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


Sunday
Aug212016

The Commentariat -- August 22, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Erik Eckholm & Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "A federal judge on Sunday blocked the Obama administration from enforcing new guidelines that were intended to expand restroom access for transgender students across the country. Judge Reed O'Connor of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Texas said in a 38-page ruling, which he said should apply nationwide, that the government had not complied with federal law when it issued 'directives which contradict the existing legislative and regulatory text.'" O'Connor is a Bush II appointee. -- CW

October Surprise? Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "The FBI's year-long investigation of Hillary Clinton's private email server uncovered 14,900 emails and documents from her time as secretary of state that had not been disclosed by her attorneys, and a federal judge on Monday pressed the State Department to begin releasing emails sooner than mid-October as it planned. Justice Department lawyers said last week that the State Department would review and turn over Clinton's work-related emails to a conservative legal group.... On Aug. 5, the FBI completed transferring what Comey said were several thousand previously undisclosed work-related Clinton emails that the FBI found in its investigation for the State Department to review and make public.... It is unclear how many documents might be attachments, duplicates or exempt from release for privacy or legal reasons." -- CW

People need to understand just how radical a departure this is from the mean of American politics. Among the values most necessary for a functioning democracy is the peaceful transition of power that's gone on uninterrupted since 1797. What enables that is the acceptance of the election's outcome by the losers. Here you have a candidate after a terrible three weeks, which has all been self-inflicted, saying the only way we lose is if it's 'rigged' or stolen -- in a media culture where people increasingly don't buy into generally accepted facts and turn to places to have their opinions validated where there's no wall between extreme and mainstream positions. That's an assault on some of the pillars that undergird our system. -- Steve Schmidt, John McCain's 2008 presidential strategist, to Politico, August 22, 2016

We need to know the full extent of Senator Obama's relationship with ACORN, who is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy. -- John McCain, during a debate with Barack Obama, 2008

Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump, tempering the tone of his hard-line approach to tackling immigration reform, said on Monday that he wants to come up with a plan that is 'really fair' to address the millions of undocumented immigrants now in the country" -- CW ...

... CW: I gather from this Politico piece by Nick Gass that the immigrants Trump wants to be "fair" to are those who come to the country legally: "We have a lot of people that want to come in through the legal process and it's not fair for them." Trump told Fox "News" he isn't flip-flopping. It sounds as if that's true.

Social Security to Pay Homeless Woman $100K+. Petula Dvorak of the Washington Post: Eighty-year-old Wanda Witter, a homeless woman who lived for years on the streets of D.C., claimed Social Security owed her a bundle. During that time, Witter tried to get them to pay out what she though they owed her, but Social Security & others viewed her as crazy. Finally, social worker Julie Turner, who works for the Downtown Cluster of Congregations, went over the paperwork Witter had been dragging around, thought it looked credible, & got her a lawyer, Daniela de la Piedra, who specializes in Social Security disputes. de la Piedra & Social Security agreed Witter was owed more than $100,000. Social Security will be sending her a check for $99,999 in the next few days (the largest the agency can cut on short notice), & she will be getting monthly benefits of $1,464. Turner also found Witter an apartment. -- CW

*****

Presidential Race

Ben Schreckinger of Politico: "Trump's poll numbers remain dire, but he can point to at least one ray of hope for a turnaround: Republicans have continued gaining ground in recent months in voter registration in Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Iowa, while the late surge in Democratic registrations relative to Republican registrations that occurred in battleground states the final months of the 2012 election had not materialized in numbers released in early August." -- CW

Cyra Master of the Hill: "Colin Powell says Hillary Clinton's campaign has been trying to use him to help justify her use of a private email server while she was secretary of State.... [Clinton] reportedly told FBI investigators that Powell ... recommended she use a private email account.... On Sunday, Powell told the New York Post's Page Six..., 'The truth is she was using it for a year before I sent her a memo telling er what I did [during my term as Secretary of State],' he said. 'Her people have been trying to pin it on me.' But, the Post reported that 'despite appearing angered by the situation,' Powell added, 'It doesn't bother me. It's OK, I'm free.'" -- CW ...

... Margaret Hartmann: "Clinton has never publicly tried to 'pin' Emailgate on Powell.... It's actually strange that while cycling through a number of bad explanations for her private email server, Clinton never told the press that Powell suggested it. If she were more adept at scandal management, she would have blamed it on him a long time ago." -- CW

Daniel Politi of Slate: "In what looked to be at least partly a way to dodge questions about the Clinton Foundation, Hillary Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook essentially accused Donald Trump of being a Kremlin puppet." -- CW ...

... Rebecca Savransky of the Hill: "Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, Robby Mook, said they still haven't found a person to play Donald Trump in mock presidential debates. 'It's very hard to find someone to mimic the reckless temperament and the hateful instincts and divisive instincts of Donald Trump,' Mook said Sunday on CNN's 'State of the Union.'" CW: Any suggestions?

** Greg Sargent collects evidence that Trump's "plan all along ... [was] to establish a media empire with him at the helm -- one that caters, at least to some degree, to a white nationalist or 'alt-right' audience.... It's hard to predict what sort of longer term civic impact that might have, but it's hard to imagine it would be a good one." -- CW

Maggie Haberman & Matt Flegenheimer of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump has seized on a new argument...: that Democrats are preparing to exploit weak voter identification laws to win a 'stolen election' through fraudulent voting.... Mr. Trump's language has moved beyond his party's call for rigid identification requirements and the unfounded claims that polls are 'skewed'.... And his warnings have been cast in increasingly urgent and racially suggestive language, hinting that the only legitimate outcome in certain states would be his victory.... Last week, Mr. Trump hired as his campaign chief Stephen K. Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart, a conservative news website that has frequently given voice to ... perceived voter fraud and 'propaganda polls' showing Mrs. Clinton ahead. And on Friday, Mr. Trump released his first campaign ad ..., featuring an image of a polling site with the word 'rigged' flashing onscreen less than two seconds after the spot begins." -- CW

Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump's campaign wavered Sunday on whether he would continue to call for the mass deportation of 11 million illegal immigrants from the United States, the latest in a series of sometimes clumsy attempts to win over moderate GOP voters without alienating millions who have flocked to his hard-line views. After insisting for more than a year that all illegal immigrants 'have to go,' Trump met with a newly created panel of Hispanic advisers on Saturday and asked for other ideas -- making clear that his position is not finalized, according to two attendees. Any shift would represent a remarkable retreat on one of the Republican nominee's signature issues." -- CW ...

