The Commentariat -- Nov. 13, 2016

     ... CW: Brilliant!

How Andy Borowitz explained the presidential election result to his daughter. Really.

Mission Accomplished, Jim Comey. Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "Hillary Clinton on Saturday cast blame for her surprise election loss on the announcement by the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, days before the election that he had revived the inquiry into her use of a private email server. In her most extensive remarks since she conceded the race to Donald J. Trump early Wednesday, Mrs. Clinton told donors on a 30-minute conference call that Mr. Comey's decision to send a letter to Congress about the inquiry 11 days before Election Day had thrust the controversy back into the news and had prevented her from ending the campaign with an optimistic closing argument.... Mrs. Clinton said a second letter from Mr. Comey, clearing her once again, which came two days before Election Day, had been even more damaging." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... CW: If the Clinton campaign's analysis is correct, then I was right when I wrote on October 28, the day of Comey's first letter to Congress, "I must say I never guessed something as insignificant as Anthony Weiner's dick would lead to the downfall of the United States. But there you go." ...

... Kevin Drum notes, as contributor Patrick did contemporaneously, that headline writers played along, noting that the FBI would not bring "charges" or "action" against Clinton. "... we now know that both the Trump campaign and the Clinton campaign agree that Comey's intervention played a significant role in the election.... If it weren't for Comey, nobody would be talking about the white working class or disenchanted millennials or third-party candidates. We'd be talking instead about the implosion of the Republican Party and arguing over who Clinton should choose as her Treasury Secretary." -- CW

Steve M.: "Clinton was so busy portraying Trump as a monster that she forgot to say he'd be a lousy president.... Clinton's campaign echoed the media's message that what was important about Trump was his character and personal behavior. Ad after Clinton ad showed Trump insulting women and mocking a disabled reporter. No Clinton ad, as far as I know, ever went after Trump's economic plan the way this Barack Obama ad, for instance, went after Mitt Romney's:

Our Great White Patriarchy. Gloria Steinem, in the Guardian: "The truth is that for two and a half centuries, this country has excluded females of every race from its top leadership; also the 40% of males who are African American, Hispanic, Jewish, or otherwise seen as needing an adjective; also the 5% who identify as gay or lesbian; and also the 60% who can't afford to purchase a college degree. There has been only one president who wasn't married, and none who was openly atheist or agnostic. Add this up, and we've been selecting our top leadership from 10% of our talent at most. We may be giving birth to democracy, but there will be years of labor to come." -- CW

Gail Collins: "Sometime soon, there'll be another woman presidential nominee. Maybe she'll be in the Clinton tradition, the grand and glorious American worker bees. Maybe she'll just leap out, like Barack Obama did, a fresh face with a new message. All we can know now is that when we talk about how she got there, we'll be telling Hillary Clinton's story." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Eli Rosenberg, et al., of the New York Times: "Thousands of demonstrations filled public squares, parks and streets in the country's three largest cities on Saturday to protest President-elect Donald J. Trump, part of a wave of dissent that has swelled since the presidential contest last week.... Many protest leaders had supported Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in the Democratic primary race and either did not vote or chose a third-party candidate in the general election, said Ben Becker, an organizer with the Answer Coalition.... Their anger, he said, had been exacerbated by the conciliatory tone shown to Mr. Trump by President Obama and Hillary Clinton after Mrs. Clinton's defeat. More protests are planned for the coming days, and preparations already are underway for a large demonstration at Mr. Trump's inauguration in January." ...

     ... CW: Excuse me? You voted for a third-party candidate & now you're complaining Trump won? You might be better, but you ain't no smarter than a Trumpbot.

Bernie Sanders, in a New York Times op-ed: "When my presidential campaign came to an end, I pledged to my supporters that the political revolution would continue. And now, more than ever, that must happen." -- CW ...

... Daniel Strauss of Politico: "Supporters of Bernie Sanders' failed presidential bid are seizing on Democratic disarray at the national level to launch a wave of challenges to Democratic Party leaders in the states. The goal is to replace party officials in states where Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton during the acrimonious Democratic primary with more progressive leadership. But the challenges also represent a reckoning for state party leaders who, in many cases, tacitly supported Clinton's bid." -- CW

CW: As many readers know, I'm not a fan of MoDo, but she may be right here: President "Obama lost touch with his revolutionary side and settled comfortably into being an Ivy League East Coast cerebral elitist who hung out with celebrities, lectured Congress and scorned the art of political persuasion.... The man who swept into the White House in a boisterous rebellion was dismissive of the boisterous rebellions in both the Democratic and Republican Parties. He insisted that an incrementalist and fellow Ivy League East Coast cerebral elitist who hangs out with celebrities would be best to save his legacy."

