;)
The Commentariat -- Sept. 2, 2016
Afternoonish Update:
Holt, Raddatz, Cooper & Wallace. Photos via the New York Times.John Koblin & Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "Lester Holt, Martha Raddatz, Anderson Cooper and Chris Wallace have been selected to moderate this year's presidential debates, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced on Friday. Mr. Holt, the anchor of the 'NBC Nightly News,' will moderate the first debate on Sept. 26; Ms. Raddatz of ABC and Mr. Cooper of CNN will moderate the town hall debate on Oct. 9; and Mr. Wallace of Fox News will handle the final debate on Oct. 19." -- CW ... See also Akhilleus's comment in today's thread on the moderators.
Nick Gass of Politico: "Hillary Clinton opened up in a recent interview about the personal crisis she faced as first lady to Bill Clinton as scandal over his affair with Monica Lewinsky enveloped the political world and impeachment proceedings unfolded. 'It was really hard. It was painful. And I was so supported by my friends...," the Democratic nominee told CNN's Pamela Brown in a clip from a forthcoming documentary set to air Monday night.... CNN will also air a documentary about Donald Trump on Monday night following the Clinton special." CW: Yeah, Trump will probably open up about how painful it was to have to tell is potential dates to get HIV & other STD testing. "It's one of the worst times in the history of the world to be dating," he said in 1991."
Robert Salonga & Mark Gomez of the San Jose Mercury News: "As he regained his freedom, Brock Turner faced protesters and heavy media scrutiny as an enduring public face of the issue of sexual assault on American college campuses. That was just with his first few steps out of jail. Turner's early release just after 6 a.m. Friday after three months in jail was met by a throng of television and press cameras from far-reaching parts of the country, as well as critics who continue to lament the light sentence given to the former Stanford swimmer for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman last year outside a campus party." -- CW
Presidential Race
Paul Krugman: Why Clinton, why not Trump? Because lead. CW: This is what I mean when I write "elections matter" on some news items that may seem tangential to candidates & elections.
Nate Silver of 538: "The race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump has tightened." And the Electoral College won't save Clinton because her position in important swing states is about the same as it is in the national polls." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Matea Gold of the Washington Post: "Hillary Clinton's nonstop schedule of high-dollar fundraisers in August paid off, helping raise $143 million for her campaign and the Democratic Party -- her biggest monthly haul yet. Campaign officials announced Thursday that donors contributed about $62 million to her campaign committee and another $81 million to the Democratic National Committee and state parties in August. That's a huge growth from the $90 million that Clinton and the party jointly raised in July. However, her campaign fundraising stayed flat -- in both months, she raised about $62 million -- indicating that the increase was driven by large contributions to the party." -- CW
Nick Gass of Politico: "Bernie Sanders will hit the trail for Hillary Clinton on Monday in New Hampshire, in the former Democratic presidential rival's first event campaigning solo since he announced his endorsement of the former secretary of state in July." -- CW
Ken Vogel of Politico: "Bill Clinton's staff used a decades-old federal government program, originally created to keep former presidents out of the poorhouse, to subsidize his family's foundation and an associated business, and to support his wife's private email server, a Politico investigation has found. Taxpayer cash was used to buy IT equipment -- including servers -- housed at the Clinton Foundation, and also to supplement the pay and benefits of several aides now at the center of the email and cash-for-access scandals dogging Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.... This investigation ... does not reveal anything illegal." -- CW: Sorry, Ken; there are no "cash-for-access scandals." What a bummer; there is Donald Trump, cheating on his taxes, which is illegal -- and there is Bill Clinton, husband of Hillary, but not actually Hillary doing something legal. So Crooked Hillary, amIrite?
