;)
The Commentariat -- October 29, 2018
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Allyson Chiu &> Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "More than 30,000 people have signed an open letter to President Trump from the leaders of a Pittsburgh-based Jewish group who say the president will not be welcome in the city unless he denounces white nationalism and stops 'targeting' minorities after a mass shooting Saturday at a local synagogue left 11 dead. The letter, which was published and shared on Sunday, was written by 11 members of the Pittsburgh affiliate of Bend the Arc, a national organization for progressive Jews focused on social justice, following what is being called the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history. The shooting at Tree of Life synagogue also left several people injured, including law enforcement." This is an update to a Hill story linked below." The Bend the Arc letter is here. ...
... BUT Trump is undeterred:
... David Jackson, et al., of USA Today: "... Donald Trump will travel to Pittsburgh on Tuesday after a gunman left 11 dead in a shooting at a synagogue over the weekend.... The president will 'express the support of the American people and grieve with the Pittsburgh community,' White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters Monday. Sanders said first lady Melania Trump will travel with the president. Fighting back tears, Sanders noted that Trump 'is the grandfather of several Jewish grandchildren.'"
American Military News: "The Pentagon is apparently set to deploy an additional 5,000 U.S. troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, officials announced Monday. Troops would be sent from Texas, Arizona and California, the Wall Street Journal first reported. The number is a sharp increase from the 800-troop deployment that was reported last week...."
Kevin Roose of the New York Times has more on Gab, the site that hosted the Pittsburgh mass murderer & other right-wing extremists.
Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump on Monday blamed what he deems unfair media coverage for causing 'great anger' in the country in the wake of a violent week that saw a spate of mail bombs and a shooting that killed 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue. The president said in a pair of tweets that the 'Fake News Media' is 'the true Enemy of the People,' reviving a derisive term for the press less than a week after an explosive device was mailed to CNN's New York City offices. 'There is great anger in our Country caused in part by inaccurate, and even fraudulent, reporting of the news. The Fake News Media, the true Enemy of the People, must stop the open & obvious hostility & report the news accurately & fairly,' Trump wrote on Twitter. 'That will do much to put out the flame of Anger and Outrage and we will then be able to bring all sides together in Peace and Harmony,' he added."
The Laziest President. Eliana Johnson & Daniel Lippman of Politico: "... Donald Trump had about three times as much free time planned for last Tuesday as work time, according to his private schedule. The president was slated for more than nine hours of 'Executive Time,' a euphemism for the unstructured time Trump spends tweeting, phoning friends and watching television. Official meetings, policy briefings and public appearances -- traditionally the daily work of being president -- consumed just over three hours of his day.... While the notion of Executive Time, and the president's increasingly late start to the day, has come under scrutiny over the last year, this new batch of schedules obtained by Politico offers fresh insight into the extent to which that unscheduled time dominates Trump's week and is shaping his presidency, allowing his whims and momentary interests to drive White House business.... The president's official commitments last week began no earlier than 11 a.m..., and on Tuesday -- in the midst of a potential serial bomber and two weeks ahead of the midterm elections -- they didn't start until 1 p.m. The president spent just over two hours of his week in policy briefings..., and he was scheduled to receive the President's Daily Brief on just two of the five days reviewed."
*****
Peter Baker & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "For months, Republican officials have complained privately that President Trump lacks the ability to confront moments of crisis with moral clarity, choosing to inflame the divisions that have torn the country apart rather than try to bring it together. It took the importuning of his Jewish daughter and son-in-law to craft a powerful statement of outrage at anti-Semitism after Saturday's slaughter at a Pittsburgh synagogue. Then Mr. Trump went back into partisan mode, assailing his enemies. By the evening's end he was tweeting about baseball, and on Sunday he went after another foe.... Even some supporters call him tone-deaf, and critics say his fire-and-fury style has fueled a toxic moment in American history, while defenders bristle at what they consider opportunistic attacks by opponents interested only in tearing him down.... His castigation of 'globalists,' seen by some as code for Jews, and his attacks on George Soros, the billionaire financier of liberal causes, have unsettled Jewish leaders." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Is "complaining privately" more like "tolerating," "condoning," or "tacitly approving"? It sure as hell isn't "criticizing" or "rejecting." And it most certainly is "enabling." See also Jonathan Chait's post on Republicans getting worse, linked below. ...
