;)
The Commentariat -- August 19, 2016
Presidential Race
John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are scheduled to appear on the same stage early next month at a 'commander-in-chief forum' devoted to national security, military affairs and veterans issues. The Democratic and Republican presidential nominees will appear back-to-back Sept. 7 in New York at an event sponsored by the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and broadcast live in prime time on NBC and MSNBC, the sponsors announced Thursday.... Forum organizers said Clinton and Trump will field questions from NBC News personnel as well as an audience consisting mainly of military veterans and active service members. CW: Should provide sort of preview of how Clinton & Trump will negotiate the presidential debates.
Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "Facing criticism for some of the donations given to his family's philanthropy, Bill Clinton said on Thursday that the Clinton Foundation would no longer accept foreign or corporate funds should Hillary Clinton win the presidency in November. Mr. Clinton's decision, which the former president relayed to foundation employees in a meeting on Thursday, followed the recent release of State Department emails mentioning several donors to the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation who had contacts with aides to Mrs. Clinton while she was secretary of state.... During the meeting with staff members in New York, Mr. Clinton explained that should Mrs. Clinton win in November, the charity will be reorganized and rely only on contributions from United States citizens and independent charities...." -- CW
Amy Chozick: "Pressed by the F.B.I. about her email practices at the State Department, Hillary Clinton told investigators that former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell had advised her to use a personal email account. The account is included in the notes the Federal Bureau of Investigation handed over to Congress on Tuesday, relaying in detail the three-and-a-half-hour interview with Mrs. Clinton in early July that led to the decision by James B. Comey, the bureau's director, not to pursue criminal charges against her." CW: Huh, sounds like this leak comes from Democrats. ...
... Julian Hattem of the Hill: "House Republicans are doubling down in their effort to bring perjury charges against Hillary Clinton over her testimony last year to the House Select Committee on Benghazi. GOP lawmakers have claimed that the Democratic presidential nominee broke the law by lying under oath about her private email setup during her marathon appearance in October. Next month, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee plan to make the issue a central part of a hearing with senior officials from the FBI, a committee aide said on Thursday. Legally, the GOP faces a tough case. Politically, however, raising the perjury allegations would be a way to keep the issue of Clinton's truthfulness in the public eye throughout the fall as she battles Republican nominee Donald Trump for the White House." -- CW
** NEW. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Paul Manafort, installed as the chief strategist for Donald J. Trump's campaign after the firing of his original campaign manager, handed in his resignation on Friday morning. Mr. Manafort left nearly a week after a New York Times report about tumult within the Republican presidential nominee's campaign helped precipitate a leadership shake-up.... Mr. Manafort was also dogged by reports about secretive efforts he made to help the former pro-Russian government in Ukraine.... Mr. Manafort's deputy, Rick Gates, is expected to remain on the campaign, for now...." -- CW ...
... CW: Manafort appears to have purposely stomped all over the Trump campaign's assertion from two whole days ago that hiring Bannon & Conway was not a "campaign shake-up." Since Trump reportedly wasn't paying Manafort, Manafort could have maintained the steady-ship fiction by just not showing up for work, or popping in only occasionally to check his messages.
Nick Gass of Politico: "The office of Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards [D] signaled that Donald Trump is welcome to visit Louisiana in the wake of destructive flooding, but ... 'not for a photo-op.'... Edwards ... also said Thursday night that he would prefer that Obama wait at least a week to visit. Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway on Friday called the visit of the Republican nominee and running mate Gov. Mike Pence 'presidential' and 'a decidedly nonpolitical event, no press allowed, going to help people on the ground who are in need.'" -- CW
He's Sorry for ... Something. Jose DelReal, et al., of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump on Thursday expressed regret over causing 'personal pain' through ill-chosen words he has used 'in the heat of debate,' an unexpected and uncharacteristic declaration of remorse for a candidate whose public persona is defined by his combative and bombastic style.... Speaking Thursday [during a campaign rally in Charlotte, N.C.], Trump did not specify what he regretted during his speech Thursday and did not directly apologize to anyone. Trump tore into [Hillary] Clinton during his speech, which he read from prepared remarks on a teleprompter, and called on her to apologize for 'one lie after another.'" -- CW ...
... "Trump's Teleprompter Regret." Jesse Byrnes of the Hill: "'Donald Trump literally started his campaign by insulting people,' Clinton deputy communications director Christina Reynolds said in a statement. 'He has continued to do so through each of the 428 days from then until now, without shame or regret,' she continued. 'We learned tonight that his speechwriter and teleprompter knows he has much for which he should apologize.... But that apology tonight is simply a well-written phrase until he tells us which of his many offensive, bullying and divisive comments he regrets — and changes his tune altogether.'" -- CW ...
... The Long-Awaited "Pivot"? Nope. Greg Sargent: "This morning, Trump released his first general election ad, an ugly and dishonest production which shows he isn't changing a thing. In fact, the new ad is filled with precisely the same sort of dark, dystopian themes and content -- and even some of the same sort of grainy, dark footage depicting illegal immigrants as invaders -- that marked one of the first ads he ran during the GOP primaries." CW: Read on. The ad itself, is embedded below, via Sargent. ...