... TBD. Jenna Johnson & Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "On Sunday morning, [Donald Trump's] newly installed campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, was asked during an interview on CNN's 'State of the Union' whether Trump still wants 'a deportation force removing the 11 million or so undocumented immigrants.' 'To be determined,' said Conway, who in the past has supported creating a pathway to citizenship for the millions of immigrants illegally living in the United States." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Jenna Johnson: "Donald Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, said Sunday morning that she does not want the Republican presidential nominee to release his tax returns until an audit by the Internal Revenue Service is completed, abandoning a position that she took five months ago, when she didn't work for the campaign and urged Trump to "be transparent" and release the filings.... Trump is the first major presidential nominee from either party since 1976 to not release tax returns." -- CW (Also linked yesterday.)

The Scampaign, Ctd. Nicholas Confessore & Rachel Storey of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump is leaning heavily on Republican Party organizations to provide crucial campaign functions like getting out the vote, digital outreach and fund-raising, at a time when some leading Republicans have called for party officials to cut off Mr. Trump and focus instead on maintaining control of Congress.... In July, when Mrs. Clinton spent almost $3 million to field a staff of 700 people at her Brooklyn headquarters and in swing states around the country..., Mr. Trump spent more money on renting arenas for his speeches than he did on payroll." CW: This is what a vanity campaign looks like, except few vanity candidates try to undermine the republic. ...

... Isaac Arnsdorf of Politico: "The Donald Trump campaign's boasts of a formidable fundraising month in July spooked Democrats.... But a closer inspection of the campaign finance report filed just before Saturday's midnight deadline indicates the haul came at a steep price.... Though the campaign touted an $80 million figure for its July fundraising, just $36.7 million of that total went directly to the campaign. The rest came in through joint fundraising vehicles with the Republican National Committee and state parties. At least $9.5 million of that money is off limits for spending on the election because it's designated for the RNC's convention, headquarters and legal accounts. Plus, the RNC is considering spending its money down-ballot instead of supporting Trump as tensions boil over between the party's apparatus and its defiant nominee. The money the Trump campaign raised also didn't come cheap. The campaign more than doubled its spending from the previous month to $18.5 million in July.... Most of that money went toward expanding the campaign's online fundraising operation." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... CW: Those of you who thought the Trump campaign was lying about its big haul were on the right track; not a lie, but deceptive.

Ashley Killough & Karl de Vries of CNN: "Donald Trump acknowledged Saturday that the Republican Party 'must do better' in appealing to African-Americans. But in the same speech [in Fredericksburg, Va.], he again slammed an order by the state's Democratic governor, Terry McAuliffe, to restore voting rights to some convicted felons who have completed their sentences, a move McAuliffe says could help African-Americans who were disproportionally affected by laws that put lifetime bans on felons." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

Maybe he [Trump] can sharpen his appeal by imploring African American voters to 'get off the Democrat plantation.'-- Mike in DC, Balloon Juice commenter ...

... E.J. Dionne: Particularly because of his rudeness & crudeness Donald Trump is turning Virginia blue. North Carolina and even Georgia might follow. -- CW

Paul Krugman: Donald Trump hands out Play-Doh while the world burns. Republicans' vehement "hostility to climate science seems disproportionate [to the campaign contributions they get from the fossil fuel industry]; bear in mind that, for example, at this point there are fewer than 60,000 coal miners, that is, less than 0.05 percent of the work force. What's happening, I suspect, is that climate denial has become a sort of badge of right-wing identity, above and beyond the still-operative motive of rewarding donors." -- CW ...

... ** Hairspray. Lawrence Krauss, in the New Yorker, details how Donald Trump & mike pence are the anti-science candidates.

Rebecca Morin of Politico: "Continuing with the narrative that Hillary Clinton is unfit to be president, Rudy Giuliani, an adviser with Donald Trump's campaign, claimed Sunday there are videos online that show Clinton has an illness.... The media 'fails to point out several signs of illness by her; all you gotta do is go online,' Giuliani said.... Clinton's campaign has since called those claims 'deranged conspiracy theories' and has recirculated a 2015 letter from internist Lisa Bardack that said Clinton was in good health." CW: Notice how Giuliani's claims play into the "rigged election" theme; the media are co-conspirators in a cover-up that anyone can discover "online"; i.e., on some "deranged conspiracy" Websites.

Caitlin Yilek of the Hill: "Tea Party firebrand Michele Bachmann says she is advising ... Donald Trump on foreign policy." Something, something, radical Islam. CW: This is very reassuring. She can't tell New Hampshire from Massachusetts even when she's in New Hampshire, so let's just assume her expertise lies beyond our borders.

I never claimed to be a journalist. -- Sean Hannity

... Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: Sean "Hannity uses his show on the nation's most-watched cable news network to blare Mr. Trump's message relentlessly -- giving Mr. Trump the kind of promotional television exposure even a billionaire can't afford for long. But Mr. Hannity is not only Mr. Trump's biggest media booster; he also veers into the role of adviser.... Mr. Hannity's show has all the trappings of traditional television news -- the anchor desk, the graphics and the patina of authority that comes with being part of a news organization...." -- CW

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Matea Gold & Anu Narayanswamy of the Washington Post: "... ousted [Trump] campaign manager Corey Lewandowski received his regular $20,000 monthly fee on July 6 -- two weeks after he was jettisoned and had been hired by CNN as a political commentator. Trump has continued to call on Lewandowski for advice since his departure...." CW: Nice work, CNN. Fair & balanced & all.

Senate Race

Classy. Sabrina Siddiqui of the Guardian: "Republican senator Mark Kirk said on Sunday that Barack Obama was 'acting like the drug dealer-in-chief' when his administration used the delivery of a $400m payment to Iran as what it called 'leverage'. Kirk made the statement during an interview with the editorial board of the State Journal-Register, a local newspaper in his home state of Illinois." CW: Yeah, and his street name is 2 Terms, which is something you ain't gonna get, Marky. Knocking a popular president -- and in a way many white people will assume is racist -- in his home state is not a winning strategy.

