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New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~
~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”
New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”
Click on photo to enlarge.
~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI."
Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”
New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”
Washington Post: “An early Titian masterpiece — once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries — caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective, and returned. This week, the oil painting 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for more than $22 million at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice. Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as'the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.'”
Washington Post: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare material, has undergone a major renovation. "The change to the building is pervasive, both subtle and transformational."
If you haven't seen the "Eight Years in America" exposé in New York on Obama's legacy and the events that have impacted it, check it out.--safari
Nicky Woolf of the Guardian: "Yahoo last year secretly built a custom software program to search all of its customers' incoming emails for specific information at the request of US intelligence officials, according to a report. The company complied with a classified US government directive, scanning hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the behest of the National Security Agency (NSA) or FBI, two former employees and a third person who knew about the program told Reuters. Some surveillance experts said this represents the first known case of a US internet company agreeing to a spy agency's demand by searching all arriving messages, as opposed to examining stored messages or scanning a small number of accounts in real time." --safari
Presidential Race
A Yuuge Loser. Stephen Shepard of Politico: "Mike Pence didn't just defeat Tim Kaine in their only debate -- he also outshined Donald Trump.... [T]he Pence -vs.- Trump comparison was unanimous: Each and every one of the four dozen GOP insiders who responded to a post-debate survey Tuesday night said Pence delivered a better debate performance than the New York businessman at the top of the Republican ticket." --safari
Jamelle Bouie of Slate: "[T]hat these debates, in a real sense, don't matter -- makes it tempting to treat them as pure political theater, judged on style and poise. By that standard, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence won the vice presidential debate with Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, full stop.... But politics isn't pure theater, and we shouldn't use that standard. Who performed better is less important than whether the candidates were honest and truthful...And by that standard, Mike Pence was a clear and abysmal failure.... Rather than demure or decline when confronted with Donald Trump's rhetoric and ideas, Pence denied that any of it happened." --safari...
Jonathan Chait: "Pence provided an evening of escapist fantasy for conservative intellectuals who like to close their eyes and imagine their party has nominated a qualified, normal person for president. It is hard to see how he helped the cause of electing the actual nominee.... But the pattern that quickly asserted itself in the debate revolved around Kaine's attacks on Trump, which he was able to introduce into every subject that came up. Pence had a handful of responses to this approach. He would shake his head, or chuckle.... At one point, Kaine observed that Pence had not defended his running mate, and Pence offered to do so, and to go point-by-point through the accusations, but he never got around to it." --safari...
... Esmi Cribb of Talking Points Memohas a run-down on eight of the times Pence denied that Trump said exactly what he said...
... Jackie Kucinich & Betsy Woodruff of The Daily Beast: "At the debate Tuesday night, Pence proved totally unflappable, calmly reimagining Trump's policy proposals on a host of issues and refusing to flinch through dozens of interruptions by Tim Kaine...And while the debate was a proxy battle for the top of the ticket, Pence managed to both make it about his own competence and political skill rather than Donald Trump's many flaws. Think Pence 2020, rather than Trump-Pence 2016." --safari...
