;)
The Commentariat -- August 16, 2017
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Jena McGregor of the Washington Post: "President Trump's relationship with the American business community suffered a major setback on Wednesday as the president was forced to shut down his major business advisory councils after corporate leaders repudiated his comments on the violence in Charlottesville this weekend. A slew of corporate chieftans announced they were resigning from the councils in recent days after they said Trump was slow to condemn white supremacy groups. On Twitter, Trump said it was his decision to disband both councils. 'Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum. I am ending both,' he tweeted." At 1:30 pm, this is a breaking news story, which is likely to be expanded later. ...
... David Gelles, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump's main council of top corporate leaders disbanded on Wednesday following the president's controversial remarks in which he equated white nationalist hate groups with the protesters opposing them. Soon after, the president announced on Twitter that he would end his executive councils, 'rather than put pressure' on executives. The quick sequence began late Wednesday morning when Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chief executive of the Blackstone Group and one of Mr. Trump's closest confidants in the business community, organized a conference call for members of the president's Strategic and Policy Forum. After a discussion among a dozen prominent C.E.O.s, the decision was made to abandon the group altogether, said people with knowledge of the details of the call." ...
... Dan Diamond of Politico: "The president's tweet followed the announcements Wednesday that the leaders of Minnesota-based 3M and Campbell Soup had quit his manufacturing council, while a second strategic and advisory group was on the verge of collapse. 'Racism and murder are unequivocally reprehensible and are not morally equivalent to anything else that happened in Charlottesville,' said Denise Morrison, the head of Campbell Soup, who became the 8th executive to announce in a statement that she was leaving the manufacturing council.... Inge Thulin, the CEO of Minnesota-based 3M, announced earlier in the day that he was leaving the manufacturing council." ...
... Patti Domm & Jacob Pramuk of CNBC: "Members of ... Donald Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum have agreed to disband the group, sources told CNBC, as corporate backlash mounts against the president. The business advisory council made up of top business leaders is separate from Trump's manufacturing council, which several business leaders left this week.... After the members agreed to disband and condemn Trump's statements, the president said he would end both the Strategic and Policy Forum and the manufacturing council." ...
... Russell Berman of the Atlantic: "After Trump finished speaking [Tuesday], the rebukes from congressional Republicans started rolling in all over again. Some, like Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Representative Will Hurd of Texas, criticized the president directly in tweets and statements. Others, like House Speaker Paul Ryan, withheld Trump's name even if their target was obvious. 'We must be clear. White supremacy is repulsive,' Ryan tweeted. 'This bigotry is counter to all this country stands for. There can be no moral ambiguity.'"
Trump Wars. Episode 4: A New Hope. Jeff Zeleny, et al., of CNN: "Senior communications adviser Hope Hicks has been named as the interim White House communications director, a White House official told pool reporters Wednesday. The official added in a statement that the administration will 'make an announcement on a permanent communications director at the appropriate time.' The role of communications director has been vacant since Anthony Scaramucci was ousted from the position shortly after John Kelly took over as chief of staff last month.... The White House has had difficulty filling the role of communications director." ...
... Akhilleus: "Difficulty filling the role...?" I wonder why. So here we have another rank amateur taking over one of the most important jobs in any administration. I'm sure her experience working on fashion lines and resort PR projects will come in handy. "Nazis in Charlottesville? Oh, I don't know about Nazis, but over here we have a lovely champagne pink peignoir, an Ivanka original, sure to make the little woman in your life feel desirable!" Poor Hope. More Trump chum. And I don't mean as a buddy. Her primary job, if I remember correctly, was printing out online stories about Trump's greatness and circling his name in yellow hi-liter to comfort his roiling ego. The Trump White House is rapidly coming to resemble a crumbling monarchy in its last days, the dyspeptic, paranoid monarch cutting off heads right and left, and surrounding himself with obsequious, sycophantic lackeys who help pour boiling oil on the heads of peasants trying to storm the castle.
Ari Berman of Mother Jones: "On Tuesday..., a federal court ruled that congressional districts drawn by Texas Republicans after the 2010 election were enacted with 'racially discriminatory intent' against Latino and African American voters. This is the seventh time since 2011 that a federal court has found that Texas intentionally discriminated against minority voters, through its redistricting plans and strict voter ID law. This repeated finding of intentional discrimination means that federal courts could once again require Texas to clear any changes to voting laws or procedures with the federal government -- a requirement that was in place until the Supreme Court struck down part of the Voting Rights Act in 2013."
