;)
The Commentariat -- November 1, 2018
Late Morning Update:
Doug Stanglin & John Bacon of USA Today: "Wearing a red jumpsuit and a bandage on his left arm, the suspect in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting rampage that left 11 people dead pleaded not guilty Thursday in a brief arraignment in federal court where prosecutors emphasized he faces the possibility of the death penalty." Mrs. McC: Evidently that old white boy craves the spotlight of a trial to further spread his message of hate & murder.
Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said Republicans are using news of a migrant caravan to try to motivate GOP voters ahead of next week's midterm elections, with the party hammering immigration in the final days before voters cast ballots. 'We all know what's happening. It's all about revving up the base, using fear to stimulate people to come out at the polls,' Corker told reporters in Nashville on Wednesday. Corker ... recalled how a friend recently asked him if he thought it was being funded by a wealthy Democratic donor. 'I said, are you kidding me? If anybody's funding it, it's some Republican donor, because it has obviously turned into an election issue that has benefited the Republican side,' Corker said."
*****
Invasion of the Body Builders. Jonathan Karl, et al., of ABC News: "... Donald Trump said that the increased military presence on the border is going to help stop what he called the 'invasion' that is coming in the migrant caravan.... 'We have to have a wall of people,' Trump said, shortly after it was announced that they're going to send 10,000 to 15,000 troops to the border. In an ... interview with ABC Chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl, Trump also said that he strives to tell the truth. 'Well, I try. I do try ... and I always want to tell the truth. When I can, I tell the truth. And sometimes it turns out to be where something happens that's different or there's a change, but I always like to be truthful,' Trump said. One of the issues he has with the reporting of the migrant caravan is that he believes the crowd estimates are wrong, based off his own estimates. 'You have caravans coming up that look a lot larger than it's reported actually. I'm pretty good at estimating crowd size. [Mrs. McC: Hahahahaha.] And I'll tell you they look a lot bigger than people would think,' Trump said. Trump said that the caravan is made up of 'mostly young men' and that the women and children pictured in the crowd are being purposefully posed for the cameras.... Asked directly if he thinks the caravans are an invasion, he said 'I do think so. When you look at some of them, when you look at some of the people in them, yeah, I think it can be considered an invasion. We can't have it.'" ...
... Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Karl & his colleagues are practicing a nearly perfect distillation of the Colbert Stenographic Model: "The President makes decisions. He's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration? You know, fiction!" Other than that one link to Trump's excellent estimation of crowd size (which goes unremarked upon in the story's text), Karl just types what Trump says & maybe his associates spell-check it. Time for Jon to go home & write that novel. ...
... A Very Fake "National Emergency." David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "President Trump declared a national emergency last week -- in a tweet. Aiming his ire at a caravan of migrant families hundreds of miles from the United States, Trump vowed he was 'bringing out the military for a National Emergency.' His administration then authorized sending more than 5,000 active-duty troops to the border. But Trump has filed no legal proclamation declaring a national crisis as required under a 1976 law enacted to rein in abuses of executive power by granting presidents additional authorities only in specific instances and for a limited time frame. For Trump, the caravan is an emergency merely because he said so.... Norman Ornstein, a political analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said the 1976 National Emergencies Act was intended to offer the public a clear White House rationale for pursuing emergency actions -- a safeguard that Trump has circumvented with his impetuous nature and loose language.... Trump's predecessors often invoked the 1976 law when facing down crises they believed threatened the nation." ...
... Your Tax Dollars in Service of Trump & GOP. James LaPorta & Chantal Da Silva of Newsweek: "On Monday, the Pentagon announced that it was sending an additional 5,200 troops to the United States's southern border amid increasingly heated rhetoric from ... Donald Trump, including claims of the presence of 'unknown Middle Easterners,' terrorists and MS-13 gang members. Those claims are not currently supported by intelligence on the ground.... A Pentagon official familiar with the details of the deployment told Newsweek that initial values could start within the $50 million range. The estimated financial figure surged when factoring in the movement of equipment and associated logistical support combined with the allocation of funds for U.S. troops on temporary duty, the source said." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: That is, the POTUS* is spending a minimumof $50MM of your money & using U.S. military personnel & equipment strictly for domestic political purposes. ...
... Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "At the rally [near Fort Myers,] Florida [Wednesday], the president referred to the citizenship clause in the Constitution as a 'crazy policy,' telling a rapt crowd that 'illegal immigrants are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.' (Legal experts would widely disagree.)... On Wednesday, a red-meat menu included attacks on Democrats, immigrants and the news media -- the 'enemy of the people, Mr. Trump said.... 'Andrew Gillum wants to throw open your borders to gang members, human traffickers and criminal aliens,' Mr. Trump said. Mr. Gillum has said that Florida should never become a 'show me your papers' state." ...
... Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "President Trump on Wednesday bashed Speaker [linked fixed] Paul Ryan for rejecting his call to end birthright citizenship. 'Paul Ryan should be focusing on holding the Majority rather than giving his opinions on Birthright Citizenship, something he knows nothing about! Our new Republican Majority will work on this, Closing the Immigration Loopholes and Securing our Border!' Trump tweeted.... The broadside from Trump follows criticism from the speaker Tuesday of the president's suggestion that he could end birthright citizenship through an executive order." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Jamelle Bouie of Slate: "Trump's argument is radical, and his proposal is plainly unconstitutional; the president can't simply nullify the meaning of a constitutional amendment. Trump's rhetoric is just that -- rhetoric with little bearing on actual policymaking. But he is the president. His words matter. And attacking birthright citizenship as part of a racist hysteria campaign is as close as we will likely get to Trump openly stating his driving belief: that America is a white nation for white people.... Donald Trump is often derided as a man of impulse and ego without conviction or belief. This is true on most questions of politics and policy. But on questions of identity, Trump is an ideologue. From his anti-Obama birtherism to his present-day nativism, he has a clear perspective: that race and nationality are the basis for belonging."
This Russia Thing, Ctd.
Evan Perez, et al., of CNN: "Former White House Counsel Don McGahn ended his tumultuous tenure at the White House with one last encounter in which ... Donald Trump blamed him for Robert Mueller's appointment, sources close to McGahn tell CNN. In a face-to-face Oval Office meeting, the President groused to McGahn about Mueller's appointment made on McGahn's watch as White House counsel, and the cloud the investigation has continued to cast over the presidency, the people familiar with the conversation said. Sources say while the President was fixated on Mueller, he also gave McGahn high marks for other matters during his time as the top White House lawyer, as CNN previously reported. One source said the President's continued frustration about Mueller is another example of him shifting blame for the ongoing Russia investigation.... The President had surprised McGahn months ago in announcing McGahn's planned departure on Twitter and surprised him again in announcing his successor in an Associated Press interview, so the final meeting fit with the deteriorated state of their relationship." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: While we all know nothing is Trump's fault, the story does not explain how McGahn was supposed to be responsible for Mueller's hiring.
Nelson Cunningham, a former federal prosecutor, shuffles through Politico's reporting and writes (in Politico) that numerous clues suggest the Mueller team is using its pre-election "down time" to proceed with the steps needed to subpoena Donald Trump. Mrs. McC: The one "clue" that seems to me to make Cunningham's thesis unlikely: we haven't heard Trump screaming about it. (Also linked yesterday.)
** Judge Sirica's "Roadmap to Impeachment" Released. Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "U.S. archivists on Wednesday revealed one of the last great secrets of the Watergate investigation -- the backbone of a long-sealed report used by special prosecutor Leon Jaworski to send Congress evidence in the legal case against President Richard M. Nixon. The release of the referral -- delivered in 1974 as impeachment proceedings were being weighed -- came after a former member of Nixon's defense team and three prominent legal analysts filed separate lawsuits seeking its unsealing after more than four decades under grand jury secrecy rules. The legal analysts argued the report could offer a precedent and guide for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III as his office addresses its present-day challenge on whether, and if so, how to make public findings from its investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election, including any that directly involve President Trump.
Mark Hosenball of Reuters: "The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee is pursuing a wide-ranging examination of former White House adviser Steve Bannon's activities during the 2016 presidential campaign, three sources familiar with the inquiry told Reuters. The committee is looking into what Bannon might know about any contacts during the campaign between Moscow and two advisers to the campaign, George Papadopoulos and Carter Page, they said."
Kevin Poulsen of The Daily Beast: "An examination of Twitter's new dump of Russian troll data this month shows that the IRA's [Internet Research Agency] tactics worked far better in the U.S. than in Russia or the Eastern European nations where the troll farm cut its teeth. English-language tweets by the IRA's sockpuppet accounts enjoyed nine times the engagement than tweets in Russian and other languages. And, remarkably, Americans fell for the Russian interference even harder after the 2016 presidential election than before." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Grifty McGriftsalot. Allegra Kirkland of TPM: "At the heart of the lawsuit to shut down the Donald J. Trump Foundation for 'persistent illegal conduct' is one event: the January 2016 televised fundraiser for veterans that Trump held in lieu of attending a GOP debate. TPM re-watched the footage of the fundraiser at Des Moines' Drake University to see if, as Trump Foundation attorney Alan Futerfas has argued, any political benefit Trump drew from the event was 'intangible.' The short answer: that's something of a stretch. The hour-long fundraiser had all the trappings of a Trump campaign rally, with the candidate devoting the bulk of his 30 minutes of remarks to boosting his 2016 race.... At a hearing in a stuffy Manhattan courtroom last week, Futerfas insisted that Trump was simply raising money for a good cause.... Futerfas, who is pushing to get the suit brought by New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood thrown out, accurately noted that 'every penny' that the foundation took in ultimately went to deserving charities. But those remarks didn't tackle the meat of Underwood's allegation: that the event amounted to an improper in-kind contribution from Trump's foundation to his campaign, with the candidate fusing resources from both entities to boost support among conservatives in the lead-up to the Iowa caucuses." --s
Laura Strickler of NBC News: "The Trump administration, which already canceled a grant for a group that fights white supremacist terror, now appears unwilling to renew the anti-domestic terror program under which it was funded, despite recent high-profile attacks like the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting and data showing a spike in attacks on religious minorities. The Obama administration launched the Countering Violent Extremism Grant Program in 2016 to fight domestic terrorism. Managed by the Department of Homeland Security, the program was given $10 million to distribute. In the last days of the Obama administration, DHS awarded the money to more than two dozen groups around the country to counter violent extremism of all kinds, including right-wing extremism. Data from the Global Terrorism Database shows there was a spike in attacks on American religious organizations in 2016-17." ...
