The Ledes

Friday, September 6, 2024

CNBC: “The U.S. economy created slightly fewer jobs than expected in August, reflecting a slowing labor market while also clearing the way for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates later this month. Nonfarm payrolls expanded by 142,000 during the month, down from 89,000 in July and below the 161,000 consensus forecast from Dow Jones, according to a report Friday from the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.”

New York Times: “Colin Gray, the father of the 14-year-old accused of killing two teachers and two students at his Georgia high school, was arrested and charged on Thursday with second-degree murder in connection with the state’s deadliest school shooting, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said. In addition to two counts of second-degree murder, Mr. Gray, 54, was also charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter and eight counts of cruelty to children, according to a statement. At a news conference on Thursday night, Chris Hosey, the G.B.I. director, said the charges were 'directly connected with the actions of his son and allowing him to possess a weapon.'” At 5:30 am ET, this is the pinned item in a liveblog. ~~~

     ~~~ CNN's report is here.

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The Ledes

Thursday, September 5, 2024

CNBC: “Private sector payrolls grew at the weakest pace in more than 3½ years in August, providing yet another sign of a deteriorating labor market, according to ADP. Companies hired just 99,000 workers for the month, less than the downwardly revised 111,000 in July and below the Dow Jones consensus forecast for 140,000. August was the weakest month for job growth since January 2021, according to data from the payrolls processing firm. 'The job market’s downward drift brought us to slower-than-normal hiring after two years of outsized growth,' ADP’s chief economist, Nela Richardson, said. The report corroborates multiple data points recently that show hiring has slowed considerably from its blistering pace following the Covid outbreak in early 2020.”

The New York Times' live updates of developments in the Georgia school massacre are here, a horrifying ritual which we experience here in the U.S. to kick off each new School Shooting Year. “A 14-year-old student opened fire at his Georgia high school on Wednesday, killing two students and two teachers before surrendering to school resource officers, according to the authorities, who said the suspect would be charged with murder.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I heard Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) speak during a press conference. Kemp is often glorified as one of the most moderate, reasonable GOP elected public officials. When asked a question I did not hear, Kemp responded, "Now is not the time to talk about politics." As you know, this is a statement that is part of the mass shooting ritual. It translates, "Our guns-for-all policy is so untenable that I dare not express it lest I be tarred and feathered -- or worse -- by grieving families." ~~~

~~~ Washington Post: “Police identified the suspect as Colt Gray, a student who attracted the attention of federal investigators more than a year ago, when they began receiving anonymous tips about someone threatening a school shooting. The FBI referred the reports to local authorities, whose investigations led them to interview Gray and his father. The father told police that he had hunting guns in the house, but that his son did not have unsupervised access to them. Gray denied making the online threats, the FBI said, but officials still alerted area schools about him.” ~~~ 

     ~~~ Marie: I heard on CNN that the reason authorities lost track of Colt was that his family moved counties, and the local authorities who first learned of the threats apparently did not share the information with law enforcement officials in Barrow County, where Wednesday's mass school shooting occurred. If you were a parent of a child who has so alarmed law enforcement that they came around to your house to question you and the child about his plans to massacre people, wouldn't you do something?: talk to him, get the kid professional counseling, remove guns and other lethal weapons from the house, etc.

Help!

To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.

Link Code:   <a href="URL">text</a>

OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, but Akhilleus found this new one that he says is easy to use.

OR you can always just block, copy and paste to your comment the URL (Web address) of the page you want to link.

Note for Readers. It is not possible for commenters to "throw" their highlighted links to another window. But you can do that yourself. Right-click on the link and a drop-down box will give you choices as to where you want to open the link: in a new tab, new window or new private window.

Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.

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.

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."

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Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns


Tuesday
Sep132016

The Commentariat -- Sept. 14, 2016

Afternoon Update:

By Driftglass.Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "After a whiplash-inducing morning of mixed messages, Donald J. Trump on Wednesday gave a small window into some of the results from his most recent physical examination in a taped appearance with the television celebrity Dr. Mehmet Oz. The quick run-through of results, which Mr. Trump is said to have given to the doctor to read from a piece of paper, came after ... [Trump's] aides had said he would, and then that he wouldn't, broach the topic with the doctor on the 'Dr. Oz Show.'" ...

     ... This is a version of a story that has been updated -- and ruined. In the original version, Haberman gave a brief account of Oz's brilliant career. She couched the nutty stuff in the familiar "critics say" copout, but among the "critics" was the FDA. If you didn't read the original story, Akhilleus, in today's Comments section provides some background, though narrower in scope -- and of course more opinionated -- than Haberman's rundown.

*****

** Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "Americans last year reaped the largest economic gains in nearly a generation as poverty fell, health insurance coverage spread and incomes rose sharply for households on every rung of the economic ladder, ending years of stagnation.The median household's income in 2015 was $56,500, up 5.2 percent from the previous year -- the largest single-year increase since record-keeping began in 1967, the Census Bureau said on Tuesday. The share of Americans living in poverty also posted the sharpest decline in decades." -- CW ...

... Jim Tankersley of the Washington Post: "Middle-class Americans and the poor enjoyed their best year of economic improvement in decades in 2015, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday, a spike that broke a years-long streak of disappointment for American workers but did not fully repair the damage inflicted by the Great Recession." -- CW ...

... Washington Post Editors: "Candidates' dour talk about the economy is undermined by the economy." -- CW

Carol Morello & Ruth Eglash of the Washington Post: "Israel and the United States have reached an agreement that will provide Israel an unprecedented amount of military aid over a decade. The State Department said the agreement, known as a memo of understanding, will be signed Wednesday afternoon. Jacob Nagel, Israel's acting national security adviser, arrived in Washington on Tuesday morning to sign on behalf of his country. The agreement is expected to give Israel as much as $3.8 billion a year over 10 years, more aid than the United States has ever provided to any country." Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu wanted more. CW: Let's see if he says thank you to us U.S. taxpayers.

