald Trump should not run for president because he was 'totally nuts'. De Niro made the comments to a Sarajevo audience as he presented a digital version of Martin Scorsese's film 'Taxi Driver', in which he starred, to mark its 40th anniversary. '... he shouldn't even be where he is, so God help us," De Niro said to wide applause in the Sarajevo National Theater.... 'But I think now they are really starting to push back, the media ... finally they are starting to say: Come on Donald, this is ridiculous, this is nuts, this is insane,' De Niro said." -- CW

Rebecca Morin of Politico: "Mike Pence says he is filing his tax returns and will make them available to the public, even as his running mate Donald Trump refuses to do so. 'When my forms are filed and when my tax returns are released it's going to be a quick read,' the Republican vice presidential nominee said Saturday...." -- CW

Tarini Parti & Rosie Gray of BuzzFeed highlight the "jarring" contrasts between Donald Trump's & mike pence's campaign rallies. "At Pence events, the difference between the two isn't lost on voters. Several contended that the governor 'balanced out Trump' and his sometimes 'rash' statements. One of them, Pittsburgh attorney Tony Kovalchick, said Pence 'brings a lot of experience ... and gravitas to the ticket -- like Dick Cheney did.'" CW: Okay, I'll buy that Dick Cheney part.

Fractured History, Ctd. Rebecca Morin: "Donald Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson on Saturday morning said the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was 'Obama's war.'... [Pierson said,] '... remember we weren't even in Afghanistan by this time [2007]. Barack Obama went into Afghanistan creating another problem.... Later in the segment, [CNN host Victor] Blackwell fact-checked Pierson's statement, saying that troops invaded Afghanistan in 2001 under President George W. Bush.... Earlier this month, Pierson said it was the policies of Obama and Clinton that killed Army Capt. Humayun Khan. Khan was killed in 2004 during the George W. Bush presidency." CW: Pierson also criticized Hillary Clinton: "It was Hillary Clinton and her incidents in Libya, which was also a reckless decision to create that vacuum." She did not, however, note that in 2011, Trump was strongly in favor of the Libyan intervention, perhaps because he's denied it during this campaign season. It's ridiculous for CNN to continue to invite Pierson to appear on air. -- CW

Other News & Views

Binyamin Appelbaum & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "In nearly eight years in office, President Obama has sought to reshape the nation with a sweeping assertion of executive authority and a canon of regulations.... Once a presidential candidate with deep misgivings about executive power, Mr. Obama will leave the White House as one of the most prolific authors of major regulations in presidential history. Blocked for most of his presidency by Congress, Mr. Obama has sought to act however he could. In the process he created the kind of government neither he nor the Republicans wanted -- one that depended on bureaucratic bulldozing rather than legislative transparency." -- CW

Michael Birnbaum of the Washington Post: "The hacking of Democratic Party computer systems, widely thought by U.S. intelligence officials to be the work of the Russian government, may be giving Washington a new taste of unconventional Kremlin tactics that have long been employed to influence politics in neighboring European countries. Russia has tried hard in recent years to tug Europe to its side, bankrolling the continent's extremist political parties, working to fuel a backlash against migrants and using its vast energy resources as a cudgel against its neighbors." -- CW ...

... Cory Bennett of Politico: "Hackers linked to Russian intelligence services may have targeted some prominent Republican lawmakers, in addition to their well-publicized spying on Democrats, based on research into leaked emails published on a little-noticed website.... The site [DC Leaks] also includes a small 'portfolio' of roughly 300 emails from Republican targets, including purported emails from the campaign staffs for Sen. John McCain, a 2008 presidential hopeful, and Lindsey Graham, who briefly ran for president during this cycle. Both lawmakers are stalwart critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Also included in the dump are emails from 2012 GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann and party officials in several states." -- CW

Joe Davidson of the Washington Post: "Private prisons -- unsafe and insecure. That's the picture emerging from a Justice Department Office of the Inspector General's report that adds to a growing effort to take the profit out of penitentiaries. The report's central conclusion: 'We found that, in most key areas, contract prisons incurred more safety and security incidents per capita than comparable BOP (Bureau of Prisons) institutions and that the BOP needs to improve how it monitors contract prisons in several areas.'... No remedial action will remedy the basic conflict the profit motive provides when corporations are involved in decisions that directly affect the incarceration of individuals. -- CW

Beyond the Beltway

Aaron Mak, et al., of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "A standoff between police and an angry crowd turned violent Saturday night in the hours after a Milwaukee police officer shot and killed an armed suspect during a foot chase on the city's north side. After an hours-long confrontation with officers, police reported at 10:15 p.m. that a gas station at N. Sherman Blvd. and W. Burleigh St. was set on fire. Police said firefighters could not for a time get close to the blaze because of gunshots. Later, fires were started at businesses -- including a BMO Harris Bank branch, a beauty supply company and O'Reilly Auto Parts stores -- near N. 35th and W. Burleigh streets, a grim and emphatic Mayor Tom Barrett said. He spoke at a midnight news conference at the District 3 police station at N. 49th St. and W. Lisbon Ave. He and Common Council President Ashanti Hamilton pleaded with the public for calm. Barrett promised a strong police presence in coming days." -- CW

Ashley Southall & Eli Rosenberg of the New York Times: "A gunman shot and killed two people near a mosque in Queens on Saturday afternoon, according to the police. A congregant of the mosque, the Al-Furqan Jame Masjid, said its imam was among the victims.... The police said they were still investigating whether the shooting, which was initially reported as a robbery, was a hate crime. The police have not released the names of the victims." -- CW

Way Beyond

Michael Weissenstein of the AP: "Fidel Castro thanked Cubans for their well-wishes on his 90th birthday on Saturday and criticized President Barack Obama in a lengthy letter published in state media." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