... William Saletan of Slate "proves" that the "real victim" of the past week's attacks was Donald Trump. Saletan is kidding. Sadly, Trump is not. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Trump made his visit to the site of the mass murder of Jews attending a religious service all about ... Trump. In fairness, he did add digs at protesters & the media. He even put out a promotional video of Melania & him at the Tree of Life:
Melania and I were treated very nicely yesterday in Pittsburgh. The Office of the President was shown great respect on a very sad & solemn day. We were treated so warmly. Small protest was not seen by us, staged far away. The Fake News stories were just the opposite-Disgraceful! pic.twitter.com/9B9HgCF1G9
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 31, 2018
... I've unfortunately covered a lot of shootings over the years. I don't really remember an elected official, aware that they were so controversial, putting out a video of themselves at a crime scene to celebrate their own performance. -- Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, commenting on Trump's tweet ...
... Avi Selk & Kyle Swensen of the Washington Post: "... many hundreds of residents ... staged a decidedly not-small protest a few blocks from his motorcade. By the time Air Force One arrived at Pittsburgh International Airport, the protest had swelled to about 2,000 people. The demonstration had been organized at the last minute....
... William Saletan of Slate: "When Muslims commit terrorism, Trump blames incendiary rhetoric. When whites commit terrorism, such as last week's attempted pipe bombings and the mass murder at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Trump condemns the killers but excuses the ideologues who inspire them.... Trump's beef isn't really with incitement. It's with Muslims and immigrants. He's fine with incitement -- very fine -- as long as the incitement is his own." Saletan provides many examples to make his point.
... MEANWHILE. Matt Zapotosky, et al., of the Washington Post: "The suspect in a grisly shooting that left 11 people dead at a Pittsburgh synagogue was charged Wednesday in a 44-count indictment accusing him of federal hate crimes. Officials say Robert Bowers, 46, of Baldwin, Pa., drove to Tree of Life synagogue armed with Glock .357 handguns and a Colt AR-15 rifle. The indictment charges that while inside the synagogue, Bowers made statements indicating his desire to 'kill Jews.' In a statement announcing the indictment, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the alleged crimes 'are incomprehensibly evil and utterly repugnant to the values of this nation. Therefore this case is not only important to the victims and their loved ones, but to the city of Pittsburgh and the entire nation.'"
White Antiquities. Mark Hand of ThinkProgress: "President Donald Trump signed a proclamation on Friday -- under authority of the Antiquities Act of 1906 -- declaring Camp Nelson a national monument. Located in Jessamine County, Kentucky, Camp Nelson was a key site of emancipation for African American soldiers and a refugee camp for their families during the Civil War.... Conservation groups agreed the 525-acre Camp Nelson was fully deserving of being declared a national monument. But ... it's at odds with the administration's ongoing attack on national monuments, which began with Trump's April 2017 executive order that required the Department of the Interior conduct a review of national monuments due to 'modern Antiquities Act overreach' by previous administrations. The Trump administration's opposition to the Antiquities Act, for instance..., was used to decimate the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monuments in December 2017.... [Also], the timing of the announcement calls into question whether the administration is attempting to help a Republican keep his seat in the House of Representatives." --s
Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post: "One can only marvel at the ease with which White House press secretary Sarah Sanders abuses the people in front of her, deflects blame and outright lies. At Monday's press briefing, her entire bag of tricks was on display. With reporters sitting right there, she echoed and defended President Trump's accusation that the press is 'the enemy of the people.' In the wake of pipe bombs sent to CNN and the murder of The Post's Global Opinions columnist Jamal Khashoggi, she broadly regurgitates the Stalinist accusation that harsh coverage or insufficiently glowing coverage takes reporters out of the body politic, putting them in the same camp as actual foreign enemies. She even adds her own Orwellian don't-believe-what-you-see touch.... If Sanders continues to call the press the enemy of the people, the White House press corps should walk out and end coverage of the briefing."
"Normal Odor." Mark Hand of ThinkProgress: "The Trump administration, like it has with many important health and safety rules, is siding with industry and ignoring how animal waste can have serious impacts on the health of Americans. Embracing the 'normal odor' argument, acting Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler signed a proposed rule on Tuesday to amend emergency release notification regulations to let industrial agricultural operations off the hook from reporting air emissions from animal waste at their farms. This is despite the mountain of evidence that shows concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) produce toxic air that can be lethal for farm workers and nearby residents." --s
** The GOP's Ace Up Their Sleeve. Eliza Newlin Carney of TPM: "[Massive purges of voting rolls] are becoming all too familiar to a growing number of American voters, who are being dropped from the rolls at a rapid clip, particularly in states with histories of voter discrimination. Such purges are the new face of voter suppression, civil rights advocates say. Unlike the Jim Crow laws of yore, which blocked access to the rolls with tests and taxes, voter purges take registered voters -- often, voters of color -- and make them disappear. And unlike voter ID laws, which at least give voters advanced warning, purges can be sudden, silent, untraceable, and irremediable.... Some 16 million voters were swept off the rolls between 2014 and 2016, compared with 12.3 million between 2006 and 2008 -- an increase of almost four million, according to a July Brennan Center report. Still more voters have been purged since the 2016 election, the center found. That includes 648,598 erased in North Carolina -- a full 11.7 percent of the state's total voter roll. Florida dropped 981,569 voters from its rolls, or seven percent, in that same window. Georgia has deregistered 10.6 percent of its voters since 2016, or 692,707 -- more than 500,000 of them were wiped out in a single day. The precise number of eligible voters caught up in such purges is impossible to estimate, given that mass voter removals tend to go unannounced and leave no trace. But it's fair to say that in next week's midterm elections, tens or even hundreds of thousands of voters who believe that they are registered may turn up to the polls only to discover their names are not on the list." --s (Also linked yesterday.)