... Nick Gass of Politico: "Donald Trump's campaign rolled out its first general election ad Friday, part of a buy totaling approximately $4 million in battleground states where he is currently trailing Hillary Clinton." -- CW ...
... CW: The Trump campaign has not posted its ad on YouTube. I embedded a copy of the ad, which an individual had put up on YouTube only three minutes before I copied the code. Minutes later, the Trump campaign took down the YouTube video with a notice that "This video is private." This is the first time in my experience that a campaign has removed an unaltered ad from YouTube, For some reason, most candidates want as many people as possible to see their ads. The Trump campaign seems to be living in a dark, conspiratorial world where even positive coverage is sinister. Yeah, they're nuts. ...
... Update: The Washington Post made its own copy:
... ** Brian Beutler: "Donald Trump is bad at politics.... Case in point: On Wednesday night, Trump returned in characteristically Freudian fashion to Sean Hannity's show on Fox News and announced he would forcibly remove not just immigrants, but citizens from the U.S. if they're found to have extremist views.... Kicking citizens out of the United States for having extreme ideological views is unconstitutional.... This was, in essence, the point Khizr Khan was making at the Democratic convention three weeks ago when he asked Trump, 'Have you even read the United States Constitution?'... Based on a number of things Trump has said -- including that the Constitution has (at least) twelve articles (it has seven) -- Khan was on solid ground." Also, Mark Halperin is an idiot. -- CW
To defeat crime and radical Islamic terrorism in our country, to win trade in our country, you need tremendous physical and mental strength and stamina. Hillary Clinton doesn't have that strength and stamina. -- Donald Trump, speech in West Bend, Wis., Aug. 16
Importantly, she also lacks the mental and physical stamina to take on ISIS. -- Trump, speech in Youngstown, Ohio, Aug. 15
Given Trump's poor track record with the facts, it should be little surprise that, through innuendo, he is trying to surface debunked Internet rumors from the fringes of the right. But these are also half-baked, ridiculous and easily disproved, making it especially shocking that he would try to highlight them in prepared speeches.... Trump has claimed twice, without proof, that Clinton lacks the physical and mental stamina to be president. -- Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post
To give you an idea how generous Kessler is to Trump, he gives credence to that phony "letter from my doctor" Trump released last December. -- Constant Weader
The Phake Philanthropist. David Fahrenthold & Alice Crites of the Washington Post: Numerous times, during taping of his TV show "Celebrity Apprentice," Donald Trump promised to write personal checks to the charities for which the "celebrities" were appearing. "He didn't.... On-air, Trump seemed to be explicit that this wasn't TV fakery: The money he was giving was his own. 'Out of my wallet,' Trump said in one case. 'Out of my own account,' he said in another. But, when the cameras were off, the payments came from other people's money. In some cases..., Trump's 'personal' promise was paid off by a production company. Other times, it was paid off by a nonprofit that Trump controls, whose coffers are largely filled with other donors' money." -- CW
Trump of the Alt-Right. Ultra-conservative Ben Shapiro, in the Washington Post: "Conservatives joked openly for months about 'Trumpbart' and the transformation of Breitbart.com into, essentially, Bannon.com, but it was still something of a surprise that Trump would so publicly embrace [Steve] Bannon, a man who helped transform a mainstream conservative website into a cesspool of the alt-right.... The takeover [of the Republican party], now a virtual fait accompli, represents the dangerous seizure of the conservative movement by the alt-right.... Trump himself has flirted with the alt-right for months.... Like Breitbart[.com], Trump will continue to tacitly embrace the alt-right, hoping, presumably, that adherents of its worldview will propel his campaign in the same way it has boosted Breitbart's traffic by millions of monthly page views." -- CW ...
... Gene Robinson: "Shaken by the fact that he's losing, Donald Trump has fled into the parallel universe of the extreme right [[ and apparently plans to stay there for the remainder of the campaign.... [New campaign guru Steve] Bannon runs Breitbart News, a website that creates its own ultranationalist far-right reality -- one that often bears little resemblance to the world as it really is. As I write, the site is claiming that Hillary Clinton has some serious undisclosed health problem (her doctor says she is just fine), that one of Clinton's aides has 'very clear ties' to radical Islam (which is totally untrue) and that Clinton herself has 'clear ties' to Russian President Vladimir Putin (when in fact it is Trump who often reveals his man-crush on the Russian leader).... So if anyone was wondering whether this election cycle could get any worse for the GOP, it just did." -- CW
Sez Who? Margaret Hartmann synthesizes the state-of-mind of the Trump camp. -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Jeff Horwitz & Chad Day of the AP: "A firm run by Donald Trump's campaign chairman [Paul Manafort] directly orchestrated a covert Washington lobbying operation on behalf of Ukraine's then-ruling political party, attempting to sway American public opinion in favor of the country's pro-Russian government, emails obtained by The Associated Press show. Paul Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates, never disclosed their work as foreign agents as required under federal law.... Another goal: undercutting American public sympathy for [Yulia Tymoshenko,] the imprisoned rival of Ukraine's then-president. At the time, European and American leaders were pressuring Ukraine to free her.... None of the firms [DMP International LLC., Mercury, or the Podesta Group], nor Manafort or Gates, disclosed their work to the Justice Department counterespionage division responsible for tracking the lobbying of foreign governments." -- CW
Jen Kirby of New York: "Life-size statues of a completely naked Donald Trump rose in New York's Union Square, along with public spaces in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Cleveland, and Seattle. And yes, the artist buys into the whole 'little hands' theory....The project is called 'The Emperor Has No Balls,' and indeed Naked Donalds lacks those reproductive organs.... Naked Donald Trump lasted about two hours in Union Square, according to DNAinfo, before being felled by Parks Department employees.... The Parks Department ... told us: 'NYC Parks stands firmly against any unpermitted erection in city parks, no matter how small.'" Thanks to Jeanne B. for the lead. -- CW ...