"60 Minutes": "... Donald Trump says he will not throw out all parts of the Affordable Care Act he said he would do away with before the election. In his first post-election television interview, he said he will keep the portions covering people with pre-existing conditions and children living at home under the age of 26. Trump also said Hillary and Bill Clinton called him separately to offer congratulations, characterizing the former president as 'gracious' in his call and his former opponent in her call 'couldn't have been nicer.'" Includes portions of "60 Minutes" interview transcript. -- CW ...

... HOWEVER. Trump Hasn't Decided Whether or Not to Lock Her Up. Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump ... faces a momentous decision over whether to make good on his oft-repeated campaign pledge to have a special prosecutor 'lock up' Hillary Clinton. That decision will signal whether Mr. Trump intends to look ahead and 'bind the wounds of division,' as he pledged to do in his acceptance speech early Wednesday, or look back and settle political scores, as he often seemed inclined to do during his campaign.... His top aides have left the door open to [re-investigating Clinton]. The possibility of a new investigation into Mrs. Clinton's email server has forced the White House to field questions about whether President Obama might offer Mrs. Clinton a pardon to insulate her from criminal charges. Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman, said last week that he would not discuss Mr. Obama's thinking on any particular case for clemency, but he sent a strong signal that it would be inappropriate for Mr. Trump to revive the Clinton investigation." -- CW

Paul Waldman: "The greatest trick Donald Trump pulled was convincing voters he'd be 'anti-establishment.'... An organizational chart of Trump's transition team shows it to be crawling with corporate lobbyists, representing such clients as Altria, Visa, Coca-Cola, General Electric, Verizon, HSBC, Pfizer, Dow Chemical, and Duke Energy.... Who could possibly have predicted such a thing? The answer is, anyone who was paying attention.... Trump's tax plan would give 47 percent of its benefits to the richest one percent of taxpayers. Paul Ryan's tax plan is even purer -- it gives 76 percent of its cuts to the richest one percent in its first year, and by 2025 would feed 99.6 percent of its benefits to the top 1 percent. Once that's accomplished, Trump and the Republicans plan to either gut or completely repeal the Dodd-Frank financial regulations, the greatest wish of Wall Street bankers.... Voters thinking that Trump would vanquish the establishment were just marks for a con, like those who lost their life savings at Trump University." -- CW (Also linked yesterday.)

... Michael Biesecker, et al., of the AP: "Donald Trump elicited wild cheers on the campaign trail by pledging to 'drain the swamp' in Washington, but the president-elect's transition team is populated largely with creatures of the capital, including former federal bureaucrats, think-tank academics, corporate lawyers and special-interest lobbyists. An internal organizational chart for the Trump transition team lists more than 30 names, some well-known within the GOP establishment. They are tasked with helping to select and vet Trump's Cabinet, as well as map out the key policy initiatives the new administration will pursue. Their areas of experience and policy expertise on the chart hint at future efforts to restrict abortion, strip away consumer protections, boost defense spending and dismantle environmental regulations. Key members of Trump's team are also advocates for sweeping privatization of government programs, including Social Security. 'Personnel is policy,' said Republican operative Ron Kaufman...." ...

     ... CW: The Democrats need to start running ads NOW in Rust Belt states as well as Florida, North Carolina AND on Fox "News," outlining Trump's various and upcoming betrayals of his voters. Waiting till the next election season is stupid. Of course there's no DNC chair, and the person Democrats choose is likely to be as unproductive, Beltway-bound and vapid as Debbie Doolittle (who, BTW, won re-election by a very comfortable margin). ...