Other News & Views

** The Meme Must Fit the Crime. Brian Beutler: "As a genre of political spin and analysis, 'Obama's Katrina' has been with us since the beginning of the president's administration. Anytime something tragic and abrupt happens in the country is an occasion for Republicans and media figures to compare it to President George W. Bush's famously terrible response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. By the Washington Post's count, there have been 23 Obama's Katrinas since 2009, and that only brings us through to July 2014.... There's a reason the Obama's Katrina genre endures in futility: The unwholesome mixture of a press corps obsessed with optics and a conservative establishment reeling from its own failures." -- CW

Fernanda Santos of the New York Times: "Every week in immigration courts around the country, thousands of children act as their own lawyers, pleading for asylum or other type of relief in a legal system they do not understand.... Children accused of violating immigration laws, a civil offense, do not have the ... right [to an attorney].... A class-action lawsuit, filed by the A.C.L.U. and other civil rights organizations, is trying to change that.... Yet the government has also spent millions of dollars paying for lawyers to represent unaccompanied children in immigration courts...." Some private legal groups also represent some of the children for free. -- CW (See also Ken W.'s comment on the ACLU in yesterday's thread.)

Beyond the Beltway

Laura Vozzella of the Washington Post: "Gov. Terry McAuliffe will announce Monday that he has restored voting rights to 13,000 felons on a case-by-case basis after Republicans and state Supreme Court justices last month stopped his more sweeping clemency effort.... McAuliffe's planned action ... comes about a month after the Supreme Court of Virginia invalidated an executive order the Democratic governor issued in April. With that order, McAuliffe restored voting rights to more than 200,000 felons who had completed their sentences.... McAuliffe also will lay out his plans for restoring rights to the remainder of the 200,000." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Phillip Ericksen of the Waco Tribune-Herald (Aug. 19): "Ken Starr has decided to leave his last remaining post at Baylor University, saying university officials wanted him out.... He remained at Baylor as a law professor after being fired as president May 26 and resigning as chancellor days later. His firing came after an independent investigation found 'a lack of institutional support and engagement by senior leadership' [CW: in relation to mishandling sexual assault allegations, especially against the school's football team] to implement Title IX, according to Baylor's board of regents." CW: I plumb forgot to link this last week; I think Akhilleus mentioned it in the Comments section. Anyhow, nice to know Starr is now available to investigate Hillary Clinton.

CW: If Team USA's post-Olympics presser is any indication, Ryan Lochte & his posse wrecked the games for the team. This "distracton," as Lochte & others like to call it, is grossly unfair to the American kids who trained for years to join the ranks of the world's best athletes.

News Lede

Minneapolis Star Tribune: "Pills marked as hydrocodone that were seized from Paisley Park after Prince's overdose death actually contained fentanyl, the powerful opioid that killed him, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.... Investigators ... are leaning toward the theory that he took the pills not knowing they contained the drug." -- CW

Comments Off
Saturday
Aug202016

The Commentariat -- August 21, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Isaac Arnsdorf of Politico: "The Donald Trump campaign's boasts of a formidable fundraising month in July spooked Democrats.... But a closer inspection of the campaign finance report filed just before Saturday's midnight deadline indicates the haul came at a steep price.... Though the campaign touted an $80 million figure for its July fundraising, just $36.7 million of that total went directly to the campaign. The rest came in through joint fundraising vehicles with the Republican National Committee and state parties. At least $9.5 million of that money is off limits for spending on the election because it's designated for the RNC's convention, headquarters and legal accounts. Plus, the RNC is considering spending its money down-ballot instead of supporting Trump as tensions boil over between the party's apparatus and its defiant nominee. The money the Trump campaign raised also didn't come cheap. The campaign more than doubled its spending from the previous month to $18.5 million in July.... Most of that money went toward expanding the campaign's online fundraising operation."...

... CW: Those of you who thought the Trump campaign was lying about its big haul were on the right track; not a lie, but deceptive.

Ashley Killough & Karl de Vries of CNN: "Donald Trump acknowledged Saturday that the Republican Party 'must do better' in appealing to African-Americans. But in the same speech [in Fredericksburg, Va.], he again slammed an order by the state's Democratic governor, Terry McAuliffe, to restore voting rights to some convicted felons who have completed their sentences, a move McAuliffe says could help African-Americans who were disproportionally affected by laws that put lifetime bans on felons." -- CW

TBD. Jenna Johnson & Ed O'Keefe  of the Washington Post: "On Sunday morning, [Donald Trump's] newly installed campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, was asked during an interview on CNN's 'State of the Union' whether Trump still wants 'a deportation force removing the 11 million or so undocumented immigrants.' 'To be determined,' said Conway, who in the past has supported creating a pathway to citizenship for the millions of immigrants illegally living in the United States." -- CW

Jenna Johnson: "Donald Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, said Sunday morning that she does not want the Republican presidential nominee to release his tax returns until an audit by the Internal Revenue Service is completed, abandoning a position that she took five months ago, when she didn't work for the campaign and urged Trump to "be transparent" and release the filings.... Trump is the first major presidential nominee from either party since 1976 to not release tax returns." -- CW

Laura Vozzella of the Washington Post: "Gov. Terry McAuliffe will announce Monday that he has restored voting rights to 13,000 felons on a case-by-case basis after Republicans and state Supreme Court justices last month stopped his more sweeping clemency effort.... McAuliffe's planned action ... comes about a month after the Supreme Court of Virginia invalidated an executive order the Democratic governor issued in April. With that order, McAuliffe restored voting rights to more than 200,000 felons who had completed their sentences.... McAuliffe also will lay out his plans for restoring rights to the remainder of the 200,000." -- CW

*****

Pete Willliams of NBC News: "Holding defendants in jail because they can't afford to make bail is unconstitutional, the Justice Department said in a court filing late Thursday -- the first time the government has taken such a position before a federal appeals court." CW: This is such a no-brainer that one wonders why an advocacy group hadn't brought it up years ago. I suspect it's because even organizations like the ACLU work on behalf of poor people only when there's something in it for elites -- e.g., voting rights.