... Morgan Gstalter of the Hill: "A group of Jewish leaders told President Trump that he is no longer welcome in Pittsburgh until he denounces white nationalism following the shooting at a synagogue there over the weekend. Eleven members of the Pittsburgh affiliate of Bend the Arc ... penned a letter to Trump following the Saturday shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue. 'Our Jewish community is not the only group you have targeted,' the group wrote. 'You have also deliberately undermined the safety of people of color, Muslims, LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities. Yesterday's massacre is not the first act of terror you incited against a minority group in our country.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump said Saturday he would go to Pittsburgh. ...
... ** Adam Serwer of the Atlantic makes a direct connection between Trump's political strategy & the massacre of Pittsburgh Jews. Serwer outlines some of the efforts Trump, pence, Homeland Security Fox "News" & other prominent usual suspects made to turn a caravan of refugees walking through Mexico into a fake national emergency where criminals & "unknown Middle Easterners," funded by George Soros & unnamed Venezuelan leftists, were on the verge of invading the U.S. "Prior to committing the Tree of Life massacre, the shooter, who blamed Jews for the caravan of 'invaders' and who raged about it on social media, made it clear that he was furious at HIAS, founded as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, a Jewish group that helps resettle refugees in the United States. He shared posts on Gab, a social-media site popular with the alt-right, expressing alarm at the sight of 'massive human caravans of young men from Honduras and El Salvador invading America thru our unsecured southern border.' And then he wrote, 'HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I'm going in.'... The apparent spark for the worst anti-Semitic massacre in American history was a racist hoax inflamed by a U.S. president seeking to help his party win a midterm election." ...
... Robert Costa & Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "President Trump and his Republican allies remained defiant Sunday amid allegations from critics that Trump's incendiary attacks on political rivals and racially charged rhetoric on the campaign trail bear some culpability for the climate surrounding a spate of violence in the United States. Trump, who has faced calls to tone down his public statements, signaled that he would do no such thing. [After berating Tom Steyer -- story linked below --] ...Trump lashed out again on Twitter...: 'The Fake News is doing everything in their power to blame Republicans, Conservatives and me for the division and hatred that has been going on for so long in our Country.'... Some Trump allies sought to shift blame to others, including media figures and Democratic leaders, arguing that recent attempts by liberal protesters to challenge GOP officials in public were perhaps more responsible for the national unrest than the president's combative politics or the rise of conspiracy theories on the right. Those theories appear to have driven the suspects behind the bombs sent to Democratic officials and the mass shooting Saturday at a Pittsburgh synagogue." ...
... Dana Milbank: "George Washington, in his 1790 letter to the Touro Synagogue in Newport, R.I., told Jews they would be safe in the new nation. 'The government of the United States ... gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance,' he wrote. 'May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants -- while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.' Though that assurance has been tested, the United States has endured as a safe haven for Jews. Now President Trump has violated Washington's compact. He has given sanction to bigotry and assistance to persecution. After the shooting in Pittsburgh, which the Anti-Defamation League believes is the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history, there is no longer safety under the vine and fig tree." Milbank lists some of Trump's anti-Semitic "outreach." ...
... Jonathan Chait has an illuminating insight on Trump's brand of anti-Semitism: it's anti-Semitism without Jews, for the most part. "His depiction of immigrants as inherently criminal, and his attempts to connect immigration to shadowy cabals of financiers, closely track white supremacist tropes.... [Usually,] he would invoke anti-Semitic themes without any explicit reference to Jews or Judaism. Trump's closing campaign ad on television denounced 'a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities,' over images of Janet Yellen, George Soros, and Lloyd Blankfein, all of whom happen to be Jewish. Trump lambastes his enemies as 'globalists,' which, through its implication of extra-national loyalty, closely tracks the primary accusation made against Jews." Read on. ...