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court on Tuesday turned down a plea from Ohio Democrats to stay a lower court decision and add more early voting days in the presidential battleground state. Without noted dissent, the justices left intact a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit that said the state already provided more early voting than the majority of states. As a result, Ohio will not have a period in which residents may register and vote at the same time.... It is not the end of litigation in the battleground state. Still to be resolved are purges of inactive voters and what to do about eligible voters who cast their ballots at the wrong precinct." -- CW

Capitalism is Awesome, Ctd. Bank Execs Handsomely Rewarded for Bad Behavior. Renae Merle of the Washington Post: The $185MM fine federal regulators levied against Wells Fargo for a massive scheme to bilk customers is "less than the more than $200 million that the stock in the company held by company's chief executive, John G. Stumpf is worth. The fines also are not that much more than the $125 million one of its top executives, Carrie Tolstedt, will walk away with when she retires this year.... Tolstedt ran the community banking division where regulators said aggressive sales goals fueled illegal behavior by bank employees...." See also related comments under the previous post, IOKIYAR. -- CW

Rebecca Ruiz of the New York Times: Russian "hackers penetrated the World Anti-Doping Agency's athlete database and publicly revealed private medical information about three of the United States' most famous athletes: Serena Williams, Venus Williams and Simone Biles. The hackers published documents this week showing that the Williams sisters and Ms. Biles, who won four gold medals in gymnastics at the Rio Olympics last month, received medical exemptions to use banned drugs.... [The hacking group] is believed to be associated with GRU, Russia's military intelligence agency suspected of involvement in the recent theft of emails and documents from the Democratic National Committee.... Revenge, apparently, motivated the WADA hacks. In May, The New York Times reported the account of Russia's longtime antidoping lab chief, who said the country had run a doping program and staged an elaborate cheating scheme at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. A subsequent report commissioned by WADA confirmed that account." -- CW

Presidential Race

Andrew Kaczynski, et al., of BuzzFeed: "Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a retired four-star general who served under three Republican presidents, slammed GOP nominee Donald Trump as a 'a national disgrace' and an 'international pariah,' according to his personal emails seen by BuzzFeed News. The remarks came in a June 17, 2016, email to Emily Miller, a journalist who was once Powell's aide. In that same email Powell also said Trump 'is in the process of destroying himself, no need for Dems to attack him. [Speaker of the House] Paul Ryan is calibrating his position again.' The website DCLeaks.com -- which has reported, but not confirmed, ties to Russian intelligence services -- obtained Powell's emails.... In an Aug. 21 email from Powell to Miller, he blasted Trump for embarking on a 'racist' movement that believes President Obama was not born in the US. 'Yup, the whole birther movement was racist,' Powell wrote." ...

... Andrew Kaczynski & Talal Ansari of the Daily Beast: "'Benghazi is a stupid witch hunt. Basic fault falls on a courageous ambassador who thoughts Libyans now love me and I am ok in this very vulnerable place,' Powell wrote in a December 2015 email exchange with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about US Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, who died in the 2012 incident.... 'But blame also rests on his leaders and supports back here. Pat Kennedy, Intel community, DS and yes HRC,' Powell wrote." -- CW ...

... Lee Fang & Naomi LaChance of the Intercept: "Former Secretary of State Colin Powell attempted to discourage Hillary Clinton and her team from using him as a scapegoat for her private email server problems, according to newly leaked emails from Powell's Gmail account. Sad thing,' Powell wrote to one confidant, 'HRC could have killed this two years ago by merely telling everyone honestly what she had done and not tie me to it.... I told her staff three times not to try that gambit. I had to throw a mini tantrum at a Hampton's party to get their attention. She keeps tripping into these "character" minefields,' Powell lamented. He noted that he had tried to settle the matter by meeting with Clinton aide Cheryl Mills in August.... The emails show Powell regularly corresponding with reporters and friends about the Clinton email server scandal, explaining that his situation was different." -- CW ...

... CW: I doubt it is a coincidence that these hacks were publicized after news broke that Powell, while serving as Secretary of State, ignored advice from cybersecurity experts who warned him his private e-mail devices could be hacked.

Jill Filipovic in Cosmopolitan: "'Weak' remains one of [Donald Trump's] favorite Twitter insults, and one he has lobbed repeatedly at ... Hillary Clinton in stump speeches. 'She's weak. She's a weak person. I know her. She's a weak person,' he said about Clinton at an August rally in Des Moines.... The weakness narrative works ... because our cultural assumptions about strength are tied to masculinity -- and Clinton, a woman, is a member of the 'weaker sex.'... With little else in his favor, Trump has spent much of this election playing the man card.... Donald Trump ... is hypersensitive, thin-skinned, reactive -- he has demonstrated that he has little self-control and virtually no personal discipline. For a potential commander-in-chief, this is a grave and potentially debilitating weakness.... Trump's harping on Clinton's health, and the press and public's speculation about it, is less about her actual strength and stamina than her sex.... If you're placing bets on the longevity, strength, and stamina of a 70-year-old man versus a 68-year-old woman, science and statistics offer a clear answer: Go with the gal." CW: Do read the whole post. Filipovic makes a strong case. ...