*****
Michael Shear & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump angrily defended himself on Tuesday against criticism that he did not specifically condemn Nazi and white supremacist groups following the weekend's deadly racial unrest in Virginia.... In a long, combative exchange with reporters at Trump Tower in Manhattan, the president repeatedly rejected a torrent of bipartisan criticism for waiting several days before naming the right-wing groups and placing blame on 'many sides' for the violence on Saturday that ended with the death of a young woman after a car crashed into a crowd.... And he criticized 'alt-left' groups that he claimed were 'very, very violent' when they sought to confront the nationalist and Nazi groups that had gathered in Charlottesville, Va., to protest the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee from a park. He said there is 'blame on both sides.' 'Many of those people were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee,' Mr. Trump said. 'This week, it is Robert E. Lee and this week, Stonewall Jackson. Is it George Washington next? You have to ask yourself, where does it stop?' he said, noting that the first American president had owned slaves.... The president's breathtaking statements inflamed and stunned people across Twitter...." ...
... David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "President Trump said Tuesday that counterprotesters at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville acted violently and should share the blame for the mayhem that left a woman dead and many injured.... 'You had a group on one side that was bad and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent,' Trump said. 'No one wants to say that, but I'll say it right now: You had a group on the other side that came charging in without a permit and they were very, very violent.'... Trump called the driver of the car that killed counterprotester Heather Heyer, 32, and injured 19 a 'disgrace to himself, his family and the country,' but he stopped short of declaring the action a case of 'domestic terrorism,' calling that an exercise in semantics.... David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, praised Mr. Trump's comments as a condemnation of 'leftist terrorists.'" ...
... Politico has a rush transcript of Trump's remarks. ...
... Andrew Rafferty, et al., of NBC News: "A senior White House official told NBC News Tuesday that President Trump wasn't supposed to answer any questions <>Monday [Tuesday]. His team went into the event with the understanding that they would discuss infrastructure only and the president would take no questions.... But once in front of reporters, the president 'went rogue,' the official said, and members of the team were stunned by the president's actions." ...
... Max Greenwood of the Hill: "National Economic Council director Gary Cohn is said to be deeply dismayed by President Trump's statements in the wake of the violence at a white nationalist demonstration in Charlottesville, Va. The New York Times' White House correspondents Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush tweeted Tuesday that Cohn is upset with the president's comments over the past four days, but is not planning to leave the administration.... Cohn, who is Jewish, is considered among the more moderate voices in Trump's White House." ...
John Kelly, WH chief of staff, listen as President Donald Trump speaks at Trump Tower lobby this afternoon. pic.twitter.com/EBNPx1UJbv -- Al Drago August 15, 2017
... Molly Ball of the Atlantic: "On Tuesday evening, a few hours after the president's inflammatory press conference defending white nationalist protesters in Charlottesville, the [White House communications] office issued an 'evening communications briefing [to Republican members of Congress].... It encourages members to echo the president's line, contending that '[The president was entirely correct --] both sides ... acted inappropriately, and bear some responsibility.'" Ball includes a complete transcript of the talking points. ...
... Glenn Thrush & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump buoyed the white nationalist movement on Tuesday as no president has done in generations -- equating activists protesting racism with the neo-Nazis and white supremacists who rampaged in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend. Never has he gone as far in defending their actions as he did during a wild, street-corner shouting-match of a news conference in the gilded lobby of Trump Tower, angrily asserting that so-called alt-left activists were just as responsible for the bloody confrontation as marchers brandishing swastikas, Confederate battle flags, anti-Semitic banners and 'Trump/Pence' signs.... Members of the president's staff, stunned and disheartened, said they never expected to hear such a voluble articulation of opinions that the president had long expressed in private.... Since the 1960s, Republican politicians have made muscular appeals to white voters, especially those in the South, on broad cultural grounds. But as a rule, they have taken a hard line on the party's racist, nativist and anti-Semitic fringe. Ronald Reagan, George Bush and George W. Bush roundly condemned white supremacists." ...
... John Bowden of the Hill: "Cory Keenan, who worked for [President] Obama from 2007 to 2017, joked on Twitter that a bad presidential press conference used to mean wearing a tan suit -- a reference to a widely mocked White House press briefing in 2014, during which Obama wore a tan suit."
... Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "... Donald Trump does not have plans to visit Charlottesville, Virginia in the wake of the the white-supremacist and neo-Nazi gathering that took place in the city over the weekend.... Two senior Trump aides, speaking on the condition of anonymity..., had earlier told The Daily Beast that there was no serious sign that West Wing staffers were even exploring a Charlottesville visit at this point. 'Why the hell would we do that?' one White House official bluntly said, stating that whatever the president did in Charlottesville at this stage would be 'used against' him by critics and media voices." ...
... Rob Tornoe of philly.com: "A fourth CEO has announced he is walking away from President Trump's American Manufacturing Council over Trump's initially muted response to racial violence in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend that was fueled by groups promoting white supremacy, putting pressure on the remaining executives ... to do the same. Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, said on Twitter he was leaving the panel because 'it's the right thing for me to do.'... Paul announced his decision Tuesday, minutes after Trump lashed out at the other executives who have chosen to withdraw from his council, labeling them 'grandstanders.'" ...