... Peter Holley of the Washington Post: "... members of the anarchist collective INDECLINE decided they would showcase the aspirant president in the most humiliating way they could imagine: without his clothes.... The job of conceptualizing and creating the statues fell to a man who goes by the name 'Ginger,' a Las Vegas-based artist. Ginger told The Post that he has a long history of designing monsters for haunted houses and horror movies." -- CW
... You're welcome. -- CW
She's Not a Doctor, But She Plays One on TV. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "The Trump campaign's concerted effort to pump up questions about Hillary Clinton's health using innuendo and unfounded speculation now includes an official diagnosis: dysphasia. [Trump] spokeswoman [Katrina Pierson] alleged Thursday that Clinton suffers from the language disorder, with which she has never been diagnosed.... Pierson in this case appears to be passing along the kind of conspiracy theory website content that has colored so much of the Trump campaign.... Pierson's dysphasia diagnosis is clearly part of a cynical effort to raise questions about Clinton's health -- an effort that is taking place outside the bounds of what's generally been acceptable in a presidential campaign." -- CW
"I Fired the Jews." Marisa Taylor & William Douglas of McClatchy News: "Allegations of anti-Semitism have surfaced against one of Donald Trump’s foreign policy advisers, raising further questions about the guidance the Republican presidential nominee is receiving. Joseph Schmitz, named as one of five advisers by the Trump campaign in March, is accused of bragging when he was Defense Department inspector general a decade ago that he pushed out Jewish employees.... All three people who have cited the remarks, including one who testified under oath about them, have pending employment grievances with the federal government.... The revelations feed two themes that his opponent Hillary Clinton has used to erode Trump's credibility: That he is a foreign policy neophyte, and that his campaign, at times, has offended Jews and other minorities." -- CW ...
... digby: "I'm beginning to think we needn't worry about his 'extreme, extreme, vetting' because this man couldn't vet his way out of a paper bag. Of course it's just as likely that he did vet this fellow and found his anti-Semitic qualifications to be sterling." -- CW ...
... Steve M. has more on Schmidt's family tree. -- CW ...
... CW: Akhilleus writes in today's Comments that Trump played Not-Hitler for a day. Turns out Trump outsourced that job to an advisor. (Here, I was going to write something Schmidt said. But what he said was too sickening to type.)
CW: So many GOP operatives have announced they won't vote for Trump or will vote for Clinton that I have quit linking to the stories. But here's a funny one. Paulina Firozi of the Hill: "Ivanka Trump's brother-in-law will not be voting for the Republican nominee. In a profile in Esquire magazine of Ivanka's husband Jared Kushner, a spokesman said that his younger brother Josh Kushner was a 'lifelong Democrat' and 'would not be voting for Donald Trump in November.' The magazine did not specify whether Josh Kushner planned to vote for Hillary Clinton ."
Other News & Views
David Sanger of the New York Times: "The State Department conceded for the first time on Thursday that it delayed making a $400 million payment to Iran for several hours in January 'to retain maximum leverage' and assure that three American prisoners were released the same day. For months the Obama administration had maintained that the payment was part of a settlement over an old dispute and did not amount to a 'ransom' for the release of the Americans.... But at a briefing on Thursday, John Kirby, the State Department spokesman, said the United States 'took advantage of the leverage' it felt it had that weekend in mid-January to obtain the release of the hostages and 'to make sure they got out safely and efficiently.'... The acknowledgment by Mr. Kirby on Thursday touched off a torrent of criticism from Republicans." CW: That would be because the entire Republican party is a playpen for whiney babies who can't stand it when the Obama administration effects good outcomes.
Lizette Alvarez & Pam Belluck of the New York Times: "A cluster of Zika cases most likely transmitted by local mosquitoes has been identified in Miami Beach, and federal and state officials are considering whether to advise pregnant women to avoid traveling to the city and possibly even all of Miami-Dade County, a health official said Thursday." -- CW ...
... Brady Dennis of the Washington Post: "... in a study in mice, researchers have found evidence that suggests adult brain cells critical to learning and memory also might be susceptible to the Zika virus." -- CW
Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department plans to end its use of private prisons after officials concluded the facilities are both less safe and less effective at providing correctional services than those run by the government. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates announced the decision on Thursday in a memo that instructs officials to either decline to renew the contracts for private prison operators when they expire or 'substantially reduce' the contracts' scope." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Pema Levy of Mother Jones: "The announcement comes on the heels of a Mother Jones investigation of a private prison in Louisiana that found serious deficiencies in staffing and security. It also documented a higher rate of violence than the prison reported. Last week's DOJ report found that private prisons are more violent than federal prisons. As of December 2015, private prisons incarcerated about 22,600 federal inmates. The news of the DOJ's decision prompted a quick downturn in stock prices for the two largest private prison companies." -- CW ...