... Conservative WashPo columnist Kathleen Parker: Hillary Clinton's "silence about the pneumonia wasn't so much a lack of transparency, as news-gazers have extrapolated, as it was a valiant attempt to stay the course and preclude exactly what happened. People began to wonder about her health. Critics found it easy to conclude: She's weak; she's frail; she's a woman, after all." -- CW

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. The Whiney Press. Brian Beutler has a theory about the media's coverage of the candidates: "The press is not a pro-democracy trade, it is a pro-media trade. By and large, it doesn't act as a guardian of civic norms and liberal institutions -- except when press freedoms and access itself are at stake.... Reporters and media organizations are far more concerned with things like transparency, the treatment of reporters, and first-in-line access to information..., than they are with other forms of democratic accountability.... The result is the evident skewing of editorial judgment we see in favor of stories where media interests are most at stake: where Clinton gets ceaseless scrutiny for conducting public business on a private email server; Trump gets sustained negative coverage for several weeks when his campaign manager allegedly batters a reporter; where Clinton appears to faint, but the story becomes about when it was appropriate for her to disclose her pneumonia diagnosis.... But where bombshell stories about the ways Trump used other people's charity dollars for personal enrichment have a hard time breaking through." -- CW

This Is Alarming. John McCormick & Mark Niquette of Bloomberg: "Donald Trump leads Hillary Clinton by 5 percentage points in a Bloomberg Politics poll of Ohio, a gap that underscores the Democrat's challenges in critical Rust Belt states after one of the roughest stretches of her campaign.... The poll was taken Friday through Monday, as Clinton faced backlash for saying half of Trump supporters were a 'basket of deplorables' and amid renewed concerns about her health after a video showed her stumbling as she left a Sept. 11 ceremony with what her campaign later said was a bout of pneumonia." CW: Thanks to the Supreme Court ruling against Democrats (story linked above) Ohio's early voting has been pushed back a week till October 12 from October 5. Ironically, if Clinton can recover her lead there, the Supremes could help her.

Jeff Zeleny of CNN: "Hillary Clinton will return to public view in North Carolina on Thursday, aides said, appearing in Greensboro after an unexpected three-day interruption from the campaign trail." -- CW

[Trump] took money other people gave to his charity and then bought a 6-foot-tall painting of himself. He had the taste not to go for the 10-foot version. -- President Obama, in Philadelphia Tuesday ...

... Anne Gearan & Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "President Obama implored Americans on Tuesday to consider the gravity of the presidential election eight weeks away, calling Republican Donald Trump a dangerous fraud who has no real idea of what it means to be president. Turning serious at the close of a rollicking campaign rally for Democrat Hillary Clinton, Obama allowed himself to 'vent' about a Republican nominee who he said 'isn't fit in any way, shape or form to represent this country'": -- CW ...

... CW: I recommend listening to the whole speech, but here are a couple of clips:

Obama on Trump's shortcomings:

Obama on the media's coverage of Trump:

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Teresa Welsh of McClatchy News: "'Good evening,' said WABC weekend anchor Joe Torres. 'We begin with Hillary Clinton's death.' Torres didn't correct himself, but the broadcast continued on to report Clinton's health troubles at Sunday's 9/11 memorial ceremony in New York.... The station told TVSpy that the mistake was accidental." -- CW

Eric Beech & Mark Hosenball of Reuters: "The head of the Democratic National Committee said on Tuesday the organization had been hacked by Russian state-sponsored agents who were trying to influence the U.S. presidential election, after a similar leak in July roiled the party. A link to the documents was posted on WikiLeaks' Twitter account and attributed to alleged hacker Guccifer 2.0. The release came during a presentation on Tuesday from a person speaking on behalf of Guccifer 2.0 at a London cyber security conference, Politico reported. Reuters could not immediately access the documents. 'There's one person who stands to benefit from these criminal acts, and that's (Republican presidential nominee) Donald Trump,' DNC interim Chair Donna Brazile said in a statement. 'Not only has Trump embraced (Russian President Vladimir)Putin, he publicly encouraged further Russian espionage to help his campaign,' she said." -- CW ...

... Charley Lanyon of New York: "WikiLeaks tweeted out a link to a cache of leaked documents just after the announcement. The documents contain detailed Democratic donor lists, as well as donors' personal information, documents discussing the party's fundraising strategies, and allegedly even the personal cell-phone numbers of high ranking White House staff, including vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine." -- CW

Steve Eder of the New York Times: "Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee called on Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch on Tuesday to investigate Donald J. Trump's $25,000 contribution in support of Florida's attorney general, saying it 'may have influenced' her decision not to pursue a complaint against Trump University.... 'We also note that this allegation '' that Mr. Trump bribed a Florida state official to protect his business interests -- is consistent with Mr. Trump's own statements about using money to influence politics,' Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, wrote to Ms. Lynch in a letter also signed by the 15 other Democrats on the committee." -- CW ...

     ... New Lede (which significantly adds to the story): "New York's attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman [D], announced Tuesday that his office was looking into Donald J. Trump's nonprofit foundation, which is facing intense criticism in light of a political donation it made in support of the Florida attorney general. Mr. Schneiderman said his office was seeking to determine whether the charity had been in compliance with state laws. Mr. Trump's campaign disclosed this month that he had paid a $2,500 penalty to the Internal Revenue Service because the 2013 contribution in Florida was sent from his nonprofit foundation, in violation of tax regulations.... Jason Miller, a senior aide in the Trump campaign, dismissed the inquiry. 'Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is a partisan hack who has turned a blind eye to the Clinton Foundation for years and has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president,' he said.... Mr. Schneiderman ... regulates nonprofit groups.... For Mr. Trump, he is a familiar opponent. Three years ago, Mr. Schneiderman sued Mr. Trump and Trump University..., saying that students had been defrauded.... That case is pending.... Mr. Trump, who contributed $12,500 to Mr. Schneiderman's campaign in 2010, filed an ethics complaint against him after the Trump University suit was filed, calling the fraud case a 'shakedown.' The state ethics panel declined to pursue the case." -- CW ...

... Other People's Money. David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, was asked on CNN this morning to provide evidence to prove Trump's claim that he has given generously to charity. She didn't. In the process, Conway also seemed to be unaware ... [that] the Trump Foundation's money doesn't actually come from Trump's own pocket.... Conway did not offer any evidence of new donations. Instead, when [CNN host Alisyn] Camerota challenged her -- "No, the foundation's money is 'other people giving to the foundation' -- Conway seemed to concede. 'Other people, but he -- okay," she said. 'But he's been incredibly generous.'" -- CW

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump on Wednesday scrapped his previously announced plan to go over results from his most recent physical examination in a taped appearance with the television celebrity Dr. Mehmet Oz, aides to the Republican presidential nominee said." CW: What a surprise. It's worth reading Haberman's whole story.