... Erica Pandey of Axios: "Richard Trumka, the CEO of AFL-CIO, along with AFL-CIO's deputy chief of staff, Thea Lee, stepped down Tuesday evening from Trump's manufacturing council, claiming that Trump's remarks this afternoon about the violence on 'both sides' in Charlottesville 'repudiate his forced remarks yesterday about the KKK and neo-Nazis.'" ...
You had a group on one side that was bad and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent. And nobody wants to say that. But I'll say that right now. You had a group on the other side that came charging in -- without a permit -- and they were very, very violent.... You had people ... who were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name. -- Donald Trump, Tuesday
... Amy Sorkin of the New Yorker: "The bad group was the white nationalists; the 'very violent' group was those who had come to object.... Trump wasn't putting the two sides on the same level; he was saying that the counter-protesters were worse. His outrage at the counter-protesters' lack of a permit stood out all the more, given that he had spent the beginning of the briefing, which was meant to be about infrastructure..., complaining about how permits slowed down him and other builders. He promised to do away with as many as he could.... Trump didn't pause to ask why the statue of Robert E. Lee would be so very, very important, nor did he mention the other name: Emancipation Park. Instead, he had reduced a moral crossroads for the country to a question of naming rights." ...
... Mehdi Hasan of the Intercept: "Much of the frenzied media coverage of what CNN dubbed '48 hours of turmoil for the Trump White House' has overlooked one rather crucial point: Trump doesn't like being forced to denounce racism for the very simple reason that he himself is, and always has been, a racist.... Over ... four decades, Trump burnished his reputation as a bigot.... Yes, the U.S. has had plenty of presidents in recent decades who have dog-whistled to racists and bigots, and even incited hate against minorities ... but there has never been a modern president so personally steeped in racist prejudices, so unashamed to make bigoted remarks in public and with such a long and well-documented record of racial discrimination." Hasan documents Trump's record. So can we stop playing this game where journalists demand Trump condemns people he agrees with and Trump then pretends to condemn them in the mildest of terms?" ...
Paul Dallison of Politico: "U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday added her voice to criticisms of Donald Trump over his response to the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, the Telegraph reported.... Speaking in Portsmouth[, England,] at a ceremony to mark the arrival of a new aircraft carrier, May said: 'I see no equivalence between those who propound fascist views and those who oppose them. I think it is important for all those in positions of responsibility to condemn far-right views wherever we hear them.'" ...
... Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: "For a few visceral minutes on Tuesday, television’s partisan lines dissolved as dumbfounded anchors reacted on-air -- some in clearly personal ways -- to Mr. Trump's fiery remarks, in which the president seemed to cast equal blame on white supremacists and the demonstrators who marched against them during the weekend’s deadly clash in Charlottesville, Va. On Fox News, normally a redoubt of Trump support, the 5 p.m. co-hosts of 'The Specialists' shook their heads, with the anchor Guy Benson saying that Mr. Trump 'lost me' when he insisted that some 'very fine people' participated in the white supremacist rally.... His co-host, [Kat] Timpf, a conservative pundit who contributes to National Review Online, exhaled deeply. 'It was one of the biggest messes that I've ever seen,' she said. 'I can't believe it happened.' Disbelief dominated the early reaction on CNN and MSNBC, too.... Later, the network evening newscasts ran long, unexpurgated clips of Mr. Trump's appearance, rather than the usual short clips. CBS devoted its entire half-hour 'Evening News' to the president's comments and the aftermath of the weekend's rioting." ...
... Negassi Tesfamichael of Politico: "The status of Steve Bannon's job is still undecided..., Donald Trump said on Tuesday, amid an ongoing review of White House staffing and as his chief strategist has become increasingly isolated in the West Wing. 'We'll see what happens with Mr. Bannon,' Trump said at a news conference on infrastructure at Trump Tower in New York City. 'He is a good person, and I think the press treats him frankly unfairly.'" ...
... Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker: "If Trump finally pushes Bannon out of the White House, the nationalist policy project will be all but dead. The new chief of staff, John Kelly, is far more moderate on immigration and has pushed Trump to abandon the idea of a physical border wall. Economic policy will be fully under the control of Cohn, and the heretical idea of raising taxes on the wealthy will have no champion. Trump himself has always been more animated by the xenophobia of Bannonism than by its populist economic views. A Trump White House without Bannon will be no more radical in its coddling of far-right groups -- [Tuesday], Trump showed again that he needs no encouragement -- but it will be more captured by the traditional small-government agenda of the G.O.P. that Bannon hoped to destroy."
