;)
The Commentariat -- August 11, 2016
Afternoon Update:
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.
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 ...
... 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 discover Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama had an amazing reach. ...
... 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?
*****
Presidential Race
Toby Eckert of Politico: "Hillary Clinton plans to set up a stark contrast Thursday between her tax plan and Donald Trump's, portraying her Republican rival's proposal as one that would 'only benefit millionaires like himself,' according to Clinton's campaign. At the same time, Clinton -- in a speech in Warren Mich. -- will tout her own tax plan and other economic proposals as a boon to the middle class." -- CW
Lauren Gambino & Ciara McCarthy of the Guardian: "Hillary Clinton denounced Donald Trump's suggestion that gun owners could stop her from appointing liberal supreme court justices, pointing to it as the latest evidence of behavior by him unbefitting of a presidential candidate. At a rally in
Eric Lipton & Steve Eder of the New York Times: A spokesman for a Clinton Foundation donor explains that the donor was trying to contact the State Department to give them information, not to garner a favor, as conservatives have charged in response to a new release of some Clinton-era State Department e-mails. -- CW
Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: Hillary Clinton's campaign has begun "exploring whether former secretaries of state, such as Henry Kissinger, might back her. That, liberals warned, would be a step too far. And the prospect fed a perception that, with a contentious primary behind her, the Democratic nominee has returned to her old, hawkish ways and is again taking progressives for granted." ...
... CW: See also my blogpost "Six Degrees of Stupid." According to Weigel's reporting, even Noam Chomsky agrees with me. And, I, BTW, agree with Glenn Greenwald: "I don't think Clinton will change her foreign policy because she's receiving endorsements from Bush, Reagan and Nixon foreign policy officials.... I think she;s receiving those endorsements because they like what her foreign policy will be. That;s what worries me." (Emphasis added.) ...
... AND The Undeciders. Gail Collins explains voting to senators (and Charles Pierce): "... it's very strange to hear elected officials embracing various versions of a don't-vote strategy. Nobody knows better than they do that politics is a world of imperfect choices.... There are only three things you can do when it comes time to elect a president. You can stay home and punt; you can choose between the two major party candidates; or you can cop out by doing something that looks like voting but has no effect whatsoever on the outcome of the race. That includes strategies about writing in the name of a retired general, leaving the top line blank, or voting for a third-party candidate who has as much chance of winning as the YouTube Keyboard Cat." -- CW
Eric Lichtblau & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "A Russian cyberattack that targeted Democratic politicians was bigger than it first appeared and breached the private email accounts of more than 100 party officials and groups, officials with knowledge of the case said Wednesday. The widening scope of the attack has prompted the F.B.I. to broaden its investigation, and agents have begun notifying a long list of Democratic officials that the Russians may have breached their personal accounts.... Organizations like the Democratic Governors' Association may also have been affected.... American intelligence agencies have said they have 'high confidence' that the attack was the work of Russian intelligence agencies." -- CW ...
... Katherine Krueger of TPM: "In recent months, Wikileaks' Twitter feed has been awash in posts maligning ... [Hillary Clinton] and promoting polls that purportedly show Donald Trump sliding to an easy victory over Clinton. But with the organization's $20,000 reward ... for information about the murder of a Democratic National Committee staffer..., Wikileaks waded further into the internet's vast, anti-Clinton fever swamps, which have pushed the bonkers conspiracy theory that DNC staffer Seth Rich was killed for crossing the Clintons. Police have said Rich, 27, was shot twice in the back as part of an attempted robbery while walking to his home in northwest Washington, D.C. in the early hours of July 10. But nothing was found missing from his person, which fired up the internet conspiracy machine." -- CW ...
... Max Rosenthal of Mother Jones: "The July 12 shooting of Seth Rich, a 27-year-old staffer at the Democratic National Committee, was likely a robbery gone wrong, according to Washington, DC, police. But to the dismay of Rich's family, his death has become fodder for dark anti-Hillary Clinton conspiracy theories that have been circulated widely on social media and amplified by longtime Donald Trump adviser Roger Stone.... Stone, a longtime Republican strategist and close ally of Trump, has used the death to promote the right-wing 'Clinton body count' theory that claims the Clintons have been responsible for numerous political murders dating back to the 1980s." CW: So how long will it be before Trump himself tweets that "people are saying" Hillary Clinton's hitmen murdered Seth Rich? He did it to the father of primary opponent Ted Cruz (more than once), so he is not above doing it to his general election rival.
