The Commentariat -- June 26, 2016

The "Special Relationship" Frays. Julian Borger of the Guardian: "When [President Obama} came to Britain in April to help make the case for the remain camp, he warned that, if the UK left the EU, it would have to go to the back of the queue for a deal like the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) being negotiated between Washington and Brussels. The White House made clear on Friday that the threat he made then still stuck. 'Obviously, the president stands by what he said and I don't have an update of our position,' spokesman Eric Schulz told reporters.... Reactions from the rest of the world's leaders ranged from trepidation to thinly disguised glee in Moscow and Tehran." -- CW ...

... AFP: "Top US diplomat John Kerry will fly to Brussels and London on Monday for talks with Washington's key allies in the aftermath of Britain's vote to leave the European Union. US officials travelling to Rome with the secretary of state told reporters on the flight that two stops had been added to his European itinerary at the last moment." -- CW ...

... Adam Taylor of the Washington Post: "A petition calling for another referendum on whether Britain should stay in the European Union has now received at least 2.1 million signatures -- a level that means it must now be debated by British politicians. It was apparently so popular that the British Parliament's website, where the petition was hosted, briefly crashed.... This referendum was only called in a bid by Prime Minister David Cameron to calm tensions over the E.U. within his own Conservative Party ahead of a general election. Cameron thought he could win. Obviously he was completely mistaken.... Meanwhile, Britain has not yet triggered Article 50 -- the procedure for actually leaving the E.U. -- and there are signs it may try to delay doing so as long as possible." -- CW ...

... Where Dimwits Prevail. Kim Soffen of the Washington Post: "Polling showed the areas that had the most to lose and the least to gain from the Brexit are precisely those where the referendum saw the most support. In other words, the places -- the most export-heavy regions -- most hurt by the economic disruptions caused by Brexit could be the places that pushed hardest for it, as this scatter plot shows." CW News Flash: Racist hurts racists, too, sometimes in the pocketbook. ...

... Let's look at idyllic Cornwall, where 56 percent of voters, along with its Members of Parliament voted to leave. Rick Noack of the Washington Post: "The county is heavily dependent on the more than 60 million British pounds ($82 million) in E.U. subsidies per year that are transferred to the region and that have helped finance infrastructure projects and education schemes. Now, county officials are panicking -- fearing the worst for the county's future and wondering why one of the most E.U.-dependent counties in Britain voted against the E.U. -- and its money." -- CW ...

... Tara Palmeri of Politico: "According to a poll, commissioned by the Sunday Times, support for Scotland to break away from the U.K. has risen by seven points since Scotland's independence referendum last year. More than 52 percent now say they'd leave while 48 percent would vote to stay in the U.K." -- CW

... The Guardian is liveblogging more fallout from the Brexit vote, including a Labour party crash-and-burn. -- CW

Michael Olivas, in a Los Angeles Times op-ed, explains why the Supreme Court's failure to rule on President Obama's executive action re: undocumented immigrants is not a decision & that -- eventually -- a full Court might act in (probably a future) president's favor. In the meantime, "the deadlock in the court only underlines the pressing need for Congress to act on comprehensive immigration reform. The real malefactors on immigration aren't the Supreme Court justices, but the House and Senate." -- CW

Sarah Kaplan of the Washington Post: "Conservative columnist George Will has left the Republican Party over its presumptive nomination of Donald Trump. Will, who writes a column for The Washington Post, spoke about his decision Friday at an event for the Federalist Society in Washington. 'This is not my party,' he told the audience, the news site PJ Media first reported. Speaking with The Post, Will said that he changed his voter registration from 'Republican' to 'unaffiliated' several weeks ago, the day after House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) endorsed Trump." ...

     ... CW: A moment in Reality Chex history: the first time George Will made the Commentariat two days running. The interesting bit: Ryan, may have ticked off more than half the Republican base with his half-baked endorsement of Trump: Trump supporters must be irritated by his continuing dissing of Trump, while anti-Trump establishment types like Will found the endorsement appalling. ...