... ** Dahlia Lithwick of Slate: "How does one even begin to explain to one's children what it means that the president denounces violence and division as he foments both, on an hourly basis? Perhaps we can look to Florida for a tip. Last week the state's gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum said that because Neo-Nazis and white supremacists were supporting and campaigning for and contributing to his opponent Ron DeSantis, perhaps it was time to stop talking about causation entirely. 'I'm not calling Mr. DeSantis a racist,' he said. 'I'm simply saying the racists believe he's a racist.' The formulation is useful because it reframes a pointless debate about what leaders' dog whistles really mean into a debate about what their followers end up believing. If what is said no longer matters, we can perhaps still evaluate what is heard." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Roey Hadar of ABC News: "In the wake of a shooting massacre at a synagogue and a mail-bomb campaign against prominent critics of ... Donald Trump, a former Homeland Security chief said the U.S. currently has a 'toxic' political environment in which 'deranged' people 'feel it's their place' to bring about change. Jeh Johnson, who was Homeland Security Secretary under President Barack Obama, told 'This Week' Co-Anchor Martha Raddatz on Sunday..., 'We live now in a very, very toxic environment that includes an incivility in our political discourse among our leaders. The attack yesterday and the attempted pipe bombings over the course of last week should be a wake-up call to all Americans to demand change, and change has to start at the top,' he said.... 'Our president has the largest microphone; he has the largest bullhorn,' the former Homeland Security secretary said. '... Americans should demand that their leaders insist on change, a more civil discourse, and a more civil environment generally.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Julia Ioffe, in a Washington Post op-ed: "When Trump called himself a nationalist in Houston last week, the alt-right knew exactly what he meant. One alt-right commenter was elated because nationalism 'is inherently connected to race.' Another wrote that he was 'literally shaking' with glee.... The president did not tell a deranged man to send pipe bombs to the people he regularly lambastes on Twitter and lampoons in his rallies.... Trump didn't cause another deranged man to tweet that the caravan of refugees moving toward America's southern border (the one Trump has complained about endlessly) is paid for by the Jews before he shot up a synagogue.... But this definition of culpability is too narrow, too legalistic -- and ultimately too dishonest. The pipe-bomb makers and synagogue shooters and racists who mowed a woman down in Charlottesville were never even looking for Trump's explicit blessing, because they knew the president had allowed bigots like them to go about their business, secure in the knowledge that, like [Boris] Nemtsov's killers, they don't really bother the president, at least not too much. His role is just to set the tone. Their role is to do the rest." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Felicia Sonmez & Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Sunday lashed out at billionaire Democratic activist Tom Steyer, ridiculing him as a 'stumbling lunatic' days after Steyer was targeted by one of more than a dozen pipe bombs sent to prominent critics of the president. Trump's tweet came shortly after Steyer accused the president and the Republican Party of creating an atmosphere of 'political violence' in an interview on CNN's 'State of the Union.' 'Just watched Wacky Tom Steyer, who I have not seen in action before, be interviewed by @jaketapper,' Trump said in the tweet. 'He comes off as a crazed & stumbling lunatic who should be running out of money pretty soon. As bad as their field is, if he is running for President, the Dems will eat him alive!'... 'It is unthinkable that in the midst of the horrible political violence our president would resort to name-calling instead of repairing the damage to the fabric of our country,' Steyer [responded]." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Let's apply Dahlia Lithwick's Gillum Rule here. Will Trump's followers perceive that Trump is condoning violence against Steyer by belittling him just after a Trump follower sent Steyer a bomb? Why, yes. Yes, they will. Trump does not only want voter to be afraid of caravans of Middle Eastern terrorists on their way to invade the U.S. at the Rio Grande; he also wants every political foe to be afraid to walk out his door or open his mouth. Trump may not know how to close an umbrella or wipe his ass, but he sure knows how to fearmonger. ...