... Maurice Chammah of the Marshall Project details some facts & implications of the administration's decision. BTW, "Donald Trump has said, 'I do think we can do a lot of privatizations and private prisons. It seems to work a lot better.'" As president, he could reverse the DOJ's decision, announced today. -- CW
The Trouble with ObamaCare -- Republicans. Paul Krugman: "...there's nothing wrong with Obamacare that couldn't be fairly easily fixed with a bit of bipartisan cooperation. The only thing that makes this hard is the blocking power of politicians who want reform to fail." CW: Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) is a world-class jerk, but he was right about the "Republican health care plan: die quickly." Every Democrat should (and should have) run against the God's Option Party; i.e., if the Lord wants you to get sick and die, sucker, amen, amen, amen.
Annals of Journalism, Ctd. J.K. Trotter of Gawker: "After nearly fourteen years of operation, Gawker.com will be shutting down next week. The decision to close Gawker comes days after Univision successfully bid $135 million for Gawker Media's six other websites, and four months after the Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel revealed his clandestine legal campaign against the company. Nick Denton, the company's outgoing CEO, informed current staffers of the site's fate on Thursday afternoon, just hours before a bankruptcy court in Manhattan will decide whether to approve Univision's bid for Gawker Media's other assets. Staffers will soon be assigned to other editorial roles, either at one of the other six sites or elsewhere within Univision." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "Gawker and its writers, despite some steps backward, made the web better. It made the web what it is." -- CW ...
... Will Oremus of Slate: "Who would dare [to call out Silicon Valley excesses], now that [tech billionaire Peter] Thiel has set a precedent for Silicon Valley's ruling class to wield their fortunes to exact revenge on publications that offend them? Who would want to, now that he has successfully made the Gawker mothership so toxic that a new owner would rather shutter it than keep the lights on?" -- CW
** Margaret Talbot of the New Yorker: "To some researchers who've studied sexual harassment..., the Fox News scenario doesn't look like that much of an outlier. For one thing, some studies have found that women in positions of authority, especially in workplaces that are dominated by men, may be more likely to experience sexual harassment than women in lower-status positions.... [One researcher, Heather McLaughlin,] says that these findings make sense because she believes workplace sexual harassment isn't really about sex; it's about power.... The allegations of sexual harassment at Fox News ... are a reminder of what a serious disruption harassment can be to a career." -- CW ...
... CW: As anyone who has been the victim of unfair treatment -- that is, probably everybody -- knows, the effects of the victimizating act most often don't end with the incident but can be life-altering.
Beyond the Beltway
Frank Main & Fran Spielman of the Chicago Sun-Times: "Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson is seeking to fire seven officers -- including the partner of Officer Jason Van Dyke -- for allegedly lying in their accounts of what happened in Van Dyke's fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald. Johnson originally planned to announce Thursday that he would move to fire eight of the 10 officers that city inspector general had recommended for termination, but one of them then retired. Another one, Deputy Chief David McNaughton, had retired on Monday." -- CW
Way Beyond
Simon Romero of the New York Times: "In his original account [to NBC News], [U.S. swimmer Ryan] Lochte said the [taxi in which he & three other U.S. swimmers were riding] had been pulled over by armed men, one of whom put a gun against his head before taking the cash from his wallet. But police investigators said Thursday that Mr. Lochte and the others had acted more like small-minded vandals than the victims they claimed to be. Making a stop around 6 a.m. Sunday at a Shell gas station, the men were obviously drunk, the station's owner said. The[y] broke a soap dispenser in the bathroom, damaged a door, tore down a sign and urinated around the premises, the owner told reporters.... [Swimmers Gunnar] Bentz and [Jack] Conger, who were pulled off their plane by the police on Wednesday in Rio, offered testimony on Thursday that contradicted Mr. Lochte's accounts, police investigators said." -- CW ...
... Dave Sheinin & Dom Phillips of the Washington Post: "While decorated American swimmer Ryan Lochte remained safely in the United States, his three American teammates, blocked from leaving Rio de Janeiro by Brazilian authorities, faced additional questioning Thursday as Lochte's harrowing story of an armed robbery at gunpoint Sunday morning began to unravel.... Several media outlets Thursday reported the existence of a surveillance video from a Rio de Janeiro gas station early Sunday showing Lochte and his teammates damaging property. The Daily Mail, a British news outlet, reported -- citing Brazilian police -- that Lochte and the other swimmers refused to pay for the damage until a security guard waved a gun at them and demanded payment. Brazilian news outlet O Globo reported, also citing police sources, that Lochte and his teammates urinated on the gas station's building and vandalized the property." -- CW (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Julia Jacobo & Emily Shapiro of ABC News: "The U.S. Olympic Committee Thursday night apologized to Brazil for the 'distracting ordeal' stemming from what Brazilian authorities call a fabricated claim of a gunpoint robbery by a group of swimmers in Rio de Janeiro. 'The behavior of these athletes is not acceptable, nor does it represent the values of Team USA or the conduct of the vast majority of its members,' the statement said. 'We will further review the matter, and any potential consequences for the athletes, when we return to the United States.' Their behavior was also blasted by the head of USA Swimming, Chuck Wielgus Thursday night.... On Thursday, police in Rio de Janeiro recommended that U.S. Olympic swimmers Ryan Lochte and James Feigen face charges of false reporting of a crime, a civil police spokesperson said." -- CW ...