John Eligon & Robert Gebeloff of the New York Times: "Affluent black families, freed from the restrictions of low income, often end up living in poor and segregated communities anyway. It is a national phenomenon challenging the popular assumption that segregation is more about class than about race, that when black families earn more money, some ideal of post-racial integration will inevitably be reached." The writers, using anecdotal evidence, examine the reasons more affluent blacks often don't move out of their poor, segregated neighborhoods. CW: See also stories linked below on Donald Trump's "outreach" to African-Americans.

Presidential Race

Anne Gearan, et al., of the Washington Post: "Hillary Clinton's increasingly confident campaign has begun crafting a detailed agenda for her possible presidency, with plans to focus on measures aimed at creating jobs, boosting infrastructure spending and enacting immigration reform if current polling holds and she is easily elected to the White House in November." -- CW

Amy Chozick & Steve Eder of the New York Times: "For years the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation thrived largely on the generosity of foreign donors and individuals who gave hundreds of millions of dollars to the global charity. But now, as Mrs. Clinton seeks the White House, the funding of the sprawling philanthropy has become an Achilles' heel for her campaign and, if she is victorious, potentially her administration as well.... The Clinton Foundation has accepted tens of millions of dollars from countries that the State Department -- before, during and after Mrs. Clinton's time as secretary -- criticized for their records on sex discrimination and other human-rights issues. The countries include Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Brunei and Algeria." CW: See Also Jonathan Chait's commentary, linked yesterday.

Jessie Hellmann of the Hill: "Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will be returning to the campaign trail next month to stump for ... Hillary Clinton.... 'I feel very strongly that Donald Trump would be a disaster for the country. I want to do everything I can to see that Secretary Clinton wins.'" CW: One way to do that, Bernie, is to stop calling her "Secretary Clinton." You have to pretend you and "Hillary" are BFFs.

Nikita Vladimirov of the Hill: "Hillary Clinton's campaign is questioning the sincerity of Donald Trump's new tone, highlighting in a video ad the times he has refused to apologize for his inflammatory rhetoric. The video released Saturday, titled 'No Regrets,' intersperses Trump's Thursday speech expressing 'regret' for not choosing 'the right words' at times with clips of his insults of various people an groups":

Judd Legum of Think Progress: "Trump continued his multi-day effort to court the African-American vote with an appearance Saturday night on Fox News. [CW: Which is hilarious, right there, but it's Trump, so it gets worse:]... Trump told Fox News' Jeanine Pirro that blacks in America have 'no health care, no education, no anything.' He described the lives of African-Americans as 'a total catastrophe.' Pressed on what he would actually do for African-Americans, Trump said that he would 'get jobs,' without elaborating. Trump also promised to bring 'spirit' to African-Americans by being a 'cheerleader.' Trump's argument ignores that the vast majority of African-Americans have jobs, health insurance and do not live in poverty." -- CW

Adrian Carrasquillo of BuzzFeed: In a Saturday meeting with his newly announced Hispanic advisory council, Donald Trump suggested he is interested in figuring out a 'humane and efficient' manner to deal with immigrants in the country illegally, according to three sources. Trump, however, stressed that any new announcements will still be in line with the border security-focused approach that has invited intense opposition from Latinos and immigrants since he launched his campaign.... In a statement, Steven Cheung [CW: another Steve!] with the Trump campaign dismissed the BuzzFeed News account of the meeting as 'clickbait journalism' and disputed attendee' claim that he opened the door to legalization behind closed doors." CW: So apparently what Trump meant by "humane and efficient" was that his Enforcement Patrol would not kick in your door and throw you to the floor if "self-deport" first. It's the Romney approach, but with thugs.

Susanne Craig of the New York Times: "... an investigation by The New York Times into the financial maze of Mr. Trump's real estate holdings in the United States reveals that companies he owns have at least $650 million in debt -- twice the amount that can be gleaned from public filings he has made as part of his bid for the White House. The Times's inquiry also found that Mr. Trump's fortunes depend deeply on a wide array of financial backers, including ... the Bank of China .... and Goldman Sachs.... A substantial portion of his wealth is tied up in three passive partnerships that owe an additional $2 billion to a string of lenders.... He is ... quick to stress that these days his companies have very little debt." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... CW: This puts Hillary Clinton's conflict of interest re: the Clinton Foundation in perspective. A President Trump would be unable to sign anything other than Mothers' Day proclamations without affecting his own financial interests.

You live in your poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed. What the hell do you have to lose? -- Donald Trump, addressing black voters, Friday, speaking to a nearly all-white crowd in a town that is 93 percent white (and 90 minutes from Detroit, which is not)

... He Doesn't Know Any Better. Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "Most black Americans don't live in poverty, just as most white Americans don't." Black unemployment is higher than white, as it has been for decades, but the disparity is not nearly as great as Trump would have it. "There are any number of reasons that black Americans might view Trump unfavorably, starting with his 2011 effort to cast suspicion on Obama's place of birth. Or, probably, starting with his full-page ad calling for the death penalty against five black teenagers in New York City who were accused of rape -- wrongly, as it turned out. Or perhaps thanks to the support his current candidacy is getting from people like former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke.... One adviser said on CNN that Trump making his appeal in a mostly white town wasn't a big deal and that 'maybe it would have been nice if he went and had a backdrop with a burning car.'" -- CW ...

... Jim Fallows: "Trump ostensibly made his argument to black voters, asking 'what do you have to lose?' But if you watch the clip you'll see that in context he is talking about black people, to an audience that was mainly white. (Audience composition is something you can control, or at least foresee and influence, if you're running a national campaign. Where you hold the event, where you drum up attendance, whom you seat in the prominent on-camera places behind the candidate and in the front of the crowd -- these all have an effect and can be tuned.)" -- CW

Patrick Condon of the Minneapolis Star Tribune: "Donald Trump ... made his first visit to [Minnesota] as the Republican presidential candidate for a private nighttime fundraiser at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Dozens of protesters gathered out front ahead of the event and marched around the large building. Later in the evening, a smaller contingent grew unruly. Some fundraiser attendees were pushed and jostled, spit on and verbally harassed as they left the convention center. Trump never appeared in public, and did not grant media interviews or hold a news conference. The fundraiser was closed to the media, but a person in attendance broadcast Trumps remarks on the live-streaming app Periscope. 'If I could win a state like Minnesota, the path is a whole different thing,' Trump told the cheering crowd. 'It becomes a much, much different race. We're going to give it our ­greatest shot.'... Minnesota last went for the Republican in the presidential race in 1972 when President Richard Nixon defeated George McGovern [CW: in a race in which McGovern won only one state: Massachusetts]."