     ... Update. Trump tweets back: "George Will, one of the most overrated political pundits (who lost his way long ago), has left the Republican Party.He's made many bad calls" -- CW

Presidential Race

Ken Thomas of the AP: "A draft of the Democratic Party's policy positions reflects the influence of Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign: endorsing steps to break up large Wall Street banks, advocating a $15 hourly wage, urging an end to the death penalty. Hillary Clinton's supporters turned back efforts by Sanders' allies to promote a Medicare-for-all single-payer health care system and a carbon tax to address climate change, and freeze hydraulic fracking. While the platform does not bind the Democratic nominee to the stated positions, it serves as a guidepost for the party moving forward. Party officials approved the draft early Saturday." -- CW

Brexit Makes the U.S. the Last, Best Hope for Liberalism. Benjamin Wallace-Wells of the New Yorker: "The Democrats have become the party of vocal American exceptionalism. This is partly a direct response to Donald Trump's paranoid claims that the United States is a 'third-world country' and the subject of collective global mockery. But it's also the case that, against the nationalism rising across Europe and at home, American liberalism does look more isolated, and more singular.... One irony of [Hillary] Clinton's candidacy is that she is projecting a globalism not obviously shared by others around the globe -- not even by America's most traditional ally. The liberal project is increasingly an American one." -- CW ...

... Patrick Healy of the New York Times: "... Hillary Clinton ... shares more with the defeated 'Remain' campaign than just their common slogan, 'Stronger Together.' Her fundamental argument, much akin to Prime Minister David Cameron's against British withdrawal from the European Union, is that Americans should value stability and incremental change over the risks entailed in radical change and the possibility of chaos if Donald J. Trump wins the presidency.... According to their friends and advisers, Mrs. Clinton and former President Bill Clinton have worried for months that she was out of sync with the mood of the electorate, and that her politically safe messages ... were far less compelling to frustrated voters than the 'political revolution' of Senator Bernie Sanders or Mr. Trump's grievance-driven promise to 'Make America Great Again.' Mr. Sanders and Mr. Trump won a combined 25 million votes during the primary season, compared with 16 million for Mrs. Clinton." -- CW

I speak to foreign policy advisors all the time. But the advice has to come from me.... These people don't have it. Honestly, most of them are no good. Let's go to the 14th! -- Donald Trump, Saturday

You know, they're advisers, they're like everybody else. They probably know less, every one of these advisers. -- Donald Trump, Saturday

I've been in touch with them [his foreign policy advisors] there's nothing to talk about. -- Donald Trump, Friday, in reply to a question about whether or not he'd spoken to advisors about Brexit

When Trump says "they know less," he means "they know less than I do." (Trump has a habit of dropping predicates, as in "I renounce.") Several high-profile Republicans, in backing Trump, have claimed that Congress & the professional bureaucracy (like the Pentagon) would constrain a President Trump's impulsiveness. Clearly, they will not. Trump is certain he "knows more" than any of these lesser gods, and he would do whatever he thought, in his glorious ignorance, that "best" thing might be. -- Constant Weader

Ashley Parker of the New York Times: On Saturday, at a Trump-owned golf course in Balmedie, Scotland, the course's VP said "Mr. Trump would love to take advantage of the weather and give reporters a tour -- but that it would not be an opportunity for them to ask questions. But Mr. Trump quickly threw his team's plans aside, urging reporters to follow his 'golf buggy' through perhaps the 'largest dunes anywhere in the world' and answering questions along the way. At one point, when Secret Service agents tried to halt the press, Mr. Trump looked down from his perch atop a dune and hollered, 'Guys, get up here!' At each hole, Mr. Trump riffed and ad-libbed...." -- CW ...