... Ari Berman of Mother Jones: "A day after the deadly shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, the head of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee refused to disavow a campaign ad linking a Democratic candidate to George Soros, who was sent a pipe bomb last week and has been the subject of attacks many regard as anti-Semitic.... The ad, released on October 18, targets Dan Feehan, the Democrat running against Republican Jim Hagedorn to represent Minnesota's 1st Congressional District. It features a montage with Colin Kaepernick kneeling and warnings of 'left-wing mobs paid to riot in the street,' followed by an image of Soros with stacks of bills, repeating a classic anti-Semitic trope. 'Billionaire George Soros bankrolls the resistance,' the ad says.... The head of the NRCC, Rep. Steve Stivers (R-OH), defended the ad on NBC's Meet the Press. 'Our independent expenditure arm is independent,' Stivers said. 'But that ad is factual. And it also has nothing to do with calling for violence. That ad is a factual ad.'... In fact, the ad is funded by an arm of the NRCC." ...
... Mary Papenfuss of the Huffington Post: "House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) deleted a tweet that had warned that three wealthy Jewish Democrats are 'buying' the midterm elections for their party, a posting that appeared after liberal billionaire philanthropist George Soros ― one of his targets ― had been sent a pipe bomb. The McCarthy tweet -- which also named former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and California businessman Tom Steyer-- was taken down three days before a gunman killed 11 people Saturday in an anti-Semitic attack at ... a Pittsburgh synagogue." "We canno allow Soros, Steyer and Bloomberg to buy this election," McCarthy tweeted. Mrs. McC: Cesar Sayoc also tried to send Steyer a pipe bomb. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie Update: According to Wikipedia, Steyer's father was Jewish (and a prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials) & his mother Episcopalian. It's none of my business, but I don't know that Steyer identifies as a Jew, & the Wiki page makes it seem more likely he is a Christian. Papenfuss seems to be misleading by describing Steyer as Jewish without some qualification. ...
Daniel Politi of Slate: "Why Did Synagogue Suspect Believe Migrant Caravan Is Jewish Conspiracy? Maybe He Watched Fox News.... Fox News has often talked about a connection between the caravan and George Soros, who is often described by anti-Semites as the head of a 'globalist' effort that is 'seeking to undermine a white, Christian social order,' as Talia Lavin wrote in the Washington Post recently.... On Thursday..., Lou Dobbs had a guest on the show who directly made the connection between Soros and the caravan. 'A lot of these folks have affiliates that are getting money from the Soros-occupied State Department,' Chris Farrell, Judicial Watch's director of investigations and research, said. As Josh Marshall ... pointed out on Twitter '"ZOG" is a staple of white supremacist/neo-Nazi websites/literature etc. Stands for "Zionist occupied government." ... This guy knows exactly what lever he's pulling when he uses this phrase,' Marshall wrote. A screengrab of an apparent Bowers repost on Gab appears to confirm he was well acquainted with the term.... Earlier in the month, Fox & Friends also mentioned the connection, this time citing a tweet by Rep. Matt Gaetz [R-Crazy-Fla.] that openly questioned whether Soros was funding the caravan."