Maureen Dowd thinks up a bunch of things Donald Trump is sorry for. Droll. -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

In Hillary Clinton's America, 'illegal immigrants .. [are] collecting Social Security benefits, skipping the line. -- Voice-over in a Donald Trump campaign ad, released Aug. 19

[Donald Trump] makes a bizarre claim that undocumented immigrants will collect Social Security under a Clinton presidency.... [Even] people who obtain lawful status under DACA need to work for at least 10 years, pay taxes and reach retirement age before they are eligible to receive Social Security benefits.... We would have liked to see the nominee finally stick closer to the facts in his first general-election ad. Unfortunately, this ad is -- to borrow a line from its script -- 'more of the same.' -- Michelle Lee of the Washington Post

Jonathan Swan of the Hill: "Rep. Scott Rigell (R-Va.) on Friday ripped Donald Trump's character.... 'There is not one character trait in Donald Trump I would want my son to emulate,' Rigell told Time Magazine on Friday. 'I'm so embarrassed to be identified with him and in fact, I couldn't be.' Rigell, who came to office in the 2010 Tea Party wave, represents Virginia's 2nd Congressional District, which has a large military constituency." -- CW

Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "When Trump made Breitbart News CEO Steve Bannon his campaign's chief executive last week, [white nationalist Jared] Taylor found reasons to celebrate. It was the latest sign for white nationalists, once dismissed as fringe, that their worldview was gaining popularity and that the old Republican Party was coming to an end.... [Trump's] strategy now resembles the alt-right dream of maximizing the white vote -- even as polling shows his standing with white voters falls short of Mitt Romney's in 2012." -- CW ...

... Kurt Bardella, formerly of Breitbart "News," in a Hill op-ed: "What eventually caused me to terminate my relationship with Breitbart was Steve [Bannon]'s guidance of Breitbart to become the de facto propaganda machine for Donald Trump.... Whatever reprehensible thing Trump did or said would be defended and supported by the daily content of Breitbart.... This is one of those times where the best interests of the whole outweigh any partisan allegiances or any specific issue. It's why I've made the personal choice to vote for Hillary Clinton> in November." -- CW

Congressional Races

Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "Republicans, worried about preserving their House and Senate majorities in the face of fierce headwinds, are accelerating their plans to distance themselves from Donald Trump -- and may soon concede, if only implicitly, his defeat. Party strategists are mapping out blueprints for down-ballot candidates, in TV ads and on the campaign trail, to present themselves as checks on a Hillary Clinton presidency. It's an approach that would essentially admit a Trump loss." -- CW

Beyond the Beltway

Isabelle Khurshudyan & Dave Sheinin of the New York Times: "In an interview with NBC's Matt Lauer that aired in part Saturday evening, swimmer Ryan Lochte attempted to explain his role in falsely portraying a late-night incident involving him and three teammates at a Rio de Janeiro gas station last weekend.... 'I over-exaggerated that story,' Lochte told Lauer on Saturday. 'If I had never done that, we would never be in this mess.... It was my immature behavior.'" CW: For the record, "over-exaggerated" is not a word; it's a joke.

Frank Wilkenmeyer of Winning Democrats: "Christians" invent another Malia Obama "scandal" and use it as an excuse for spewing more racial slurs. Where he can, Wilkenmeyer names the names of the Jesus- and Trump-loving "authors." CW: Wilkenmeyer is on the right track: shaming the low-lifes who write this crap. Let's hope some of their neighbors give these scum what-for. Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link.

Way Beyond

** Andrew Kramer of the New York Times: "Used extensively in the Soviet era, political murders are again playing a prominent role in the Kremlin's foreign policy, the most brutal instrument in an expanding repertoire of intimidation tactics intended to silence or otherwise intimidate critics at home and abroad.... Muckraking journalists, rights advocates, opposition politicians, government whistle-blowers and other Russians who threaten [the] image [of Russia that Vladimir Putin wants to project] are treated harshly -- imprisoned on trumped-up charges, smeared in the news media and, with increasing frequency, killed.... No other major power employs murder as systematically and ruthlessly as Russia does against those seen as betraying its interests abroad." ...

... CW: Bear in mind that Donald Trump admires Putin for his "leadership." Notice, too, as is pretty clear in the linked conversation, Trump doesn't know how to distinguish between killing (a) foreign operatives who are allegedly backing violent actions against a particular nation, and (b) citizen-protesters, whistleblowers & other dissidents: 'He's running his country and at least he's a leader, unlike what we have in this country,' Trump said when asked by ... Joe Scarborough about Putin's alleged killing of journalists and political opponents. 'I think our country does plenty of killing also, Joe, so you know. There's a lot of stupidity going on in the world right now, a lot of killing, a lot of stupidity,' he said. Finally, when asked whether he would condemn Putin's alleged brutal tactics, Trump responded: 'Sure, absolutely.'" Trump's inability to see the difference between clearly distinguishable acts & motives is part of what I mean when I say he's stupid. So, yeah, Donaldo, there is "a lot of stupidity going on," starting with you.