... Muslims in Kilts Okay -- Maybe. Ali Vitali of NBC News: "Donald Trump once again muddled the points of his Muslim ban, telling reporters Saturday on the 14th hole of his Aberdeen course that it 'wouldn't bother' him if a Scottish Muslim came into the United States. But he later revised his past remarks that the proposed prohibition would be a blanket ban and is more a question of proper vetting -- with extra emphasis placed on certain countries. 'I don't want people coming in -- I don't want people coming in from certain countries,' Trump clarified to The Daily Mail.... 'I don't want people coming in from the terror countries. You have terror countries! I don't want them, unless they're very, very strongly vetted.'" -- CW

A Boor Abroad. Ewen MacAskill & Alan Yuhas of the Guardian: "The Guardian appeared on Saturday to have been barred by Donald Trump's presidential campaign after a spat the previous day.... A Guardian reporter and photographer were denied access to Trump's golf resort in Aberdeen, Scotland, on Saturday morning.... The decision had come from the highest authority, [Trump security personnel] said.... At a press conference on Friday at his Turnberry golf course in Ayrshire, Trump took offence when the Guardian asked him why UK and Scottish senior politicians had not come to meet him, suggesting it might be because he was toxic. He replied by saying the questioner was a 'nasty, nasty guy'." -- CW ...

... Here's part of the Clinton campaign's response to the Idiot Abroad:

Hours after the #BrexitVote, Donald Trump was in the U.K.

Talking about how he, personally, would benefit.https://t.co/YEt5LozDpt

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 24, 2016

... Cockwomble! Heather Timmons of Quartz reprints some Scots' reactions to Donald Trump's claim that Scots had "taken their country back" by voting for Brexit (which the majority didn't). Thanks to Whyte O. for the lead. -- CW

Con-Man-in-Chief. The Trumps Are Even Sleazier than You Knew. Mike McIntire of the New York Times: "'Easy target' might describe the audience for several enterprises stamped with the Trump brand that have been accused of preying upon desperation, inexperience or vanity.... [One is] Cambridge Who's Who, which generated hundreds of complaints that it deceptively peddled the promise of recognition in a registry, as well as branding and networking services of questionable value. Dozens of people who paid Trump-endorsed businesses were also sold products by Cambridge, which benefited from its partnership with Donald Trump Jr.... Cambridge employees played up the Trump association when pursuing customers.... When Donald Trump Jr. joined Cambridge, the company had already had about 400 complaints filed against it with the Better Business Bureau since 2006.... On one of several Cambridge websites for its members, a chat group ... contained an appeal to join ACN, a multilevel marketer of telecommunications and energy services that was 'endorsed by Donald Trump....' Mr. Trump's financial disclosure shows that he has collected more than $1 million in speaking fees from ACN...." -- CW

Beyond the Beltway

Marina Villeneuve of the AP: "The wife of Maine Gov. Paul LePage has taken on a summer waitressing job near their Boothbay home. And she's saving up for a Toyota RAV4. Ann LePage had kept quiet about the gig, but her husband told a crowd at a recent town hall that his wife took a job to 'supplement' his lowest-in-the-nation $70,000 salary. This year, the Republican governor unsuccessfully proposed to more than double his successor's salary to $150,000." CW: If they paid the governor what he was worth, he would have to moonlight as a waitperson.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Bill Cunningham, who turned fashion photography into his own branch of cultural anthropology on the streets of New York, chronicling an era's ever-changing social scene for The New York Times by training his busily observant lens on what people wore -- stylishly, flamboyantly or just plain sensibly -- died on Saturday in Manhattan. He was 87." -- CW

New York Times: "Michael Herr, who wrote 'Dispatches,' a glaringly intense, personal account of being a correspondent in Vietnam that is widely viewed as one of the most visceral and persuasive depictions of the unearthly experience of war, died on Thursday at a hospital near his home in Delaware County, N.Y. He was 76." -- CW

The Commentariat -- June 25, 2016

Steve Erlanger of the New York Times: "Britain's startling decision to pull out of the European Union set off a cascade of aftershocks on Friday, costing Prime Minister David Cameron his job, plunging the financial markets into turmoil and leaving the country's future in doubt.... The British pound and global stock prices plummeting in value as the vote tally showed the Remain camp falling further behind.... European officials met in Brussels to begin discussing a response and to emphasize their commitment to strengthening and improving the bloc, which will have 27 members after Britain's departure.... [Brexit] was seized on by far-right and anti-Brussels parties across Europe, with Marine Le Pen of the National Front in France calling for a 'Frexit' referendum and Geert Wilders of the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands calling for a 'Nexit.'" CW ...