Alexander C. Kaufman & Chris D'Angelo of the Huffington Post: "Ryan Zinke, the embattled secretary of the Interior Department, suggested in a confused comparison that Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general who fought to preserve slavery, was as much an American hero as civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. during a speech on Saturday, drawing renewed scrutiny of Zinke's record on racial issues. The secretary was speaking at a ceremony designating Camp Nelson, a Union recruitment and training depot in Kentucky for black soldiers during the Civil War, as a national monument. He compared the placement of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial to that of Arlington National Cemetery, the military burial ground located on Lee's former plantation, and that of the Lincoln Memorial. 'I like to think that Lincoln doesn't have his back to General Lee. He's in front of him. There's a difference. Similar to Martin Luther King doesn't have his back to Lincoln. He's in front of Lincoln as we march together to form a more perfect union,' Zinke said at the start of a 25-minute speech." (Also linked yesterday.)
Katharine Seelye, et al., of the New York Times: "The inmates who killed James (Whitey) Bulger, Boston's notorious crime boss, deliberately moved out of view of surveillance cameras in a West Virginia [federal] prison before pummeling him with a padlock that was stuffed inside a sock, law enforcement officials said on Wednesday, as investigations began into how such a murder could have taken place in a supposedly secure facility. Despite the attackers' efforts to hide, officials said, cameras caught video images of at least two inmates rolling Mr. Bulger, 89, who was in a wheelchair, into a corner where the attack took place. Mr. Bulger was bleeding profusely when he was found by prison authorities at 8:20 Tuesday morning. Guards immediately undertook lifesaving measures, officials said, but he was pronounced dead. A prison official identified one of the suspects as Fotios (Freddy) Geas, 51, a Mafia hit man from West Springfield, Mass. He is serving a life sentence ... for the 2003 killing of the leader of the Genovese crime family in Springfield[, Massachusetts]."
Gardiner Harris, et al., of the New York Times: "The United States and Britain, Saudi Arabia’s biggest arms suppliers, are stepping up their pressure for a cease-fire in the Yemen war, the world's worst man-made humanitarian disaster. The calls for a halt to the conflict -- by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday night, his British counterpart, Jeremy Hunt, on Wednesday, and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis starting last weekend -- came as criticism of Saudi Arabia has surged over its bombing campaign in Yemen and the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a dissident Saudi writer. The Saudi-led bombings have been a major cause of civilian deaths and destruction during the three-and-a-half-year-old conflict in Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country. 'It is time to end this conflict, replace conflict with compromise, and allow the Yemeni people to heal through peace and reconstruction,' Mr. Pompeo said in a statement posted on the State Department website Tuesday night."
Sarah Okeson of DCReport: "The Trump administration is trying to weaken ;a landmark set of laws that prevents doctors from jacking up healthcare costs by ordering unnecessary tests and other medical care at labs and hospitals in which they have financial interests.... Trump claims he wants to reduce healthcare costs with measures such as repealing Medicaid expansion and reducing prescription drug costs, but the proposed overhaul of the Stark law seems to contradict that." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Jonathan Chait (Oct. 30): "At her press conference Monday, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders reassured the public about the issue that has become the Republicans' premier campaign liability. 'The president's health-care plan that he's laid out,' she said, 'covers preexisting conditions.' There are several lies embedded in this statement, beginning with the premise that Trump has a plan at all. Trump ran for president promising repeatedly he would cover everybody, and then confessed, 'Nobody knew health care could be so complicated.' He never came up with a plan that would cover everybody, or anything close to it.... Neither chamber of Congress has any plan to move forward with regard to health care. If Trump has such a plan, he has kept it completely secret. Second, Trump has made a series of administrative changes designed to cripple Obamacare in general and specifically its ability to deliver affordable coverage to people with preexisting conditions." Read on for the measures the Trump administration is taking to guarantee Americans with pre-existing conditions cannot get insurance coverage for pre-existing conditions. Emphasis added. See also Baker & Qui's NYT story, linked below. ...
... Ezra Klein of Vox: "Why are Republicans spending so much time lying about their health care policy?... I have a theory.... Republicans, under Mitch McConnell and John Boehner's leadership, decided they had to unite against Obama's [healthcare] proposal, and so they turned completely on ideas they had once supported.... [This] forced Republicans to abandon a basically reasonable vision of health care policy and left them with, well, nothing. Opposing Obamacare isn't a policy vision, but it had to be made into one, and so Republicans tried: They began attacking Obamacare's weak spots -- its high premiums and deductibles -- and proposing to lower them by permitting insurers to once again discriminate against the sick and the old...[That] was not what people were asking for. But it's what Republicans ended up embracing.... And it's left Republicans with two choices. They can level with the public about their health care plan and lose the election or they can lie to the public about their health care plan in a bid to keep their jobs. So far, they've chosen lying." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) See related story about Arizona's Martha McSally, linked below.