AND Steve M. provides background on this startling Breitbart report: "The executive director of a physicians' organization questions how the mainstream media can ignore signs of what could be a traumatic brain injury in the Democrat nominee for president." CW: But, hey, the few little caveats Steve raises aside, I'm all worried that Hillary slipped on some icy steps in February because her brain is "unhinged" or something.
More Deranged Musings of a Despicable Man. Margaret Hartmann: "At a rally in Florida on Wednesday [Donald Trump] accused President Obama of being the 'founder of ISIS,' while downgrading 'crooked Hillary Clinton' to 'co-founder.' It's quite the demotion, since last Wednesday Trump said his opponent should receive an award from the terrorist group 'as the founder of ISIS.'... 'He's the founder of ISIS. He's the founder of ISIS. He's the founder. He founded ISIS,' adding, 'I would say the co-founder would be crooked Hillary Clinton.'... He also revived his suggestion that the commander-in-chief, who authorized 11,000 U.S. air strikes against ISIS in the past two years, harbors a secret affinity for the terrorists. 'In many respects, you know, they honor President Obama,' Trump said, offering no further explanation. Later while discussing the situation in Crimea -- which he just learned was annexed by Russia in 2014 -- Trump ... sa[id] it took place 'during the administration of Barack Hussein Obama.'" More on Trump's Florida rally below. ...
... Steve M.: "Trump isn't breaking new ground here -- this kind of talk has long been acceptable on the right.... The only new twist with Trump is that yesterday he threw in some birtherist Muslim-baiting.... These are just standard-issue GOP smears. They're just getting a higher profile now." Steve provides plenty of evidence. -- CW
** William Kennedy Smith & Jean Kennedy Smith in a Washington Post op-ed, contrast Bobby Kennedy's extemporaneous Indianapolis speech on the night Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered with Donald Trump's "thinly veiled reference or 'joke' about the possibility of political assassination." CW: Feel free to weep for a country in which millions of voters intend to select a presidential candidate who would encourage the assassins of John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy & Martin Luther King, Jr. Because that is where we live. ...
... Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: "Ronald Reagan's daughter, Patti Davis, was among the many Americans outraged by Donald Trump's threat that gun owners should do something to stop his opponent from nominating liberal judges. Davis ... reminded the Republican presidential nominee that her father had been shot and wounded ... by a would-be assassin who was inspired by an unwitting celebrity.... Davis said Trump's words were ... heard by Americans who are mentally disturbed or looking for permission to commit acts of political violence." -- CW ...
If someone else had said that said outside the hall, he'd be in the back of a police wagon now with the Secret Service questioning him.... You're not just responsible for what you say. You are responsible for what people hear. -- Gen. Michael Hayden, Ret., former CIA Director ...
... ** Paul Waldman: "If you're arguing to your angry, heavily armed supporters, who already think the federal government is tyrannical, that there's a conspiracy afoot to steal the election and that your opponent will be sending jackbooted government thugs to confiscate their guns, you don't get to pretend that when you say that the 'Second Amendment people' might be able to stop the next president's judges from subverting their gun rights that it's all innocent and you would never contemplate something as irresponsible as encouraging violence.... It doesn't matter whether Trump really believes that people should use their guns against the federal government if it enacts policies they don't like. What matters is that he's encouraging them to think they should, just like he's encouraging them not to accept the results of the election if their favored candidate doesn't win. That's what so malignant...." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... ** Tami Luhby and Jim Sciutto of CNN: Secret Service chatted with Trump: "A US Secret Service official confirms to CNN that the USSS has spoken to the Trump campaign regarding his Second Amendment comments. 'There has been more than one conversation' on the topic, the official told CNN. The campaign told USSS Donald Trump did not intend to incite violence. 'No such meeting or conversation ever happened,' Trump tweeted in response to CNN's report." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Akhilleus: Of course, given the virulent antipathy so many Secret Service agents have for the president and Hillary Clinton, it's likely that the conversation drifted into "Gee, Mr. Trump, we're with you all the way. We'd like to shoot the bitch too, but you just can't say it out loud, dude, okay?" ...