Jessica Hopper of ABC News: "Sen. Tim Kaine ... today called Donald Trump a 'diplomatic embarrassment' when asked on 'Good Morning America' about the real estate mogul's trip to Mexico Wednesday. 'I think it was kind of a diplomatic embarrassment,' Kaine said of Trump's unexpected meeting with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto. 'He's been talking for a year about we're going to build a wall and Mexico is going to pay for it and then he goes and he sits down and goes eyeball to eyeball with the president of Mexico and, what, he forgets suddenly to bring it up or he's too afraid to bring it up or he chokes in the meeting. It's just kind of an indication that the guy talks out of both sides of his mouth.'" -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
The Cowardly Liar
The New York Times Has a Mole! Yamiche Alcindor: "Instead of speaking to the congregation at Great Faith Ministries International, [a predominantly black church in Detroit,] Mr. Trump had planned to be interviewed by its pastor in a session that would be closed to the public and the news media, with questions submitted in advance. And instead of letting Mr. Trump be his freewheeling self, his campaign prepared lengthy answers for the submitted questions, consulting black Republicans to make sure he says the right things. An eight-page draft script obtained by The New York Times shows 12 questions that Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, the pastor, intends to ask Mr. Trump in the taped question-and-answer session, as well as the responses Mr. Trump is being advised to give. The proposed answers were devised by aides working for the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee....
"After this article was published online Thursday night, Jason Miller, the senior communications adviser for the Trump campaign, said that Mr. Trump's plans had changed and that he would address the congregation for five to 10 minutes after the interview. Mr. Trump will then visit neighborhoods with Ben Carson...."
CW: I'd guess the mole was at the RNC, not the Trump campaign. Too bad. But think about the implications of this story. First we learned Trump was afraid to speak to black churchgoers. Now we learn that he is afraid to take actual questions from a black minister. Then, he is afraid to offer his own answers to prepared questions, so every single answer "he" gives will be something that a team of advisors wrote. Not only that, the team of advisors knows that Trump is an ignorant, loose cannon who cannot be trusted to keep his foot out of his mouth. This doesn't mean that other candidates, politicians & officials don't prepare for interviews. Of course they do. But reading off crib notes is not the same thing. And we thought Donald just wanted to be Donald. So vote for Hillary because she isn't afraid of black church ladies.
Nick Gass: "Just hours after reviving his harsh rhetoric on immigration, Donald Trump on Thursday morning insisted that there is actually 'quite a bit of softening' in how he's approaching his signature campaign issue. The Republican nominee's latest comment -- to conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham, no less -- makes it even harder to pin down just where Trump is landing on the hot-button issue, and amplifies the pick-what-you-want-to-hear nature of his talk on immigration." CW: Trump is not only insane; he's trying to drive the rest of us crazy, too. ...
... Brad Reed of the Raw Story: "The Wall Street Journal reports that Donald Trump changed his speech on immigration at the last minute to include references to Mexico paying for his proposed border wall. The reason that Trump decided to make this change? Because he was apparently furious that Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto just posted a tweet insisting that his country would never, under any circumstances, pay for the wall.... Leaders of other countries are likely taking notes right now about just how easy it is to manipulate Trump by challenging his manhood...." -- CW ...
... How Trump Got from Point A to Point A on Immigration. Jenna Johnson, et al., of the Washington Post: "For nearly two weeks, Donald Trump has publicly and privately debated how best to describe his position, especially when it comes to the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country. On Wednesday, he decided to stick with the far-right positions that were key to his success in the GOP primaries." -- CW ...
Fool me once, shame on ... shame on you. Fool me... You can't get fooled again! -- George W. Bush ...
... Lauren Fox & Annie Rees of TPM: Trump's ballyhooed "pivot" "was all a ruse.... What we were left with was the Trump we have always known. He wants a border wall, he is certain Mexico will pay for it and he gave no indication that he wouldn't deport the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the country." Fox & Rees reprise the Trump camp's feints delivered over the past two weeks. -- CW ...