Election 2018
Donald Trump, Super-Racist Fearmonger. Stephen Collinson of CNN: "In the most racially charged national political ad in 30 years..., Donald Trump and the Republican Party accuse Democrats of plotting to help people they depict as Central American invaders overrun the nation with cop killers. The new web video, tweeted by the President five days before the midterm elections, is the most extreme step yet in the most inflammatory closing argument of any campaign in recent memory.... The web video -- produced for the Trump campaign -- features Luis Bracamontes, a Mexican man who had previously been deported but returned to the United States and was convicted in February in the slaying of two California deputies. 'I'm going to kill more cops soon,' a grinning Bracamontes is shown saying in court as captions flash across the screen reading 'Democrats let him into our country. Democrats let him stay.'... The Trump ad also flashes to footage of the migrant caravan of Central American asylum seekers that is currently in Mexico.... The ad recalls the notorious 'Willie Horton' campaign ad financed by supporters of the George H.W. Bush campaign in the 1988 presidential election. Horton was a convicted murderer who committed rape while furloughed under a program in Massachusetts where Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis was governor.... Trump's web video, while just as shocking as the Horton spot, carries added weight since, unlike its 1988 predecessor, it bears the official endorsement of the leader of the Republican Party -- Trump -- and is not an outside effort. Given that Trump distributed it from his Twitter account, It also comes with all the symbolic significance of the presidency itself." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: What Collinson & others who have decried the ad don't say is another reason it's "even worse than the Willie Horton ad": At least Mike Dukakis actually did let Willie Horton out on furough. Bracamontes killed the officers in October 2014 after he had been deported twice. While "Democrats" didn't deport Bracamontes -- the justice system did -- Bracamontes was deported in 1997 during a Democratic administration (and in 2001 during a Republican administration). So in no way did "Democrats let him stay."
Peter Baker & Linda Qiu of the New York Times: "As he barnstorms the country trying to help Republican allies, President Trump has offered voters this fall a litany of misleading statements and falsehoods that exaggerate even legitimate accomplishments and distort opponents' views beyond the typical bounds of political spin. In the past couple of weeks alone, the president has spoken of riots that have not happened, claimed deals that have not been reached, cited jobs that have not been created and spun dark conspiracies that have no apparent basis in reality. He has pulled figures seemingly out of thin air, rewritten history and contradicted his own past comments.... Here are 15 of Mr. Trump's most egregious falsehoods since Oct. 22, fact-checked by category."
Arizona. So Unfaaaair! Yvonne Sanchez & Stephanie Innes of the Arizona Republic (Oct. 29): "Now locked in a competitive statewide Senate race against Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, [GOP nominee Rep. Martha] McSally finds herself blistered by campaign attack ads and having to explain her [many] past votes [against Obamacare] and current views on health care and the Affordable Care Act, which has grown in popularity in recent years.... McSally told The Arizona Republic on Saturday that she's being 'character assassinated' by her critics on health care.... McSally was asked if she would vote again to repeal the health-care law on conservative commentator Sean Hannity's radio show. 'Well, Sean, I did vote to repeal and replace Obamacare on that House bill -- I'm getting my ass kicked for it right now because it's being misconstrued by the Democrats,' she said. 'They're trying to, you know, invoke fear in people who have family members or loved ones with pre-existing conditions.'"
California. Michael Finnegan & Maya Sweedle of the Los Angeles Times: "On the home page of his campaign website, Rep. Steve Knight of Palmdale has posted a television ad showing a veteran praising the Republican congressman for helping him get a lung transplant. It turns out that veteran, David Brayton of Santa Clarita, has posted dozens of racist, anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim comments on Facebook. Brayton, 64, has also promoted violence against journalists he sees as hostile to President Trump and called on citizen militias to turn their weapons on left-wing protesters.... In the Knight commercial, Brayton wears a red shirt with the word 'infidel' imprinted in the American flag, an apparent jab at Muslims.... The spot shows Knight in a living room with Brayton and his wife." Knight's campaign strategist defended the ad. Mrs. McC: I recommend your reading the whole story because it highlights some of Brayton's Facebook posts. They're horrifying. Also horrifying: Brayton is a former Army medic & LAPD cop. I'd vote him Scariest Public Servant of the Month. And congrats to Steve Knight & his staff for their excellent vetting of a guy they featured in the candidate's "closing argument."
Georgia. Bim Adewunmi of BuzzFeed News: "Oprah Winfrey ... is heading to Georgia to campaign for Stacey Abrams. The star will join Abrams, the Democratic candidate for governor, on Thursday." (Also linked yesterday.)
Kansas. AP: "The campaign treasurer for independent candidate Greg Orman has resigned to endorse Democrat Laura Kelly in the Kansas governor's race. Tim Owens, a former Republican state senator from Overland Park, resigned Tuesday, effective immediately.... Kelly and [Republican Kris] Kobach are locked in a tight race with Orman a distant third in recent polling.... Orman said he accepted Owens' resignation but he did not intend to leave the race." Mrs. McC: Once again, Orman is acting as a spoiler to elect a terrible Republican.