...Juan Cole: "Trump running mate Mike Pence continued the unreality of this election season in Tuesday's debate by denying many things that are true and asserting many things that are not true.... The biggest Middle East news to come out of the VP debate was that Mike Pence advocated that the US strike 'military' targets of the Assad regime as a way of punishing Russia...That's huge! Pence wants to go head to head with Russia in Syria and wants vastly to expand the US military involvement by bombing Syrian military targets that are protected by Russian anti-aircraft batteries.... No one asked him how he would get around Russia anti-aircraft batteries or how he would stop Russia, which has a naval base and air bases in Syria, from supplying more and better ones to Syria. Or maybe he wants to go to war with nuclear-armed Russia?" --safari
Margaret Hartmann of New York: "As some presumably small portion of Americans sat through a dull debate between the Republican and Democratic vice-presidential nominees on Tuesday night, a far more interesting drama was unfolding within the Libertarian ticket. VP candidate Bill Weldtold the Boston Globe that he plans to focus exclusively on attacking Donald Trump for the remainder of the campaign -- essentially admitting that running mate Gary Johnson can not become president." --safari
Eric Levitz of New York: "On Monday, Bill Clinton 'slammed Obamacare,' calling it the 'craziest thing in the world.' Or so headlines on The Hilland CNN suggested. And on first glance, the stories beneath those headlines seemed to deliver the goods.... But, as the Huffington Post notes, when you look at Clinton's quote in context, you see that this is not what he realized at all. Before Clinton started talking about the people our 'crazy system' is failing, he made it clear that said system is still better than the one Obama inherited, which Donald Trump would have us return to...Thus, the former president was advocating for Hillary Clinton's proposed reforms to the ACA, not for the law's repeal." --safari
Other News & Views
Oliver Milmann of the Guardian: "The vast patch of garbage floating in the Pacific Ocean is far worse than previously thought, with an aerial survey finding a much larger mass of fishing nets, plastic containers and other discarded items than imagined...The density of rubbish was several times higher than the Ocean Cleanup, a foundation part-funded by the Dutch government to rid the oceans of plastics, expected to find even at the heart of the patch, where most of the waste is concentrated." --safari
Capitalism is Awesome, Ctd. Christopher Moraff of The Daily Beast: "In 2009, with opioid-painkiller deaths at an all time high in America, a British consumer goods company you've probably never heard of was facing a crisis of its own. That year, Reckitt Benckiser's patent for its opiate-treatment drug Suboxone expired, opening the gates for cheaper generic+ versions of the medication to hit the market...According to a massive antitrust lawsuit made public last week, that's when Reckitt Benckiser decided to destroy the Suboxone market in order to keep it. A copy of the 92-page ... complaint describes how the company ... gamed the pharmaceutical regulatory process using a variety of 'deceptive and unconscionable' practices to maintain a chokehold on the emerging market for medicine-based addiction treatment."--safari
The veep debate begins at 9 pm ET tonight. Wired has a list of ways to watch.
Presidential Race
Brian Beutler explains to dimwitted voters why voting for a third-party candidate is not "sending a message" to Clinton or Trump; it's threatening to give Trump a much better change to win the election. Also too, the third-party candidates are kooks. CW: Unfortunately, most dimwitted voters don't read the New Republic.
Washington PostEditors: "If he wished, a President Donald Trumpcould carry out -- or at least order -- many of the most extreme proposals he has tossed off during the election campaign.... Two aspects of Mr. Trump's worldview appear deeply rooted and consistent over a number of years. One is his disregard for traditional U.S. alliances, from Mexico to NATO to Saudi Arabia and Japan. The other is a strong and somewhat mysterious attachment to Russia's Vladimir Putin. If Mr. Trump were to act on those instincts, he could transform the world, very much for the worse.... The election of Mr. Trump would likely bring about the end of the era of American global leadership that began in 1945.... A new, cynical, self-interested America would emerge, ready to use walls, boycotts, assassination and torture to achieve its aims, and to partner with like-minded regimes such as Russia. For those who believe in traditional American liberal values, the world would become a much colder -- and more dangerous -- place." -- CW
By Driftglass.Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "Donald Trump on Monday defended his aggressive use of tax laws that likely resulted in him not paying any personal income taxes for nearly two decades, crediting himself for 'brilliantly' working the system. 'As a businessman and real estate developer, I have legally used the tax laws to my benefit and to the benefit of my company, my investors and my employees. I mean, honestly, I have brilliantly -- I have brilliantly used those laws,' Trump said during a rally in Pueblo, Colorado. 'I have often said on the campaign trail that I have a fiduciary responsibility to pay no more tax than is legally required, like anybody else, or put another way: to pay as little tax as legally possible. And I must tell you, I hate the way they spend our tax dollars.'" For more of Trump's fractured history, read on. -- CW ...