... Fox "Business" Goes into Mild CYA Mode. Oliver Darcy of CNN: "On Sunday, [Fox Business N]etwork's senior vice president for programming, Gary Schreier, released a statement denouncing what many people called an anti-Semitic trope used by a guest on [Lou] Dobbs' show earlier in the week. The remark drew widespread condemnation when the episode in which it was made was rebroadcast Saturday, hours after a gunman walked into a Pittsburgh synagogue and murdered 11 people.... 'We condemn the rhetoric by the guest on Lou Dobbs Tonight,' Schreier said in a short statement. 'This episode was a repeat which has now been pulled from all future airings.' The comment in question was made by Chris Farrell, a board member of the right-wing organization Judicial Watch, during Thursday night's episode of Dobbs' show. [& is cited in Politi's post, linked above]... A Fox spokesperson told CNN Business by email that Farrell will no longer be booked for appearances on the Fox Business Network or its sister channel Fox News. Bu the Fox spokesperson did not respond when asked whether Dobbs, who did not condemn or even push back on what Farrell said, was culpable for the comment his guest made on his air.... In the past, Dobbs has referred to Soros as an 'evil SOB' and 'insidious.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: I guess Schreier couldn't get too carried away with his "condemnation," because -- as digby points out -- Trump is a fan of Farrell's. AND "As you know, Trump cherishes Lou."
David Leonhardt & Ian Philbrick of the New York Times: "President Trump, his family and more than a few of his appointees are using his presidency to enrich themselves. They are spending taxpayer dollars for their own benefit. They are accepting sweetheart deals from foreigners. And they are harnessing the power of the federal government on behalf of their businesses. There's a word for this: corruption. Given how widespread Trumpian corruption has become, we thought it was time to make a list. It's meant to be a definitive list of self-dealing by the president, his family, his staff or his friends -- since he began running for president." The writers have sorted the corrupt acts into "thematic categories."
Matt Spetalnick of Reuters: "... Donald Trump called Brazil's President-elect Jair Bolsonaro on Sunday to congratulate him on his election victory and both men expressed a strong commitment to work together, the White House said." More on Bolsonaro linked under Way Beyond the Beltway. Mrs. McC: I'm sure Trump won't have any problem "working together" with the Tropical Trump.
Jonathan Chait: "Everything that was terrible about the party that nominated Trump is significantly, terrifyingly worse today. Even more distressing: It is likely to lurch further rightward regardless of the outcome of the elections. This will happen right away.... They don't need to sell their policies to the American people. They're better off following Trump's political formula of constructing an alternate reality in which their party is cast as one of economic populists.... The defensive effort to steal the economic-populist mantle from Democrats, without making any substantive concessions toward that end [-- i.e., pretending they are this close to passing a 10% middle-class tax cut & are the one party that supports forcing insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions --] has been largely overshadowed by the louder cultural messaging that accompanies it. Republicans have stoked white racial paranoia against a shifting array of targets.... Trump's allies have gone from justifying his reality-show authoritarian persona as a necessary expedient to embracing it as a positive good." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Especially if Republicans retain full control of the federal government & do well in state slates, we should cease to consider them members of a "decaying, aging" party, as Chait and other characterize it, but as the principal mechanism by which a despot is able to control the nation.
Campbell Robertson, et al., of the New York Times: "Authorities on Sunday identified the 11 victims of a shooting rampage at a Pittsburgh synagogue in which a man armed with an AR-15-style assault rifle and three handguns shot into a morning worship service in the deadliest attack against the Jewish community in the United States in decades. The dead included eight men and three women. The oldest victim, Rose Mallinger of Squirrel Hill in Pittsburgh, was 97. Two brothers, David and Cecil Rosenthal, ages 54 and 59, were the youngest. A husband and wife, Bernice and Sylvan Simon, ages 84 and 86, of Wilkinsburg, Pa., were also among the dead. Mayor Bill Peduto called the attack the 'darkest day of Pittsburgh's history' but vowed that the city would move forward." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Sam Byford of the Verge: "Gab, the controversial social network with a far-right following, has pulled its website offline after domain provider GoDaddy gave it 24 hours to move to another service. The move comes as other companies including PayPal, Medium, Stripe, and Joyent blocked Gab over the weekend. It had emerged that Robert Bowers, who allegedly shot and killed eleven people at a Pittsburgh synagogue on Saturday, had a history of posting anti-Semitic messages on Gab.... Gab is presently inaccessible through its website, with a message stating that the company is 'under attack' and 'working around the clock to get Gab.com back online' with a new provider. 'We have been smeared by the mainstream media for defending free expression and individual liberty for all people and for working with law enforcement to ensure that justice is served for the horrible atrocity committed in Pittsburgh,' the statement reads. Yesterday Gab's Twitter account said that the network would 'likely be down for weeks' because of hosting provider Joyent's decision to pull support, though a more recent tweet today suggests it will be 'back soon.'"