... Matt Bonesteel of the Washington Post: "Jimmy Feigen, who has been accused by Brazilian authorities of fabricating a robbery claim along with Ryan Lochte and two other U.S. swimming teammates, will pay about $10,800 to an unnamed Brazilian charity and then leave the country, his attorney told the Associated Press early Friday. According to attorney Breno Melaragno, Brazilian law allows people charged with minor offenses to make a donation to charity to avoid criminal prosecution." -- CW
... Mark Giannatto of the Washington Post: "Sérgio Riera, the lawyer who succeeded in getting American swimmers Gunnar Bentz and Jack Conger permission from a judge to leave Brazil on Wednesday night, told The Post's Dom Phillips that his clients had not lied to police about an alleged robbery involving American swimming star Ryan Lochte on Sunday night.... 'They did not lie. They did not talk to the press.... They did not go to the police station and they were not told to appear at the police station,' Riera said in an interview once both men had gone through check-in at Rio's international airport.... They knew it was a lie. But they did not have to go public,' Riera said. 'They thought this would be forgotten. They did not think it would have a more serious consequence.'" -- CW ...
... Scott Allen of the Washington Post: "How Ryan Lochte's robbery story went from unbelievable to simply not believable." -- CW ...
... Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post: "Ryan Lochte is the dumbest bell that ever rang. The 32-year-old swimmer is so landlocked in juvenility that he pulled an all-nighter with guys young enough to call him uncle. His story to NBC's Billy 'what-are-you-wearing' Bush had the quality of a kid exaggerating the size of a fish, and notice how he was the hero of every detail.... There is a special category of obnoxious American 'bro' that Lochte represents, in his T-shirt and jeans and expensive suede footwear, which he showed off on social media that night at the party along with the price tag. 'We're 6k deep here,' he captioned it. Is there anything Is there anything worse, in any country, than a bunch of entitled young drunks who break the furniture and pee on a wall?" -- CW ...
... CW: As much as I hate to make comments about people's personal appearances (unless about someone like Donald Trump who has made a career of demeaning other people's looks), let me just say that if Lochte is not as dumb as Jenkins lets on and thus can memorize lines & find his marks, he looks like the perfect guy to play the cruel Nazi lieutenant in low-budget movies about WWII. My apologies to any readers who look something like Lochte, but do think about dying your hair a darker color & committing your life to good works.
News Lede
New York Times: "Gen. John W. Vessey Jr., a soldier's soldier who lied about his age to enlist in the service, won his commission on a battlefield in World War II and became a four-star general and then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Reagan administration, died Thursday night at his home in North Oaks, Minn. He was 94." -- CW
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Reader Comments (18)
Not Hitler After All!
I expect a huge wave of relief, like a cloud of long bottled up flatulence, is rippling undergarments across the breadth of TrumpWorld and the Confederacy. Trump "apologized"! "Hey, betcha Hitler never apologized." For what he hasn't said. But it's only a matter of time before the real unteleprompted Donaldo reappears and this thing that seems much more like a semi-sorta-almost normal politician is packed away.
But Not Hitler for a Day should calm the waters in the Confederacy and give them all visions of their guy erecting a giant T on the facade of the White House.
We shall now see if Trvmpvs' new tribune, Breitbart Steve, can parlay this Not (always) Hitler thing into traction in the mainstream media and how long he can keep this plate spinning in the air.
The McClatchey article outlining the possible (likely?) discriminatory proclivities of Donaldo's foreign affairs advisor Joseph Schmitz, quotes a winger congressman and Trump humper, Tom Marino, as saying he was impressed after sitting in on one of Herr Drumpf's foreign affairs sewing circles (they're making a lovely quilt for their collective heart throb, a former KGB officer and current Russian despot), because he felt the advisors struck him as being "expert-ish". Well, I dunno 'bout you kids, but I'm certainly relieved to know that in the event of a Trump victory in November, he'll have expert-ish (as opposed to expertesque?) advice in the event of some catastrophe.
So does that mean that Mr. Schmitz, who has declared any charges of anti-Semitic sentiments to be lies, even if proven true, can be considered anti-Semitic-ish? After all, Donaldo frequently describes himself as presidential-ish.
Well those spinning plates didn't stay up for very long, did they? I should have said "Not Hitler for Half an Hour "...ish.
" The Parks Department ... told us: 'NYC Parks stands firmly against any unpermitted erection in city parks, no matter how small.'”
Best ever quote of the day!