News Lede

ABC News: "When Simone Manuel touched the wall to clinch a gold medal Saturday night, it was a moment 120 years in the making. The U.S. women's 4x100-meter medley relay team of Kathleen Baker, Lilly King, Dana Vollmer and Manuel -- winners at the Rio Games on Saturday night -- is being recognized by the U.S. Olympic Committee as delivering the nation's 1,000th gold medal in Summer Olympics history. By their count, anyway. Keeping count of the gold total is not as exact a science as one might think." -- CW

The Commentariat -- August 13, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Maureen Dowd argues that Hillary Clinton is the perfect Republican presidential nominee. Dowd bases her case on Clinton's foreign policy & her ties to Wall Street. -- CW

Gray Lady Outlines Why Donald Trump Must Never Be President. Alexander Burns & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: On June 20, Donald Trump's top advisors, including his children, staged an intervention to urge him to "end his freestyle digressions and insults," and & agreed to rein it in. "Nearly two months later, the effort to save Mr. Trump from himself has plainly failed. He has repeatedly signaled to his advisers and allies his willingness to change and adapt, but has grown only more volatile and prone to provocation since then.... In private, Mr. Trump's mood is often sullen and erratic, his associates say.... He is routinely preoccupied with perceived slights.... On Tuesday ... his brain trust ... again urged Mr. Trump to adjust his tone and comportment.... Mr. Trump ... responded receptively." Then he went out & suggested "Second Amendment people" off Hillary Clinton & a few liberal judges. ...

... CW: I've been watching a British series about an autistic child with a well-meaning but dysfunctional family. The little boy responds to coaching by acting out the way Donald Trump does. ...

... Kurt Eichenwald of Newsweek reviews some of the whoppers Donald Trump has told in sworn depositions. "He never tries to make his lies or delusions or fantasies make sense. He just spews to explain away the inexplicable.... Trump ... [now blames] the media for applying the rules of grammar and sentence structure to him...." CW: Oddly, Eichenwald frames his column in the form of a letter to Paul Ryan, urging Ryan to dump Trump, as if Ryan himself had the personal integrity & love of country to do the right thing. (If he does, he's been hiding it for a long time.) Thanks to Akhilleus for the link.

... Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "The unraveling of Donald Trump's candidacy continues apace, a long and steady decline since the high point three months ago. If he were deliberately trying to avoid winning the election, he could hardly be doing a better job. The hole he has dug for himself is wide and deep.... Rather than looking at weaknesses in his support and trying to find ways to win a few percentage points among particular groups of voters, his words and behavior do the opposite." -- CW

Michael Weissenstein of the AP: "Fidel Castro thanked Cubans for their well-wishes on his 90th birthday on Saturday and criticized President Barack Obama in a lengthy letter published in state media." -- CW

*****

Presidential Race

Steve Eder of the New York Times: "Hillary Clinton and her running mate, Tim Kaine, released a new batch of their own income tax returns on Friday, ratcheting up the pressure on her opponent, Donald J. Trump, to begin making public his own forms. The income taxes of Mrs. Clinton, along with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, showed an adjusted gross income of $10.6 million for 2015, revealing how during the campaign the Clintons have reined in their moneymaking efforts after many years of lucrative speeches, book deals and business endeavors. Mr. Kaine, the Virginia senator, and his wife, Anne Holton, reported income of $313,441 for 2015." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... CW: It's unlikely (tho not impossible) that the IRS is auditing Trump's 2015 returns, so he'll have to come up with another phony excuse for not releasing them. Plus, since he was running for president during 2015, he had time to make his returns "look good" in terms of actually paying some taxes, making real charitable contributions instead of pretending to, etc. If he won't even let the public see his taxes for a year he could have cooked them, then he should just drop out & go on to overseeing Trump TeeVee.

Michael Stratford of Politico: "Bill Clinton was paid more than $1 million in 2015 by Laureate Education, a global operator of for-profit colleges, according to tax returns released today by Hillary Clinton's campaign.... The new figure brings the former president's total compensation from Laureate to more than $17.5 million for his five-year role as an 'honorary chancellor.'... Clinton ended his position at Laureate in April 2015 after Hillary Clinton launched her bid for the White House.... In the United States, the company owns Walden University, a Minneapolis-based online school that the Education Department has placed on a list of colleges that officials are more closely monitoring because of concerns over its 'financial responsibility.'" CW: Bill is the Mike Huckabee of the Democratic party. It probably is not a coincidence that these two snakeoil salesmen were both governors of Arkansas.

Michelle Goldberg of Slate: "If you spend much time on right-wing media, you might have heard that Hillary Clinton suffers from seizures, dementia, Parkinson's disease, and possibly even tongue cancer. As David Weigel writes in the Washington Post, Sean Hannity has spent all week dredging up debunked rumors about Clinton's health.... Some of the same right-wing characters painting Clinton as a frail invalid are also accusing her of masterminding the murder of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich, who is said, without evidence, to be involved in last month's leak of DNC documents. (This is only the latest of the dozens of murders some attribute to the Clintons.)... The [Clinton-is-deathly-ill meme is] the speculation of desperate men hoping for a deus ex machina to save them from a Clinton presidency." -- CW

Tyler Pager of Politico: "Donald Trump sought to project a united front with Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on Friday night. Hours after the Trump campaign met with Republican Party officials, their nominee profusely praised Priebus at a rally in Altoona, Pennsylvania.... Priebus also tried to reassure voters of party unity at Trump's earlier rally in Erie, Pennsylvania." -- CW

Word Salad for the Second-Amendment People's Diet. The only way we can lose, in my opinion -- I really mean this, Pennsylvania is if cheating goes on and we have to call up law enforcement and we have to have the sheriffs and the police chiefs and everyone watching because if we get cheated out of this election, if we get cheated out of a win in Pennsylvania, which is such a vital state especially when I know what is happening here. She can't beat what's happening here. The only way they can beat it in my opinion, and I mean this 100 percent, if in certain sections of the state they cheat. -- Donald Trump, in Altoona, Pennsylvania, yesterday

Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "Trump had eased off the claim [that President Obama founded the Islamic State] Friday morning.... 'Ratings challenged @CNN reports so seriously that I call President Obama (and Clinton) "the founder" of ISIS, & MVP,' Trump tweeted. 'THEY DON'T GET SARCASM?' He seemed to revel in the uncertainty his tweet created, boasting ... later of pundits' inability to figure him out. 'I love watching these poor, pathetic people (pundits) on television working so hard and so seriously to try and figure me out. They can't!'.... But during an afternoon rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, Trump said his initial remark wasn't 'that sarcastic, to be honest with you.'" CW: As he whirls into the vortex, perhaps the most astonishing thing is that Trump thinks this "Gaslight" stunt is clever gamesmanship. ...