... Jessica Schulberg of the Huffington Post: "Weeks before a violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, led to three deaths and 19 injuries, the Trump administration revoked a grant to Life After Hate, a group that works to de-radicalize neo-Nazis. The Department of Homeland Security had awarded the group $400,000 as part of its Countering Violent Extremism program in January, just days before former President Barack Obama left office.... Trump aides, including Katharine Gorka, a controversial national security analyst known for her anti-Muslim rhetoric, were already working toward eliminating Life After Hate's grant and to direct all funding toward fighting what the president has described as 'radical Islamic terrorism.'... Gorka and her husband, Sebastian Gorka, also a Trump White House official, have collaborated on numerous writings about the threat of radical Islam.... The day after Trump won the election, Sebastian Gorka said, 'I predict with absolute certitude, the jettisoning of concepts such as CVE.... Once Trump entered the White House in January, the office of then-DHS Secretary John Kelly ordered a full review of the Countering Violent Extremism program.... While that review was underway, DHS and the FBI warned in an internal intelligence bulletin of the threat posed by white supremacy.... DHS also revoked funding from the Muslim Public Affairs Council, an American Muslim advocacy organization that was told in January it would receive a $393,800 grant to create community resource centers throughout the country." ...
... Bob Moser of the New Republic: "Unite the Right, the 'alt-right' rally in Charlottesville that attracted the largest contingent of white supremacists in recent American history ... -- had everything to do with ... Donald Trump. This was not a rally in support of a Confederate statue; as The Atlantic's Matt Thompson put it, it was a 'pride march' for America's resurgent white supremacists.... The ideology on parade not only has official sanction and mainstream respectability in 2017; it also happens to be the ideology of the president of the United States. 'From this day forward a new vision will govern our land,' Trump promised in his apocalyptic 'American Carnage' inaugural address. 'From this day forward, it's only going to be America first, America first.' It was, as Slate's Jamelle Bouie wrote, the 'one real, coherent defining theme for his administration -- the only thing that counts is America. And the only Americans who count are white.'" ...
... Jamelle Bouie: "It's clear from all accounts of the violence in Virginia that the 'Unite the Right' demonstrators came heavily armed and prepared for conflict, chanting racist slogans and antagonizing counterprotesters. For Trump, however, the opposite was true. It was counterprotesters who came charging with 'clubs,' attacking the white supremacists and neo-Nazis.... Comparing Robert E. Lee to George Washington also reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the issues at stake.... Those statues [of Lee & other Confederate "heroes"] weren't placed as historical markers. The vast majority were erected decades after the end of the Civil War, built to valorize the Confederacy and mark the establishment of Jim Crow. It's no accident they were placed in parks and other prominent spaces near courthouses and seats of government. They marked and memorialized white supremacy, and served as a warning to anyone -- black or white -- who would challenge it. Confederate 'heroes' like Robert E. Lee hold no historical significance outside the Confederacy and the myth of the 'Lost Cause.' To erect monuments in their honor is to celebrate both." ...
... Tom Kludt of CNN: "Months before a man allegedly turned his vehicle into a weapon and plowed through a group of protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, an article that made the rounds in conservative media encouraged readers to do something similar. Originally published by The Daily Caller and later syndicated or aggregated by several other websites, including Fox Nation, an offshoot of Fox News' website, it carried an unsubtle headline: 'Here's A Reel Of Cars Plowing Through Protesters Trying To Block The Road.' Embedded in the article was a minute-and-a-half long video showing one vehicle after another driving through demonstrations. The footage was set to a cover of Ludacris' 'Move Bitch.'... As the outrage grew on Twitter, Fox News took action, deleting the version Fox Nation had published.... Within hours, the Daily Caller had deleted the original post. That version had been published by Mike Raust, who was then a video editor at The Daily Caller.... Lawmakers in several states have proposed laws this year intended to ease the liability for drivers who hit protesters. A bill in North Dakota's state legislature ... failed to pass in February." ...
... Sean Welsh & Colin Campbell of the Baltimore Sun: "Confederate statues in Baltimore were removed from their bases overnight, as crews using heavy machinery loaded them onto flat bed trucks and hauled them away, an end to more than a year of indecision surrounding what to do with the memorials. The action comes after Mayor Catherine Pugh pledged to remove four statues linked to the Confederacy from public spaces in the city and the Baltimore City Council unanimously passed a resolution to tear them down after a national conversation was renewed following a deadly act of terror during a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. on Saturday.... The quick overnight action was designed in part to avoid violent conflicts over their removal like what Charlottesville experience." The statues the city took down were vandalized effigies of "Robert E. Lee & 'Stonewall' Jackson Monument at Wyman Park Dell near Johns Hopkins University..., the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Mount Royal Avenue, the Confederate Women's Monument on West University Parkway and the Roger B. Taney Monument on Mount Vernon Place. Gov. Larry Hogan on Tuesday said the long-debated statue to Taney -- the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who ruled in the Dred Scott case -- at the State House in Annapolis should come down."