Mike Morrell, former CIA director, was on Rose two nights ago trying to clear up his stance on Syria that some misunderstood when he appeared on the program last week. The Syrian civil war has to end, he says, because it's feeding extremism not to mention what it has done to its people. But a military solution alone is not the way to go––if you destroy the whole country you end up like Libya and Iraq. There has to be a political solution––a plan for a transitional government.A clear message to Assad would be air strikes––in increments––on his offices, air craft, etc. Intelligence is more important than ever and Morrell finds Trump's dismissal egregious.
Much more about Iran (they want to dominate the region & we need to push back) Putin, (he's playing a bad hand well) and he's worried about N.Korea's conflict with S.K. who has started to respond aggressively.
He tells a lovely anecdote about a time when he had had some bad news and was feeling pretty glum. He was sitting in a meeting when Hillary, then Secretary, walked in. Usually, he said. when that happened she would get stopped by multiple people on her way to her place at the table for this or that. This time she waved them all away. came to where Mike was sitting, sat down next to him, put her arm in his and said, "I want to know how you are."
RE: Trump's new team players are going to try and make a race horse out of an addled plow horse that keeps shitting all over the runway. Perhaps all those Steverinos and Kellyanne can can-do, but I betcha not much is going to change.
From Hitler to horses, we just never run out of similarities.
Disease of the day. Last night on the news they showed the videos of Hillary's 'health problems', including her 'seizures'. To call this absurd is being very polite. Now she can't speak. This is a person who speaks publicly almost every day and the only person that notices the problem works for Trump. A pathetic effort to find something to go after when they apparently can't go after her policies or plans.
Again, I think that the Trump's plan is just more bullshit for the morons they already have.
My biggest disappointment of the day is the poor planning for the Trump statue in Union Square, NYC. It should have been done tomorrow when I will be there.
"Unpermitted erection!"
Sounds like the title of a Huckabee or Santorum speech. But then again, I doubt they care whether males have unpermitted sexy time. Their primary goal is to stop women from doing the same thing.
As Biden said about ObamaCare, this business of phasing out private prisons is a BFD.
We've long known that private provision of essentially public services is the very definition of boondoggle. For all the reasons that any sane person could adduce, primary among them a profit motive that inevitably runs counter to the very idea of "service," they almost always cost more and deliver less.
This is true of everything from private roads to private utilities, and as "Mother Jones" and others have reported for years, it's especially true of prisons.
Even worse, is the unseemly connection between the millions in private prison lobbying and our inability to do anything sensible with immigration. If you're in the prison business, the more lawbreakers you have to house the better, so eliminating dumb laws is bad for business.
What a system!
Too bad Obama has only a few months left to disentangle and root out all the private contractors Bush II and his puppeteer embedded in the military.
Just think of all the good things he could have done with TWO second terms.
Ken,
Excellent point about for profit prisons. Much the same could be said about pretty much every other privatized operation, especially those essential to the common weal, all supported dutifully and mindlessly by Confederates.
Privatized health care has been a disaster.
The charter school craze has reaped profits for the vultures but shown zero gain in educational excellence. Some communities have also discovered the downside of a privatized school for their kids when the vultures don't make what they consider to be a good profit. They simply close up shop and beat it out of town leaving students and parents in the lurch.
And believe it or not, one of the biggest growth areas in privatization, that is, taking a public resource, handing it over to corporations who then turn around and sell that resource back to the public, which owned it in the first place, for immense profits, is water.
According to worldbusiness.org , "The privatization of water is underway. Some cash-strapped state and local governments are transferring control of public water services to private equity firms in exchange for upfront payments. “In essence, these upfront payments are high-interest loans that residents and businesses must repay through their water bills. It is ‘taxing through the tap’"
International criminal corporation, Nestle, finagled a deal with the state of Michigan that allows them to freely (as in "for free") drain publicly owned water supplies then sell that water back to the public which, again, owned it in the first place. Flint residents must love that. Oh yeah, and there's this too: "The spokesperson for Nestlé in Michigan is Deborah Muchmore. She’s the wife of Dennis Muchmore—Governor Rick Snyder’s chief of staff, who just retired and registered to be a lobbyist."
The fact is that Republicans, the great enablers of privatization, have also been complicit in putting cities and states in a bad way financially, a situation that has forced many of them to make very bad decisions in order to make ends meet (after budgets have been slashed by Republicans). So, another area of privatization, Transportation...
In Chicago, "...drivers will pay a Morgan Stanley-led partnership at least $11.6 billion to park at city meters over the next 75 years, 10 times what Mayor Richard Daley got when he leased the system to investors in 2008.
Morgan Stanley, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Allianz Capital Partners may earn a profit of $9.58 billion before interest, taxes and depreciation, according to documents for a $500 million private note sale by their Chicago Parking Meters LLC venture."
(Chicago residents must love enriching Morgan Stanley and the fucking Abu Dhabi Investment Authority when they have to pay five bucks, or whatever it is, to park at one of their meters for half an hour.)
And what does this demonstrate?