... Philip Bump of the Washington Post on Trump's repeatedly claims that President Obama "founded" ISIS & Trump's insistence that he really meant it, only to follow up with a tweet mocking the media -- CNN in this case -- for being too dumb to know sarcasm when they heard it: "But it wasn't [sarcasm], as you know. Sarcasm is being ironic for the purposes of mockery. A guy trips and breaks his nose, and you say, 'Nicely done.' That's sarcasm. It is saying the opposite of what is expected, making it not a particularly sophisticated form of humor but a popular one." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... OR, as Master of Sarcasm Andy Borowitz reports, "'People who are worried about me having the nuclear-launch codes should stop worrying, O.K.?' Trump told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. 'If I ever used nuclear weapons, it would be really obvious that I was just being sarcastic.'" -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Latest Trump Threat. Jesse Byrnes of the Hill: "Donald Trump on Thursday issued a threat to stop fundraising for the Republican Party after a report emerged that party officials could focus resources on down-ballot candidates." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The $63-Million-Dollar Question. Bob Burnett in the Huffington Post: "Open Secrets uses FEC data to report that, at the end of June, the Trump campaign had $20m on hand. According to the latest Trump reports, they raised an additional $80 million in July and, early in August, had $37m on hand. If you do the math, that means Trump spent $63m in July. He didn't spend it on TV advertising." He didn't spend much on field operations. "How did Trump spend the money?... The end-of-June FEC report indicates that Trump had lent his campaign $50m. Although Trump promised to forgive this loan, NBC news reported that he never filed the papers to actually do this." -- CW

... Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "Years before he ran for the White House, Trump built his political brand by accusing President Obama of concealing his past.... But Trump has ensured that Americans know relatively little about him. He has refused to release many of the same documents that he demanded from Obama, including college transcripts and passport records. He has shirked the decades-old tradition of major nominees releasing their tax returns and other documentation to prove their readiness and fitness for office. And he has yet to release records showing why he received a medical deferment during the Vietnam War and whether he has actually donated the millions of dollars he claims to have given to charity.... Trump, in building a wall around his records, is setting a new standard for secrecy for modern-day candidates." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Washington Post Editors: Unlike Hillary Clinton & most recent presidential candidates, Donald Trump has refused to release the names of his bundlers. "These are the people who solicit large numbers of often medium-size checks and hand them over to campaigns.... Mr. Trump might not want to draw attention to the special interests now backing him, and some of his bundlers might (understandably) be embarrassed to be outed.... Mr. Trump's refusal to meet essential standards of transparency expresses contempt for the democratic process and erodes crucial norms." -- CW

Keith Alexander & Robert O'Harrow of the Washington Post: "... during a deposition he gave in a lawsuit stemming from a dispute over his soon-to-open Washington luxury hotel..., [Donald Trump] seemed to brag about the impact his campaign has had on his brand. 'You know people have said there's never been anything like this,' he said. 'I've tapped into something. And I've tapped into illegal immigration.... But, you know, when you get more votes than anybody in the history of the party, history of the party by far, more than Ronald Reagan, more than Richard Nixon, more than Dwight D. Eisenhower who won the Second World War, you know, that's pretty mainstream, when you think about it." -- CW

We've got an un-indicted felon as his opponent [i.e., Hillary Clinton] and you're talking about [Khizr] Khan, about him [i.e., Donald Trumpus] making a remark about this man. All right, I don't care if he's a Gold Star parent. He certainly doesn't deserve that title, OK, if he's as anti-American as he's illustrated in his speeches and in his discussion. I mean, if he's a member of the Muslim Brotherhood or supporting, you know, the ISIS-type of attitude against America, there's no reason for Donald Trump to have to honor this man. -- Carl Paladino, co-chair for Donald Trump's campaign in New York, & professional hatemonger, on Don Imus's radio show

Patrick Healy of the New York Times: ".. in the last two weeks, instead of attracting a surge of new admirers [as he predicted], Mr. Trump has been hemorrhaging support among loyal Republicans, anti-establishment independents, Clinton-loathing Democrats and others, according to polls and 30 interviews with a cross-section of voters." -- CW

Max Ehrenfreund & Jeff Guo of the Washington Post: "According to [a] new analysis [by Gallup], those who view Trump favorably have not been disproportionately affected by foreign trade or immigration.... The results suggest that his supporters, on average, do not have lower incomes than other Americans, nor are they more likely to be unemployed." But they come from areas with depressed economies & "abnormally high death rates.... The places where Trump is popular are places where people have been unhealthy for a long time.... Those who view Trump favorably are more likely to be found in white enclaves -- racially isolated Zip codes...." CW: So according to this study, Trump's supporters are selfish, narrow-minded white people. What a surprise (that's sarcasm).

Senate Races

Boo-Fucking-Hoo. Nolan McCaskill: "Mitch McConnell may not be leading the Senate majority next Congress, the Kentucky Republican acknowledged Thursday, hinting of the down-ballot effect Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump could have on Senate races." -- CW

Other News & Views

They spend a lot of time, these Republicans, spending a lot of energy trying to separate themselves from Donald Trump. But as long as they're holding a Supreme Court seat open for him, they're his minions. They're his enablers. We're going to ensure that every American knows that as long as Senate Republicans are fighting to let Trump shape the Supreme Court for a generation or more, there's no daylight between them and Trump. -- Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid ...