... OR, as a wag named Jaideep Krishna put it, "Upcoming risky events in Europe: Brexit to be followed by Grexit. Departugal. Italeave. Fruckoff. Czechout. Oustria. Finish. Slovlong. Latervia. Byegium, until EU reach the state of Germlonely." Thanks to LT for that. ...

... Ylan Mui of the Washington Post: "The domino effect of Britain's vote was on full display as the Dow plummeted more than 600 points, with even more dramatic effects in Europe and Asia. Experts said Britain's exit from the E.U. could prove to be the final straw to send the economy into recession.... Britain will spend at least two years negotiating the terms of its departure from the 28-member alliance.... Britain must elect new leadership, strike new trade deals and craft a dizzying array of new regulations about issues such as immigration and investment." -- CW ...

... Kevin Liptak of CNN: "Instability in Europe and beyond is providing 'fertile terrain for reactionary politicians and demagogues,' Vice President Joe Biden cautioned during remarks in Ireland on Friday. Listing global irritants like mass migration, terrorism, climate change, Biden said those factors are leading to leaders 'peddling xenophobia, nationalism, and isolationism,' including in the United States.... Biden is on a mutli-day trip to Ireland, meeting with leaders there and visiting sites in the West that relate to his ancestry.... The White House was vocal in its opposition to Britain's exiting the EU, a rare foray into another country's political affairs." -- CW ...

... Charles Pierce: "Some of the Oldest and Whitest people on the planet leapt at a chance to vote against the monsters in their heads.... Without the accelerant of pure racism -- the existence of which among the British comes as no surprise to those of who descend from involuntary members of their old Empire -- this thing never gets off the ground." -- CW ...

... Could Be Why George Will, one of the oldest, whitest people on the planet, likes it. CW: George's favorable opinion remains one of the best ways to tell something is awful. ...

... Brian Fung of the Washington Post: "The British are frantically Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it." -- CW ...

... Haroon Siddique (June 23): "The simple answer to the question as to whether the EU referendum is legally binding is 'no'. In theory, in the event of a vote to leave the EU, David Cameron, who opposes Brexit, could decide to ignore the will of the people and put the question to MPs banking on a majority deciding to remain. This is because parliament is sovereign and referendums are generally not binding in the UK." CW: Siddique's report is echoed elsewhere in the news. Of course, Cameron now says he's leaving on a slow train to his country estate, but it does seem possible that a new government could just say "Never mind." ...

... BUT. Ta-Ta, Mofos. Jennifer Rankin, et al., of the Guardian: "The EU's top leaders have said they expect the UK to act on its momentous vote to leave the union 'as soon as possible, however painful that process may be' and that there will be 'no renegotiation'.... There were early warnings of difficulties ahead. The German MEP Elmar Brok, who chairs the European parliament's committee on foreign affairs, told the Guardian ... 'They will have to negotiate from the position of a third country, not as a member state. If Britain wants to have a similar status to Switzerland and Norway, then it will also have to pay into EU structural funds like those countries do. The British public will find out what that means.'" -- CW ...

... MEANWHILE, We're Stuck with at Least One Texas. Aneri Pattani of the Texas Tribune: "In the wake of Britain’s historic vote to leave the European Union ... speculation of a Texit on the horizon has cropped up once again. The secessionist movement has a long history in the Lone Star State. Delegates for the Texas Republican Party even recently debated adding secessionist language to the party's platform. But ... historical and legal precedents make it clear that Texas could not pull off a Texit -- at least not legally.... The European Union is a loose association of compound states with pre-existing protocols for a nation to exit. In contrast, the U.S. Constitution contains procedures for admitting new states into the nation, but none for a state to leave.... Texas can split itself into five new states.... Even before Texas formally rejoined the nation, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that secession was not legal...." -- CW ...

... Andy Borowitz: "Across the United Kingdom on Friday, Britons mourned their long-cherished right to claim that Americans were significantly dumber than they are." -- CW

Katia Hetter & Kevin Liptak of CNN: "President Barack Obama announced Friday he was designating the area around the Stonewall Inn in New York City as the country's first national monument to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights." President Obama's statement is here. ...