... Steve M: "I know this is ridiculous.... But this is the kind of rebuttal to the Times story that will keep a lot of middle-of-the-road voters from concluding that Trump has disqualified himself -- this BS sounds plausible and civic-minded." -- CW ...
... CW: Trump is definitely persuading Trumpbots, so it's reasonable to think Trump is right that other voters will buy the bull. Ellen Cushing of BuzzFeed talked to attendees at a Trump rally, & they were all convinced that Trump was a "good businessman" who followed the good practice of writing off bad debt caused by "bad times." -- CW ...
... ** Russ Buettner & Chales Bagli of the New York Times: 1990 "was the beginning of Mr. Trump's reckoning with a decade of rapid, debt-fueled expansion. The eclectic empire Mr. Trump had built with leverage from his father's brick-and-mortar fortune began to fail, generating enormous losses and bringing him to the brink of personal bankruptcy. The full magnitude of the financial hemorrhaging was a closely held secret until this weekend, when The New York Times published portions of Mr. Trump's 1995 tax records that showed business losses of $916 million.... A review of public records and interviews with those who were present makes clear that it was decisions Mr. Trump made at the helm of his business empire during the 1980s that led to its nearly imploding." During this period, his father again provided funds to keep Donald out of the poorhouse. So did other family members. Read on, to the end. ...
... CW: A "genius", Rudy? More like your ne'er-do-well younger brother who sleeps on your couch, cleans out your fridge, asks to "borrow" cash & mocks your "lifestyle." Writ large. ...
Drew Harwell & Robert O'Harrow of the Washington Post: "The disclosure [of a small portion of his 1995 tax filings] also raises new questions about the degree of Trump's personal financial involvement in the Trump Organization's first four bankruptcies. Though he has repeatedly drawn a distinction between the company's bankruptcies and his personal finances, the tax documents indicate he may have used losses stemming from his bankruptcies to benefit his personal fortune." CW: Exactly. Trump made the decisions that led to the bankruptcies, then used the companies' insolvency to claim a yuuge tax deduction for himself. Trump's suggestion that the organizations' failures were "somebody else's fault" is one among thousands of Trump's attempts to redirect blame for his own bad judgment. ...
... David Cay Johnston, in the Daily Beast, sussed out how "Trump dumped the real costs of all this [mismanagement of his casino businesses] on investors who saw gold in his brand name, but who lost everything even as he was paid tens of millions of tax-free dollars.' Bonus: "Last May, Trump revealed that he took on debt with no intention of paying it all back, which strikes me as fraud. 'I've borrowed knowing you can pay back with discounts,' he told CNBC in May, boasting 'I've done well with debt.'" Read the whole post. CW: There's a reason Trump calls Clinton "Crooked Hillary." It's a projection of who he is. ...
... Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post: "Trump has 'a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required,' the campaign said in a statement." Rudy Giuliani repeatedly made the same claim in Sunday show interviews. "... even if you buy the argument that Trump had a 'fiduciary duty' to investors..., the leaked documents in question were portions of Trump's personal income tax returns, not any corporate or partnershipincome tax returns. So there were no investors to let down." -- CW ...
... New York TimesEditors: "For more than a year, Donald Trump has said his genius as a businessman makes him uniquely qualified to fix the country's problems. We can dispense with that fiction now that we know that he claimed a $916 million loss on his 1995 tax returns. Such a mammoth loss amounts to an epic failure, not runaway success.... Legal or not, this is the kind of [government] handout no ordinary citizen could hope to get.... During the first presidential debate, Mr. Trump called his tax avoidance 'smart.' What he's justifying is a tax code that allows the extremely wealthy to shift the burden to everybody else, especially working Americans.... Incredibly, the Trump campaign argues that because he knows how to game the tax system he should be trusted to reform it. There is ... plenty of evidence that he would confer even more tax advantages on himself. Mr. Trump has not proposed closing the real estate developers' loophole. Instead, he would make the code more favorable for his interests by proposing to cut the rate for limited liability corporations and partnerships -- the entities in which he holds his real estate assets -- to just 15 percent from ordinary income rates.... He's built his millionaire's lifestyle on debt, tax avoidance and other people's money. From bankrupt casinos to a so-called university, he milked them for all he could and left workers, students and taxpayers holding the bag." -- CW ...
... Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Dylan Byers of CNN: The anonymous tipster who sent Trump's tax documents to the New York Timesalso sent them to the New York Daily News, but the Daily News could not verify the documents. CW: This tells us a couple of things: (1) The Times is "the paper of record" because it has far more resources than other news outlets; it sent its reporters to Florida to get verification from Trump's tax preparer & to clear up a major question about the original document, which appeared to be doctored. (2) The Daily News followed the journalistic practice of not publishing a story based on an unverified tip, unlike many online "news" outlets.
Paul Waldman: "... if you picked 'veterans' in the 'Who's Donald Trump going to offend today?' pool, you're in luck." ...
... Cowardly Draft Dodger Rips Veterans Suffering PTSD as Not Tough Enough. Ema O'Connor of Buzzfeed: '"Donald Trump on Monday suggested to a room full of veterans that soldiers who return from war suffering from PTSD are not 'strong' and 'can't handle it.' The GOP presidential candidate’s statement came during a Q&A at the Retired American Warriors PAC.... After saying there are around 22 veteran suicides a day, Trump explained to the room of veterans what PTSD was. 'When people come back from war and combat and they see maybe what the people in this room have seen many times over, and you're strong and you can handle it, but a lot of people can't handle it.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Akhilleus: So the coward who supported the Vietnam war but got multiple deferments to hide from combat for some foot thing which he can't remember now, "explains" PTSD to a room full of combat veterans, and furthermore, lets them know that some of them, according war hero Donald, just don't measure up. Trump, of course, is combat tested because he went through the Sex Wars of the seventies. Poor guy. So brave. All those unmade beds! And so wonderful of him to lecture soldiers who saw actual combat about the fact that they're wusses. The worst thing? There are plenty of combat veterans -- with and without PTSD -- who will dishonor their brothers and sisters in arms by voting for this disgraceful piece of shit.
But, But ... How Will I Pay My Legal Fees?? David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post. "The New York attorney general has notified Donald Trump that his charitable foundation is violating state law -- by soliciting donations without proper certification -- and ordered Trump's charity to stop its fundraising immediately.... James Sheehan, head of the attorney general's charities bureau, sent the 'notice of violation' to the Donald J. Trump Foundation on Friday, according to a copy of the notice provided by ... Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D). The night before that, The Washington Post reported that Trump's charity had been soliciting donations from other people without being properly registered in New York state. According to tax records, Trump's foundation has subsisted entirely on donations from others since 2008, when Trump gave his last personal donation. This year, the Trump Foundation made its most wide-ranging request for donations yet: It set up a public website, donaldtrumpforvets.com, to gather donations that Trump said would be passed on to veterans' groups." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Akhilleus: Can this poor guy EVER catch a break? I mean, that money from veterans is already earmarked for good causes. The BEST causes. Another trip to Europe for Ivanka, another animal killing safari for Little Eric, rare collectible Nazi paraphernalia for Junior (Erwin Rommel's Afrika Corps leather overcoat). Cellulite removal for Melania (why she hasn't been seen in forever...), and now this! C'mon! ...
... Paul Waldman: "If Schneiderman were a woman, Trump would be going on 'Hannity' tonight to tell everyone he's fat." -- CW
Will He or Won't He?I want to do the next debate, but everybody is talking about the mike. -- Donald Trump, to the New York Times, October 1 ...