... CW BTW: I disagree with Akhilleus' assessment. While there is ample evidence the Secret Service employs way too many dummkopfs, I'd like to think that, as a whole, the agency takes seriously its main job of protecting the president, presidential candidates & their families.
... Update. Alana Wise of Reuters: "A federal official on Wednesday said the U.S. Secret Service had not formally spoken with Republican Donald Trump's presidential campaign regarding his suggestion a day earlier that gun rights activists could stop Democratic rival Hillary Clinton from curtailing their access to firearms.... Earlier CNN had reported that there had been multiple conversations between the campaign and the agency." -- CW
... Washington Post Editors: "DONALD TRUMP'S latest on-stage outrage was really two. The one that got the attention this week was his apparent suggestion that 'Second Amendment people' rise in an armed insurrection against the federal government if Hillary Clinton wins the election. The second was his premise for the claim: that 'Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment.' The addition of 'essentially' does not render this absurd statement any less absurd. Ms. Clinton plays up her opposition to the National Rifle Association, but her positions are, if anything, too modest.... The country should be looking for measures that reduce gun deaths without significantly curbing legitimate gun use. That goal does not seem to interest the NRA -- or the lobby's latest mouthpiece, Mr. Trump." ...
... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post spells out the obvious: "After journalists quickly interpreted the comment as suggesting or joking about a call to arms, Trump's campaign was just as quick to offer its first defense -- that he was talking about gun-rights supporters voting.... But there's a big problem with it. Trump made the 'Second Amendment' remark as he was already talking about a situation in which Clinton was the president. He said, 'If [Hillary Clinton] gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks.' There's 'nothing you can do' in this situation because Trump is talking about a time in which the 2016 election has already passed and Clinton is president.... During the election, there's something pretty obvious you can do: Prevent her from becoming president in the first place." -- CW ...
... Tyler Cherry & Cat Duffy of Media Matters: "Conservative media figures attempted to downplay and justify ... Donald Trump's comments about 'Second Amendment people'..., blaming 'the Clinton spin machine,' claiming his comments were taken 'out of context,' and equating his 'joke' to previous statements made by other politicians." Cherry & Duffy provede a nice rundown of some of the laughable interpretations Trump apologists have dreamed up. CW: My favorite: "What Trump Meant Was 'File An Amicus Brief' With The Supreme Court." Yup, "amicus brief" were the first words that popped into my head when I first read Trump's threat. ...
... You People Are Picking on a Poor, Dimwitted Populist. Dara Lind of Vox makes an astonishing defense of Trump's threat: Trump is really a populist, she writes, and he makes his most outrageous remarks when he's "trying to speak conservative," a language, or set of tropes, which he hasn't mastered. For instance, she asks, "What the hell is a 'Second Amendment person'? It's not a phrase gun rights supporters typically use to describe themselves. As often as not, it's used by gun control advocates to characterize their opponents as wackos." -- CW ...
... Nick Corasaniti & Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "With Mr. Trump increasingly isolated and hobbled by controversies of his own making, the ... [National Rifle Association] has emerged as one of his remaining stalwart allies in the Republican coalition: the institution on the right most aggressively committed to his candidacy, except for the Republican National Committee itself. The association has spent millions of dollars on television commercials for Mr. Trump, even as other Republican groups have kept their checkbooks closed and Mr. Trump's campaign has not run any ads of its own.... And on Tuesday, when Mr. Trump roiled the presidential race anew with a ... his critics interpreted it as a suggestion that 'Second Amendment people' could attack Hillary Clinton or the judges she would appoint if elected president -- the association rushed to defend his remark as no more than an attempt to rally gun enthusiasts to vote in November." CW: See Akhilleus's comment on the NRA in yesterday's thread to better appreciate the NRA's hypocrisy.