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Donald 'D.A.' Henderson, an American epidemiologist who led the international war on smallpox that resulted in its eradication in 1980, the only such vanquishment in history of a human disease and an achievement that was credited with saving tens of millions of lives, died Aug. 19 at a hospice facility in Towson, Md. He was 87." -- CW

New York Times: "... a suspected suicide bombing tore through the site of [a wedding] ceremony in southeastern Turkey late Saturday, killing at least 50 people and wounding more than 90, in the latest in a string of attacks to strike the restive region in the past week. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey said in a statement that the Islamic State militant group was probably behind what appeared to be a suicide attack on Saturday in the city of Gaziantep, and that its aim was to sow divisions among ethnic groups in the country and 'spread incitement along ethnic and religious lines.'" -- CW

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Friday
Aug192016

The Commentariat -- August 20, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Susanne Craig of the New York Times: "... an investigation by The New York Times into the financial maze of Mr. Trump's real estate holdings in the United States reveals that companies he owns have at least $650 million in debt -- twice the amount that can be gleaned from public filings he has made as part of his bid for the White House. The Times's inquiry also found that Mr. Trump's fortunes depend deeply on a wide array of financial backers, including ... the Bank of China .... and Goldman Sachs.... A substantial portion of his wealth is tied up in three passive partnerships that owe an additional $2 billion to a string of lenders.... He is ... quick to stress that these days his companies have very little debt." ...

     ... CW: This puts Hillary Clinton's conflict of interest re: the Clinton Foundation in perspective. A President Trump could not sign anything other than Mothers' Day proclamations without affecting his financial interests.

Maureen Dowd thinks up a bunch of things Donald Trump is sorry for. Droll. -- CW

*****

Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "Emboldened by their electoral prospects in November, Democrats are planning to redouble their efforts to make the fate of the Supreme Court a signature election issue, with the Democratic leader in the Senate threatening to stall Republican legislative priorities if no action is taken on the confirmation of Judge Merrick B. Garland. The Senate has been stuck in a stalemate since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February.... Republicans have refused to hold confirmation hearings on President Obama's nominee, insisting that the next president should make the choice. But with Donald J. Trump's poll numbers sliding, the Democratic leadership sees an opening to derail Republicans who are facing re-election by blaming them for the delay." -- CW

Emma Brown & Sarah Netter of the Washington Post: "The first attempt to assess the scope of damage from the past week's historic flooding in Louisiana has produced staggering numbers. Approximately 280,000 people live in the areas that flooded, according to an analysis released Friday by the Baton Rouge Area Chamber. In those flood-affected areas are 110,000 homes worth a combined $20.7 billion and more than 7,000 businesses -- about one in every five businesses in the region -- that together employ more than 73,000 people...." -- CW

Lizette Alvarez & Pam Belluck of the New York Times: "Federal health authorities suggested Friday that pregnant women and their partners consider postponing travel to all of Miami-Dade County after Florida identified a second zone of local Zika transmission, a swath of Miami Beach that includes the popular tourist magnet of South Beach." -- CW

Ouch. Christopher Drew of the New York Times: "Matt Bissonnette, a former member of Navy SEAL Team 6 who wrote an account of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, agreed on Friday to forfeit $6.8 million in book royalties and speaking fees and apologized for failing to clear his disclosures with the Pentagon, according to federal court documents.... If approved by a federal judge in Alexandria, Va., the royalty settlement would bring an end to more than two years of civil and criminal investigations into Mr. Bissonnette, who won several awards for valor in Iraq and Afghanistan...." -- CW

Presidential Race

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "A federal judge has rejected a request to force Hillary Clinton to submit to a sworn deposition in a suit related to her private email server, ruling instead that she must respond in writing to questions about the issue. U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan said the conservative group Judicial Watch had not demonstrated that an in-person deposition of Clinton was necessary to attempt to clarify whether the former secretary of state set up the system in order to avoid complying with the Freedom of Information Act." -- CW ...

... Steven Myers of the New York Times: Judge Sullivan's ruling ensures "that the issue will continue to dog her presidential campaign until the eve of the election.... In addition to requiring her testimony in writing, the judge allowed the group to depose a senior State Department aide [John Bentel] who had warned two subordinates not to question her email practices.... [Clinton] could delay her answers until after the election. The deposition of the senior aide, however, will take place by Oct. 31." -- CW

Nick Gass of Politico: "Former Secretary of State Colin Powell 'has no recollection of the dinner conversation' recounted by Hillary Clinton to FBI agents, as documented by journalist Joe Conason in a forthcoming book. Conason's anecdote, reported Thursday night by The New York Times, recounts a small dinner party at Clinton's Georgetown home toward the beginning of her time as secretary of state, with former secretaries Madeleine Albright, Henry Kissinger and Condoleezza Rice also in attendance.... 'Powell told her to use her own email, as he had done, except for classified communications, which he had sent and received via a State Department computer,' Conason wrote...." CW: Could be something like that Bosnian sniper fire thing.

** Jonathan Chait: Hillary Clinton's "inadequate response to the conflicts of interest inherent in the Clinton Foundation show that she ... has not fully grasped the severity of her reputational problem. The purpose of the Clinton Foundation is to leverage Clinton fame into charitable donations.... The Clinton Foundation is a stand-in for the Clintons' sloppy ethics in general.... [The Clintons'] venality is rather ordinary. There's a reason the term politician is synonymous with lying, calculation, and ambition -- these are common qualities for politicians. The Clintons are common politicians, motivated in general by a desire to implement policy changes they think will make the world a better place, but not immune to trimming and getting rich in the process.... The risk that Clinton's tainted image will defeat her is small but real enough to merit concern. The much larger risk is that her lax approach to rule-following and ethical conflicts will sink her presidency." ...

... CW: What Chait points out is something Clinton's fan-base doesn't get. Trump is 100 percent phony (and malevolent & stupid to boot). But Hillary Clinton is half-phony, and to pretend otherwise is to exhibit the kind of thoughtless tribalism we see in Trumpbots.

We have a divided country. It's totally divided. The era of division will be replaced with a future of unity, total unity. We will love each other. We will have one country. Everybody will work together. In my administration, every American will be treated equally, protected equally and honored equally. We will reject bigotry and hatred and oppression in all of its forms and seek a new future built on our common culture and values as one American people. -- Donald Trump, Friday, in Michigan

And you'll never have to poop again. Tiny Trumpbots will come in the night and carry away your shit. (Also, they might check your citizenship, so keep your papers on the night table.) ...