Tom Vanden Brook of USA Today: "The Pentagon plans to announce the repeal of its ban on transgender service members July 1, a controversial decision that would end nearly a year of internal wrangling among the services on how to allow those troops to serve openly, according to Defense officials. Top personnel officials plan to meet as early as Monday to finalize details of the plan, and Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work could sign off on it by Wednesday...." -- CW

Presidential Race

The people of the United Kingdom have exercised the sacred right of all free peoples. They have declared their independence from the European Union and have voted to reassert control over their own politics, borders and economy. Come November, the American people will have the chance to re-declare their independence. Americans will have a chance to vote for trade, immigration and foreign policies that put our citizens first. They will have the chance to reject today's rule by the global elite, and to embrace real change that delivers a government of, by and for the people. -- Donald Trump, Friday, on a promotion tour of his golf courses in Scotland, where the majority of the people did not exercise their sacred right ...

... ** How to Make Dubya Look Like a Statesman. Steve Benen: "Even by the low standards of Donald J. Trump, it was among the most baffling press conferences anyone has ever seen. The entirety of Scotland is reeling; the future of the U.K. and the continent is uncertain; and an American presidential candidate arrived to deliver a testimonial about a country club and how fond he is of the design of a golf course. Wait, it gets worse.... This was a test he failed so spectacularly, it's as if Trump isn't even trying to succeed." (Emphasis added.) CW: Now, there's a thought. Read the whole post. ...

... Hunter of Daily Kos: "And now here's Donald Trump, human NASCAR crash, promising in a hastily-scribbled fundraising letter to do for America what Brexit is doing for the United Kingdom.... 'With your help, we're going to do the exact same thing on Election Day 2016 here in the United States of America.... Let's send another shockwave around the world.'... In general, mind you, financial 'shockwaves' are considered a bad thing. Promising that if you're elected, financial markets will tank three percent in an afternoon is certainly not your average campaign vow -- but it may be the one promise Donald Trump can keep." -- CW

Jonathan Martin & Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "Although [Donald] Trump may struggle to convert a message of national retrenchment into victory here, some of the stark divisions on display in Britain do mirror political trends in this country.... But beneath those generalities, there are crucial distinctions between the Brexit vote and the 2016 presidential election.... American presidential elections are largely decided by a diverse and upscale electorate, anchored in America's cities and suburbs. These communities more closely resemble London than Lincolnshire.... And while Britain decided to leave the European Union through a popular vote, the White House race will be determined by the Electoral College, which is tilted toward the Democrats.... Further, the vote in Britain was a referendum on a European entity that was easy to rally against, while the presidential vote here is increasingly becoming a referendum on a polarizing individual." -- CW ...

... Ben Jacobs of the Guardian: "The biggest difference is that the UK is a lot whiter. According to the most recent census data, 86% of the British population is white. In the US, only 63% is non-Hispanic white.... The Brexit vote looked a lot more like that in a Republican presidential primary.... Trump may yet regret this attempt to tie his campaign to the Brexit victory. After all, he is facing a different electorate, one familiar with the precipitous collapse in global markets that followed Thursday's vote." -- CW

Henry Paulson, former Bush II Treasury Secretary & current CEO of Goldman Sachs, in a Washington Post op-ed: "The GOP, in putting Trump at the top of the ticket, is endorsing a brand of populism rooted in ignorance, prejudice, fear and isolationism. This troubles me deeply as a Republican, but it troubles me even more as an American. Enough is enough. It's time to put country before party and say it together: Never Trump.... When Trump assures us he'll do for the United States what he's done for his businesses, that's not a promise -- it's a threat.... [blah, blah] ... reforming entitlements... [blah, blah]. I'll be voting for Hillary Clinton, with the hope that she can bring Americans together to do the things necessary to strengthen our economy, our environment and our place in the world." -- CW

Tierney Sneed of TPM: "A delegate to the Republican national convention from Virginia filed a federal lawsuit Friday to avoid being bound to vote for Donald Trump on the first ballot in Cleveland. The delegate, Carroll Boston Correll, is a longtime local GOP official who claims Trump is 'unfit to serve' as President. Correll alleges in the lawsuit that state law which binds him to vote for Trump on the first ballot at the convention violates his constitutional right to free speech. Correll is seeking class action status for the suit on behalf of other bound delegates in Virginia, where Trump won 17 delegates in March." -- CW ...