Nick Corasaniti & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump unveiled a menu of proposals on Tuesday to help working parents, calling for six weeks of mandatory paid maternity leave and expanded tax credits for child care. The proposals, which Mr. Trump outlined in the politically critical Philadelphia suburbs along with his daughter Ivanka, represent a new attempt to court female voters who polls show have been alienated by his bombast and history of provocative remarks about women.... But in selling his case, Mr. Trump stretched the truth, saying that ... Hillary Clinton has no such plan of her own and 'never will.' Mrs. Clinton issued her plan more than a year ago, and it guarantees up to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave for a newborn or a sick relative, financed by an increase in taxes on the wealthiest Americans.... Vivien Labaton, a director of the nonpartisan group Make It Work Action, called Mr. Trump's plan 'woefully inadequate.'... Mr. Trump's embrace of paid leave would apply only to mothers, as opposed to Mrs. Clinton's plan, which would cover both parents. Some economists say that when leave is offered only to women, it can backfire by lowering women's chances of being hired and promoted and getting raises." ...

... CW: Well, the new fake plan is better than the old fake plan, in which he suggested the best way to manage childcare was through corporations: "You know, it's not expensive for a company to do it. You need one person or two people, and you need some blocks, and you need some swings and some toys. (Emphasis added.) It's not an expensive thing, and I do it all over. And I get great people because of it. Because it's a problem with a lot of other companies." As ridiculously inadequate as this "plan" is, it's also a lie. Jill Colvin & Catherine Lucey of the AP (August 2016): "But the two programs Trump cited -- "Trump Kids" and "Trumpeteers" -- are programs catering to patrons of Trump's hotels and golf club. They are not for Trump's employees, according to staff at Trump's hotels and clubs across the country." Speaking of lies, Corasaniti & Haberman write that Trump "stretched the truth" when he said Clinton didn't have a plan. "Stretched the truth"? There's no stretching involved; it's a flat-out lie.

** Kurt Eichenwald of Newsweek: "A close examination by Newsweek of the Trump Organization ... reveals an enterprise with deep ties to global financiers, foreign politicians and even criminals, although there is no evidence the Trump Organization has engaged in any illegal activities. It also reveals a web of contractual entanglements that could not be just canceled. If Trump moves into the White House and his family continues to receive any benefit from the company, during or even after his presidency, almost every foreign policy decision he makes will raise serious conflicts of interest and ethical quagmires. The Trump Organization is not like the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation.... No member of the Clinton family received any cash from the foundation, nor did it finance any political campaigns.... The Trump family rakes in untold millions of dollars from the Trump Organization every year. Much of that comes from deals with international financiers and developers.... None of Trump's overseas contractual business relationships examined by Newsweek were revealed in his campaign's financial filings...." Read on. -- CW ...

... John Harwood of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump has departed from Republican orthodoxy in multiple ways, but his consistently kind words for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia stand as the most striking.... So when Mr. Trump praises Mr. Putin, as he did last week, for his 'very strong control over a country,' Republican political and policy experts explain it in purely personal terms: Mr. Trump admires the Russian leader's ruthless use of power, even if it conflicts with American democratic principles." -- CW

Charley Lanyon: "There were multiple reports of violence between protestors and Trump supporters on Tuesday [CW: actually Monday] night at a Trump rally in Asheville, North Carolina. Outside the rally, a 69-year-old protestor, Shirley Teter, was punched in the face and knocked to the ground, falling over her oxygen tank before being taken to the hospital.... When she told one Trump supporter that he had better learn Russian, he punched her in the face: 'He stopped in his tracks, and he turned around and just cold-cocked me.'... In a video taken at the rally, a man can be seen getting physical with protestors in a balcony while Trump is giving his speech. He slaps a man in the face and a woman in the chest, and lashes out at other protestors before a security guard gets between them. While the guard does not confront the violent man, he does escort the protestors out." ...

     ... CW: Nothing "deplorable" about the Trump supporter who cold-cocked an old lady attached to an oxygen tank; just another "amazing" "hardworking American patriot" to cite Donaldo's assessment of his followers. Also, yesterday I linked to a WashPo story that included info on the Ashville protesters, but it didn't include the detail Lanyon provides.

Jonathan Martin & Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "Gov. Mike Pence came to Capitol Hill on Tuesday on a mission to promote Republican unity, attacking Hillary Clinton for describing many supporters of the G.O.P. ticket as bigoted 'deplorables' and urging Republicans to rally behind their nominee.... But Mr. Pence struggled to press the attack: In separate news conferences, House and Senate Republican leaders declined to join Mr. Pence ... in rebuking Mrs. Clinton over her remark. Mr. Pence wound up raising the subject only when pressed by a reporter -- and then gave a halting answer in which he would not call David Duke, a white supremacist and onetime Ku Klux Klan leader, 'deplorable.'" -- CW ...

... Dana Milbank: "I've always thought [mike pence] an honorable and amiable man, and I accept his friends' assessment that he took the job in hopes of changing Trump. Instead, it seems that Trump has changed him. There was Pence, once a hawkish conservative, joining Trump last week in praise of Vladimir Putin.... There was Pence last month joining Trump in spreading conspiracy theories, declaring on talk radio that 'we've got to get to the bottom' of whether an Iranian scientist was killed because of 'the revelations in Hillary Clinton's email.'... There was Pence in July, retreating from his support of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal ... and saying Mexico will 'absolutely' pay for [Trump's border wall]. That same month, Pence, who once called Trump's proposed ban on Muslims entering the country 'offensive and unconstitutional,' declared himself 'very supportive' of suspending immigration from countries with terrorist influences." -- CW

He's Ba-a-a-ack! Ben Schreckinger & Ken Vogel of Politico: Ousted Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski is back in the Trump inner circle, thanks to the goon-friendly new management. -- CW ...