Desmond Butler of the AP: "A year before federal prosecutors accused Maria Butina of operating as a secret agent for the Russian government, she was a graduate student at American University working on a sensitive project involving cybersecurity. Butina's college assignment called for her to gather information on the cyberdefenses of U.S. nonprofit organizations that champion media freedom and human rights, The Associated Press has learned. It was information that could help the groups plug important vulnerabilities, but also would be of interest to the Russian government. In fact, the Russians previously had in their sights at least two of the groups that she and other students interacted with.... The access that Butina won through her coursework illustrates how academia and the extensive network of entities that often carry out sensitive, but not classified, work for the U.S. government remain national security vulnerabilities."
Charlie Savage, et al., of the New York Times: "The Trump administration has freed an American citizen whom the military imprisoned without trial for more than 13 months as a suspected Islamic State member, United States officials said on Monday. His release brings a close to a legal saga that raised novel issues about the scope of the government's national security powers and individual rights. The man, a dual American and Saudi citizen, was captured in September 2017 by a Kurdish militia in Syria. The Kurds turned him over to the American military, which held him as a wartime detainee at a base in Iraq while a court battle over his fate played out. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he was released in Bahrain, where his wife and daughter are living. The identity of the man at the center of extraordinary case has been kept secret, so he has been called 'John Doe' in court filings and public debates. But his real name is Abdulrahman Ahmad Alsheikh...."
Election 2018
Georgia. Peter Wade of Rolling Stone: "Republican gubernatorial candidate and current Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp incorrectly canceled some 340,000 voter registrations, according to a recent investigation. Although Kemp claimed the voters left the state of Georgia or moved to another country, they hadn't, Greg Palast, who filed suit against Kemp, wrote in Truthout. According to John Lenser, who is CEO of CohereOne and who led a review of the list of purged voters for Palast, '340,000 of those voters remained at their original address. They should have never been removed from the voter registration rolls.' Palast only obtained the list after he filed suit against Kemp.... Kemp used a tactic Palast calls 'Purge by Postcard' to remove eligible voters from the rolls. Kemp sent a postcard that could have easily been mistaken for spam to voters who did not vote in the prior election. If a voter did not return the postcard, Kemp purged their registration without informing the voters it was happening. Thanks to a June 2018 Supreme Court ruling that reversed the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, this practice is now legal.... It is too late for [these individuals] to register for the upcoming midterm elections...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McC: BTW, that Supreme Court ruling ws 5-4. Sam Alito wrote the majority opinion; Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the dissent. Please don't tell me that the right-wing Supremes aren't purposely suppressing the vote. And they know full well that they are disproportionately suppressing the votes of people who vote Democratic & tend (a) to be more "occasional" voters, i.e., voters who often vote only in presidential elections, and (b) more often change domiciles. While voter state suppression laws can be reversed when Democrats gain control of state governments, the most effective solution would be an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing citizens the franchise.
New Jersey. Star-Ledger Editors: "This year's U.S. Senate race presents the most depressing choice for New Jersey voters in a generation, with two awful candidates whose most convincing argument is that the other guy is unfit to serve.... It's a miracle that [Bob] Menendez [D] escaped criminal conviction, and an act of profound narcissism that he stayed in the race despite this baggage, putting a Democratic seat at risk while Donald Trump sits in the White House. The Republican challenger, Bob Hugin, is no better. He's using the closing weeks of his campaign to spread the most vicious lie of this election season in New Jersey -- the suggestion that Menendez patronized child prostitutes in the Dominican Republic.... And when you get past ethics, the central issue in this race is Donald Trump. The question is which candidate can best fight Trump's toxic policies, his grotesque appeals to racial and ethnic tribalism, and his corrosive attacks on the pillars of our democracy, starting with the rule of law. That makes this an easy decision: Menendez is the better choice, by far. He has our endorsement." Mrs. McC: The whole editorial is worth reading. Hugin is toxic.