Robert Pear & Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "Premiums for the most popular health insurance plans would shoot up 20 percent next year, and federal budget deficits would increase by $194 billion in the coming decade if President Trump carries out his threat to end certain subsidies paid to insurance companies for the benefit of low-income people, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday. The subsidies reimburse insurers for reducing deductibles, co-payments and other out-of-pocket costs that low-income people pay when they visit doctors, fill prescriptions or receive care in hospitals. Even before efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act collapsed in the Senate last month, Mr. Trump began threatening to cut off the subsidies, called cost-sharing reductions. He said the health care law would 'implode' and Democrats would have no choice but to negotiate a replacement plan. Mr. Trump described his strategy as, 'Let Obamacare implode, then deal.'"
Louis Nelson of Politico: "... Donald Trump lashed out again Wednesday morning at the online retailer Amazon.... 'Amazon is doing great damage to tax paying retailers. Towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt - many jobs being lost!' the president wrote online just after 6 a.m. Wednesday morning.... The president's tax-related allegations against Amazon are unclear, since the company has been collecting sales tax in each state that has one since the beginning of April.... Trump has also made a regular habit of attacking Amazon over its connection to The Washington Post...."
Andrew Kramer & Andrew Higgins of the New York Times: A Ukrainian "hacker, known only by his online alias 'Profexer...,' wrote computer code ... and quietly sold his handiwork on the anonymous portion of the internet known as the Dark Web. Last winter, he suddenly went dark entirely. Profexer's posts, already accessible only to a small band of fellow hackers and cybercriminals looking for software tips, blinked out in January -- just days after American intelligence agencies publicly identified a program he had written as one tool used in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee. But while Profexer's online persona vanished, a flesh-and-blood person has emerged: a fearful man who the Ukrainian police said turned himself in early this year, and has now become a witness for the F.B.I.... There is no evidence that Profexer worked, at least knowingly, for Russia's intelligence services, but his malware apparently did.... It does not suggest a compact team of [Russian] government employees who write all their own code and carry out attacks..., but rather a far looser enterprise that draws on talent and hacking tools wherever they can be found."
Choe Sang-Hun of the New York Times: "With his public alarmed by President Trump's recent threats to North Korea, President Moon Jae-in of South Korea issued an unusually blunt rebuke to the United States on Tuesday, warning that any unilateral military action against the North over its nuclear weapons program would be intolerable. 'No one should be allowed to decide on a military action on the Korean Peninsula without South Korean agreement,' Mr. Moon said in a nationally televised speech. As a candidate for the presidency, Mr. Moon, a liberal who took office in May, said he would 'say no to the Americans' if necessary. But he has aligned South Korea more closely with its military ally than many had expected. Though he suspended the deployment of a United States missile defense system opposed by China, he reversed that decision last month after North Korea tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles."
Jessica Estepa of USA Today: "President Trump's re-election campaign said CNN had blocked its latest campaign ad, accusing the network of censorship. But the network said it has not rejected the ad.... The ad in question blasts Democrats, the media and career politicians. Additionally, it implies that members of the media are 'the president's enemies.' During a voiceover using that phrase, the ad features clips of journalists, many of whom work for CNN.... 'Today, CNN provided further proof that the network earns this mistrust every day by censoring President Trump's message to the American people by blocking our paid campaign ad,' [Trump campaign executive director Michael Glassner] said in a statement. 'Clearly, the only viewpoint CNN allows on the air is CNN's.'... According to the network, it verbally asked for changes in order to make the ad factual, something it does with all ads. The campaign asked for the change requests to be made in writing, but according to CNN, it then issued a press release before CNN sent over the changes. A CNN spokesperson said, 'CNN would accept the ad if the images of reporters and anchors are removed. Anchors and reporters don't have "enemies," as the ad states, but they do hold those in power accountable across the political spectrum and aggressively challenge false and misleading statements and investigate wrong-doing.'..."
Rafael Bernal of the Hill: "Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) and about 30 other protesters were arrested Tuesday outside the White House during a rally commemorating the fifth anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Gutiérrez, a vocal advocate for immigrant rights, was arrested after he and other protesters sat on the White House sidewalk. The rally was being held at Lafayette Square across Pennsylvania Avenue. Doug Rivlin, a spokesman for Gutiérrez, said the congressman was taken by U.S. Park Police, who have jurisdiction over the area surrounding the White House."
Senate Race
Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "Republican voters [in Alabama] put a bitter Senate campaign into overtime, forcing Sen. Luther Strange (R-Ala.) into a runoff with conservative jurist Roy Moore for the right to represent Attorney General Jeff Sessions's old seat. Strange was endorsed by President Trump, the National Rifle Association and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's super PAC, which spent $2.5 million on TV ads to boost him in Tuesday's primary. That helped push him past Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), saving national Republicans from an embarrassment in a unique mid-summer election marked by low turnout. Democrats, who have not won a Senate race in Alabama since 1992, nominated former U.S. attorney Doug Jones over a field of fringe candidates, according to a projection by the Associated Press."