... Here's an anthem for those Trumpsucker Rust Belt families 'awaiting on the jobs Trump promised, courtesy of MAG & PD Pepe:

Katy O'Donnell of Politico: "The potential conflicts of interest facing Donald Trump are so unprecedented that U.S. ethics laws weren't even written to account for them.... Trump could hold sway over regulators' investigations into banks that have lent his businesses hundreds of millions of dollars. He'll be directing relations with foreign governments, such as Saudi Arabia's, whose rulers have bought everything from real estate to a yacht from him as he struggled to pay off debts. Watchdogs are already scoffing at Trump's plans to turn his sprawling global empire over to his adult children, whom he also appointed to his transition team on Friday." -- CW

The Family Litigious. Dan Morse of the Washington Post: "Three months ago, a 70-year-old political blogger operating from his Maryland townhouse let it rip. 'Where is Melania Trump?' he asked, going on to offer an answer: The potential first lady was reportedly having a nervous breakdown after her controversial GOP convention speech and her fears that a secret past would be revealed.... [Webster] Tarpley's claims about Melania Trump, posted in the heat of the campaign, were followed by similar allegations published in the Daily Mail, a British tabloid. Both pieces attracted the attention of Melania Trump and her attorneys, and both publications posted retractions. On Sept. 1, in Montgomery County Circuit Court, Melania Trump sued Tarpley and the Daily Mail for defamation. Her attorneys cited a series of published allegations, including those made in Tarpley's blog post, according to court records. Now, as Melania Trump readies to become first lady, the lawsuit shows no signs of slowing down." ...

     ... CW: What a nasty family the Trump clan is. It's one thing to sue the Daily Mail, which is a ridiculous but profitable rag. But a goofy blogger? This is chilling, especially because I may be the next goofy blogger on the Trump Family Hit List. ...

... This Doesn't Help. Steven Overly & Elizabeth Dwoskin of the Washington Post: "Peter Thiel was named as a member of ... Donald Trump's transition team Friday, a sign of the influence the billionaire tech investor will have in shaping the new administration." CW: Thiel bankrupted Gawker by financing libel lawsuits against the Web publication.

Nicholas Kristof: "... for all of our sins in the mainstream media, these alt-right websites are both far more pernicious and increasingly influential.... Trump was, after all, propelled into politics partly as a champion of the lie that President Obama was born abroad and ineligible for the White House. Even now, only 44 percent of Republicans accept the reality that Obama was born in the U.S.... These alt-right websites will continue to spew misinformation that undermines tolerance and democracy. I find them particularly loathsome because they do their best to magnify prejudice against blacks, Muslims and Latinos, tearing our social fabric." -- CW

Joshua Sharpe of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "A Gwinnett County high school teacher said she was left a note in class Friday telling her that her Muslim headscarf 'isn't allowed anymore.' 'Why don't you tie it around your neck & hang yourself with it...,' the note said, signed 'America!' Mairah Teli, 24, who teaches language arts at Dacula High, said she feels the note is in reaction to Donald Trump's victory in the presidential race. 'I feel children feel safe making comments that are racist or sexist because of him,' she told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution." -- CW ...

... Caitlin McCabe of Philly.com: "Villanova University's Department of Public Safety is investigating a reported incident in which a black female student was assaulted by white males as they ran toward her yelling, 'Trump, Trump, Trump!' According to a university source with knowledge of the event, it occurred Thursday night as the female student, who has not been identified, was walking through a SEPTA tunnel on campus. There, she encountered multiple white males who allegedly ran toward her, shouting the name of the new president-elect. One male forcefully knocked her to the ground, causing her to hit her head, the source said." -- CW ...

... Andrew Marantz of the Guardian: "Trump connected to the segment of the population that was prepared to believe that racism was realism, misogyny was locker-room talk, inconvenient facts were media myths, and viciousness was the new normal. Just as surely as he has redrawn the electoral map, he has radically altered the Overton window. No Presidential candidate before him had ever mocked a disabled reporter, or bragged about his penis size during a debate. What kept every other candidate before him from stooping to these tactics, presumably, was deference to social norms. But norms can be swept aside." -- CW

NYT reporter Sydney Ember publishes, in a tweet, a "letter to NYT readers from Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. & Dean Baquet," the publisher & managing editor of the paper, respectively. Weirdly, the letter to readers does not seem to have appeared in the actual newspaper where, um, readers, might see it. And of course the comments are priceless: "The New York Times is a piece of crap. I will never read it because it will always be biased." CW: Not sure how the writer knows the paper is a piece of crap if he's never read it; some people are just intuitive, I guess. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