... New York Times Editors: Donald Trump's "speech -- in 10 points, embellished with statistics, ad-libbed asides and audience hollering and chanting -- was as clear a statement of hard-core restrictionism as any he has given. It was a mass-deportation speech, even if he avoided that phrase. Its intent was hard to miss.... The entire speech, in fact, imagines that government at all levels will be used to hunt down and remove immigrants from their homes, families and jobs. Mr. Trump was describing a world of lockups and surveillance and fugitive-hunting squads, a vast system of indiscriminate catch-and-punish that works as hard to catch hotel maids and landscapers as it does gang members and terrorists." -- CW ...
... Charles Pierce on how Trump played the media for suckers Wednesday. "Quite simply, for almost 98 minutes, the presidential candidate of one of our two major political parties did a very convincing imitation of someone who should not be allowed out in public without a keeper, and whose keeper should not be allowed anywhere near him without a net, sufficient backup, and a tranquilizer gun capable of inducing coma in a herd of drunken elephants.... [The speech] obliterated the earlier dog-and-pony show in Mexico. It made a jackass out of every member of the media who ever has used the word 'presidential' in any connection with El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago, and particularly those members of the media who got played for suckers on Wednesday afternoon." -- CW ...
... Aaron Rupar of Think Progress: "Making another one of his paid appearances as a CNN contributor late Wednesday night, former Trump campaign manager [Corey Lewandowski] made no bones about the fact that Trump's big immigration speech was aimed at white men. 'Look, I think Donald Trump's message tonight was the message that he started with back on June of 2015, which was "America First,"' Lewandkowski said. '... and if you look at the polling data, he's got about an 18 point lead in the demographic of white males who are voting in this election.... 'This speech is clearly geared at those individuals right now, to make sure they are there, he has locked them in for the election.'" -- CW
Zach Montellaro of Politico: "A founder of the Latinos for Trump group on Thursday warned that without Donald Trump in the White House, there would be 'taco trucks on every corner' in America. 'My culture is a very dominant culture,' the Mexican-born Marco Gutierrez said on MSNBC's 'All In With Chris Hayes.' 'It is imposing and it's causing problems. If you don't do something about it, you're going to have taco trucks on every corner.'" CW: I think the implication is that these "taco trucks" dispense as many drugs as they do tacos, but I'm guess. As Joy Reid, who was hosting the show, said, "I don't even know what that means, and I'm afraid to ask."
Robert Costa of the Washington Post : "David N. Bossie, the veteran conservative operative who has investigated the Clintons for more than two decades, has been named Donald Trump's deputy campaign manager. The Republican presidential nominee revealed his hire in a phone call with The Washington Post.... Until this week, Bossie was president of Citizens United, the hard-line advocacy outfit that has mounted digital, film and advertising campaigns against President Obama's agenda and against moderate Republicans. Bossie will take a leave of absence from Citizens United for the duration of the campaign. And he has left the 'Defeat Crooked Hillary' super PAC, which he had been running since June." -- CW ...
... BBC: "Melania Trump is suing a British newspaper and a US blogger for $150m (£114m) over allegations she was a sex worker in the 1990s, her lawyer says. The Daily Mail suggested Mrs Trump may have worked as a part-time escort in New York, and met husband Donald Trump, who is now running for the White House, earlier than previously reported. Blogger Webster Tarpley wrote that Mrs Trump feared her past becoming public." CW: Thanks to Gloria for the link. So Mrs. Trump sues a sleazy newspaper for making a false statement at about the same time Mr. Trump hires notorious Clinton scandalmonger (and audiotape doctorer) David Bossie. ...
... Here's the Daily Mail's retraction announcement. "The Daily Mail newspaper article stated that there was no support for the allegations...." -- CW
Crooked Donaldo. David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump paid the IRS a $2,500 penalty this year, an official at Trump's company said, after it was revealed that Trump's charitable foundation had violated tax laws by giving a political contribution to a campaign group connected to Florida's attorney general. The improper donation, a $25,000 gift from the Donald J. Trump Foundation, was made in 2013. At the time, Attorney General Pam Bondi was considering whether to investigate fraud allegations against Trump University. She decided not to pursue the case." CW: A coincidence, I'm sure. But read on. Besides being a (legal) political bribe, the Trump Foundation went to some trouble to hide the donation to Bondi from the IRS. An official at the foundation called it "an honest mistake." You be the judge. ...