This would be hilarious if Trump weren't such a sick, lying fuck:
... Watch the video. When Trump asks "How many people here know me?" Mark Foley is the first to raise his hand. Foley, some of you will recall, resigned his Congressional seat in disgrace after sending suggestive messages to Congressional pages. His name has come up in the news more recently because his transgressions occurred while another pedophile, Denny Hastert was Speaker. Immediately after the Trump rally, Foley told Thomas Roberts of NBC News, in a text message, that Trump has "been a friend of mine for 30 years and one of my biggest contributors." Clearly, Trump (or his staff) invited Foley to sit in a prominent position at the rally. As Adam Kelsey of ABC News explained (also linked yesterday), Clinton did not invite Seddique Mateen, the father of the Orlando mass killer to attend her rally, as Trump claims in yet another of his stream of bald-faced lies. Moreover, Mateen did not have one of the best seats in the house; as a Republican presidential campaign advance staffer told Kelsey, Mateen was part of what people in his biz call the "'tapestry' -- an area where a diverse group would be seated to reflect wide-ranging support for the candidate. He got the same vetting everyone in the cheap seats gets at a public rally. ...
... Update. Anthony Man of the Orlando Sun Sentinel: "Foley got a prime seat, ensuring he'd appear just over Trump's shoulder in TV pictures by arriving hours early, just as he did during State of the Union addresses while he was in Congress. He would arrive early on the House floor to get an aisle seat where he was often seen on TV." CW: Maybe so. But I still suspect the campaign invited Foley to sit behind Trump, just as they did the black guy seated next to Foley, making that poor dupe "Trump's African-American" for a Day.
David Fahrenthold & Robert O'Harrow of the Washington Post: After Donald Trump "sued a reporter, accusing him of being reckless and dishonest in a book that raised questions about Trump's net worth[, t]he reporter's attorneys ... brought Trump in for a deposition [in December 2007].... The lawyers confronted the mogul with his past statements -- and with his company's internal documents, which often showed those statements had been incorrect or invented.... Trump ...was vulnerable -- cornered, out-prepared and under oath. Thirty times, they caught him.... That deposition -- 170 transcribed pages -- offers extraordinary insights into Trump's relationship with the truth. Trump's falsehoods were unstrategic -- needless, highly specific, easy to disprove. When caught, Trump sometimes blamed others for the error or explained that the untrue thing really was true, in his mind, because he saw the situation more positively than others did.... In 2009, a judge dismissed Trump's case against [the book's author Timothy] O'Brien. Trump appealed, but in 2011 that was denied, too." -- CW: Read to the end. Trump's admitted "justification" for bringing the suit is as despicable as all his lies. ...
... Statements Treasonous, Mendacious, Murderous from the Mouth of Trump. Who's to Blame? Why, the Media, Natch! Rem Reider of USA Today: "Time after time, after Trump creates widespread fallout with his latest outrage, whose fault is it? Yep, the media. Remember the flap over a Trump tweet that many considered anti-Semitic, featuring a Star of David, $100 bills and Hillary Clinton? That wasn't on him. 'Dishonest media is trying their absolute best to depict a star in a tweet as the Star of David rather than a Sheriff's Star, or plain star,' he tweeted. That time he said Sen. John McCain wasn't a war hero? The media's fault. His racist remarks about the judge in the Trump U. case? The media again. The ejection of the crying baby? You guessed it." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Akhilleus: The Party of Personal Responsibility has another winner!
Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post: "A Bloomberg poll released Wednesday found that 61 percent of likely voters say that they are 'less impressed' with Donald Trump's business expertise based on what they've learned about him over the course of the campaign. About 31 percent say they're 'more impressed.'... Foot traffic to Trump businesses, including his hotels and golf courses, appears to have fallen significantly during the campaign." ...
... CW: Wouldn't it be a shame if Trump lost a bundle because of his self-promotional presidential run? However, as today's first commenter suggests, Donald may have figured out a way to make up any losses: abscond with the campaign chest. He could say he was giving the money to charity; he has the script to that ruse down pat. ...
... CW: I was a'wondering why so many people are "less impressed" with Trump's business creds when I ran across this post by Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed. Kaczynski re-posts old ads for Trump Institute that put the "sleaze" in "sleazy." Kaczynski references the New York Times report about Trump Institute which "was run by a couple who had run afoul of regulators in dozens of states and had been dogged by accusations of deceptive business practices and fraud for decades. Similar complaints soon emerged about the Trump Institute." ...
Trump Tall Tales keep piling up. This one is also a scream: Trump turns evidence of one of his many failed businesses into a fable about saving Marines.