... Charles Pierce: "Garland is preposterously qualified. The Republicans look like obstructionist idiots. Worse for them, Garland is probably the best candidate they're likely to get out of either the current Democratic administration, or out of what is looking increasingly like the next one.... Reid ... [is] dangling that nomination out there as a way for his Republican colleagues to distance themselves from the vulgar talking yam that their party nominated for president." -- CW ...

... CW: Nobody is more responsible for stonewalling Garland than Chuck Grassley, the notorious chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who refuses to hold hearings on Garland's nomination & is holding up lower-court nominations. So ...

... Mark Hensch of the Hill: "Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) says the Senate's efficiency is flourishing under GOP leadership. 'Republicans and Democrats can work together. Bipartisanship has allowed us to make progress on good ideas from senators on both sides of the aisle,' he said Saturday in the GOP's weekly address." CW: They really have no shame.

Smoking Gun: "After disappearing for a couple of weeks, the hacker 'Guccifer 2.0' returned late [Friday] afternoon to provide a new headache for Democrats. In a post to his WordPress blog, the vandal -- who previously provided nearly 20,000 Democratic National Committee e-mails to Wikileaks -- uploaded an Excel file that includes the cell phone numbers and private e-mail addresses of nearly every Democratic member of the House of Representatives. The Excel file also includes similar contact information for hundreds of congressional staff members (chiefs of staff, press secretaries, legislative directors, schedulers) and campaign personnel." -- CW

Josh Rogin of the Washington Post: "Trump campaign surrogates are fueling a conspiracy theory that a murdered Democratic National Committee staffer was connected to the hacking of the DNC, a theory being pushed by WikiLeaks and the Russian state-controlled press. There's a big problem, however, with the theory: it doesn't make any sense when compared to all the available evidence.... On Thursday, Trump ally Newt Gingrich also endorsed the [Julian] Assange conspiracy theory that [Seth] Rich's death was somehow connected to the DNC hack.... The original conspiracy theory can be traced back to a notoriously unreliable conspiracy website that based its theory on an alleged Russian intelligence agency report about a Clinton 'hit team' that somehow lured Rich into a trap...." -- CW

Sarah Ferris of the Hill: "A federal judge is halting a Ohio law that would have defunded Planned Parenthood starting this year, a major decision that will be closely watched by other states with similar measures. Judge Michael Barrett ruled Friday that Ohio's health department could not defund Planned Parenthood because the group's patients could face 'irreparable injury.'...." CW: Barrett is a Bush II appointee.

** Devin Hughes & Evan DeFilippis, in Think Progress: John Lott, "the NRA's favorite 'academic' is a fraud.... A little over a decade ago, he was disgraced and his career was in tatters. Not only was Lott's assertion that more guns leads to more safety formally repudiated by a National Research Council panel, but he had also been caught pushing studies with severe statistical errors on numerous occasions. An investigation uncovered that he had almost certainly fabricated an entire survey on defensive gun use. And a blogger revealed that Mary Rosh, an online commentator claiming to be a former student of Lott's who would frequently post about how amazing he was, was in fact John Lott himself.... [Yet] In the past few years, Lott and his organization have been cited by dozens of media outlets as an authority on gun violence statistics, including the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, LA Times, Politifact, CBS, CNN, Fox News, and many others." CW: Read on. The stunts Lott has pulled are astounding.

Thomas Gibbons-Neff of the Washington Post: "The head of the Islamic State's branch in Afghanistan, a former Pakistani Taliban member named Hafiz Saeed Khan, was killed in a U.S. airstrike last month, the Pentagon announced Friday. The July 26 strike took place in the Achin district of Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province, said Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Gordon Trowbridge in a statement." -- CW

Beyond the Beltway

Tina Sfondeles of the Chicago Sun-Times: Illinois "Gov. Bruce Rauner [R] on Friday vetoed a bill that would have automatically registered drivers to become voters when they get a driver's license, saying there were some 'corrections' to be made to the bill before he could approve it." CW: Rauner says he's worried about voter fraud. What a surprise. ...

... Alice Ollstein of Think Progress: "The non-partisan watchdog group Common Cause Illinois estimates the policy could help add two million new voters to the states rolls. In a statement Thursday, the group's lead organizer Trevor Gervais accused the governor of 'playing politics with something as important as voting rights.' 'He wants to delay implementation until 2019, after the next gubernatorial election,' Gervais said. Because the Illinois state legislature passed the measure with an overwhelming majority in early June, they can now vote to override the veto. If they do, the state will launch a program in 2018...." -- CW

Daniel Victor of the New York Times: "A federal judge on Friday overturned the murder and sexual assault convictions of Brendan Dassey, one of the defendants whose case was the subject of the wildly popular Netflix documentary series, 'Making a Murderer.'" -- CW

The Commentariat -- August 12, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Steve Eder of the New York Times: "Hillary Clinton and her running mate, Tim Kaine, released a new batch of their own income tax returns on Friday, ratcheting up the pressure on her opponent, Donald J. Trump, to begin making public his own forms. The income taxes of Mrs. Clinton, along with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, showed an adjusted gross income of $10.6 million for 2015, revealing how during the campaign the Clintons have reined in their moneymaking efforts after many years of lucrative speeches, book deals and business endeavors. Mr. Kaine, the Virginia senator, and his wife, Anne Holton, reported income of $313,441 for 2015." ...

... CW: It's unlikely (tho not impossible) that the IRS is auditing Trump's 2015 returns, so he'll have to come up with another phony excuse for not releasing them. Plus, since he was running for president during 2015, he had plenty of time to make his returns "look good" by actually paying some taxes, making real charitable contributions instead of pretending to, etc. If he won't even let the public see his taxes for a year he could have cooked them, then he should just drop out & go on to overseeing Trump TeeVee. ...

... Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "Years before he ran for the White House, Trump built his political brand by accusing President Obama of concealing his past.... But Trump has ensured that Americans know relatively little about him. He has refused to release many of the same documents that he demanded from Obama, including college transcripts and passport records. He has shirked the decades-old tradition of major nominees releasing their tax returns and other documentation to prove their readiness and fitness for office. And he has yet to release records showing why he received a medical deferment during the Vietnam War and whether he has actually donated the millions of dollars he claims to have given to charity.... Trump, in building a wall around his records, is setting a new standard for secrecy for modern-day candidates." -- CW

Latest Trump Threat. Jesse Byrnes of the Hill: "Donald Trump on Thursday issued a threat to stop fundraising for the Republican Party after a report emerged that party officials could focus resources on down-ballot candidates." -- CW

Philip Bump of the Washington Post on Trump's repeated claims that President Obama "founded" ISIS & Trump's insistence that he really meant it, only to follow up with a tweet mocking the media -- CNN in this case -- for being too dumb to know sarcasm when they heard it: "But it wasn't [sarcasm].... Sarcasm is being ironic for the purposes of mockery. A guy trips and breaks his nose, and you say, 'Nicely done.' That's sarcasm. It is saying the opposite of what is expected, making it not a particularly sophisticated form of humor but a popular one." -- CW...

... OR, as Master of Sarcasm Andy Borowitz reports, "'People who are worried about me having the nuclear-launch codes should stop worrying, O.K.?' Trump told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. 'If I ever used nuclear weapons, it would be really obvious that I was just being sarcastic.'" -- CW

*****

Dear Do-Nothing Congress: Julie Davis of the New York Times: "The Obama administration on Thursday said it was shifting $81 million away from biomedical research and antipoverty and health care programs to pay for the development of a Zika vaccine, resorting to extraordinary measures because Congress has failed to approve new funding to combat the virus. Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the secretary of health and human services, told members of Congress in a letter that without the diverted funds, the National Institutes of Health and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority would run out of money to confront the mosquito-borne illness by the end of the month. That would force the development of a vaccine to stop at a critical time, as locally acquired cases of Zika infection increase in Miami." -- CW

Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont led a chorus of critics after the Drug Enforcement Administration declined to allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes -- the latest example of fast-changing politics in the war on drugs. 'People can argue about the pluses and minuses of marijuana, but everyone knows it's not a killer drug like heroin,' Sanders wrote in a tweet, after the DEA announced that marijuana would remain a Schedule I drug with 'no currently accepted medical use in the United States.'... In July, when delegates met to firm up the Democratic platform, pro-Sanders delegates won language in favor of de-scheduling marijuana. That plank, passed by a single vote, marked the most significant statement in favor of legal marijuana since the start of the war on drugs." -- CW

Adam Shell of USA Today: "Stocks rallied and the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq all hit new closing highs Thursday, bolstered by a strong earnings report from department store Macy's, fresh data showing the labor market remains solid and a rebound in oil prices. It's the first time all three major market gauges have set new closing marks on the same day since 1999 -- specifically, New Year's Eve of that year."

Rachel Abrams & Sapna Maheshwari of the New York Times: "Macy's, the country's largest department store, said on Thursday that it would close 100 stores, saying they were more valuable as real estate properties. Walmart, the world's largest retailer, announced on Monday that it would buy a small online rival for more than $3 billion.... Other retailers have taken aggressive action, too, trying to turn their fortunes around. Billions of dollars have been poured into e-commerce efforts. Stores have turned to sharp discounting, temporarily lifting sales but hurting profits and upsetting partners.... People continue to spend. In the spring, household spending rose at an annualized rate of 4.2 percent, driving overall economic growth. But more and more, they now want bargains and convenience -- in stores and online --- and know how to find them." -- CW

Danielle Paquette of the Washington Post: As a U.S. Justice Department investigation & report revealed, Baltimore police "officers frequently dismissed or mishandled sexual assault complaints. They often neglected to interview suspects or send DNA evidence to laboratories. Between 2010 and 2014, authorities tested rape kits in just 15 percent of adult-victim sexual assault cases. The Justice Department concluded that 'gender bias' had infected investigations. 'In their interviews with women reporting sexual assault,' investigators wrote, 'BPD officers ask women questions such as "Why are you messing up that guy's life?"' Meanwhile, just 17 percent of sexual assault reports in 2015 ended with an arrest. More than half of the reports made to the department languished as open cases." -- CW: Given the department's rampant mistreatment of African-Americans, its rampant mistreatment of women scarcely comes as a surprise. ...

... Mark Holden & Ronal Serpas, in a Washington Post op-ed: "There has been a surge of assertions about rising crime recently. At the Republican convention in July, GOP nominee Donald Trump said, 'Decades of progress made in bringing down crime are now being reversed by this administration's rollback of criminal enforcement.'... As two strong conservatives, let us set the record straight. These statements on rising murders are highly misleading. The truth is that Americans are still experiencing hard-won historic lows in crime.... While we must work to address the issues driving this unacceptable localized violence [in Baltimore, Chicago & D.C.], it is not the norm.... If we care about law and order and changing the dire conditions in cities where violent crime is a perpetuating cycle, we need to rely on facts, not fear." CW: Holden is the top Koch Industries lawyer, so it appears this is the (mild) way the Koch boys seek to undermine Trump. Perhaps they'll step it up in coming months.