... There's a big difference between (a) being arrogant and/or lazy about your e-mail, and (b) cheating on your taxes. Trump had to have been tiny-hands-on on the Bondi bribe. The bribe & the false tax return were his doings, not an underling's. ...
... Paul Waldman: "The really good part is that Bondi solicited the donation while she was investigating Trump. Now substitute the words 'Clinton Foundation' for 'Trump Foundation' with the same facts, and ask what the response of both the media and Republicans would be."
Nicholas Riccardi of the AP: "Donald Trump's aggressive rhetoric on illegal immigration has obscured a potentially historic policy shift -- [Trump] ... is the first major party candidate in modern memory to propose limiting legal immigration.... Trump talked about limiting immigration to its historic norms. The share of foreign-born people in the United States -- 13 percent of the population -- is at its highest level since 1920. By making the case in a nationally televised address that immigration overall has to be limited, Trump has embraced the ideals of a small group of activists who, for decades, have sought to sharply reduce all forms of migration to the United States." CW: Besides the supremacist-nationalist-isolationist aspects of this, limiting immigration would be an national economic disaster. Immigrants don't just fill jobs; they buy stuff with the money they make. They're an engine of U.S. economic growth. ...
Katie Glueck & Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Several major Latino surrogates for Donald Trump are reconsidering their support for him following the Republican nominee's hardline speech on immigration Wednesday night. Jacob Monty, a member of Trump's National Hispanic Advisory Council, quickly resigned after the speech. Another member, Ramiro Pena, a Texas pastor, said Trump's speech likely cost him the election and said he'd have to reconsider being part of a 'scam.' And Alfonso Aguilar, the president of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, said in an interview that he is 'inclined' to pull his support." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Latinos Baggle Boy Genius. Nick Gass: "Eric Trump expressed incredulity Friday in reaction to the disavowal of two of the campaign's Hispanic surrogates in the wake of Donald Trump's immigration speech this week, suggesting that the campaign would try to reach back out to them and clarify his father's position on the issue.... 'Which is actually pretty amazing, considering the speech. It was actually very consistent and has been very consistent with his plan,' Eric Trump remarked during an interview on 'Fox & Friends,' calling it 'really interesting.'" -- CW
Jeremy Fugleberg of Cincinnati.com: "Online volunteers seeking to help Donald Trump by making phone calls might be signing up for more than they bargained for. To sign up on Trump's website, potential volunteers must agree to a 2,271-word non-disclosure agreement in which they also promise they won't compete against or say anything bad about Trump, his company, his family members or products -- now and forever.... Earlier this year, volunteers for Trump in New York had to sign non-disclosure agreements in person before making phone calls at Trump Tower." Via Paul Waldman. ...
... CW: I'm not sure an agreement of this sort is Constitutional. I just don't see how courts would uphold a lifetime limit on the free speech rights of people who have received nothing in return for their promise. In any event, it's pathetic that Trumpbots who are screaming for their freeedoms will voluntarily agree to give up their most fundamental Constitutional freedom for the remainder of their lives.