And, Yeah, Lewandowski Is Still a Paid CNN Contributor. Nick Gass of Politico: "Corey Lewandowski on Wednesday slammed a Newsweek article [linked above] detailing how the Trump Organization's ties to foreign entities could harm the United States' national security if he is president. Lewandowski, who still regularly speaks with Trump and has returned to the Republican nominee's inner orbit in recent weeks, laced into the article and its author, Kurt Eichenwald, during a panel on CNN's 'New Day,' referring to Eichenwald as previously reporting that 'George W. Bush was directly related to 9/11.' (Eichenwald, in fact, reported that Bush had been warned about an Al Qaeda determination to strike the U.S., not that he was 'directly involved.')... CNN anchor Alisyn Camerota ask[ed] Lewandowski ... whether Trump and his family would step away from the company if he becomes president 'because of those entanglements.' 'Absolutely not,' Lewandowski replied." -- CW

Beyond the Beltway

Susan Svrluga of the Washington Post: "The Kappa Alpha ... fraternity at the University of Richmond has been suspended after an email with what university officials termed 'grossly offensive language' was sent to about 100 students on campus.... The email reminds recipients of the theme for the night -- 'ameriKA' -- suggests dressing in red, white and blue '(or be naked for all I care.... This is gonna be one for the books,' the Collegian [-- the campus newspaper] quotes the email as saying. '... we're looking forward to watching that lodge virginity be gobbled up for all ya'll. See you boys tonight. If you haven't started drinking already, catch up. Tonight's the type of night that makes fathers afraid to send their daughters away to school. Let's get it.'" -- CW

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Tuesday
Sep132016

IOKIYAR

By Akhilleus:

We laugh, ruefully, it's true, at the acronym IOKIYAR, because it's almost always lamentably accurate. Things that could destroy a Democrat are often blithely ignored as long as Republicans do them.

One of the most egregious, given the never-ending, sweaty pursuit of Hillary Clinton's emails, a case that has been fine-tooth combed until reduction to component molecules has been achieved, without finding anything but bad judgement, is the strange "loss" of 22 million--that's right, twenty.two.million emails by the Bush 43 administration. Well, you might say, these were probably emails covering things like interstate commerce policy and attendance of a statue unveiling, or what's on the menu for a state dinner to honor the Grand Poobah of Kirabati, or what to eat when watching the Super Bowl so as not to choke and pass out, or perhaps a simple reminder of the importance of subject-verb agreement.

Nope.

The "lost" emails happened to have been sent right around the time The Decider and his chief leg breaker, Darth Cheney, were lying about WMD so they could invade a country that had zippo to do with 9/11. That, and the emails from four years later when Bush and his AG were staging a nation-wide putsch against Democratic attorneys general who dared to stand up to their made up bullshit about election fraud.

A lengthy article in Newsweek finds that...

"Clinton’s email habits look positively transparent when compared with the subpoena-dodging, email-hiding, private-server-using George W. Bush administration. Between 2003 and 2009, the Bush White House 'lost' 22 million emails. This correspondence included millions of emails written during the darkest period in America’s recent history, when the Bush administration was ginning up support for what turned out to be a disastrous war in Iraq with false claims that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and, later, when it was firing U.S. attorneys for political reasons.

Like Clinton, the Bush White House used a private email server—its was owned by the Republican National Committee. And the Bush administration failed to store its emails, as required by law, and then refused to comply with a congressional subpoena seeking some of those emails. 'It’s about as amazing a double standard as you can get,' says Eric Boehlert, who works with the pro-Clinton group Media Matters. 'If you look at the Bush emails, he was a sitting president, and 95 percent of his chief advisers’ emails were on a private email system set up by the RNC. Imagine if for the last year and a half we had been talking about Hillary Clinton’s emails set up on a private DNC server?'"

Think Jason Chaffetz (described by one wag as sitting on "...the top of the GOP shitpile in Congress despite the fact that he is dumber than a sack of Louis Gohmerts." Ouch!) will be sending out subpoenas to get to the bottom of this? So a private email server, owned and operated by the RNC was okay for George Bush, a president during a time of "war", but for a Secretary of State, it's permission for Confederates to suggest that she be imprisoned for life and/or murdered?

At the time, if you recall, anyone who dared to look crosseyed at the crosseyed Decider (which, if he ever made eye contact, might have fixed that problem, although he'd still be an asshole...) was charged, by Confederates, with treason.

So, to review, if you're a Democrat and wish to investigate serious criminality on the part of a Republican president, you're a traitor. If you're a Republican and you want to make shit up about a Democratic president and presidential candidate, you're a patriot. Well sure, that seems fair.

With a Democrat in the White House and likely another one on the way, all manner of scurrilous, untrue, and invented charges are allowed to stand and given the power of media sanctioning.

Sometimes IOKIYAR is an embarrassing head-shaker. Other times, it's criminal.

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Monday
Sep122016

The Commentariat -- Sept. 13, 2016

Presidential Race

 

If you get in trouble out there, just call him an animal fucker. -- Roger Ailes, to George H.W. Bush, just before a 1988 presidential debate between Bush & Michael Dukakis ...

... Jill Lepore has a long piece in the New Yorker on the history of presidential (and other) debates. CW: I would say I didn't know 93.5 percent of the content of the article.

Madam Secrecy. Amy Chozick & Patrick Healy of the New York Times: "Shortly after receiving a diagnosis of pneumonia on Friday, Hillary Clinton decided to limit the information to her family members and close aides, certain that the illness was not a crucial issue for voters and that it might be twisted and exploited by her opponents, several advisers and allies said on Monday.... But Mrs. Clinton's penchant for privacy backfired. On Monday, her campaign scrambled to reassure voters about her health, a day after she grew visibly weak and was filmed being helped into a van: unsettling images that circulated widely and led her aides to disclose the pneumonia diagnosis two days after the fact. In a phone interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper on Monday night, Mrs. Clinton said she had kept her diagnosis a secret because 'I just didn't think it was going to be that big a deal,' and tried to shift the discussion to ... Donald J. Trump.... 'It's really past time for him to be held to the same standards,' she said. Mrs. Clinton's aides acknowledged that they should have been more forthcoming and said she would release more details about her physical fitness and medical history this week, a concession to the political pressure that she is under because she chose not to reveal her diagnosis sooner." -- CW ...