Kate Kelly of the New York Times: "At Georgetown Prep's annual reunion weekend, [Brett Kavanaugh] was hailed as a conquering hero." Mrs. McC: You would not want your kids going to Georgetown Prep, much less associating with its students & alums.
Way Beyond the Beltway
Ernesto Londoño & Shasta Darlington of the New York Times: "Brazil on Sunday became the latest country to drift toward the far right, electing a strident populist as president in the nation's most radical political change since democracy was restored more than 30 years ago. The new president, Jair Bolsonaro, has exalted the country's military dictatorship, advocated torture and threatened to destroy, jail or drive into exile his political opponents. He won by tapping into a deep well of resentment at the status quo in Brazil -- a country whiplashed by rising crime and two years of political and economic turmoil -- and by presenting himself as the alternative." Mrs. McCrabbie: So the majority of Brazilian voters have learned nothing from their own history nor from the U.S.'s bad example. I take no comfort in knowing others are as dumb as our fellow citizens. (Also linked yesterday.)
Josie Le Blond of the Guardian: "Angela Merkel has told members of her Christian Democrats party that she won't seek another term as chancellor when her mandate ends in 2021, German media is reporting, ending a more than decade-long era in which she has dominated European politics. Merkel also told senior party figures she will not seek re-election as party chairwoman in December, kickstarting the race to replace her as CDU candidate in 2021, when the next federal election is due. The statements were made at a meeting of the party leadership, which was called to discuss two electoral disasters in regional elections in as many weeks. Merkel's 'moving words' were greeted with a standing ovation, sources told German media. It had been widely assumed that this would be Merkel's final term as chancellor but before the reported remarks she had not confirmed that herself."
News Ledes
New York Times: "On March 31, the third day of the 2018 regular season, the Boston Red Sox moved into first place in the American League East, a position they occupied almost exclusively from that point on. By May, it was clear they were the best team in baseball. Now, after 119 wins between the regular season and playoffs, they remain unmatched. And on Sunday, the Red Sox completed the seven-month marathon by cementing their status atop the sport and among the greatest teams of all time. Riding the left arm of David Price and the powerful swings of Steve Pearce, the Red Sox easily dispatched the Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-1, in Game 5 to cap a dominant season and claim the 2018 World Series title."
Guardian: "A passenger plane carrying 189 people has crashed into the sea off Jakarta minutes after taking off on a domestic flight to an Indonesian tin-mining region. Lion Air flight JT610, travelling from Jakarta to Pangkal Pinang on the island of Bangka, lost contact with air traffic control about 13 minutes after it took off, shortly after its pilot had asked to return to base. Flight data showed it made a sudden, sharp dive into the sea. There was no sign of survivors from the Boeing 737 Max 8 jet, a new model that was launched globally only last year. The specific plane had only been in use for two months. Rescue officials said later on Monday they had recovered human remains from the crash site, about nine miles (15km) off the coast. Lion Air's chief executive, Edward Sirait, told reporters the plane had suffered 'a technical issue' on Sunday night but engineers had cleared it to fly on Monday morning."
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Reader Comments (7)
This crap about a "Soros-occupied State Department" is awful on many fronts. The anti-Semitism is incomprehensible to me, but it also seems to be a cover for corruption. As I understand it, if a career diplomat points out to a political appointee superior that something is inadvisable or illegal, the career person can very quickly find him- or herself reassigned.