The Trump campaign has confirmed to Hannity.com that Mr. Trump did indeed send his plane to make two trips from North Carolina to Miami, Florida to transport over 200 Gulf War Marines back home. -- quote in article titled '200 Stranded Marines Needed A Plane Ride Home, Here's How Donald Trump Responded,' Sean Hannity Show website, May 19, 2016
... it's clear that Trump had nothing to do with the dispatch of the jet to Camp Lejeune. The aircraft that ferried the troops was part of the Trump Shuttle fleet, at a time when Trump barely had control over the airline and was frantically trying to negotiate deals with bankers to prevent the collapse of his business empire. Trump Shuttle had a contract with the military and this flight home was part of that contract. Simple as that. Sean Hannity needs to correct this article, if not pull it down. The Trump campaign earns Four Pinocchios for confirming a story that is easily debunked. -- Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post
Everybody Out! Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana suggested in a radio interview on Monday that Donald J. Trump's proposed ban on Muslims from entering the country could be broadened to include other religions, not just Muslims.... Mr. Pence, seeming to go beyond even the policy proposed by Mr. Trump, did not rule out barring immigrants from other religions, if they were coming from nations or territories that support terrorism.... Since initially proposing a Muslim ban in December, in response to the terror attack in San Bernardino, Calif., Mr. Trump has repeatedly tried to tweak and modify his position, often muddling just what his actual proposed policy would be." -- CW
Alex Altman of Time: After Donald Trump refused to endorse Reince Priebus's friend Paul Ryan, the RNC chair threatened to effectively dump Trump, "according to two Republican officials briefed on the [phone] call [between Priebus & Trump]. Priebus told Trump that internal GOP polling suggested he was on track to lose the election. And if Trump didn't turn around his campaign over the coming weeks, the Republican National Committee would consider redirecting party resources and machinery to House and Senate races. Trump denies the exchange ever took place.... There is no doubt that the possibility Republicans will all but abandon Trump now haunts his struggling campaign.... Republicans waiting for the long-promised presidential pivot seemed like characters in a Beckett play, trapped in Trump's theater of the absurd." -- CW
Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Katy Tur of NBC News reveals in Marie Claire what it's like to cover Donald Trump. There are some good parts, none of which can be attributed to Trump. -- CW
Presidential Race Trivia
Not exactly the Kennedy compound at Hyannis.
... Helena Andrews-Dyer of the Washington Post: "... when news came that ... [Bernie Sanders] bought a $575,000 vacation home for his family, the hypocrisy police were ready to pounce in all caps. The Sanders family's 'new waterfront crib has four bedrooms and 500 feet of Lake Champlain beachfront,' according to the Vermont newspaper Seven Days, which broke the news on Monday.... Bernie-files and Bern-outs alike soon cried foul on social media and in headlines about the senator's third home (the Sanderses also have homes in Washington and Burlington) because apparently socialism and diversified real estate portfolios don't mix. ...
... CW: Actually, it doesn't look as if Bernie bought the vacation home. Kim LaCapria of Snopes: Jane "O'Meara Sanders[, Bernie's wife] said that she had inherited a vacation home in Maine, but the family was unable to make use of it due to its distance from their primary residence in Vermont, so she sold it and used the proceeds to finance the purchase of a more suitable vacation home in North Hero[, Vermont]." So, no, dipturds, Sanders did not finance the purchase with campaign funds, which would, of course, be against the law. ...
... For more photos of the place, go here.
Other News & Views
Catherine Saint Louis & Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "The Obama administration is planning to remove a major roadblock to marijuana research, officials said Wednesday, potentially spurring broad scientific study of a drug that is being used to treat dozens of diseases in states across the nation despite little rigorous evidence of its effectiveness.... For years, the University of Mississippi has been the only institution authorized to grow the drug for use in medical studies. This restriction has so limited the supply of marijuana federally approved for research purposes that scientists said it could often take years to obtain it and in some cases it was impossible to get. But soon the Drug Enforcement Administration will allow other universities to apply to grow marijuana, three government officials said." -- CW ...