Michael Riley of Bloomberg: "Weeks before the Democratic convention was upended by 20,000 leaked e-mails released through WikiLeaks, another little-known website began posting the secrets of a top NATO general, billionaire George Soros' philanthropy and a Chicago-based Clinton campaign volunteer. Security experts now say that site, DCLeaks.com ... shows the marks of the same Russian intelligence outfit that targeted the Democratic political organizations." -- CW

Presidential Race

Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "In her first full-throttled rejection of Donald J. Trump's economic agenda, Hillary Clinton sharply criticized her opponent for advancing policies that she said would lift the ultra wealthy and cast middle-class and working Americans further into financial distress. Presenting a contrast between two starkly different economic visions during a major economic speech in Detroit, Mrs. Clinton called parts of Mr. Trump's tax plan a discount to benefit his ultra-wealthy peers and relatives. Faulting Mr. Trump for promising deep tax cuts for the wealthy and a gentler approach to financial regulation, she portrayed his proposals as reflective of traditional Republican thinking that would exacerbate the gap between rich and poor." CW: Possibly, Clinton drew these contrasts because they're, you know, true, as opposed to the supply-side baloney Trump's people gave him to read. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... John Wagner & Jim Tankersley of the Washington Post: "Hillary Clinton on Thursday sought to undermine the central premise of Republican Donald Trump's presidential campaign -- that he would bring relief to economically beleaguered Americans -- by casting him as a fraud and claiming that his proposals would help 'only millionaires like himself.' Clinton used what was nominally described as an economic speech to press her case that Trump's proposals and actions run counter to his campaign promises to lift workers and energize the economy."

On other campaigns, we would have to scrounge for crumbs. Here, it's a fire hose. He can set himself on fire at breakfast, kill a nun at lunch and waterboard a puppy in the afternoon. And that doesn't even get us to prime time. -- Unnamed Hillary Clinton Staffer, on campaigning against Donald Trump

Trump's Campaign Strategy. Allegra Kirkland of TPM: "'I don't know that we need to get out the vote,'... [Trump said on Fox 'News' last night]. 'I think people that really want to vote, they're gonna just get up and vote for Trump. And we're going to make America great again.' The Trump campaign has yet to develop on-the-ground support in critical battleground states as election day draws nearer and Hillary Clinton's poll numbers in those states rise." CW: The theory that Trump does not want to be POTUS is looking more plausible by the day.

Tom Hamburger & Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump urged evangelical Christians to rally behind him in a speech [in Orlando, Florida,] Thursday.... Trump tried to draw a direct distinction between himself and Mitt Romney..., who would have become the nation's first Mormon president. Echoing some post-2012 analysis suggesting that Romney's religion led some evangelicals to stay home, Trump said 'religion didn't get out and vote' for the former governor, 'whatever the reason.'... Trump stressed his difficulties in the country's only majority-Mormon state -- making an apparent play for support by noting that he has a 'tremendous problem' in Utah." CW Translation: I'm a real Christian & Romney isn't. ...

And lo, did the philistine come before them. And they beheld his mane of brightest gold, and were swayed. -- Gospel of Paul (Waldman) 1:4 ...

      ... Eric Kleefield of the New Republic figures Trump is just trying to hand the Mormon vote to Clinton. -- CW ...

... David Smith of the Guardian: "Donald Trump insinuated that Hillary Clinton lacks mental stamina at a rally where he twice couldn't tell what day of the week it was.... 'By the way, is there any place to be that's better than a Friday night in Florida at a Trump rally? No place.' A few supporters shouted, 'It's Thursday!' Later he said: 'We joke. It's Friday night and we're having fun.' More supporters yelled, 'It's Thursday!' but he appeared to assume it was more cheering. In another, perhaps more deliberate lapse, Trump claimed: 'This place is incredible. We've got 2,000 people outside trying to get in.' In fact there were still hundreds of empty places in the 8,000-seat arena in Kissimmee, near Orlando." CW: Trump isn't as distracted as Smith implies; he just hasn't finalized how the days of the week will shake out when he adds Trumpday. ...

... Marc Caputo, et al., of Politico: "Donald Trump's campaign and top Republican Party officials plan what one person called a 'come to Jesus' meeting on Friday [CW: or whatever day of the week it is] in Orlando to discuss the Republican nominee's struggling campaign, according to multiple sources familiar with the scheduled sit-down. Though a campaign source dismissed it as a 'typical' gathering, others described it as a more serious meeting, with one calling it an 'emergency meeting.'" CW: Will there be fisticuffs? It's Florida, so maybe somebody will wave a gun around (see the North Carolina campaign story, linked below). Also, I thought the Orlando "come to Jesus" meeting was Thursday with those evangelicals, where Trump speculated on his chances of getting into heaven. ...

... Brian Beutler beats back the widely-held GOP assumption that Hillary Clinton would lose badly to any of the other GOP presidential candidates. (I'm assuming here they don't mean Ben Carson.) ...

     ... CW: Still, the biggest headache for liberals would be Trump's abdicating the nomination gracefully and soon, bringing along his base to support whatever mostly-unvetted, trickle-down, misogynist whom Republican elders decided to anoint. While Trump's doing anything magnanimously seems unlikely, it's not outside the realm of possibilities, especially if GOP leaders make him an attractive offer. I do think Trump might quit before November, & the best hope for the Republic is that he'll do it Trumpelthinskin-style.

Oh, Crap. There Goes Another Constitutional Amendment. Patricia Mazzai of the Miami Herald: "A President Donald Trump might push for Americans accused of terrorism to be tried in military tribunal at the U.S. Navy base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the Republican nominee told the Miami Herald on Thursday." ...

     ... CW: Mazzei writes, "Under current federal law, it’s illegal to try U.S. citizens at military commissions. Changing the law would require an act of Congress." I'm no Constitutional scholar, but as far as I can tell, Congress does not have the power to militarize civilian courts. Under the Sixth Amendment, "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law...." ...

     ... Update. Steve M. corrects me: "... the Supreme Court has said that it would be constitutional to change the law in a way that subjects U.S. citizens to detention and tribunals, as Adam Serwer noted in 2011: 'There is no bar to this nation's holding one of its own citizens as an enemy combatant," Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said during [a] floor speech defending the detention provisions Tuesday.'... Levin was referring to 2004's Hamdi v. Rumsfeld case, in which the Supreme Court ruled that Yaser Esam Hamdi, a US national captured during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, could be held in military detention but not without habeas review.'... So a lot of D.C. politicians have walked up to that line." CW Note: U.S. forces captured Hamdi in Afghanistan, allegedly fighting on the side of the Taliban; that is, he was an actual "enemy combatant." That is qualitatively different from a U.S. citizen committing a terrorist act in, say, Chicago. The justices' opinions in Hamdi seem to support that differentiation. In any event, the plurality opinion does not give Congress the right to try U.S. civilians in military courts but rather addresses Fifth Amendment due process rights (the Court decided Hamdi had them). ...