"The deal illustrates how Wall Street banks, recipients of more than $300 billion in taxpayer bailouts in the worst credit collapse since the Great Depression, are profiting from helping states and cities close record recession-induced deficits by selling bonds and leasing public properties. Chicago gave up billions of dollars in revenue when it announced in 2008 that it leased Morgan Stanley its 36,000 parking meters, the third-largest U.S. system, for $1.15 billion to balance its budget, said Alderman Scott Waguespack."
In other areas, residents reliant on public transportation to get to work, to shop, to buy groceries, and to connect to the world at large have found that newly privatized bus lines, unless they are sufficiently profitable, can be shut down with practically no notice.
And there are plenty of other areas where privatization has failed miserably to serve the public.
So, to sum up, Republican economic policies put cities and states in a bind. Said cities and states, now having to scrounge to handle massive deficits, are forced to hand over public resources to corporations who make huge profits from which they contribute to Republican efforts at further privatization.
Ending privatized prisons is a good first step. But Republicans and their corporate cronies have been on the march for a long time. Many other steps will be needed to catch up to these brigands.
Liars and their brands.
Ryan Lochte, in the wake of a night of drinking and vandalism, followed by an astoundingly stupid lie about crooks dressed like cops (I'm sure the cops in Rio love that part) robbing him and his buddies at gunpoint (a story that makes his pals look like submissive schmoes and Lochte the brave, manly man), will soon be finding out that his brand, his marketability, his ability to profit off a dozen Olympic medals, has disappeared faster than a sprinter's lead with Usain Bolt on his ass. Forget the Wheaties box, forget lucrative endorsements, forget any cushy media jobs. He'll be lucky to be coaching the swim team for Nexttonowhere High School, the one that practices in a water filled abandoned quarry.
Now another liar and his brand: Trvmpvs.
I don't know for sure, but anecdotes seem to indicate that the Trump brand has been suffering. I know I haven't bought any Trump ties made in China lately (okay, never). But there's a good chance Donaldo got into this thing in the first place to bolster his flagging brand. His brand is really all he's got. How many investors in South America or Europe or the Middle East or Africa will be lining up to hand over baskets of cash for the chance to put "Trump" on some luxury hotel complex after this campaign from hell is over?
Maybe the idea that he's planning on a new media deal to bail him out after he loses is not so crazy.
Lying has never really hurt him much before, but had he stayed where he was, he'd still be known as a mildly disreputable but somewhat quirky, goofy character who was always good for some crazy thing or other. Now he'll be forever remembered as a vicious demagogue, a sider with the forces of evil, an inveterate liar, a despicable hate monger and bigot who has gone out of his way to insult millions around the world including war heroes, women, and pretty much every non-white person here at home.
By all rights, the Trump brand should be DOA after this is over.
Maybe someone will come up the anti-Wheaties. Trump and Lochte can be on the first box.
Paul (Black Ledger) Manafort gone? Unpossible! What happened to all that bullshit about how Trump always hires the best people? Maybe he means the best people until he has to tell them to get lost. Yeah, that must be it.
Can you see a Trump administration now? "Hey, where's the Treasury Secretary?" "Oh, he had to resign. Something about insider trading." "Who are you?" "I'm the new Secretary of Defense." "What happened to the other guy?" "Oh, well, he needs time to prepare his defense in his upcoming trial for treason"....
Nothing but the best, Donnie, nothing but the best...
Just watched Donaldo's campaign video (embedded above. Thanks, Marie...).
No wonder he pulled it. It sucks. Boring, stock footage, pedestrian editing, soporific voiceover (sounds like they woke the guy up to do the VO), same ol', same ol'.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
With one exception (you knew there'd be one, right?).
The copy compares two completely non-existent Americas. But at least there's some record on which to base a "Hillary Clinton America", even if what's shown is laughably wrong.
That America is then put up alongside "Donald Trump's America" (Ta-Da!) where he keeps us strong, keeps the borders secure, and does something else, I forget now what that is, as if there actually was such a place; as if he were in a position to oversee defense, border security, and that other thing I've forgotten.
There is no place like that. It doesn't exist. They don't bother to say "If elected...." No, that wouldn't be Trump-ish enough. They're saying (and this is exactly like Trump suggesting what "second amendment people" could do to Hillary Clinton AFTER the election) that this America already exists.
Is this just sloppy writing? Well, yeah, it is that, but I think it's more a case of delusion, fantasy, and wish fulfillment. Keep us safe? Shit, he can't even keep himself safe. There's a new direction every day and it's never a straight line. It's like watching a petulant little kid on a tricycle trying to peddle backwards uphill.
There are just SOooooo many scary reasons not to vote for this idiot. This is just one more.
Well, looks like I'm monopolizing things here today, so one more then I'm done.
Donaldo continues to hide behind some bullshit excuse about IRS, audits, none of your business, I'm an asshole, so what...blah, blah, blah, for not making his tax returns public. So the DNC (is this a DWS idea?) has come up with a plan to quack the case wide open.
People in duck costumes, identifying themselves as "Donald Ducks" will be following the Orange Headed Liar at all public appearances until said returns are forthcoming (they better be prepared to wait a loooong time). Silly? Sure. But anything to get his Soiled Orangeness pissed off.
Predictably, the WSJ, always looking out for corporate interests above those of the American public, is crying "copyright infringement" and warning that Disney will be suing their assess.