... Steve Benen: "... by some measures, the only person preoccupied with the subject is Trump himself.... He... appears to be looking for an excuse. It's hard to imagine Trump bowing out of the next debates, but then again, it was hard to imagine quite a bit about Trump's candidacy, and yet here we are. The fact that he's hedged at all -- 'I want to do the next debate, but ... suggests there's at least some question about the Republican's plans." -- CW
** Jobs, Jobs, Jobs? For the Chinese, Yes. Kurt Eichenwald of Newsweek: "... Trump has been stiffing American steel workers on his own construction projects for years... A Newsweek;investigation has found that in at least two of Trump's last three construction projects, Trump opted to purchase his steel and aluminum from Chinese manufacturers rather than United States corporations based in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin." -- CW
Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Donald Trumpsaid Monday that 'race riots' are happening every month.... 'We're a divided nation, and each week it seems we're getting more and more divided,' Trump said at a rally [in Pueblo, Colorado]. '[We see] race riots on our streets on a monthly basis. Somebody said don't call them race riots, but that's what they are. They’re race riots. And it's happening more and more.'" -- CW
Other News & Views
Cold War Redux. Michael Gordon & Andrew Kramer of the New York Times: "The United States on Monday suspended talks with Russia over the protracted conflict in Syria, accusing the Kremlin of joining with the Syrian Air Force in carrying out a brutal bombing campaign against the besieged city of Aleppo. Anticipating the end of the talks after repeated warnings from American officials, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia responded by withdrawing from a landmark arms control agreement that calls for each side to dispose of 34 tons of plutonium, a material used in nuclear weapons." -- CW ...
... Dictators Do the Darndest Things! Wait til Trump gets to be one. J. Weston Phippen of The Atlantic: "Russian President Vladimir Putin withdrew Monday from a post-Cold War agreement with the United States in which both countries agreed to get rid of plutonium that could be used in nuclear weapons. Putin accused the U.S. for failing to stand by its side of the agreement, and for the heightened tension between the countries over the Syrian civil war. The deal was originally signed in 2000 and renewed in 2009. Putin said he was now suspending cooperation because of 'the emergence of a threat to strategic stability and as a result of unfriendly actions by the United States of America towards the Russian Federation.'" -- Akhilleus (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... CW: I don't doubt that the horrifying bombings of Aleppo are among Putin's are among his tactics to influence our November elections.
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "A short-handed Supreme Court on Monday turned down a request from the Obama administration to reconsider a major immigration decision, dooming for now President Obama's plan to spare millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation. The court also declined to hear more than 1,000 petitions seeking reviews in cases that had piled up during the justices' summer break. Among them were ones concerning what college athletes may earn, the Washington Redskins' trademarks and a campaign finance investigation in Wisconsin. Adhering to its custom, the court did not give reasons for turning down the cases. The request that the justices rehear the immigration case came after a deadlock in the case in June. The administration's petition seeking rehearing said a matter of such importance should be resolved by a nine-member Supreme Court, which 'should be the final arbiter of these matters through a definitive ruling.'" -- CW
Beyond the Beltway
Cleve Wootson of the Washington Post: Mayor Charles Wasko of York, Pennsylvania, has a passion for posting incendiary racist & xenophobic material on social media. "Probably the most inflammatory one was about President Obama. It shows a picture of actor Clint Eastwood in the film 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' and a noose. 'Barry, this rope is for you,' the caption says, referring to a nickname for the first black president. 'You wanna bring that empty chair over here!'" Despite horrified reactions to his postings & calls for his resignation, Wasko won't quit & he promises to keep on posting. -- CW
But, but...how will I pay my legal fees?? David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post. "The New York attorney general has notified Donald Trump that his charitable foundation is violating state law -- by soliciting donations without proper certification -- and ordered Trump's charity to stop its fundraising immediately, the attorney general's office said Monday. James Sheehan, head of the attorney general's charities bureau, sent the 'notice of violation' to the Donald J. Trump Foundation on Friday, according to a copy of the notice provided by the press office of state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D). The night before that, The Washington Post reported that Trump's charity had been soliciting donations from other people without being properly registered in New York state. According to tax records, Trump's foundation has subsisted entirely on donations from others since 2008, when Trump gave his last personal donation. This year, the Trump Foundation made its most wide-ranging request for donations yet: It set up a public website, donaldtrumpforvets.com, to gather donations that Trump said would be passed on to veterans' groups."Akhilleus: Can this poor guy EVER catch a break?! I mean, that money from veterans is already earmarked for good causes. The BEST causes. Another trip to Europe for Ivanka, another animal killing safari for Little Eric, rare collectible Nazi paraphernalia for Junior (Erwin Rommel's Afrika Corps leather overcoat). Cellulite removal for Melania (why she hasn't been seen in forever...), and now this! C'mon!