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Reader Comments (22)
“All the hinges are gone now. The rails are far behind. The trolley is missing and presumed lost. The president* came down to the lobby of his Manhattan tower, ostensibly to sign an executive order on "infrastructure." He then took questions and we all went on a magic carpet ride through what he really thinks about the events in Charlottesville last weekend. For three days, whatever sensible people remain at Camp Runamuck have been trying to find some way to run damage control on the president*'s initial, ridiculous non-response to those events, whereupon, on Tuesday, the president* stepped up to the mic and blew all that work into tiny bits. Quite simply, the only president* we have lost his shit so badly on live TV that he'll never be able to find it again.” Charles P. Pierce, Esquire. 08/15/17
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a57036/trump-charlottesville-press-conference/
Marie, if you are back doing your very important work in this very worrying time, THANK YOU.
We need you now more than ever.
Uh huh! duly noted above.
"...Trump said at a news conference on infrastructure at Trump Tower in New York City. 'He (Steve Bannon) is a good person, and I think the press treats him frankly unfairly.'”
"He is a good person..." (something usually said before a firing.)
He* (fill in the blank ____________ ) "...is a good person " (something usually said before a firing.)
Examples of a good person (said before their firing.):
*He = Mike Flynn, *He = The Mooch, *He = Reince Priebus, etc.
Wait...there's an "alt-left"? Like a club wielding, charging, violent, cuckoo crazy "alt-left"? Like the parade of violent, unhinged, fact-free, white supremacist, gun toting alt-right loonies, except on the other side of the street?
Gee. You learn something new every day.
Oh, and the other thing I learned today? This crumbling, astoundingly amoral, off the chain disaster of a squalid suppuration we have as a president has now gone into another zone entirely. And this is just the beginning. I mentioned not long ago that some kind of psychic break was right around the corner. A guy who believes himself to rank among the greatest leaders in world history, and easily one of the top two or three presidents, who insists with the regularity of an atomic clock that everything he does or says is the best ever, when challenged repeatedly and confronted with the embarrassing failure that his presidency has become in a few short months, has nowhere to go but down. And it's not pretty.
This is the Donald Trump who "saw" thousands of Muslims cheering and celebrating on 9/11. This is the Donald Trump who whined, in the face of incontrovertible documentary evidence, that the size of his inauguration crowds was unsurpassed in history. This is also the Donald Trump who paid for a full page newspaper ad demanding that innocent kids be put to death for a crime they didn't commit. Because they were black. This is the Donald Trump who suggested that maybe some of his alt-right pals should assassinate his political rival, then promised to put her in jail if he won.
And what did we hear? Oh, that's all a strategy. No one is that loony. Give him a chance. We need a change!
To all those sage pundits who demanded we give this charlatan a chance, then another, and another, I say "Bite me, you sorry apologists for this horror show of a human being." So this is the kind of change you had in mind? Captain Queeg at the mic holding forth on who stole the fucking strawberries?
"Alt-left" my ass.
This is going to get a lot worse.
What is this bullshit about a Trumpy re-election campaign? He's only been in office six months of a four year (four years in hell) term and he's peed on the carpet, left the fridge door open for five days, put Dorito crumbs in all the beds, set fire to the draperies, flashed the neighbors after sitting in a lawn chair in the rose garden, scratching himself, plays the TV at ungodly volumes all night long, and threatened to start a thermonuclear war. Does he really think a TV ad is going to help?
I’m off to see the Eclipse. Now I must inform you of some necessary procedures.
Despite what you have seen in the Fake News Media, the actual cause of a Solar Eclipse is that a Magical Dragon (probably Puff) is devouring the Sun. This has been well known in the Orient for thousands of years. We must all jump up and down, dance around, bang on pot lids and scream: “Go away, Dragon, go away!” until Puff disgorges the Sun.
I’ve witnessed three Solar Eclipses, and have done this each time. It has always worked. Post hoc, ergo prompter hoc.
As you know, this sort of reasoning is the basis of nearly all religious belief, as well as much political ideology, social and economic theory. Even so, let’s don’t take any chances.
I for one feel for the first time in months a sense of relief. The horrific display yesterday by a tormented, demented, bumptious, captious, narcissistic fool who shot himself in the foot awakened even those whose loyalty knows no bounds to this man's true colors. Is this a turning point? Is this finally the end of the idea that we can put someone like this at the helm? Can we start the proceedings to oust this charlatan who DOES NOT represent what this country is SUPPOSED to stand for? We damn well better!!!
Luther Strange–-I hear that name and I think of Hannibal Lector–-Luther and Lector sharing a dish of fava beans and a good chianti.
Yeah, the fascination of the abomination keeps me listening to him, but unlike the reporters who have to cover him, I have a choice. I don't have to be in his physical presence, which I suspect I would find repugnant. (his new favorite good word), and I can turn him off anytime I wish. Were I there, I suspect I'd lose my job for walking off it, yesterday trailing clouds of laughter at the risible spectacle of the Pretender lecturing me on Truth. Maybe one day, all the reporters will, enmasse, leaving the great man muttering only to himself and the cardboard cutouts paid to stand behind him.