When reached for comment, Trump, cogent as ever, had this to say.
Okay, I lied. There IS one more thing. But it's a good one.
Eminent penis chaser (but for a good cause!), Ken Starr, former university president, then demoted to chancellor and finally down to just a law professor at Baylor University has been booted from the university altogether in the wake of a series of campus sexual assaults committed, mostly by members of the football team, which in his Confederate, misogynistic indolence, were ignored by Starr as the head of the university.
It seems sexual misconduct is only considered a worthy subject for investigation when it promotes Confederate ideological goals, like trying to impeach a Democratic president. Other than that, women can tell their stories walkin'.
The Sanctimonious penis chaser will hopefully spend his retirement in disgrace and ignominy for allowing Baylor women to suffer so that his football team could rah-rah-rah for the alums.
I hesitate to say there are few more deserving of opprobrium because of the enormous cast of characters in right-wing world who deserve eternal perdition--I mean....there's a shitload of these assholes--but Starr is an especially vile example of Confederate anuses.
Okay. Now I'm done.
@Akhilleus: I've been thinking about some of your comments, and there might be a connection none of us has noticed. For instance, you mentioned yesterday that you hoped during his intelligence briefing that the briefers would just show him the globe & point out where China and France were, or something. (If they did, I imagine he grabbed the globe & started pointing [inaccurately, but so what?] to all the places where the "greatest in the world" Trump golf courses and "most amazing ever" Trump hotels were located.)
But let's suppose the briefers got a word in edgewise and told him that always knocking Muslims and Islam created a yuuuge global threat. Maybe they got him to promise to tone it down and apologize for some of his more incendiary comments. Maybe they put in writing some boilerplate language he could use to express his regrets, then left it to him to fill in the blanks: "I'm sorry for what I said about __________.
So an aide put the sample language up on the teleprompter, but nobody filled in the blank. Ergo, "Trump's" one-day apology "tour" in which he apologized for ... something he might have said at some time in a past too distant to remember. Mission accomplished!
Not to worry about offending the base, either; he simultaneously got those "Hillary rigged the system so Muslims will be moving into your spare bedroom and making bombs in your garage" ads up and running. Perfect.
BTW, I'm sorta not kidding about the central premise: that the intelligence briefers told him the country would be safer if he STFU.
Marie
Marie,
Your premise is entirely possible. The thing would be whether Trump, who has many times stated that he knows more than generals and officers on the battlefield, about what ISIS was up to and how to deal with it, would listen. I'm pretty sure he feels that whatever he learns on breitbart and Fox about intelligence and national security is far superior to what he might hear from the experts who do this stuff every day.
I'm guessing the apology thing is Bretibart Steve's idea. He thinks of himself as a pretty cagey operator when it comes to getting the whackiest bullshit into the mainstream. He might see that 8 second apology tour as a way to soften up reporters and pundits not as smart as he is and to pave the way for sliding the real greasy stuff under the door.
At this point, who really knows? The Trump camp is so fucked up. During the most crisis ridden week of this campaign, the person he supposedly trusts most is lolling in the sun on a yacht in the Mediterranean with the former Mrs. Murdoch. He's getting advice on women's issues from a serial sex abuser and foreign affairs advice from a guy who helps dictators bury the bodies, not to mention his advisor on issues of importance to B'nai B'rith who is a holocaust denier. I'd love to think that advice from the real world on vital issues of national security would penetrate the foggy dome but I'm not sure how likely that is. It's more likely that he'd tune into what Drudge has to say before anyone in the NSA.
I looked at the Trump medical results. His PSA is the lowest of any man in the world at 70!. His blood pressure was obviously taken when he was unconscious. The most interesting is the fact he takes a low dose statin. That would be taken by someone with a slightly elevated LDL. There is an interesting side effect under those circumstances. Here is surprise. About 25% of your cholesterol is in your BRAIN. One of the side effects of statins reported by the FDA is reduced cognitive function. My guess from data and personal experience is that when you give a statin to someone who doesn't really have high cholesterol (low dose), the cognitive problem appears because the brain system is separate and it can't handle the low level of cholesterol. Have fun Donald.
RE: Josh Kushner not voting Republican. The extensive New Yorker piece that I linked yesterday addresses the fact that Jared's parents are die hard Democrats so I assume they are not going to vote for their daughter-in-law's father under any circumstances. Jared and Ivanka broke up over religion––his family is orthodox Jewish––it wasn't until Ivanka agreed to embrace the religion was she accepted into the family and they were impressed with how she handled the arduous task of conversion–-very long and difficult. The children from this union are also being brought up Jewish. What we do for love~~~~~~
When I heard the words in used in the Apology Tour, I thought he was apologising for the clap trap he spews causing "personal pain" to himself, if you listen to exactly what he said. Fat frump doesn't give a toss about anyone else's pain.
It is against international law to exile your own citizens. What do they think they are going to do with people, put them in a boat and push them out to sea? Honestly, these guys just don't live anywhere near the twenty-first century.
It's been a while since I checked in with our friends at the Daily Show. This solid report brings back memories of greatness:
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/y6mxf5/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-putting-donald-trump-supporters-through-an-ideology-test