... Louis Nelson of Politico: "Donald Trump promised Friday night that if elected president, he will win 95 percent of the African-American vote in his reelection bid. Renewing his effort to reach out to black voters at a rally Friday evening, Trump suggested that Democratic politicians that overwhelmingly govern in America's inner cities have failed African-Americans. Trump told the Dimondale, Michigan, crowd that 'we can never fix our problems by relying on the same politicians who created our problems in the first place. A new future requires brand-new leadership.'... The former reality TV star's 95 percent pledge was an ad-libbed moment in a speech that was scripted and delivered with the help of teleprompters.... Trump has struggled thus far with black voters in the election, polling as low as 0 percent and 1 percent at times...." -- CW

... "'My goal is to get every single vote of every single African American' Trump says to an almost entirely white crowd in Lansing." -- Katy Tur of NBC News, in a tweet -- CW

Matthew Teague of the Guardian: "The post-disaster politicking got under way in earnest on Friday, as Donald Trump appeared in flood-stricken Louisiana to give his image a presidential burnish, and as the White House announced Barack Obama would tour the area next Tuesday. A day earlier Louisiana's governor, John Bel Edwards, had warned Trump not to show up in Louisiana 'for a photo op'. Instead, he said, Trump should volunteer and make donations.... Trump put his own spin on [the photo-op], traveling with an 18-wheel transfer truck full of supplies to hand out to crowds. Wherever he went, he created his own television-ready crowds. In St Amant, one of the hardest-hit areas between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Trump's convoy set up in a parking lot, and droves of people turned out to watch him hand out water bottles and diapers.... Joyce Humphries said that Trump's visit was good enough to win her vote. 'We will take any help we can get,' she said." ...

     ... CW: Really, Joyce? Trump hands you a water bottle (metaphorically -- I don't think Joyce got even that, and I'm not sure about the bottles of water, either -- see link to Tommy Christopher's story below) and that gets your vote? Teague reports that "60,000 local people [already] have applied for relief from" FEMA. The federal government will help most of those applicants, & they'll all get a lot more than a bottle of water. (And let's not even get into the climate change thing, which your hero there says is a hoax, but probably caused the rains & flooding in the first place.) If you're going to say something this stupid again, Joyce, you might not want to put your name on it. ...

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "During a stop at a church,Trump made clear that this was partially a political trip for him. 'The president says he doesn't want to come; he is trying to get out of a golf game,' Trump told volunteers in the area.... Then, late Friday afternoon, the Trump campaign issued a blistering statement ... highlighting Obama's absence.... 'Today, Donald Trump acted more presidential than the president himself, by immediately going to Louisiana while President Obama chose to continue playing golf and Hillary Clinton phoned in her views," said Rudy Giuliani...." -- CW ...

... CW: Blake applauds Trump's visit to Louisiana as a positive campaign moment when Trump acted "presidential." I prefer Tommy Christopher's take:

... The Play-Doh Presidency. Tommy Christopher of Mediaite: "On Friday morning, freshly-minted Donald Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway told ABC News that Trump and running mate Mike Pence would be traveling to Baton Rouge, Louisiana to 'help people on the ground' in a 'decidedly nonpolitical event' with 'no press allowed.' As it turns out, though, there actually were members of the press allowed, and the candidate did use the occasion to attack his political opponent, and there were opportunities for photographs, but true to his word, Trump did 'help out.' Pool cameras trailed Trump for his entire visit, and over the course of those several hours, Trump 'helped out' by unloading a truckload of toys for 49 seconds....":

... CW: Notice how Trump, who says he's "just here to help," doesn't actually unload the boxes of Play-Doh or hand it to real people; instead he passes the toys from the the guy unloading them to pence, who gives the boxes to flood victims whose main need right now is Play-Doh. ...

... Mark Berman & Jose DelReal of the Washington Post: "Trump ... knocked the president during a campaign event Friday evening in Dimondale, Mich. 'Honestly, Obama ought to get off the golf course and get down there,' Trump said.... Obama administration officials have stressed that the federal government is deeply invested in helping Louisiana through the response and recovery. Both W. Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson visited the region this week and emphasized that point." -- CW ...

... CW: If Trump & his surrogates (and Joyce there) actually gave a flying fuck about what President Obama and his administration were doing to aid flood victims, instead of just making stupid ad hominem attacks, they could find out easily enough by going to Whitehouse.gov, where splashed across the main page is a link to a detailed report. It's a massive response. But no Play-Doh, as far as I could tell.

Declan Walsh of the New York Times: "For [West Virginia coal miners], this season's presidential campaign boils down to a single choice. 'I'm for Trump,' said Dwayne Riston, 27, his face smeared in dust. 'Way I see it, if he wins, we might at least stand a chance of surviving.' Few places in America offer such a simple electoral calculus as the rolling, tree-studded hills of West Virginia." ...

     ... CW: Of course, this too is stupid. Coal mining is one of the most dangerous jobs out there, and what Democrats, and Hillary Clinton specifically, propose is to convert dirty energy jobs to clean energy jobs, most of which presumably will be safer for individual workers. Those laid off from the mines will receive benefits, access to other jobs & retraining. Clinton offers them a better, more satisfying way of life. They choose poverty, hard labor and a short life. Voting for Trump is like saying, "I keep banging my head against the wall because I know how to do it. It might be too hard to do something useful & less painful." Read this from Walsh's story: "'I kind of feel that people are looking down on us,' said Neil Hanshew, a miner, voicing a common sentiment. 'They're looking at us like we're a bunch of dumb hillbillies who can't do anything else.'" But, dude, you are saying you can't do anything else if you vote for Trump. That's the dumb part.

CW: Yesterday I wrote that Paul Manafort resigned in a way that threw mud in the face of the campaign, which two days earlier had claimed that Trump was just adding top staff, not "shaking up" his campaign. Why, here's Pam Key of Breitbart "News": "Wednesday on Fox News..., new campaign manager to ... Donald Trump Kellyanne Conway said the changes in Trump's staff are not a shake-up, just an attempt to expand the senior team that allows us to meet the needs." Surely Steve Bannon -- who owns Breitbart -- & Conway would not report some kind of embarrassing fiction about the campaign. ...

     ... Well, ha ha ha, yes they would. ...

... Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "Donald Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said former campaign chair Paul Manafort was asked to resign on Friday. She noted that the decision was mutual, but said the last couple weeks on the Trump campaign had been tumultuous." ...