Dictators do the darndest things! Wait til Trump gets to be one. J. Weston Phippen of The Atlantic. "Russian President Vladimir Putin withdrew Monday from a post-Cold War agreement with the United States in which both countries agreed to get rid of plutonium that could be used in nuclear weapons.Putin accused the U.S. for failing to stand by its side of the agreement, and for the heightened tension between the countries over the Syrian civil war. The deal was originally signed in 2000 and renewed in 2009. Putin said he was now suspending cooperation because of 'the emergence of a threat to strategic stability and as a result of unfriendly actions by the United States of America towards the Russian Federation.'"...Akhilleus
Cowardly draft dodger Trump rips veterans suffering PTSD as not tough enough. Ema O'Connor of BuzzFeed reports: '"Donald Trump on Monday suggested to a room full of veterans that soldiers who return from war suffering from PTSD are not 'strong' and 'can't handle it.' The GOP presidential candidate's statement came during a Q&A at the Retired American Warriors PAC. Some of the questions were about the suicide epidemic in the military and criticism of the Veterans Administration (VA) for falling short on providing veterans with the mental health treatment they need. After saying there are around 22 veteran suicides a day, Trump explained to the room of veterans what PTSD was.'When people come back from war and combat and they see maybe what the people in this room have seen many times over, and you're strong and you can handle it, but a lot of people can't handle it'" Akhilleus: So the coward who supported the Vietnam war but got multiple deferrments to hide from combat for some foot thing which he can't remember now, "explains" PTSD to a room full of combat veterans, and furthermore, lets them know that some of them, according war hero Donald, just don't measure up. Trump, of course, is combat tested because he went through the Sex Wars of the seventies. Poor guy. So brave. All those unmade beds! And so wonderful of him to lecture soldiers who saw actual combat about the fact that they're wusses. The worst thing? There are plenty of combat veterans -- with and without PTSD -- who will dishonor their brothers and sisters in arms by voting for this disgraceful piece of shit.
*****
Presidential Race
LeBron James, in an op-ed to be published in the Akron Beacon Journal today: "I support Hillary because she will build on the legacy of my good friend, President Barack Obama. I believe in what President Obama has done for our country and support her commitment to continuing that legacy. Like my foundation [that helps at-risk children in Akron], Hillary has always been a champion for children and their futures. For over 40 years, she's been working to improve public schools, expand access to health care, support children's hospitals, and so much more." CW: Might help. Clinton is schedule to visit Akron today. Trump is a few points ahead of her in recent Ohio polls.
Rebecca Morin of Politico: "Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday said Hillary Clintonwas 'absolutely correct' in leaked comments about his supporters that she made at a fundraiser earlier this year. 'What she was saying there is absolutely correct. And that is, you've got millions of young people, many of whom took out loans in order to go to college, hoping to go out and get decent-paying, good jobs,' Sanders told host George Stephanopoulos on ABC's 'This Week.' 'And you know what? They're unable to do that. And yes, they do want a political revolution. They want to transform this society.'" -- CW
Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "Donald Trumpis scrambling to rescue his campaign after a week in which the Republican nominee's White House hopes were effectively set ablaze by his own erratic behavior and the discovery that he may not have paid federal income taxes for as many as 18 years.... Trump hopes to recover by driving a contrast, starting Monday at campaign rallies in Colorado, between how he and Bill and Hillary Clinton made their fortunes. Trump plans to argue that he built a global real estate empire and employed thousands of people, while the Clintons got rich delivering paid speeches to financial institutions and other corporate interests, according to his aides." -- CW
James Stewart of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump racked up losses so huge in the early 1990s that he wouldn't have had to pay federal or New York State income tax on nearly a billion dollars in income. None of this seems to have made the slightest dent in Mr. Trump's opulent lifestyle over the years. At the nadir of his personal financial crisis in the early 1990s, his lenders put him on an annual monthly 'budget' of $450,000 in personal expenses -- more than enough to sustain his lifestyle of lavish homes, private jets, country clubs and golf courses.... It's hard to imagine a starker contrast with the vast number of Americans who struggle to both pay taxes and make ends meet, or a more damning indictment of a tax code that makes that possible.... It's obvious why he has not released his tax returns:... because he hasn't paid any taxes.... Such a huge loss undermines one of his central campaign themes, which is that he is an astute and successful businessman.... All of this makes it even more imperative that Mr. Trump disclose more tax information...." -- CW ...