THE PROMISE OF POLARIZATION by Sam Tanenhaus
William Buckley's brother-in-law, L. Brent Bozell, was a key figure in translating Buckley's ideas into a political strategy. He repackaged the "No program" in a tract he ghost wrote for Goldwater's "The Conscience of a Conservative". This passage from the book projects a vision of the ideal "man in office"–-the Savior of the Republic, who tells the people this:
"I have little to no interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them."
And if Brent Bozell were with us now he'd have to add on to his little passage the greed and corruption of this sitting "Savior of the Republic."
This is an important read––Tanenhaus is one of our best authors of historical writings.
https://newrepublic.com/article/151612/promise-polarization-book-review-sam-rosenfeld-the-polarizers
From the very beginning of Trump's speeches, I have noticed that often he does not seem to have the energy to finish complex sentences, appearing to simply run out of breath in the middle of a sentence. Even in his fiery racist speeches, the prosody is weird. We know his vocabulary now is much less sophisticated than it was in what we see in his videos from the 1980's and 90's.
Now we read that his hours of operation, so to speak, are getting inappropriately shorter in the face of ever ongoing demands. We know he doesn't have the mental fortitude to read at all.
Aside from his criminal lack of capacity, isn't this just the picture of a demented old guy who can't keep up any more, and who just needs to be put out to pasture? When it's this obvious, setting aside all considerations of his disgusting lack of any moral core, what's keeping us from invoking the 25th? I don't believe this is just because of Pence.
Victoria,
I suspect the Pretender has always been "low energy" (remember that epithet? hurled at Jeb, was it?), floating along on a sea of inherited dollars, unhesitating amorality, and an instinct for corruption and self-promotion.
Many have thrived in America on far less .
No doubt, he ain't the man he used to be, but he now has even more help, oodles of Right Wing money and all the purveyors of the seamy and nasty facets of American politics, including but not limited to the real, unmasked face of the Repugnant Party, which he has invited onto center stage, all eager to prop him up.
Now at the top himself, with all that help he won't have to work very hard to stay there.
Somehow I missed the umbrella episode: the Twitterverse had some interesting things to say-- metaphors for his presidency. Might be more of the same: no energy or ability to simply close an umbrella and the chutzpah to think it doesn't matter cuz he has servants to do that sort of thing. Sheesh...
NPR was up in Luzerne Co. this morning (PA) and one guy said that he voted for Obama, but then he got upset over things like the so-called (mythical) pallets of money "given" to Iran, and that Kavanaugh put him over the edge-- it's the Democrats who have lost their minds...(those "mobs" of women, ya know-- ) I am getting so nervous that there are no longer people enough in the country who can see the demented Emperor as he is and parse what it all means. The Foxification of the electorate seems complete...
Days before the election, NYT runs a front page hit piece on Beto O'Rourke. The slanted headline does not fit the story, which is old news. The piece is full of insinuation and innuendo, leaving the reader with a sour taste, but no clear understanding of the complex issues involved. The almost certain effect will be to lose Texas by an even greater margin than anticipated. Meanwhile Texas attorney general Ken Paxton has been indicted for fraud, but no one is covering that. He is expected to win re-election.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/29/us/politics/beto-orourke-el-paso-texas-senate.html
Beto O’Rourke Once Supported an El Paso Real Estate Deal. Barrio Residents Remember.
I'm sorry to say that I won't be able to vote next week. I had planned to stay home to do so in person, but then I found out that I have to travel to another southern state to start another project that week. Sad :-(
However, I already received the absentee ballot I applied for. I filled it out Saturday, needing to change black pens in order to darken all of the circles in the D row. Dropped it at the P.O. the same day - no time to waste.
I hope it counts though. I meticulously followed the instructions even though the Town Clerk hadn't. The outermost return envelope was blank despite explicit instructions on it telling the clerk to complete the "send to" address information. I hope they don't disqualify it because I wrote in the address myself. There shouldn't be any doubt that the ballot is mine because I made sure to slobber all over when licking the envelopes' seal to guarantee that I left enough DNA for the authorities to test and match to the fingerprints they have on file for me.