Senate Race
Erica Hellerstein & Josh Israel of Think Progress: "The Koch Brothers Are Spending Big To Buy Harry Reid's Senate Seat. Their groups have already spent about $6 million on the Nevada race." -- CW
Other News & Views
Jo Becker, et al., of the New York Times: "... a New York Times examination of WikiLeaks' activities during Mr. Assange's years in exile found ... [that] whether by conviction, convenience or coincidence, WikiLeaks' document releases, along with many of Mr. Assange's statements, have often benefited Russia, at the expense of the West." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Stepan Kravchenko, et al., of Bloomberg: "Vladimir Putin said the hacking of thousands of Democratic National Committee emails and documents was a service to the public, but denied U.S. accusations that Russia's government had anything to do with it. 'Listen, does it even matter who hacked this data?' Putin said in an interview at the Pacific port city of Vladivostok on Thursday. 'The important thing is the content that was given to the public.'" -- CW
Rachel Swarns of the New York Times: "Nearly two centuries after Georgetown University profited from the sale of 272 slaves, it will embark on a series of steps to atone for the past, including awarding preferential status in the admissions process to descendants of the enslaved, officials said on Wednesday. Georgetown's president, John J. DeGioia, who will discuss the measures in a speech on Thursday afternoon, also plans to offer a formal apology, create an institute for the study of slavery and erect a public memorial to the slaves whose labor benefited the institution, including those who were sold in 1838 to help keep the university afloat." CW: Just you wait; some aggrieved white kid who doesn't get accepted to Georgetown will start screaming "discrimination." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Here is Gabriel Sherman's promised piece on Roger Ailes: "How Fox News women took down the most powerful, and predatory, man in media." -- CW
Vivian Yee of the New York Times: "Anthony D. Weiner confirmed on Thursday that the New York City Administration for Children's Services has opened an investigation into his treatment of his 4-year-old son, Jordan." -- CW
Beyond the Beltway
Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "Concerned about the spread of the Zika virus across the South, local officials [in Dorchester County, South Carolina,] on Sunday targeted a 15-square mile area of the county, which is near Charleston, with naled [delivered by aerial spraying].... [Millions of bees died. A county official] acknowledged that a county worker had not followed the local government's standard procedure of notifying registered beekeepers about the deployment of pesticides." -- CW
Dan Sullivan & Anastasia Dawson of the Tampa Bay Times: "Hillsborough County sheriff's officials conferred with NAACP officials and church pastors Thursday night in an effort to tamp down rising tensions over the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man earlier this week.... Two days of small protests followed the incident, which occurred as investigators searched a home in Clair-Mel, a hardscrapple cluster of neighborhoods southeast of Tampa. Publicly, the Sheriff's Office has released little about the circumstances of [Levonia] Riggins' death, and Sheriff David Gee has said nothing. The Hillsborough State Attorney's Office is expected to investigate." -- CW
News Ledes
New York Times: "Capping two consecutive months of hearty jobs gains, hiring eased in August, with the government reporting on Friday that employers expanded their payrolls by 151,000 workers. The temperate performance is expected to bolster those within the Federal Reserve who favor a wait-and-see approach toward raising the benchmark interest rate when the central bank meets later this month. The official unemployment rate, based on a separate survey of households, remained at 4.9 percent. Average hourly earnings grew only 0.1 percent, bringing the 12-month increase in wages to 2.4 percent, modest though still ahead of inflation." -- CW
Tampa Bay Times: "Hurricane Hermine made landfall south of Tallahassee early today as a Category 1 storm, slamming the state's Big Bend region with 80 mph winds and ending a hurricane-free streak of nearly 11 years." -- CW ...
... A Weather Channel report is here, with links to related ongoing coverage. ...
... Washington Post Update: "Hundreds of thousands of people lost power, while at least one death was blamed on Hermine, which was downgraded to a tropical storm shortly before 5 a.m., just a few hours after making landfall in Florida. Authorities warned Friday of powerful winds as the storm was expected to move through Georgia and into South Carolina and North Carolina on Friday. A tropical storm warning was issued from North Carolina to Delaware, while tropical storm watches were issued as far north as New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island. " -- CW
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Reader Comments (23)
One hopes the Daily Mail has done their homework. "The Daily Mail's retraction (on a story regarding Melania Trump) published late on Thursday, insisted it had not suggested the sex work claims were true but said that, even if false, they could affect the US presidential campaign."
Trump's weekend appearance at the black church in Detroit has been scripted and will be edited by the Trump campaign. (As you no doubt have already heard, no public allowed.)
https://twitter.com/pbump/status/771472053941604352
Is Donaldo planning on deporting all those "thousands" of immigrants, many of whom I'm sure were illegal (like the Trump Model slave girls he mistreated?) he hired in lieu of real 'mreicans, to work in his casino sweatshops? I suppose it's a lot easier to stiff illegals who then have little standing to sue.