Ezra Klein: "... whatever is in [Trump's] returns is worse than what the New York Times is telling the world is in his returns. The Trump campaign has decided it prefers the picture the Times is painting -- a picture where Trump didn't pay taxes for 18 years -- to the picture Trump';s real records would paint." -- CW ...
... Josh Marshall of TPM: "This is a deeply damaging story, both because of apparently not paying any income tax for many years while living a life of incomparable luxury and also because it puts hard numbers to the cataclysmic business failures that pushed Trump to the brink of personal bankruptcy in the early 1990s.... In the course of not denying the gist of the original Times story, Trump's campaign also threatened legal action against the Times. Is this a legit threat? Big picture: no.... If documents fall from the sky into your lap, you are pretty much free to do anything with them you want...." CW: Marshall's remarks about the law is no doubt why Craig published her story of how she acquired the tax documents: to let Trump know he hadn't a legal leg to stand on. ...
... Jessie Hellmann of the Hill: "Susanne Craig ... declined to say Sunday whether she has more documents she will report on.... 'Are you sitting on more documents?" Brian Stelter asked Craig during her appearance on his CNN show 'Reliable Sources.' 'We're doing a lot of reporting around this so we're going to keep going' she replied." -- CW
A Billion-Dollar Loser Man Would Be a Better President than a Woman.
Eric Bradner of CNN: "Rudy Giuliani called Donald Trumpa 'genius' Sunday, in the wake of a New York Times report indicating he may have legally avoiding paying taxes for nearly two decades. 'The reality is, this is part of our tax code. The man's a genius. He knows how to operate the tax code to the benefit of the people he's serving,' the former New York City mayor told CNN's Jake Tapper on 'State of the Union.'... Tapper pressed Giuliani on whether someone who lost $916 billion in one year could reasonably argue he's a good businessman. 'That doesn't sound brilliant,' Tapper said. 'Well, yes it does, because he came back,' Giuliani said.... New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie also called The New York Times' report positive for Trump because, he said, it shows his resiliency." -- CW ...
... Misogyny, Inc. Rebecca Morin: "Donald Trump surrogate Rudy Giuliani on Sunday suggested that a man such as Donald Trump would be a better president 'than a woman.' 'Don't you think a man who has this kind of economic genius is a lot better for the United States than a woman, and the only thing she's ever produced is a lot of work for the FBI checking out her emails,'... [Giuliani] said on ABC's 'This Week' with George Stephanopoulos. Giuliani's statements come on the heels of a week during which the Republican nominee has been criticized by Hillary Clinton's campaign for comments he has made about women." -- CW ...
... John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "Far from demonstrating that Trump is a 'genius' or a 'highly-skilled businessman,' the 1995 returns confirm what longtime observers have known for years: earlier in his career, at least, Trump was a terrible businessman. He borrowed billions of dollars to build casinos and buy overpriced trophy properties.... His businesses lost almost all of this money, and some of the biggest ones, including the Plaza [Hotel in New York], were forced to seek bankruptcy protection. Trump personally was only saved ... by the fact that his bankers believed they would get more of their money back by throwing him a lifeline.... But his comeback was due less to any innate entrepreneurial talent than to a recovery in the property market and his ability to sell himself as a success story despite his financial problems." -- CW ...