Missouri. AP: "The son and daughter of a Missouri House candidate [Steve West] are urging people not to vote for him because he regularly espouses racial and homophobic views and dislikes Jews and Muslims.... 'I can't imagine him being in any level of government,' his daughter, Emily West, told The Kansas City Star on Monday. On Tuesday, her brother, Andy West, told the newspaper his father is 'a fanatic' who must be stopped...Andrew West doubted his father would commit violence but said he has the same objective as the Pittsburgh shooter, which is 'the removal of Jews from America.'" --s
Nevada. Joe Romm of ThinkProgress: "One thing that unites Nevadans is opposition to President Donald Trump's effort to turn the state into a huge nuclear waste dump. That's why many were surprised when Trump suggested he might abandon that policy after touring the state recently with GOP Senator Dean Heller, who is in a tight reelection race against Democrat Jacky Rosen. But Trump's Energy Secretary, Rick Perry, admitted on Friday the administration still supports building the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository outside of Las Vegas. In doing so, Perry effectively spoiled Trump's effort to help Heller, as Jon Ralston, editor of the Nevada Independent, explained to Bloomberg: 'Poor Rick Perry didn't get the memo and accidentally told the truth.'" --s
New York. Bilking His Own Constituents. Lee Fang of The Intercept: "For nearly two decades, [Republican Rep. Tom] Reed [N.Y.] reaped financial rewards from the debt collection industry, managing a law firm that specialized in the trade. After his election to Congress in 2010, Reed resisted congressional rules that prohibited him from practicing law and required him to remove his name from his law firm.... Yet records show that the Reed household did not fully divest from the company.... More than a dozen other consumers, including other New York residents, have filed complaints about Reed's company.... Several of the complaints claim that Reed's firm harassed them for medical debt they never incurred or had already resolved.... From his perch in Congress, Reed has participated in several Republican-led attempts to unravel the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the primary federal agency that polices debt collection practices. The attacks would defang the very agency that has collected consumer complaints about Reed's company." --s
Trumpian Terror. Zach Ford of ThinkProgress: "The New York Times reported last week that the Trump administration is planning to erase any recognition of transgender people under federal law. That news prompted a massive spike in calls to mental health support networks like Trans Lifeline and The Trevor Project.... A social media post last week indicated that the number of first-time callers had, in fact, doubled. The call volume has remained high for a full week, sparked in part by additional attacks on the trans community beyond reporting on the memo." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Ken Vogel, et al., of the New York Times: "On both sides of the Atlantic, a loose network of activists and political figures on the right have spent years... [building] a warped[, anti-Semitic] portrayal of [George Soros] as the mastermind of a 'globalist' movement, a left-wing radical who would undermine the established order and a proponent of diluting the white, Christian nature of their societies through immigration. In the process, they have pushed their version of Mr. Soros, 88, from the dark corners of the internet and talk radio to the very center of the political debate.... [President] Trump references him in Twitter posts and speeches as a donor to anti-Trump protesters.... Donald Trump Jr. retweeted a claim this year by the comedian Roseanne Barr that Mr. Soros is a Nazi. And the president's lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, retweeted a comment saying that Mr. Soros is the Antichrist whose assets should be frozen. In at least one case, the attacks made their way into United States government-funded media. The Spanish-language Radio Television Marti network, which broadcasts pro-United States content in Cuba, aired a report in May that is now the subject of a government investigation. The report called Mr. Soros a 'multimillionaire Jew' of 'flexible morals,' who was 'the architect of the financial collapse of 2008.'" Read on.
Kate Riga of TPM: "Vice President Mike Pence's appearance on stage Monday with 'rabbi' Loren Jacobs, who referred to Jesus as the Messiah during his prayer, provoked widespread backlash from many Jewish communities. Now, according to a Tuesday NBC report, even members of the 'rabbi's' own community are up in arms about the appearance -- given that Jacobs was defrocked from the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations over a decade ago. 'Loren Jacobs was stripped of his rabbinic ordination by the UMJC in 2003, after our judicial board found him guilty of libel,' a Union spokesperson told NBC." --safari: Isn't being all religousy supposed to be pence's shtick? He can't even get this right? Pathetic. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Nina Totenberg of NPR: When they were both students at Stanford Law, William Rehnquist asked Sandra Day to marry him. She said no, but they remained friends. "The future chief justice of the United States was proposing to the woman who, years later, would become the first woman to serve on the nation's highest court. The reveal comes in a new book entitled First by author Evan Thomas, set to be published in March 2019. Thomas, while doing his research, found the Rehnquist letters among O'Connor's correspondence." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Medlar's Sports Report. Rick Maese, et al., of the Washington Post: "Maryland parted ways with football Coach DJ Durkin on Wednesday evening, one day after he was reinstated. Durkin, who had been on administrative leave since Aug. 11 following media reports that outlined a culture of abuse, fear and intimidation that allegedly took place under his watch, was not fired for cause and will be bought out of his contract. Maryland's football program and athletic department have been the focus of scrutiny for months, following the death Jordan McNair, a 19-year-old football player who suffered exertional heatstroke at a team workout in late May and died several days later. An exhaustive probe into the culture of the football program also highlighted dysfunction within the athletic department. The decision to part ways with Durkin came following pushback from lawmakers and some players who voiced their displeasure with his reinstatement on social media. Student leaders criticized the decision, as have faculty members in College Park."