AND Andy Borowitz expresses my thoughts when I read that Trump had said he learned something from the President about ObamaCare: "Speaking to reporters late Friday night..., Donald Trump revealed that he had Googled Obamacare for the first time earlier in the day. 'I Googled it, and, I must say, I was surprised,' he said. 'There was a lot in it that really made sense, to be honest.' He said that he regretted that the frenetic pace of the presidential campaign had prevented him from Googling Obamacare earlier." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Beyond the Beltway

Andy Newman of the New York Times: "The murder trial of a white former University of Cincinnati police officer in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black driver last year ended in a mistrial on Saturday after the jurors told the judge they were unable to reach a verdict. The jurors first informed the judge on Friday that they were deadlocked, but they were told to continue deliberations. On Saturday morning, the judge declared a mistrial. Officer Ray Tensing fatally shot Samuel DuBose, 43, during a traffic stop as Mr. DuBose started to drive off. Mr. Tensing, 26, claimed that he felt that Mr. Dubose's car was dragging him and that he fired at him because he feared he would be run over. The encounter was captured on video and set off protests." -- CW

News Ledes

New York Times: "A powerful earthquake measuring 7.8 magnitude hit the east coast of New Zealand's South Island just after midnight on Monday, triggering multiple aftershocks and tsunami waves and killing at least two people, officials said. The Ministry of Civil Defense and Emergency Management warned people living near the coast to move inland to higher ground as tsunami waves raised seawater levels in some places by about six feet." CW: Should put a damper on some American's plans to move to New Zealand in the wake of the Trumpocalypse.

Rolling Stone: "Leon Russell, renowned multi-instrumentalist and songwriter who collaborated with Bob Dylan, George Harrison, the Rolling Stones and Elton John over the course of 50 years in the music industry, died Sunday. He was 74." -- CW

In Search of a Hero

What American voters want in a president is a hero, someone who will save us from whatever we may imagine ails us. If you look back at every election in modern times from Ike on forward, the candidate who won appeared more heroic, even if he wasn't, with the possible exception of the victory of Jimmy Carter over Gerald Ford, an election that followed the Watergate debacle & Ford's pardon of Nixon.

The athletic war hero JFK certainly looked more heroic than Nixon. Lyndon Johnson, who manufactured some WWII medals, looked more heroic than the white-haired Barry Goldwater. Although there was nothing heroic in Nixon's appearance, neither was there much in the appearance of his opponents, although George McGovern actually was a WWII hero. Nixon's "heroism" centered, like Trump's, on his promise to restore white America & "save us" from racial equality.

Jimmy Carter actually served on active military duty in WWII; Ronald Reagan served as a PR man, but he was a hero in war (and football) movies! Reagan promised to "save us" from both a horrible economy AND "welfare queens in pink Cadillacs." Bush I was a tall, WWII vet who beat a short guy who looked ridiculous wearing a military helmet while riding around in a tank. Bill Clinton won against two WWII vets, but his older opponents "looked" weak by comparison. Dubya, with his brushhogging swagger, appeared more heroic than the technocrat Al Gore. Barack Obama, whose opponent John McCain was also a real war hero while Obama was not, promised to "save us" from Dubya's recession & McCain's doddering lack of understanding of a free-falling economy. Mitt Romney, who looked the part of a presidential hero figure and came close to unseating a sitting president, still lacked the eloquence and authoritative posture of his opponent.

Donald Trump constantly portrayed himself as heroic -- "Only I can fix it" -- while Clinton appeared to be someone who merely "soldiered on" in the face of repeated adversity. Yes, "it's the economy, stupid," and yes, it's white supremacy, but it's also far less about policy and more about image. Trump won on image; certainly not on substance, because what substance there is, as Clinton might say, is deplorable.

If I were Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, I would not have run for president in 2015-16. Rather, I would have looked, with the help of other party leaders, for another Obama -- someone who conveyed the qualities of the epic hero. It's time to do that now -- to cultivate and promote a core group of younger Democrats -- competent, handsome (or beautiful), and assertive. Skittish Democrats probably won't have the guts to go for it, but the person who replaced Hillary in the Senate, Kirsten Gillibrand, might replace her as the next nominee, too. There are others. I urge all of them to take elocution lessons (Bill Clinton practice by watching & emulating Reagan's style), polish their resumes, and practice looking heroic.