... CW: What about Other People's Money? Donald Trump's Near-Billion-Dollar Deduction was hardly the only tax revenue loss caused by his reckless business decisions. Trump leans heavily on investors to plump up his deals. So those investors experienced big losses, too, when his lousy enterprises went belly-up. So all of those investors would have taken deductions for the money they lost in Trump's failed schemes. In addition, all the contractors & vendors whom Trump stiffed took deductions, too. There's no way to know what the total of those other losses was, but I'd bet it represented more than a billion in lost tax revenues at state & federal levels. Who made up the difference? Why, you and I.
Cathleen Decker of the Los Angeles Times: "Trump played into existing concerns among Americans that the wealthy get an unfair break. A 2015 Pew Research poll found that a big majority of Americans aren't bothered by the taxes they pay. But 6 in 10 said they were bothered 'a lot' when wealthy people didn't pay their fair share. More than that, the tax issue can contribute to negative views ... about a candidate's character.... [Trump's Pennsylvania] speech [Saturday] was a disaster. He called [Hillary] Clinton 'crazy' and incompetent. He accused her of cheating on Bill Clinton, without proof. He physically mocked her stumble when she was ill with pneumonia on Sept. 11." -- CW ...
... Chas Danner of New Yorkreprises the craziest parts of the crazy speech Donald Trump gave Saturday night in Pennsylvania. And the crowd cheered. -- CW ...
... Steve M, Monitoring the Crazy. "I think Trump's mental state is going to matter much more [than his gaming the system to avoid paying taxes]. He's out of control. He thinks whatever makes him feel good is good for his campaign. And I really think he might be on drugs -- I know everyone says he never touches drugs or alcohol, but we heard the same thing about Prince. I think he's only going to get worse in the next few weeks. I think he's going to be like this in the two upcoming debates. It's going to be amazing to watch." -- CW
"I Was on an Airplane." "I Was Working Out." Charley Lanyon of New York: While the Trump camp seemed united in its response..., prominent Republicans are using any excuse they can think of to avoid talking about Trump's recent behavior. Marco Rubio claimed that he didn't even watch the debate because he was 'on an airplane.' While [Paul] Ryan said he missed Trump's most recent Twitter meltdown because he was working out." --CW
Jessie Hellmann: "CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday called Donald Trump's suggestion that Hillary Clinton is cheating on her husband an 'unhinged' and 'wild' attack from the Republican presidential nominee that is 'indefensible.' While interviewing Trump surrogate Rudy Giuliani on 'State of the Union,' Tapper questioned whether the attack was considered 'normal' or 'stable' behavior from a presidential nominee.... Trump's comments should be taken as sarcasm, Giuliani said." CW: That's the standard excuse the Trump campaign uses to explain his "wild" & "unhinged" attacks.
Paul Krugmancastigates elected officials who have endorsed Donald Trump, cowardly Republicans who have not endorsed Hillary Clinton & leftist lunkheads who plan to cast votes for doofus candidates. -- CW
Other News & Views
New York magazine covers, in almost day-by-day detail, the presidency ofBarack Obama, with links to articles that illuminate events. -- CW
** Jonathan Chait interviews President Obama, mostly about how the Republican party turned into the Party of No, beginning with John McCain's vice-presidential choice & GOP leaders' decision to block every bipartisan effort the President & other Democrats made. It "turned out to be pretty smart politics but really bad for the country...." -- CW
Beyond the Beltway
Cindy Chang & Matt Hamilton of the Los Angeles Times: "Angry demonstrators poured into the streets of a South Los Angeles neighborhood Sunday night, the second night of protests over the fatal shooting of an armed 18-year-old man." -- CW
News Lede
New York Times: "Yoshinori Ohsumi, a Japanese cell biologist, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday for his discoveries on how cells recycle their content, a process known as autophagy. Autophagy, derived from Greek, means 'self-eating.'" -- CW
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Presidential Race
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