... BUT. Carrie Johnson of NPR: "The Obama administration has denied a bid by two Democratic governors to reconsider how it treats marijuana under federal drug control laws, keeping the drug for now, at least, in the most restrictive category for U.S. law enforcement purposes. Drug Enforcement Administration chief Chuck Rosenberg says the decision is rooted in science. Rosenberg gave 'enormous weight' to conclusions by the Food and Drug Administration that marijuana has 'no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States,' and by some measures, it remains highly vulnerable to abuse as the most commonly used illicit drug...." -- CW
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Katherine Krueger of TPM: "Arianna Huffington, who founded digital media juggernaut the Huffington Post 11 years ago, is stepping down from her post as editor-in-chief to focus on her global health and wellness startup. Huffington will leave the company in coming weeks to run Thrive Global, a company focused on working with employers to improve the well-being of their staffers...." ...
... CW: That's rich. One way employers could "improve the well-being of staffers" would be to, um pay them, a route to well-being to which the HuffPost is particularly averse. (But on philosophical grounds!) Also, maybe not lay off hundreds of paid employees. Look into these ideas, Arianna. You don't even have to pay me for the heads-up.
Beyond the Beltway
Tim Darragh of NJ.com: "A former aide to Gov. Chris Christie said in a text that the governor 'flat out lied' about senior staff members not being involved in the Bridgegate scandal, according to court filings released early Wednesday." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Matt Friedman & Ryan Hutchins of Politico do a better job of explaining the significance of the text exchange, which was a real-time critique of Christie's remarks during a press conference. A lawyer for one of the Bridgegates defendants filed a court brief alleging that the aide "deleted the texts after the Democrat-led Legislature began issuing subpoenas in the case, and never told lawmakers about them. The filing claims she 'testified under oath before the Legislature in a manner not consistent with the existence and deletion of those texts.'" See also Akhilleus's commentary in yesterday's thread. -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Surprise, Surprise! Juliet Linderman & Eric Tucker of the AP: Report on Baltimore Cops Vindicates Black Residents: "With startling statistics, a federal investigation of the Baltimore Police Department documents in 164 single-spaced pages what black residents have been saying for years: They are routinely singled out, roughed up or otherwise mistreated by officers, often for no reason...Among other findings: Blacks account for 63 percent of the city's population and roughly 84 percent of all police stops. From 2010 to 2015, officers stopped 34 black residents 20 times, and seven African-Americans 30 times or more...The direction often came from the top: In one instance, a police supervisor told a subordinate to 'make something up' after the officer protested an order to stop and question a group of young black men for no reason." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Akhilleus: Abject apologies forthcoming from Confederate politicians and winger pundits who blamed Baltimore's black community for all the problems they outlined and questioned their honesty about police interactions. Any day now...waiting, waiting.....waiting...
... Lynh Bui & Peter Hermann of the Washington Post: "Baltimore's top law enforcement and political leaders on Wednesday vowed a sweeping overhaul of the city Police Department after a searing rebuke of the agency's practices, which the Justice Department said regularly discriminated against black residents in poor communities. Officials promised improved community relations, a purge of race-based policing and a modernized department that better trains officers and holds them accountable. But they warned that reforming an agency entrenched in a culture of unconstitutional policing would be a slow process and could cost millions of dollars." -- CW ...
... ** Radley Balko of the Washington Post: "I've read a lot of Justice Department reports on local police agencies. This is one of the worst I've ever seen."
Regulation Works? Unpossible! Ryan Miller of USA Today: "While the earth continues to shudder more frequently than seven years ago beneath Oklahomans feet, the rate of earthquakes in the state in 2016 is down from last year. The state has been shaken by 448 magnitude-3.0 and greater quakes so far this year, down from the 558 it experienced in the same time frame in 2015.... Increased regulation on wastewater disposal related to oil and gas extraction could be one reason behind the decline, said Robert Williams, a geophysicist at the United States Geological Survey.... In March, a USGS report linked activities related to oil and gas extraction, notably wastewater disposal, to seismic activity. The report found that Oklahoma along with five other states -- Kansas, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico and Arkansas -- faced the highest potential for earthquake hazards." ...
... Akhilleus: Must be Obama's fault! Oh, wait....no...we didn't mean that...
Way Beyond
Rod Nordland of the New York Times: "Pro-government Libyan militias backed by American air power said Wednesday that they had seized the Islamic State's last stronghold in the country, in the seaside city of Surt. If confirmed, the capture would be a severe blow to the militant organization's expansion into North Africa, and extend the string of territorial retreats it has suffered this year in Syria and Iraq." -- CW
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