Antibiotics can take care of pneumonia. What's the cure for an unhealthy penchant for privacy that repeatedly creates unnecessary problems? -- David Axelrod, former strategist for President Obama, in a tweet

There's a reason that we have had a long tradition in this country of individual candidates disclosing information about their health to the American public before the election. -- Josh Earnest, President Obama's press secretary, at a briefing Monday

... Philip Rucker & Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "Clinton's decision [to keep her illness secret] set in motion perhaps the most damaging cascade of events for her in the general-election campaign -- giving fresh ammunition to Republican nominee Donald Trump, who lags in the polls, and spoiling a two-week offensive she had plotted before the first debate.... Had Clinton heeded her doctor's advice, she would not have gone to a glitzy fundraiser Friday night where she let her guard down and inartfully talked about Trump's supporters, nor would she have been spotted collapsing Sunday morning as she was rushed out of a 9/11 memorial ceremony.... Bill Clinton plans to appear in his wife's stead at two star-studded fundraisers Tuesday in Beverly Hills. He also will fill in for her at a campaign event in Nevada on Wednesday, aides said." -- CW ...

... Glenn Thrush & Brianna Ehley of Politico: "Hillary Clinton never lost consciousness, and never stopped talking on her phone -- and never put anyone else in danger -- after her near swoon at a Sept. 11 memorial on Sunday in New York, according to accounts offered by several people close to the candidate. The near-fainting spell, according to Clinton's staff, is a greater political problem than a physical one -- and the centerpiece of its Monday pushback strategy was a vow to release a far more detailed medical history of the 68-year-old candidate that proves she suffers from no previously undisclosed conditions.... On Sunday, Clinton began showing signs of light-headedness standing at the Sept. 11 memorial service next to New York Sens. Charles Schumer -- who on Monday disclosed that he too just got over a bout of pneumonia -- and Kirsten Gillibrand, the sources said, and they flagged aides to get her water. After a few minutes, the candidate and her staff determined that she needed to get out of the heat...." -- CW ...

... Oh, Good Grief! Kyle Cheney of Politico: "A former Democratic National Committee chairman says President Barack Obama and the party's congressional leaders should immediately come up with a process to identify a potential successor candidate for Hillary Clinton for the off-chance a health emergency forces her out of the race.... Don Fowler, who helmed the DNC from 1995 to 1997, during Bill Clinton's presidency, and has backed Hillary Clinton since her 2008 presidential bid, [said Monday], 'I think the plan should be developed by 6 o'clock this afternoon.'... 'She better get well before she gets back out there because if she gets back out there too soon, it might happen again,' he said." CW: Don Fowler is 81 years old, which might or might not help explain why he says such damned stupid things. ...

... Is That Ted Strickland's Excuse, Too? Darrel Rowland of the Columbus Dispatch: "... former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland [D], [a candidate for the U.S. Senate]..., said [Tim] Kaine is 'a wonderfully prepared person to be vice president, and to be the president if that ever became necessary.' The comment went viral after it was tweeted by The Dispatch...." CW: Strickland is 75. ...

... Adam Edelman of the New York Daily News: "Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) [who stood near Clinton at the 9/11 ceremony], revealed Monday that he, like Hillary Clinton, had also been diagnosed with pneumonia recently.... Schumer ... said he had been diagnosed with the illness several weeks ago.... Schumer spokesman Matt House told the Associated Press that the New York senator had also been diagnosed with pneumonia and took antibiotics and kept a lighter schedule while recovering." -- CW

... Yay! A Conspiracy Theory for Libruls. Cindy Boren of the Washington Post: "Bennet Omalu, the forensic pathologist who has made the NFL so uncomfortable with his discovery of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in the brains of deceased players, suggests that Hillary Clinton's campaign be checked for possible poisons after her collapse Sunday in New York.... 'I must advice the Clinton campaign to perform toxicologic analysis of Ms. Clinton's blood. It is possible she is being poisoned,' [Omalu tweeted, and later,] 'I do not trust Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump. With those two all things are possible.'" ...

... Crazy? Remember that Omalu, as Boren reports, "became known for the tenacity with which he pursued the deaths of several former Pittsburgh Steelers during his time in the city's medical examiner's office. Eventually, he convinced skeptics that players were suffering brain damage as the result of taking a number of blows to the head." CW: Boren doesn't report it, but it seems a number of Clinton's top staff also became ill at about the same time Clinton began showing symptoms. ...

     ... People: At least half a dozen senior staff were felled [by illnesses with similar symptoms,] including campaign manager Robby Mook. Two top advisers even needed emergency medical treatment, the source says. One top adviser diagnosed at a Brooklyn urgent-care center with a respiratory infection was being treated with antibiotics in the days before Clinton's diagnosis. Another top adviser was taken by ambulance to the ER after collapsing from what turned out to be severe dehydration, the source said." CW: So maybe not a totally nutty theory, though I'd guess it's more likely that a bug caused the illnesses rather than "Putin poisons Clinton."

** Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Ta-Nehisi Coates of the Atlantic: "The media's criticism of Clinton's claim [about Trump's bigoted supporters] has been matched in vehemence only by their allergy to exploring it.... What they have yet to come to grips with is that Donald Trump is a democratic phenomenon, and that there are actual people -- not trolls under a bridge -- whom he, and his prejudices against Latinos, Muslims, and blacks, represent.... For much of this campaign journalists have attacked Hillary Clinton for being evasive and avoiding hard questioning from their ranks. And then the second Clinton is forthright and says something revealing, she is attacked -- not for the substance of what she's said -- but simply for having said it.... The shame reflects an ugly and lethal trend in this country's history -- an ever-present impulse to ignore and minimize racism, an aversion to calling it by its name." CW: Read the whole post.