Marie

P.S. If you think this post suggests we want fake heroes rather than real ones -- well, yeah.

The Commentariat -- Nov. 12, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "Hillary Clinton on Saturday cast blame for her surprise election loss on the announcement by the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, days before the election that he had revived the inquiry into her use of a private email server. In her most extensive remarks since she conceded the race to Donald J. Trump early Wednesday, Mrs. Clinton told donors on a 30-minute conference call that Mr. Comey's decision to send a letter to Congress about the inquiry 11 days before Election Day had thrust the controversy back into the news and had prevented her from ending the campaign with an optimistic closing argument.... Mrs. Clinton said a second letter from Mr. Comey, clearing her once again, which came two days before Election Day, had been even more damaging." -- CW

Some things I missed:

Gail Collins: "Sometime soon, there'll be another woman presidential nominee. Maybe she'll be in the Clinton tradition, the grand and glorious American worker bees. Maybe she'll just leap out, like Barack Obama did, a fresh face with a new message. All we can know now is that when we talk about how she got there, we'll be telling Hillary Clinton's story." -- CW

NYT reporter Sydney Ember publishes, in a tweet, a "letter to NYT readers from Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. & Dean Baquet," the publisher & managing editor of the paper, respectively. Weirdly, the letter to readers does not seem to have appeared in the actual newspaper where, um, readers, might see it. And of course the comments are priceless: "The New York Times is a piece of crap. I will never read it because it will always be biased." CW: Not sure how the writer knows the paper is a piece of crap if he's never read it; some people are just intuitive, I guess.

Bernie Sanders, in a New York Times op-ed: "When my presidential campaign came to an end, I pledged to my supporters that the political revolution would continue. And now, more than ever, that must happen." -- CW

Paul Waldman: "The greatest trick Donald Trump pulled was convincing voters he'd be 'anti-establishment.'... An organizational chart of Trump's transition team shows it to be crawling with corporate lobbyists, representing such clients as Altria, Visa, Coca-Cola, General Electric, Verizon, HSBC, Pfizer, Dow Chemical, and Duke Energy.... Who could possibly have predicted such a thing? The answer is, anyone who was paying attention.... Trump's tax plan would give 47 percent of its benefits to the richest one percent of taxpayers. Paul Ryan's tax plan is even purer -- it gives 76 percent of its cuts to the richest one percent in its first year, and by 2025 would feed 99.6 percent of its benefits to the top 1 percent. Once that's accomplished, Trump and the Republicans plan to either gut or completely repeal the Dodd-Frank financial regulations, the greatest wish of Wall Street bankers.... the voters thinking that Trump would vanquish the establishment were just marks for a con, like those who lost their life savings at Trump University." -- CW

Steve M.: "Clinton was so busy portraying Trump as a monster that she forgot to say he'd be a lousy president.... Clinton's campaign echoed the media's message that what was important about Trump was his character and personal behavior. Ad after Clinton ad showed Trump insulting women and mocking a disabled reporter. No Clinton ad, as far as I know, ever went after Trump's economic plan the way this Barack Obama ad, for instance, went after Mitt Romney's:

AND Andy Borowitz expresses my thoughts when I read that Trump had said he learned something from the President about ObamaCare: "Speaking to reporters late Friday night..., Donald Trump revealed that he had Googled Obamacare for the first time earlier in the day. 'I Googled it, and, I must say, I was surprised,' he said. 'There was a lot in it that really made sense, to be honest.' He said that he regretted that the frenetic pace of the presidential campaign had prevented him from Googling Obamacare earlier." -- CW

*****

This needs to be a time of redemption, not a time of recrimination. -- Speaker Paul Ryan, Wednesday ...

... ** Adam Serwer of the Atlantic: After the American Civil War, the so-called "Southern Redemption" annihilated "the optimism of emancipation leading to racial equality in the South.... The election of Donald Trump, and the complete dominance of the Republican Party both in the federal government and in the states, may usher in a new era of Redemption, one which could see the seemingly astounding racial progress of having a black president relegated to little more than symbolism.... The erasure of the legacy of the first black president of the United States will be executed by a man who rose to power on the basis of his embrace of the slander that Obama was not born in America.... The Democrats will resist.... But history suggests they will fail.... The uncomfortable truth is that, whether you're Donald Trump or Bill Clinton, economic populism is most effective in American politics when it is paired with appeals to racism." Read it all. -- CW ...

... Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker is a bit more sanguine: "When all the votes are counted in California ... Trump will likely have lost the national vote by more than a million votes and have received a smaller percentage of votes than Mitt Romney's 47.2 per cent, in 2012.... As Harry Enten noted at fivethirtyeight.com, Trump received a smaller share of the votes than the G.O.P. Senate candidate in ten out of the thirteen states where there was a closely contested Senate race.... It may even be possible that white nationalism cost Trump more votes than it gained him. Trump and Republicans in Congress will almost certainly overinterpret their mandate, as victors often do.... The bigger unknown is how Trump will leverage his slim victory in areas that are more fundamental to democracy and civil liberties. The early signs are ominous." -- CW

Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: "... Mike Pence will take over as the leader of 's transition effort, pushing aside Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey..., the transition team said on Friday. The reorganization puts the urgent task of selecting cabinet officials and key West Wing posts in the hands of Mr. Pence, whose loyalty to Mr. Trump and deep contacts with the Republican establishment on Capitol Hill are seen as critical to navigating the often politically treacherous transition period.... Stephen K. Bannon, the conservative provocateur and chairman of the Breitbart News website, will be a top transition adviser.... Three of Mr. Trump's adult children and his son-in-law, who were among his closest campaign advisers, will join a 16-member advisory committee to help guide his choices." ...

     ... CW: What? The kids? It wasn't two weeks ago that one of them was assuring the public that the family would keep an arm's length distance from governance so they could run Trump's businesses. I'm so surprised Trump went back on his word on this. I thought it might take a whole week.

... Shocking News -- It Was All BS. "Lock Her Up?" Maybe Not. Jose DelReal of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump and key advisers in recent days have backed away from some of the most sweeping pledges that the Republican candidate made on the campaign trail, suggesting that his administration may not deliver on promises that were important to his most fervent supporters. Trump built his campaign message around bold vows to, among other things, force Mexico to pay for a massive border wall, fully repeal the Affordable Care Act and ban Muslims from entering the United States. But in the days since his upset election victory, he or his advisers have suggested that those proposals and others may be subject to revision. On President Obama's health-care law, for example, Trump said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Friday that he would like to keep some parts of the law intact and may seek to amend the statute rather than repeal it. In the same interview, Trump also avoided answering whether he would follow through on a campaign vow to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while secretary of state.... His lack of clarity on these and other issues has added more uncertainty to a tumultuous presidential transition...." -- CW ...

... Reed Abelson of the New York Times: "Just days after a national campaign in which he vowed repeatedly to repeal President Obama's signature health care law, Donald J. Trump is sending signals that his approach to health care is a work in progress. Mr. Trump even indicated that he would like to keep two of the most popular benefits of the Affordable Care Act, one that forces insurers to cover people with pre-existing health conditions and another that allows parents to cover children under their plan into their mid-20s. He told The Wall Street Journal that he was reconsidering his stance after meeting with Mr. Obama on Thursday. The comments added to a sense of whiplash about the law and its future. More than 100,000 Americans rushed to buy health insurance under the Affordable Care Act on Wednesday, the biggest turnout yet during this year's sign-up period, underscoring that millions of people now depend on the law for coverage. Beyond Mr. Trump's comments, new plans laid out on his presidential transition website this week deviate from what he had proposed during the campaign, and he added ideas that appeared to more closely align with the mainstream Republican agenda." -- CW ...

... Sarah Kliff of Vox: "... Donald Trump told the Wall Street Journal Friday that there are two parts of the Affordable Care Act he'd like to keep: the ban on preexisting conditions and the provision that allows young adults to stay on their parents' coverage through age 26.... That second policy is easy enough to keep running. It's a pretty simple regulation that the insurance industry has already become accustomed to. Continuing the ban on preexisting conditions is ... not so easy. Because as it stands now, the guaranteed issue of insurance is intertwined with two other major reforms of the individual market: a requirement that everybody purchase insurance or pay a fine (the mandate) and subsidies to make coverage affordable for those with low and middle incomes." -- CW ...