     ... Josh Israel of Think Progress has more on this, which supports my contention that Donald Trump's self-described love for the Constitution apparently does not include the Sixth Amendment.

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump, reaffirming his contention that President Obama was effectively a 'founder' of the Islamic State terrorist group, said Thursday that he intended to stick by his unorthodox campaign style, even if it meant taking 'a very, very nice long vacation' after Nov. 8.... It was a rare instance in which Mr. Trump has conceded that his approach might not work.... 'You meant that he [Obama] created the vacuum, he lost the peace,' [conservative radio host Hugh] Hewitt suggested... No, I meant he's the founder of ISIS. I do,' Mr. Trump said.... 'But he's not sympathetic to them,' Mr. Hewitt replied.... 'He hates them. He's trying to kill them.' 'I don't care,' Mr. Trump replied. 'He was the founder. His, the way he got out of Iraq was that that was the founding of ISIS, O.K.?'" -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... The story has been updated, with Nick Corasaniti added to the byline. The new lede: "Facing one of the toughest stretches of his presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump on Thursday acknowledged in unusually candid terms that he faced daunting hurdles in crucial states, as he swung wildly at Hillary Clinton to try to blunt her questions about his fitness to serve in the Oval Office." --

... Nancy LeTourneau of the Washington Monthly explains the clever strategy here: "What do you do when you want to distract people from the fact that you just suggested that your political opponent could be assassinated? You call the current POTUS a terrorist, of course." -- CW ...

... Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "Part of what motivates Trump to make [such] questionable statements is that he feeds off the approval of his base.... It was almost Pavlovian, watching Trump ride the wave of applause as he said, over and over, that the U.S. president had founded [ISIS].... Politicians always pander to their bases, but it rarely looks like this.... The militant group, which started referring to itself as the Islamic State three years ago, was formed in 2002 by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to the Mapping Militants project at Stanford University." CW: Once again we learn that Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama had an amazing reach. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... CW: As Bump reports on the exchange with Hewitt, Hewitt asked Trump, "By using the term 'founder,' they're hitting you on this again. Mistake?" Trump replied, 'No, it's no mistake. Everyone's liking it. I think they're liking it." In other words, it doesn't bother Trump that the majority of the electorate is repelled by his lies; all that matters is the cheers from his audience of troglodytes. It's a sickness. So, congratulations, Republicans. Are you listening, Reince? ...

... Zack Beauchamp of Vox: "First, Trump completely botches the history of ISIS: The group was founded in 1999 and really grew up after the US invasion of Iraq. If any US president could be blamed for ISIS's 'founding,' it would be George W. Bush, not Barack Obama. Second, Trump is, intentionally or not, validating conspiracy theories about America's relationship with ISIS. It's a terribly irresponsible thing to say -- and illustrates one of the many reasons Trump would make an awful president.... The real sources of ISIS's recent growth were the Syrian civil war and political sectarianism in Iraq, neither of which was within the power of United States to prevent." -- CW ...

... CW: Perhaps the most telling part of the Hewitt-Trump conversation is where Hewitt tries to talk Trump off the ledge by pointing out that President Obama is hardly ISIS's BFF:

Hewitt: But he's not sympathetic to them. He hates them. He's trying to kill them.

Trump: I don't care. He was the founder. His, the way he got out of Iraq was that, that was the founding of ISIS, O.K.?

Trump's refusal to even entertain obvious facts is -- both in language & message -- stunningly childish & petulant. It's the sort of response you would expect from a troubled six-year-old having a temper tantrum. It should preclude any normal person's voting for him & cause Republican officials to finally realize & deal with the fact that their peeps have nominated a madman.

... The Schoolyard Bully's Guide to Political Campaigning. David Graham of the Atlantic: "Accusing Obama of treason, or of founding ISIS, are however neatly of a piece with Trump's baseless insistence that Obama is not American and was born abroad -- just new ways to portray him as an alien other. Ironically, Trump himself has been labeled an other, completely alien to the existing U.S. political system and its norms. It stands to reason that he'd mirror such attacks: When Trump is criticized, his go-to rhetorical turn is 'I'm rubber, you're glue,' which is why ever since Clinton labeled Trump unfit for office because of his 'temperament,' Trump has made criticizing her own temperament a centerpiece of his stump speech, using the word repeatedly." -- CW ...

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post annotates the full CNBC interview Trump gave yesterday. "National Republicans should be terrified, Blake writes. CW: His annotations seem both accurate & amusing. ...

... ** He Was for It (for Years) Before He Was Against It. Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "Donald Trump has said repeatedly ... that President Obama 'founded ISIS'.... 'He was the founder of ISIS, absolutely,' Trump said on CNBC on Thursday. 'The way he removed our troops -- you shouldn't have gone in. I was against the war in Iraq. Totally against it. (Trump was not against the war as he has repeatedly claimed.) 'The way he got out of Iraq was that that was the founding of ISIS, OK?' Trump later said. But lost in Trump's immediate comments is that, for years, he pushed passionately and forcefully for the same immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq. In interview after interview in the later 2000s, Trump said American forces should be removed from Iraq." Kaczynski provides multiple public statements Trump made over the years urging rapid U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. -- CW

... New York Times Editors: "When Mr. Trump fans racist rage against the president, suggests that gun owners take up arms against Mrs. Clinton, or speaks darkly of a 'rigged' election, he is not trying to woo Republican skeptics, independents or undecided voters. He is appealing to the mob.... His behavior this week raises a more disturbing scenario. Perhaps he has given up on winning through civil means and does not care about the consequences of his campaign of incitement." -- CW ...