By Driftglass.Alexander Burns & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Denouncing the allegation that his supporters were bigoted, Mr. Trump argued in a speech in Baltimore that Mrs. Clinton had shown 'contempt' for voters by deriding many of his supporters as racist and sexist, calling them a 'basket of deplorables' at a fund-raiser on Friday. At a rally on Monday night in North Carolina, Mr. Trump said Mrs. Clinton was running a 'hate-filled and negative campaign.'... He used a speech to the National Guard Association of the United States to defend his supporters at length.... 'If Hillary Clinton will not retract her comments in full, I don't see how she can credibly campaign any further,' Mr. Trump said, demanding an apology. He claimed that his campaign was doing 'amazingly well with African-American and Hispanic workers.'" -- CW ...

... Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Trump spoke at an arena [in Asheville, N.C.,] where the atmosphere grew tense as protesters repeatedly interrupted his speech. Some of them made obscene gestures as they were removed from the premises. At one point, a man took a fighting stance and then pushed and grabbed male protesters and swatted at a female protester. The protesters appeared to be in an antagonistic verbal exchange with the man." -- CW ...

... Trump "Deplores" 50 Percent of Americans. David Corn of Mother Jones: "Despite Trump's purported outrage over the Clinton remark, the mogul has engaged in his own demonization of Americans that has echoed the '47 percent' comment that landed Mitt Romney in trouble during the 2012 campaign. More than once, [Trump] ... has dismissed tens of millions of Americans -- up to half of all Americans -- as shiftless people with no desire to work. During a June 2015 interview on Fox News with Sean Hannity, Trump declared: 'The problem we have right now -- we have a society that sits back and says we don't have to do anything. Eventually, the 50 percent cannot carry -- and it's unfair to them -- but cannot carry the other 50 percent.'" Corn cites numerous other similar Trump remarks. "Americans with no spirit, no desire to work, lazing about and feeling entitled -- Trump has long been deploring scores of millions of Americans. But for him and his backers, this is not a disqualification. Dismissing these Americans is no slip; it's a key feature of his campaign." ...

... CW: We should do the math. Trump deplores half of all Americans. Clinton deplores half of all Trump supporters. So, at the very least, Trump deplores twice as many Americans as Clinton does. Also, too, her remark was factual, while Trump's view that the "good people" half are carrying the "loser" half is bull. Of course in Right Wing World facts = what you want to believe or what you "feel." And self-proclaimed multi-billionaire Trump, BTW, isn't "carrying" anybody for all those years we can fairly assume he didn't pay income taxes (though of course even Trump can't evade all taxes -- like the sales taxes that he and all the "losers" pay).

... Henry Gomez of Cleveland.com: "I don't think it's a coincidence that, recently, readers have told me I should be 'on the other side of the wall' and that my background should 'disqualify' me from covering this election. These came ... from people using their real names.... Sadly, simply being a Gomez is enough to make you a target.... I have wondered how I can objectively point out that Trump encourages hate.... Perhaps I could show them messages like these ... 'Since we're stereotyping maybe we should start asking to see your green card. You a spic or a beaner?'" Gomez cites several other examples. Gomez is a third-generation American on both sides of his family. But still a "spic" or a "beaner." ...

... German Lopez of Vox: "It's impossible to say what's in people's hearts and minds, but we do have a lot of evidence from a number of nonpartisan polling firms.... The findings suggest a great majority of Trump supporters hold unfavorable views of Muslims and support a policy that bans Muslims from entering the US. Most of them support proposals that stifle immigration from Mexico, and they agree with Trump's comments that Mexican immigrants are criminals. And many -- but not a majority -- say that black people are less intelligent and more violent than their white peers." -- CW

... Dana Milbank: "Hillary Clinton may have been unwise to say half of Donald Trump's supporters are racists and other 'deplorables.' But she wasn't wrong. If anything, when it comes to Trump's racist support, she might have low-balled the number.... Research ... [has] found that Trump does best among Americans who express racial animus. Evidence indicates fear that white people are losing ground was the single greatest predictor of support for Trump.... Trump, on stage, rejected any notion of racism.... But moments later, he repeated the campaign slogan he borrowed from an anti-Semitic organization that opposed involvement in World War II. 'America First – remember that,' he said. 'America First. That's deplorable." -- CW ...

... Jonathan Chait: "The national media has spent a year and a quarter documenting in exquisite, redundant detail the rabid, anti-intellectual nationalistic bigotry of Trump's hard-core fanbase. But it has taken Hillary Clinton's affirmation to transform this by-now-banal observation into a scandal.... Clinton committed a gaffe because she acknowledged a reality that literally every other person in America, including Donald Trump himself, is permitted to speak aloud." CW: Read the whole post. ...

... Charles Pierce on the new, "reasonable" Donald Trump: "I think his ties to the lunatic right are so solid at this point that he doesn't have to worry about ginning them up any more than he already has. Doesn't mean he won't do it, but, if the elite political press continues to be his proxy in defending the kind of movement he's built, he shouldn't have to."

Calvin Trillin in a New Yorker "Shouts & Murmers" piece: Donald Trump "wears a floppy suit jacket and a baseball hat. What's he hiding? And have you noticed that his neckties -- wide neckties, really huge neckties, huge -- come clear down to his belt buckle? How does that happen with a man who is six feet three? That's all I'm asking. Is he malformed? Does he have a short upper body to go with the short fingers? Does he buy extra-long ties? Or are the neckties specially designed to hide the outlines of some stays around his midsection? I don't know, but that's what some people say." And so forth. Funny. -- CW ...

... Brian Beutler: "Hillary Clinton's gaffe was so bad it made Mike Pence refuse to call David Duke 'deplorable.'" When Wolf Blizter asked pence if he would call [former KKK grand wiz] David Duke deplorable, pence said, "No, I'm not in the name-calling business." "Republicans and no small number of pundits believe Hillary Clinton's dismissal of Donald Trump's 'basket of deplorables' is comparable to Mitt Romney's dismissal of people who pay no income taxes. There are many problems with this assumption, but the biggest is that the poor and working-class people Romney disparaged elicited sympathy, whereas the deplorables really are just that." ...