Here's some truth on the alt-left from the failing NYTimes:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/us/politics/trump-alt-left-fact-check.html?
Love that picture of new COS John Kelly listening to his boss scream and yell, out of control. He looks like he's thinking "Jeeeezus....what the hell have I got myself into? If this were the Marines, I'd court martial this sonuvabitch before his next spray tan."
Well...he should have known.
We did.
And I wish I could be just a little bit more sanguine about the whole thing, as PD suggests, but I can't. This will get a lot worse. And short of impeachment, it doesn't look good, and that's never going to happen. Because have any of you heard anything from the Confederate "leadership" about this yet? Oh, I'm sure they'll figure out a way to tweak the boilerplate bullshit, but that's it. They want King Trumpy's ass on the throne long enough for them to grab everything that's not nailed down and they don't care about civil rights, Constitutional rights, voting rights, or alt-rights. They care about themselves. Period.
Which means the next year and half will be crucial. If Democrats don't make something out of this then I'm leaving the party. They need to wrap this white supremacist ideology around the neck of every Republican in congress and not let up. They need to continue to call for Trumpy's tax returns. They need a freaking plan! They can't just be the "Not Trump" party.
And as for the little king himself, look for some wag the dog plots to be floated, soon and often. This is where Kelly can earn his money. Keep (or at least try) Trump from blowing something up. He's starting to feel desperate, and trapped. This is not something he's ever felt before. He's always been able to evade the consequences of his inept and amoral actions and words. Always. But no more (at least I hope not). He's always been able to sue someone, or tell one of his yuuuuuge whoppers, con some gullible journalist into writing a puff piece about his wonderfulness and how awesome it must be to be the DONALD.
But now they're writing stories comparing him to Hitler. He must love that. If he really does feel cornered (and he may just be deluded enough to ignore the trouble he's in--after all, he's gotten away with murder for so long) he may do something crazy, even for him. And this is where Kelly and the Confederate congress should step in and stop him.
We'll see.
But even if we are able to get rid of him, what then? pence?
Fuck me. If there are gods in the universe, a few of them are reeeeaaaaallllly pissed at us. The ones who aren't are probably looking like Kelly right about now.
Yeah...what Ak said.
I wrote our cowardly senator Toomey-- his Facebook thingie on the website says that he is disgusted by white supremacists, white nationalists and neo-Nazis. Weak. Really weak. And these are Nazis, not almost-Nazis. And the presidunce, Dolt45, is the biggest one. CNN had some apologist on, I switched to MSNBC and Michael Steele says it's (apologists) all a "load of crap." At least some Rs seem to be regretting their support in November... Baltimore hauled down its memorials-- good for this southern city. Meanwhile, people like Scott Whatsit at EPA are quietly ruining things. There is no "alt-left" and the presidunce needs to be removed for cause. I apologize in advance for a disjointed screed-- I feel like throwing things...
Jeanne,
Let the throwing commence.
And here's why none of that "We hate Nazis" claptrap should be allowed to work for a single Confederate.
Until they come out and renounce their support for this guy, their words aren't worth a Trump promise. He is their creature and they are his. They need to surgically remove themselves from the host.
But they won't. Or at least they don't think they can. In their little Confederate brains, the symbiosis between host and parasites is too extensive. They probably feel as if they wouldn't survive the separation.
You're right. "Coward" is the word.
(Now that I think of it, we are the host. They--all of them, Trump and R's--are the parasites. Must remember my high school biology.)
Ken,
I did read that piece in the Times about the "alt-left". My earlier screed did not mean to suggest that there aren't loonies on the left, because there are. But not the way Trump means.
For me, the truly dangerous alt-lefties are not out rampaging in the streets. That's a few thousand people at best, as the Times suggests. Probably a lot fewer. Certainly a lot fewer compared to the hundreds of thousands of bloodthirsty, locked and loaded psychos on the right.
No. The real alt-left are the people who, in 2016, gave us Trump. And in 2000, Bush. The real alt-left are those who voted for those idiots Ralph Nader and Jill Stein. So, okay, they want to make a point? Fine. But when it comes time to stand against the forces of darkness, the protest vote that hands the cup to the demons is not a Pyrrhic victory to brag to the kids about. "Kids, when I was younger, I stood up for Jill Stein against that horrible corporatist Hillary Clinton, and put Trump in the White House! Hooray for me. That was just before we had national race riots that led to martial law followed by worldwide nuclear war. But I did what I thought was right, by gum!"
Well, goody for you.
So Trump should be getting down on his wobbly, flabby knees and thanking the real alt-left for putting his fat ass in the White House, not comparing them to Nazi thugs.