... BUT Kevin Drum outlines how Trump could win the election. CW: Then again, I think Steve Benen is on to something when he suggests Trump is trying to lose. Even if his campaign evolves into a professional organization, he gets an infusion of money from the party & he betters learns how to use a teleprompter, the Real Donald Trump seems either incapable of or unwilling to STFU.

Beyond the Beltway

Annals of "Justice," Ctd. Bill Rankin of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "With a murder defendant shouting obscenities at him and threatening to kill his family, a Superior Court judge in Rome[, Georgia,] last week became so enraged that he threatened to lock the man up for years and said, 'You know, you look like a queer.' A transcript of the hearing shows how an attempt by defendant Denver Fenton Allen to get a different public defender devolved into heated and nasty exchanges with Judge Bryant Durham Jr. At one point..., [the judge] even challenged the defendant to masturbate in front of him in the courtroom.... He also said it was his 'guess' that he'd find Allen guilty and that Allen would find out 'how nasty I really am.'" -- CW

Let's Get Stupid! Elahe Izadi of the Washington Post: "Five people were taken to the hospital and about 30 to 40 were evaluated after sustaining 'burn injuries to their feet and lower extremities' after attempting to walk across hot coals" during a "motivational seminar" in Dallas, Texas, led by goofball Tony Robbins. "A total of 7,000 people participated in the fire walk.... This isn't the first time a Robbins coal walk has resulted in injuries. In 2012, nearly two dozen people were injured during a 'Unleash the Power Within' seminar in San Jose, Calif." -- CW

News Lede

Washington Post: "As storms have swept West Virginia, roads have turned into rivers, cars have been swallowed whole and at least 23 people have been killed -- including a preschooler who fell into floodwaters that carried him away.'" -- CW

Trumpathetic

By Akhilleus

How tone deaf is Donald Trump? Pools of blood were still coagulating on the Pulse nightclub dance floor and all Trump could do was congratulate himself for being right about Muslims. Not a word of kindness or concern for the dead; it's all about Trump.

Then yesterday, as Britain voted for the modern nation-state version of suicide and markets across Europe collapsed, all he could do, while halting his presidential campaign to fly off to Scotland to oversee the pitiful grand opening (a tiny crowd of paid staff and hundreds of protesters screaming at him from afar) of his latest ego project, was to rub his hands in glee about all the money he'll make now that the pound had fallen off a cliff.

He did take a moment to congratulate himself again on being right about Brexit, a term he didn't even recognize a couple of weeks ago (news that doesn't have the word TRUMP attached to it, doesn't make his morning "briefing", prepared by his cute 27 year old press secretary), tweeting that people were going crazy in Scotland to be free of the EU so they could "take back their country!". Well, er....no. They weren't. Scotland voted overwhelmingly to stay in the EU. Wrong again, Donald, but no matter, in TrumpWorld, it's all good.

Like Dick Cheney's ludicrous prediction that the Iraqis would welcome an invading force with flowers and open arms (still waiting for those flowers 13 years later, Dick...), Trump still maintains that the Scots love him! They can't get enough of Trump. But, er...no. That's wrong too. The Scotsman, "Scotland's National Newspaper" declared that "It’s hard to think of a less sympathetic character in the eyes of most Scots. Despite all his tartanry and trumpeting of heritage, The Donald is almost the anti-Scot personified. Left and right, unionist and nationalist, man and woman, young and old – it takes quite a lot to unite the people of this notoriously fractious little country in a collective shudder. But Donald Trump effortlessly manages to strike the wrong note in just about everything he does."

But in Donald's eyes, as always, he's a hero.

And so far, we've seen what to expect should he win in November, a president whose only concern during a time of crisis is "How can I benefit from this? How much money can I make during this terrible time?"

Very presidential.