... CW: So I guess calling Hillary Clinton "the most dishonest candidate for President of the United States since Richard Nixon," as mike did last week, is not "name-calling." Aren't "deplorable" and "dishonest" both pejoratives? Or does mike think "most dishonest" is a compliment? ...

... Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "Louisiana Senate candidate and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke says he's pleased that vice presidential nominee Mike Pence declined to call him 'deplorable' in an interview on Monday. 'It's good to see an individual like Pence and others start to reject this absolute controlled media,' Duke told BuzzFeed News. 'The truth is that the Republican Party in Louisiana -- I received the vast majority of Republican votes for United States senator before and for governor before that in my state. The truth is the Republican Party is big tent. I served in the Republican caucus. I was in the Republican caucus in the legislature. I had a perfect Republican voting record. It's ridiculous that they attack me because of my involvement in that nonviolent Klan four decades ago.'" -- CW: So hugs all around. Sweet. If you're wondering about the cause of pence's reticence, look no further than Duke's statement: pence doesn't want to cost Trump and himself any of the overt racist vote.

David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "... in at least five cases, the Trump Foundation may have reported making a donation that didn't seem to exist.... Five times, the Trump Foundation's tax filings described giving a specific amount of money to a specific charity -- in some cases, even including the recipient's address. But when The Post called, the charities listed said the tax filings appeared wrong. They'd never received anything from Trump or his foundation. [In one case,] the incorrect gift had been listed on the Trump Foundation's tax filings in a way that served to hide a real gift -- the improper donation to [Florida AG Pam] Bondi's group -- from the IRS." -- CW ...

... David Fahrenthold: "A spokeswoman for Donald Trump's presidential campaign, seeking to rebut criticism of the GOP nominee's history of charitable giving, said that Trump has given away 'tens of millions of dollars' over his life. But spokeswoman Hope Hicks offered no details about that number, beyond saying that it included donations from the Donald J. Trump Foundation -- a charity that, despite its name, has been filled almost entirely with other people's money in recent years. Hicks also provided no information about how much -- if any -- of the donations she was describing had come from Trump's own pocket." mike pence also claimed Monday that Trump had given away tens of millions. "But Pence, also, did not provide details to back up that estimate."-- CW

The Kremlin Konnection. Gene Robinson: "Why does Donald Trump say such nice things about Vladimir Putin and Russia? What is Trump hiding in the tax returns he refuses to release? And are those two questions related?... 'Reasons to wonder' normally do not qualify as legitimate fodder for journalism, but these are not normal circumstances. Trump has broken with four decades of precedent and adamantly refused to let voters see his tax returns. His excuse -- that he is under audit -- is bogus.... Trump's chest-thumping 'America First' attitude toward the rest of the world seems to make an exception for Russia, and we need to know why." CW: Worth reading the whole post. Robinson lays out some of the clues that might explain Trump's affinity for Putin.

Hannah Levintova of Mother Jones: "LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman just made Donald Trump an offer that should entice the GOP nominee who claims to have donated millions to veterans: If Trump releases his tax returns by October 19, the date of the last presidential debate, Hoffman will donate up to $5 million to veteran groups. The original idea came from a crowd-funding campaign started by Peter Kiernan, a veteran of the Marines who was once deployed to Afghanistan. Kiernan said he would donate to 10 veteran's groups should Trump release his taxes and began raising money to do so on Crowdpac.com. In a Medium post published on Monday afternoon, LinkedIn co-founder Hoffman expressed his support for Kiernan's campaign, and upped the ante by promising to quintuple the final total raised by Kiernan, up to $5 million." CW: Sorry, gentlemen, but your plan would have a much better chance of working if you had promised to make out the checks to Donald Trump, Most Awesome Human Being Ever. Donating to a bunch of "loser" veterans? Meh.

Other News & Views

Julie Davis of the New York Times: "The White House said on Monday that President Obama would veto legislation approved by Congress that would allow the families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to sue Saudi Arabia for any role in the plot, escalating a bipartisan dispute with lawmaker over the measure.... Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said Mr. Obama ... and would work to persuade lawmakers in both parties to change course. If he cannot, the measure could lead to the first veto override of his presidency, as the legislation drew the backing of lopsided majorities in both the House and Senate.... 'The concept of sovereign immunity is one that protects the United States as much as any other country in the world,' Mr. Earnest said." -- CW

Misogynists, Inc. Emmarie Huetteman of the New York Times: "Republican leaders looking to avoid a government shutdown one month before Election Day will have to jump a familiar hurdle: demands from some of their members to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood. When Democrats balked once more last week at approving legislation to combat the Zika virus because the measure included limits on Planned Parenthood, some Republicans indicated a willingness to re-evaluate their position." -- CW

Too Bad for Bigots. Liam Stack of the New York Times: "The National Collegiate Athletic Association said on Monday that it would relocate all seven previously awarded championship events from North Carolina during the 2016-17 academic year because of concerns over laws passed by the state that it said violated the civil rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The N.C.A.A. said the decision by its board of governors was based on 'the cumulative actions taken by the state concerning civil rights protections' that conflicted with the organization's commitment to 'fairness and inclusion.'" -- CW

Jana Kasperkevic of the Guardian: "Wells Fargo will eliminate sales goals for all of its retail banking products by January, the bank announced on Tuesday. The decision comes less than a week after the largest US bank reached a deal with regulators and agreed to pay $185m in penalties for its illegal sales practices." -- CW

Emily Yahr of the Washington Post: "... Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte's 'Dancing With the Stars' debut was interrupted Monday night when protesters stormed the stage and were escorted out by security. It's unclear exactly what happened because the ABC cameras did not show the incident.... E! reports that there was a row of people wearing 'anti-Lochte' shirts who stood up during the incident, and were also removed from the building." -- CW

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