@AK: Sanguine? Me? Hardly. I meant I felt relieved that this madman was showing the world his madness full frontal and at his own tower to boot. And that maybe this will be a turning point. Do I have confidence this will happen? As I said, it better or as you said, we are in for it one way or another.
PD,
Apologies. I likely overstated things. Although I would love to feel at least a bit hopeful that things have reached a tipping point, but that could also mean we've crested the top, getting ready to slide down to the bottom. My fear is that we've got Donaldo (Ethan Frome) Trumpado directing the toboggan. You may recall how that turned out.
Three excellent pieces over on New York magazine online from Margaret Hartmann, Jonathan Chait, and Ed Kilgore...just wander over there. Of the many reader comments and Tweets noted, this one was just insane.
Can you F*-ing believe this Twit's Tweet: Kayleigh McEnany the new national spokeswoman for the RNC, and a woman (who makes Dumb Blondes look smart...) said this:
"President @realDonaldTrump once again denounced hate today. The GOP stands behind his message of love and inclusiveness!"
She declared, "...President Trump was preaching unity."
Ummmmmmmmmmmmmm.....yeah!
Donald who?
As predicted, Confederate leadership has responded to the Trump inspired violence in Charlottesville. Both Turtle Man and Lyin' Ryan, bless their withered little hearts, sent out messages letting people know that it's probably not a great idea to invite Nazis to your next barbecue because, ya know (shh...they're not really all that nice).
And what did they have to say about Donald Trump's blaming both sides for the bloodshed, and his backtracking on calling out the Nazis?
Um.....Trump? Trump? Who dat? Never even heard'a the guy.
They seem to have no idea who Trump is or what he said or what, if any, his involvement might be in this latest demonstration of right-wing moral collapse.
So all is well, it's really too bad, and shit happens, but let's all hold hands, sing "Kumbaya", and move on. There are tax codes to burn and money to shovel into the coffers of the Kochs and their billionaire buddies, so no dawdling about crying over spilt milk. Chop-chop. We may even get back to taking healthcare away from undeserving poors! How great would that be?
Truly, kids, the moral entropy on the right is shocking.
The president backs up Nazis and these moral midgets can't even bring themselves to say his name, never mind connect him with the violence he has helped rev up.
Disgust is not a strong enough word. They are failures as moral beings. Abominable failures as leaders.
Here's something you don't see every day.
Kim Jong Un has defused talk of a US-North Korea nuclear war by backing off his rhetoric about raining missiles around Guam to show Trump what he thinks of his threats to nuke and pave his country.
So, try this on. Kim Jong Un, a crazy authoritarian dictator who has been working on a nuclear weapons program for years to bolster his paranoia about everyone, but especially the United States, being out to get him--this guy, in a game of chicken, involving international thermonuclear war,turns out to be the adult in the room.
Has Trump backed off on his talk of "fire and fury and power the likes of which the world has never seen"?
Of course not! So it's the crazy guy with the funny haircut who is behaving like a mature world leader. Not the American president.
Wow.
NYT:
Top News
Breaking News
Amid C.E.O. Exodus, Trump Disbands Top Business Panels
President Trump’s main council of top corporate leaders disbanded after he equated white nationalist hate groups with the protesters opposing them.
Soon after, the president announced on Twitter that he would end his executive councils, “rather than put pressure” on the members.
As I said before, we need a new word because 'chaos' doesn't make it in Trumpworld. And he ended his councils to protect his ass.
Listened to Mcmaster kissing trump ass in interview on Sunday. No comment from him or Kelly about your Fascist president today. So I'll just consign all those gushing tributes to 'greatest man I ever met' to trash heap. Kelly can always go back to defunding private groups like CVE, Mcmaster to writing about speaking truth to power.
The Economist rating of global cities for liveability is out. Or at least a synopsis is. The good news for the US is that no American cities are in the bottom 10. The not-so-good news is that no American cities are in the top 10.
The top 5, in order are Melbourne, Vienna, Vancouver, Toronto, and Calgary.
Peter Beinart has an article on the 'Alt-left' (Anti-fa) the lefties organized to protect lefty protesters from alt-right Fascist para-military forces. On Pro-publica an article describing the passivity of the police in the face of alt-right attacks on peaceful protesters describes how a New York militia group interceded to protect a goup of older anti white supremists under assault from young Fascists. That would be trump's Left-wing equivalent to the Fascists. Not quite just the other side of the coin.
This 19-minute Charlottesville video from Vice, linked by Esquire, is must see TV.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/videos/a57009/charlottesville-vice-documentary/
"After Trump finished speaking [Tuesday], the rebukes from congressional Republicans started rolling in all over again. Some, like Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Representative Will Hurd of Texas, criticized the president directly in tweets and statements. Others, like House Speaker Paul Ryan, withheld Trump’s name even if their target was obvious. 'We must be clear. White supremacy is repulsive,' Ryan tweeted."
Thank you Captain Obvious.