A Peek Inside the Cabinet of Horribles. Paul Waldman: "... wait until you get a load of the people Trump wants to populate the executive branch with. It won't help.... Let's run some of the early contenders down, shall we? These are obtained from leaked documents and news reports quoting people around Trump." -- CW

Suffer the Hapless Elites. Francis Wilkinson of Bloomberg: Dear Trumpians, your hero is about to give us dastardly elites "our cosmopolitan comeuppance.... The precise nature of the penalty elites will pay is unclear.... By extrapolating from Trump's campaign, and from the 'Better Way' agenda of Trump's soon-to-be-loyal-lieutenant Paul Ryan, it looks as if the first thing that elites will be targeted with is a huge tax cut.... Trump, who lives in blue Manhattan and perhaps fears that he might yet pay taxes one day, has a plan that goes easier on residents of Trump Tower than Ryan's plan. But either way, the elite are set to end up with a whole lot more money.... Trump is promising to punish the elite in other ways. He's "draining the swamp" in Washington by empowering lobbyists on his transition team, where they oversee the issues they are paid to influence." -- CW

Give Trump a Chance? No Way. James Downie of the Washington Post: "Politicians govern as they campaign.... We know who [Trump] is. On Thursday evening, after being informed of protests around the country against him, did Trump give these citizens a chance? No, he sought to delegitimize them, calling them 'professional protesters, incited by the media.' Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, a possible candidate to run Trump's Department of Homeland Security, said the protesters 'must be quelled.'... (Of course, Trump supporters such as Clarke saw nothing wrong with promising to pick up 'pitchforks' and 'muskets' if Clinton won.)... We can hope for the best for a Trump presidency, though that hope looks increasingly foolish by the hour. We must plan for the worst.... Now is the time to fight back." -- CW ...

... Mark Berman & Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post: "... in the wake of Donald Trump's election, many civil rights, environmental, immigration, labor rights and LGBT activists -- all of whom have frequently deployed street marches and disruptive protests during the Obama years -- saw taking to the streets as the clear first step in collectively registering their opposition of what they fear is to come.... MoveOn.org, a liberal group, [called] on people to gather in cities nationwide Wednesday. Ben Wikler, MoveOn's Washington director, said different people organized events in 275 cities and communities across the country, noting that many were candlelight vigils and group discussions rather than the sprawling marches." -- CW ...

Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet Nov. 10, 9:19 pm ET

Love the fact that the small groups of protesters last night have passion for our great country. We will all come together and be proud! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet, Nov. 11, 6:14 am ET

... Washington Post Editors: "With a single tweet, [Donald Trump] ... rekindled every legitimate fear of the damage he might do from the White House. And nine hours after that, the president-elect reversed course again -- with a contradictory, and statesmanlike, message on Twitter." -- CW ...

Abigail Hauslohner, et al., of the Washington Post: "Three days since businessman Donald Trump won the presidency, it is clear that the animosity wrought by a historically divisive election did not simply die in its wake, but may have intensified. U.S. cities have been convulsed by anti-Trump protests. Swastikas, racial slurs and personal threats have appeared on public buildings and dorm room doors.... Across the country, women and minorities reported incidents of intimidation perpetrated by Trump supporters or those claiming to be, who under the cloak of anonymity seemed to see in the results a validation of their extremist views.... And online, the vicious word-slinging between supporters of the two candidates has escalated to include videotaped accounts of personal confrontation and retribution.... At a Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on Friday, President Obama again called for reconciliation.... The protests continued for a third night on Friday in Atlanta, Miami and other cities, but remained largely peaceful. Trump, too, departed briefly from his calls for reconciliation Thursday night to blast the protesters on Twitter, but tweeted Friday that the protesters were exercising their constitutional rights." -- CW ...

... Southern Poverty Law Center: "Pulling from news reports, social media, and direct submissions at the Southern Poverty Law Center's website, the SPLC had counted 201 incidents of election-related harassment and intimidation across the country as of Friday, November 11 at 5pm. These range from anti-Black to anti-woman to anti-LGBT incidents. There were many examples of vandalism and epithets directed at individuals. Often times, types of harassment overlapped and many incidents, though not all, involved direct references to the Trump campaign. Every incident could not be immediately independently verified." -- CW ...

** Increasingly, it wasn't what I wrote that angered these readers; it was that I wrote it while being me. -- Michelle Lee ...