... Caitlin MacNeal of TPM: On Thursday, Trump's running mate mike pence tried to clean up Trump's comment about President Obama's being the "founder of Isis." CW: At one point during his tap dance, pence said, "Everybody in this country knows exactly what Donald Trump means, whether it be on that or other issues. He's a plainspoken man." Which makes the update below all the richer. ...

... Update. You had to know this was coming (even if mike pence didn't). Jessie Hellmann of the Hill: "For the second time in less than a month, GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump is writing off a statement many found offensive -- this time, that President Obama was the 'founder' of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) -- as 'sarcasm.'... 'Ratings challenged @CNN reports so seriously that I call President Obama (and Clinton) 'the founder' of ISIS, & MVP. THEY DON'T GET SARCASM?' [Trump tweeted]." CW: Yup, it's definitely the media's fault for reporting Trump means what he says when Trump says something repeatedly and insists numerous times that he means what he says. In a week or two, Trump will deny he ever said President Obama was the founder of ISIS, & the media are at fault again for lying about him.

NEW. Marc Fisher & Michael Kranish have another excerpt from the book Trump Revealed in today's Washington Post, but it doesn't, ah, reveal much. -- CW ...

... NEW. AND Jason Horowitz of the New York Times has a long piece on Fred Trump & on his influence on his son Donnie. CW: Maybe the Times is dumping this stuff now in case Donnie, in the near future, goes on to more trivial pursuits.

Jeet Heer of the New Republic: "While Trump makes little sense as a mainstream candidate vying for office, his incendiary words are perfectly appropriate if his goal is to make a name for himself in the world of sensationalistic television, an avenue he very well may pursue with Trump TV after the election ends." -- CW

** A Huge Lie about Childcare. You know, it's not expensive for a company to do it. You need one person or two people, and you need some blocks, and you need some swings and some toys. It's not an expensive thing, and I do it all over. And I get great people because of it. Because it's a problem with a lot of other companies. -- Donald Trump, Iowa, November 2015 ...

... Jill Colvin & Catherine Lucey of the AP: "When Donald Trump vowed this week to make child care more accessible and affordable, it was just the second time during his White House campaign that he's talked about an issue that affects millions of working Americans with young children. The first came months ago in Iowa, when ... [Trump] touted his own record as a business owner during a candidate Q&A, telling voters he provided on-site child-care service for his employees. There is no evidence, however, that any such programs exist.... The two programs Trump cited -- 'Trump Kids' and 'Trumpeteers' -- are programs catering to patrons of Trump's hotels and golf club. They are not for Trump's employees, according to staff at Trump's hotels and clubs across the country." -- CW ...

... Emily Crockett of Vox: "It's a rather tone-deaf screw-up from Trump, who has (very) recently turned child care into a major policy proposal for his campaign. It doesn't help that the child care policy he is now proposing also helps well-off Americans substantially more than low-income families...." -- CW

James Stewart of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump has paid ... perhaps even zero federal income tax in some years. Indeed, that's the expectation of numerous real estate and tax professionals I've interviewed.... That's because Mr. Trump, as a prominent and active developer, can take advantage of some of the most generous tax breaks in the federal tax code to reduce his reported income to near zero, or even report a loss.... Mr. Trump has said in the past that highly paid corporate executives 'get away with murder' on their taxes while boasting that he pays as little as the law allows.... Mr. Trump ... has not released [his tax returns]. One obvious potential reason is that he reports little or no taxable income, and thus pays very little to support the government he wants to run.... This may also explain why Mr. Trump has not disclosed many large charitable contributions, because the charitable deduction would be of scant value if he has little or no taxable income."...

     ... CW: Many Americans pay taxes at a higher rate than does Mitt Romney, but I wouldn't be surprised if millions of us also paid more in actual dollars than Donald Trump does.

** Paul Krugman: "... right now, when it matters, [Republican party leaders like Paul Ryan,] have decided that lower tax rates on the rich are sufficient payment for betraying American ideals and putting the republic as we know it in danger." Read the whole column. -- CW ...

... Danielle Allen of the Washington Post: "With every morally reprehensible, politically dangerous and socially damaging attack [Donald] Trump makes on decency, constitutionalism and individual people, [Paul] Ryan produces yet another talk bubble of coddling enablement. Ryan is about to write himself into history as one of those who were asleep at the switch at a pivotal moment of American political decline." -- CW

Anna Palmer of Politico: "More than 70 Republicans have signed an open letter to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus urging him to stop spending any money to help Donald Trump win in November and shift those contributions to Senate and House races.... Former Sen. Gordon Humphrey of New Hampshire and former Reps. Chris Shays of Connecticut, Tom Coleman of Missouri and Vin Weber of Minnesota are among the Republicans lending their name to the letter. Close to 20 of the co-signers are former RNC staffers...." -- CW

Sean Sullivan & Sarah Larimer of the Washington Post: "A former staffer for Donald Trump's campaign alleged in a lawsuit this week that a top [Trump] aide in North Carolina pulled out a gun while the pair traveled together in February and held the loaded firearm to the staffer's kneecap.... [The plaintiff, Vincent] Bordini, reported the incident to other Trump staffers, the lawsuit claims, but [Earl] Phillip[, Trump's North Carolina state director, who allegedly threatened Bordini with a loaded gun,] wasn't fired or suspended." CW: As should be obvious by now, not all of the nut jobs Trump attracts are the ones who show up at public rallies.

Beyond the Beltway

Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "On Wednesday, a three-judge panel struck down the [Republican-drawn North Carolina] state legislative maps as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.... The loss of these maps is still a blow to Republicans. In 2012, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney won North Carolina's electoral votes by only a two-point margin over President Obama. Yet the state legislative maps proved so favorable to Republicans that the GOP captured a supermajority of both houses of the state legislature.... By packing African-Americans into relatively few districts, the state minimized black voters' ability to influence elections in other parts of the state, and prevented them from forming coalitions with non-black voters...." -- CW