Way Beyond the Beltway
Carlotta Gall of the New York Times: "The Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi was strangled almost as soon as he stepped into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul a month ago, and his body was then dismembered and destroyed, the chief prosecutor for Istanbul said on Wednesday, giving the first official explanation from Turkey of how Mr. Khashoggi died.... Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia..., had sent a prosecutor to Istanbul for talks this week, but a statement from Irfan Fidan, the chief prosecutor for Istanbul, said that three days of meetings with his Saudi counterpart were largely unproductive.... The decision to release information, on the record, about Mr. Khashoggi's death was an indication of Turkey's frustration with the failure of the Saudis to answer three key questions: Where was Mr. Khashoggi's body? Had the Saudi investigators uncovered evidence of premeditation? Who was the 'local collaborator' who is said to have disposed of his remains?" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Lily Kuo of the Guardian: "British diplomats who visited Xinjiang have confirmed that reports of mass internment camps for Uighur Muslims were 'broadly true', the foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has told parliament. Beijing faces mounting international criticism over its policies in Xinjiang, a far-western territory of China where researchers believe an estimated 1 million members of Muslim minorities have been detained in a network of camps.... [Hunt's] comment puts pressure on Beijing before a UN human rights panel that will on 6 November review China's human rights record." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Pippa Crerar of the Guardian: "Estate agents, high street solicitors and accountants who facilitate about £100bn of money-laundering in the UK but are failing to report suspicious activity face a crackdown under a government drive against economic crime. Security minister Ben Wallace has warned public schools, football clubs and luxury car garages they must report irregularities, pledging to 'go after the status' of the worst culprits by focusing on where they spend their illegal cash. In an interview with the Guardian, he set out plans for the new multi-agency national economic crime centre launching on Thursday[.]" --s
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Reader Comments (10)
The Dumpster:
“Well, I try. I do try ... and I always want to tell the truth. When I can, I tell the truth. And sometimes it turns out to be where something happens that’s different or there’s a change, but I always like to be truthful,”
Me:
This reads exactly like the transcription of a child’s voice.
Laughable. Pathetic. Infuriating.
I think we need a constitutional amendment to the effect that any
president or congressperson responsible for an unnecessary
military action, like sending thousands of troops to our southern
border, where we are not under attack, should be compelled to lead
the operation personally.
Think the FATuous one in a golf cart waving and passing out red
hats to the bystanders cheering him on.
Regarding spellcheck: I'm home sick today, but still was able to manage a small smile at a Freudian-slip typo in the NY Times today. (Their remaining copy editors (editor?) have been particularly remiss lately.) I clicked on the op-ed by someone named Daniel McCarthy, about the link between Trump and the GOP. I didn't get any further than the photograph of Trump posed to look like he was welcoming "all the best people" to Marred a Lago (he's actually at a rally in Illinois) with the caption: "Presient [sic] Trump at a campaign rally ..."
Really? Someone really missed that? My brain's too foggy to be at all witty about the typo, but at least it gave me a little laugh.
GUN SMOKE:
There he stood, the tall, imposing sheriff, Matt Dillion, facing the enemies of the town: " I'm saying this once, so listen closely: Get the hell out of Dodge!"
Today the people of Dodge wish with all their hearts they had a Matt Dillion in their corner. What they do have is dodgy Debbie Cox, the county clerk who is determined to keep this population from voting. Rachel has been on this story and reported last night that one of her staffers went down to Dodge to see for themselves. What they found was the large facility––the only voting place in the town–-the one our Debbie said couldn't be used for voting because of construction was NOT under construction. See below for details. Bottom line––a scam of the first order. When Rachel's staffer tried to talk to Cox, she was nowhere to be found.
https://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article220557195.html
@Marie: Yesterday you gave us a Biblical bit about Blind Bartimaeus. This last summer Joe and I paid a visit to my oldest son's wife's black Baptist church service. The sermon was all about miracles––and the story of B.B. was front and center. The point was God performs miracles for those who believe strongly and don't give up on Jesus. The other message that day was you can't depend on yourself, you can't depend on friends–-you have to depend on Jesus and if you do, you, too, will experience miracles. You can well imagine what I thought about that message but we enjoyed the music and the congregation immensely.
What I wouldn't give for some miracles next Tuesday. Praise Jesus!
@Elizabeth: Perhaps the NYT meant "prescient". Although
that doesn't come close to describing the president*. So what's
the opposite of having forethought?
"Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Wednesday denied accusations that the Trump administration was deploying 5,200 troops to the Mexican border as a political stunt to bolster Republican support for the Nov. 6 midterm elections...
While taking questions from the press after a meeting with South Korea’s national defense minister, Mattis rejected the accusation and said that the Department of Defense doesn’t “do stunts.” (Huff-P)
But his boss does.
@Elizabeth: Sorry to hear you are sick––sending my miracle fairy over to speed your recovery. She's still laughing about "presient" so she'll be on your side.