... Michelle Lee, a Washington Post fact-checker, who is of Asian descent: "The first email calling me a 'b[itch]' for my Pinocchio rating came early in the election season.... Over the next 18 months or so, 'b[itch]' became one of the more pedestrian names I was called for doing my job.... I expected the volume of criticism to swell throughout the campaign, and it did. But what surprised me was just how fiercely racist and sexist the comments became.... (Many of the comments were in response to my fact checks of Donald Trump, but not all.)" -- CW

Plagiarist-in-Chief. Nancy Scola of Politico: "... Donald Trump's official government website, GreatAgain.gov, lifts the work of a nonprofit organization that provides research on presidential transitions, with some passages being duplicated whole-cloth.... The Trump website was launched late Wednesday and replicates material on the copyrighted site of the Center for Presidential Transition, which is a project of the Washington-based nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service.... Much of the transition site's news feed matches information from the nonprofit's site word-for-word and was clearly written before Election Day.... Trump's site contains a small note at the bottom: 'First Posted on Center for Presidential Transition.' But by not making clear where the content comes from, including a link back to the source site, the Trump transition faces charges of sloppiness at best, and even potential legal challenges...." -- CW

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Adam Serwer: "During the 2016 presidential campaign, reporters marveled at the ability of Donald Trump and his surrogates to create an alternate reality in which statements made by the candidate had not been made at all.... Now they will have the entire apparatus of the federal government to bolster their lies, and the mainstream press is woefully unprepared to cover them. The first reason is that political journalism is highly dependent on official sources, which are chased with abandon.... Another obstacle is that media objectivity is not a fixed point. It is carefully calibrated to the perception of public opinion, because media organizations do not want to alienate their intended audience." -- CW

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Brian Stelter of CNN: "Corey Lewandowski, the controversial Donald Trump campaign manager turned CNN commentator, resigned from CNN on Friday afternoon. The resignation is effective immediately. A CNN spokeswoman confirmed that Lewandowski is no longer serving as a contributor to the network. Lewandowski has stayed in close touch with Trump and some top Trump aides since being fired from the campaign in June. This week there has been media discussion about Lewandowski possibly taking a role in the Trump administration." -- CW

Peter Stevenson of the Washington Post: While most of the media were predicting that Clinton would win the presidency, "Allan Lichtman..., a Washington, D.C.-based professor insisted that Trump was lined up for a win — based on the idea that elections are 'primarily a reflection on the performance of the party in power.'... [In September,] Lichtman made another call: that if elected, Trump would eventually be impeached by a Republican Congress that would prefer a President Mike Pence -- someone whom establishment Republicans know and trust." -- CW

Thanks, Jim Comey! Anna Palmer of Politico: "Navin Nayak, the head of Clinton's opinion research division, sent an email to senior campaign staff Thursday night.... 'We believe that we lost this election in the last week. Comey's letter in the last 11 days of the election both helped depress our turnout and also drove away some of our critical support among college-educated white voters -- particularly in the suburbs,' Nayak wrote. 'We also think Comey's 2nd letter, which was intended to absolve Sec. Clinton, actually helped to bolster Trump's turnout.'... Additionally, Nayak pointed to anger at institutions, a desire for change of power at the White House after two terms under President Barack Obama, the difficulty of recreating the Obama coalition and the reluctance of some Americans to vote for a female president as underlying challenges the Clinton camp faced throughout the campaign. Despite those challenges, Nayak wrote, Clinton's campaign was poised to win until the last week, when 'everything changed.'" -- CW

Way Beyond the Beltway

Nick Cumming-Bruce of the New York Times: "Islamic State militants have summarily killed scores of civilians in the Iraqi city of Mosul in recent days, sometimes using children as executioners, and have used chemical agents against Iraqi and Kurdish troops, United Nations officials said on Friday.Video posted by the militants on Wednesday showed four children, who appear to be 10 to 14 years old, shooting four civilians accused of disloyalty at a location near the Tigris River, said Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the United Nations human rights office in Geneva. The video release identified one of the children as Russian, another as coming from Uzbekistan and two as Iraqis." -- CW

Fahim Abed & Rod Nordland of the New York Times: "A suicide bomber managed to sneak onto the main American military base in Afghanistan on Saturday and kill four people, according to U.S. and Afghan officials.... The American military confirmed in a statement that four people had been killed. About 14 were wounded, the statement said. A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility for the attack on the militants' behalf and said that it had killed a large number of American soldiers." -- CW