     ... So it wasn't Manafort who undercut the Trump campaign's story du jour; it was Trump. These people have no idea what they're doing from day-to-day. No idea.

Sometimes, in the heat of debate and speaking on a multitude of issues, you don't choose the right words or you say the wrong thing. I have done that, and I regret it, particularly where it may have caused personal pain. Too much is at stake for us to be consumed with these issues. But one thing I can promise you is this: I will always tell you the truth. -- Donald Trump, full non-apology apology, Thursday ...

... James Hohmann of the Washington Post: "After more than a year of refusing to budge as he moved from one firestorm to the next..., [Donald Trump] surprised everyone Thursday night by declaring that he lives with some 'regret.' But while he expressed remorse for the first time since getting into the presidential race 14 months ago, he steered clear of the S-word: 'sorry.' Parsing the speech, which was read from a teleprompter, veteran campaign strategists and historians noted that Trump [was] following a path of rhetorical evasion that has been well trod by candidates in both parties. Linguists and relationship experts, meanwhile, said Trump's comments were ineffective and that his words cannot accurately be described as an 'apology.' In fact, the GOP nominee did not specify exactly who or what he was talking about." ...

... CW: As contributor Gloria wrote yesterday, "I thought he was apologising for the clap trap he spews causing 'personal pain' to himself." ...

... Philip Bump of the Washington Post wonders what-all it is Trump is non-apologizing for: "Most of the statements Trump has made that got him into trouble didn't come from the heat of debate.... It's odd because on so many occasions Trump has said he didn't regret making his statements." A typical Trump response to questions about his outrageous remarks: "There's no apology because what I said is right. I mean, what I said is a 100 percent right." Bump runs down a laundry list of similar refusals to apologize & "I was 100 percent right" assertions. ...

     ... CW: I sure wish Trump would sink deeper in the polls (I think he'll tick upward, at least for a while), because absent my real fear & loathing of a Trump presidency, laughing at a bloviating buffoon who would despise me if he knew me is a real pleasure. There's a certain symmetry to Trump's hiring a campaign Manager-of-the-Month who made a bundle on "Seinfeld" rerun rights when Trump himself is a character even more over-the-top than the George & Kramer characters. Bump's list, if viewed in the context of Trump as sitcom, is amusing.

** Matt Yglesias of Vox: "... Trump is opting for the self-flattering theory that what's needed is to let Trump be Trump.... As Trump aims to become the Trumpiest Trump that he can be, he's increasingly surrounding himself with media figures [like Steve Bannon & Roger Ailes, not with businessmen].... Trump really was a businessman for a while, a real estate developer and then a casino mogul, but he was bad at it.... Instead of a business all-star team [advising his campaign], Trump is giving us retreats from far-right media. It all comes as a reminder of a fundamental truth of this campaign: Trump isn't really a businessman in the conventional sense anymore, and hasn't been for some time. He's a television star.... " -- CW

Hackable Trump. Brian Feldman of New York: "While Donald Trump pleads with Russia to hack Hillary Clinton's email accounts, the GOP candidate narrowly avoided his own cybersecurity fiasco. As engineer Shu Uesugi pointed out, Trump's donation page was susceptible to an injection attack (until yesterday; Uesugi's post brought about a quick fix).... In fact, after the exploit was publicized, someone submitted an 'URGENT FIX' which would have changed the background of the page to an image of Trump and Putin making out. In the grand scheme of possible hacks, that's not so bad." ...

... CW: In other words, Trump's site was so easily hackable that someone hacked it within minutes of learning of its vulnerability. And notice that what was vulnerable was donor information. It might or might not have hurt Trump, but a greedy hacker likely could have accessed the credit accounts of the unsuspecting dimwits who contributed to his campaign. MEANWHILE, one of Trump's major raisons de running is that he will "make America safe again." Yet his staff of "the best people" can't even keep his fans safe from Trump himself.

Beyond the Beltway

Megan Cassidy of the Arizona Republic: "A federal judge on Friday referred Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and three of his aides to the U.S. Attorney's Office, requesting that they be prosecuted for criminal contempt of court.​ The landmark decision comes after U.S. District Court Judge G. Murray Snow found that Arpaio intentionally violated various orders rooted in an 8-year-old racial-profiling case. The judge's order also refers Chief Deputy Jerry Sheridan, Arpaio's former defense attorney Michele Iafrate, and Capt. Steve Bailey for prosecutors to consider criminal contempt charges against them as well.... Criminal contempt could result in incarceration." -- CW

Reuters: "The Texas court of criminal appeals on Friday halted an execution planned for next week of a man convicted as an accomplice to a murder he did not commit in a case that raised questions about how the state applies the death penalty. Jeffery Wood, 43, was scheduled to be executed on 24August by lethal injection. He was convicted of taking part in a 1996 convenience store robbery during which clerk Kriss Keeran was fatally shot. In its decision, the appeals court asked a lower court to review his sentence and claims from Wood's lawyer that it was obtained in violation of due process because it was based on false testimony and false scientific evidence." -- CW

Jeremy Stahl of Slate: "Ryan Lochte apologized on Friday 'for not being more careful and candid' in describing what he called a robbery and police have called a drunken confrontation with gas station security guards.... We accept and appreciate his apology,' said Mario Andrada, spokesman for the local organizers of the Rio Games.... Lochte ... does not address how much and what elements of his story ... he wasn't fully 'candid' about.... Lochte does not confess to having misstated anything, which it's now clear that he did." -- CW ...

... The Ugly Americans, Ctd. ... Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post: "The worst part of this is that Lochte's tone comes straight from the American top. Oh, USOC chief executive Scott Blackmun issued his own well-meaning apology, and so did USA Swimming Executive Director Chuck Wielgus. But they, like Lochte, seem to think his ultimate offense was stealing attention from other Olympians.... None of them gets it.... Here is what is missing from Lochte's apology. Any sign of manners. Any sign of humility. Any sign of real regret." CW: If you want to know why I try to dress like a local when I travel abroad, and why I'm super-polite & apologetic for my piss-poor language skills, one big reason is because too many Americans act like Lochte, et al. when they're away from home.

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