@PD Pepe: Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote some of the best sermons I've read. They're not about Jesus & God miraculously saving believers; they're scholarly interpretations of the Gospels & illuminate how the Gospel stories urge the oppressed to help themselves (and others). Unfortunately, King's sermons are pretty hard to find online right now. The King Center Website isn't working right, & another site that claims to have the texts has nothing but blank pages.
Black ministers & black churches have been & are among the most prominent leaders of the civil rights movement. They're not just asking people to sit in the pews & pray.
Herr Drumpf has announced that he's prepared to send 15,000 troops to the border to defend against moms and their little kids.
That's about five heavily armed soldiers for each mother and child.
Bullying has hit a new level.
And not for nothin' but the aim of most of these migrants is to request asylum. This is entirely legal. But Trump is getting ready to kill that as well lest Foxbots have a coronary.
The astounding thing is how stupid Trump voters appear to be. Either that or they've become so brainwashed by Fox and Trump and the Party of Lying Traitors that they've lost the ability to distinguish between what's a genuine national emergency and made up bullshit to frighten them. Talk of invasion is not just irresponsible, it's criminal.
But fear goes right along with bullying. They are makin' 'merica great. Again. So they claim.
Take that, moms and babies! There's plenty more where that came from! We got a lead sandwich waiting for those nasty brown kids. Come and get it.
Are we great yet?
Stenography journalism has become an unfortunate staple in Washington, especially over the last 15 or so years. During the Bush Debacle, many mainstream reporters simply bowed down whenever Darth Cheney announced a new color on his "Be Very Scared" warning signal system. "Oh-oh" they'd dutifully write, "Today is a Burnt Umber Day! Socks must be changed before noon, otherwise, Jihad!"
Jonathan Karl is a particularly egregious example of this species. He is essentially a Republican mole working at ABC as their chief political correspondent. During the Obama years it was crystal clear that he was all in on the wingers' side.
And in an interview yesterday, he was letting Trump get away with saying that he "tries" to tell the truth, when he's on the record as lying at the rate of 8 to 9 a day, every day. During the interview a number of issues are touched upon (touched lightly, I may add): immigration, the "invasion", healthcare, support for pre-existing conditions, investigations of Trump's finances, etc. Karl lets Trump get away with telling outright lies with zero pushback. As a top ranked "journalist" at ABC news, Karl asserts all the journalistic integrity of a high school sophomore interviewing the principal about the new parking lot behind the school.
But he's not the only one. Many journalists less obviously obsequious than Karl have developed bad habits. Either they're hampered by poor thought processes (straight line thinking, going from point A to the point the writer wishes to connect, with no stops in between), or lazy writing (Gee, this sounds good, I'll leave it in), or both.
So here's a couple of graphs from a CNBC piece by Kevin Breuninger and John W. Schoen looking at younger voters in the upcoming election. The gist of the piece is that young people say they will be coming out to vote at about a 40% rate (this is good?), and that they are tending to lean more toward the progressive side. Okay, that's good. But then there's this:
"The survey, released Monday by Harvard Kennedy School's Institute of Politics, shows a more politically mobilized crop of young Americans leaning away from Trump and the GOP in the midterms in near-equal proportions, even as the majority party's core issues — immigration, jobs and the economy — rank among their highest concerns.
At the same time, the 18-to-29-year-old respondents are more aligned with some progressive policies, though they have yet to fully embrace the label of 'Democratic Socialist' applied to politicians such as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders or New York Democratic congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez."
Did you catch it? Going by the way this is written, it seems that the writers are suggesting that younger voters are beginning to lean left a little more but they haven't yet gotten to the Socialist stage yet. Is that the end goal? Socialism? Reading this I'd say it was. If they meant "Well the kids are leaning left but haven't gone as far as accepting a socialist platform", then they should have said that. The way it's written seems to be saying that "they're not Leninists yet, but that's the goal for Democrats".
I know, it sounds like kvetching just to kvetch, like quibbling over a few words. People don't read that closely anyway, you might be thinking. But that's not the point. You're right, people don't read very closely, but it's the work of the writers I'm more concerned about.
Even when some are trying to do good work, it seems, stuff like this can creep in, soft, unclear writing, or worse, writing that gives an entirely inaccurate impression. This is certainly not the worst example of this sort of writing, there are others much worse, but it's the ones like this that can be even more damaging because they're not so obvious.
Call me a nitpicker (you wouldn't be the first), but this stuff gets my goat. Like bad headlines or fuzzy ledes or, as Elizabeth pointed out, blurbs made nonsensical because of sloppy writing and non-existent editing.
Okay, I'll quit now. If I jump on this horse for too long, I'll ride the poor nag 'til it drops.
AK-- right there with you. This morning I heard lots of instances of nincompoops being interviewed and every stunning lie just sat there and shimmered for all to admire. And YES, the hordes in hats are that stupid... My mouth drops forty times a day at what I hear. And I am daily fed up with the reasonable tone of every Dem interviewed, like Tom Perez. The NPR person talking to him wanted to know where we are going to get a charismatic/brilliant person to stand up to the (Darth) Invader and his cascade of lies. Perez waffled. Well, we are talking about the things that matter to people, said he... But, is he uncomfortable because there is no clear "leader" for the left? I would say YUP. So far, Beto is in a field of one. It's been pretty much proven that a woman will be destroyed if she runs. Ditto someone MY age. (73) Am so nervous I am babbling...sorry!