Gloria,
The Daily Mail, if they were smart, should have taken a page out of the playbook of the master dissembler, Melania's husband. Then they could say "People--and we mean everyone--are saying blah blah blah, Melania Trump, hooker, escort. Now we're not saying that because what do we know? But people are saying...and we think some answers should be forthcoming."
Just sayin'.
Ak, my thoughts exactly! But I think that's what the DM has done, "it may, or may not, be true, and isn't it awful?!" I'm not minding the karma. Melania didn't ask for this, but comrade trump sure did.
Just one more, now of course "Melania trump sues over sex work claims" is all over the international news. As we might have hoped it would be. If she hadn't sued, we might never have known of this little, dare I call it, titbit.
Billionaire GOP Donor Wants Trump's Head Checked
"Mike Fernandez has spent more than $4 million in the last four years supporting Republican candidates for national office. . . . Of all the people who have donated money this election, he's the 31st-biggest donor. And he wants someone to check Donald Trump's head."
http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2016/09/major-gop-donor-wants-trumps-head-checked
"This American Company Is Finally Getting Out of the Cluster Bomb Business" (unless it moves its "product" to another military machine)
Not yet of legal age, hair reaching past my derrière & blocking the entrance to Grumman (now Northrop-Grumman) in protest . . . 'and the beat goes on'.
http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2016/08/textron-cluster-bomb-manufacturer-ending-production
Just read the comments to the Krugman op-ed. Funny that there's one from OzarkOrc of Rogers, Arkansas, that ends with "GOP Delanda [sic] est." Must be an RC reader.
The one piece that is totally missing from the deportation story is the impact on the economy. These people work. So who is going to replace them? Want to bet it won't be some white guy who voted for Trump. So be prepared to mow your own lawn.
Let's see, Trump University, Trump modeling agency, tax returns, health, RNC platform changes, bankruptcies and on and on and on. Yet, these stories fade away. Why is that?
@Nancy: It's up to the Clinton campaign to keep these stories on people's minds. They certainly have been doing that in some of their ads & speeches.
Marie
I can't be the only white guy who thinks a taco truck on every corner in America would be pretty cool, can I?
I love tacos.
And bagels and rigatoni, and dim sum, and etouffe, and barbecue, and all the other foods brought to us courtesy of immigrant populations.
And the recipes aren't the only things immigrants bring us when it comes to food. They bring us high quality, low priced foods, available in or out of season, everywhere in America. Agribusiness and meat packing are staffed, to a very great extent, by immigrants. I wonder how all those "true" Americans will feel once they have to start paying $4 for a head of lettuce or $10 for a pound of ground beef because the millions of people who used to provide us with those things are gone. Or worse. How are nativist clowns in Idaho and North Dakota going to even get lettuce in January once the fields in California are missing half their workers?
Healthers gather steam.
Which is pretty much the exact composition of the gleeful, fact-less claims that Hillary Clinton is on her deathbed.
And all of this talk is supported in a most dutiful fashion by the MSM who repeat every Trump lie about Clinton's health (in classic Trump fashion: "There are reports in some quarters that..."). And now that Trumpado and his pet crocodile, Breitbart Steve, have been joined by the Citizens Benighted idiot, there are sure to be ever more outrageous lies spewed into the ether and picked up by press-bots who are often little more than stenographers.
It's a roar how often Confederates whine about the media. The media is a major factor in the success, thus far, of Donaldo's Potemkin campaign. This morning I heard an "interview" with Richard Haas, former adviser to The Decider, talking about "Mr. Trump's" diplomatic and foreign affairs chops as if he were Charles Maurice Talleyrand. Later in this piece (interview is not the correct term here; this was more like, let's let this guy say whatever the fuck he wants), Haas sniffed that he wasn't sure who would be the worse president at navigating the tricky international currents, as if Trump and Clinton were on perfectly equal footing here, and in fact, he gives Trump a bit of an advantage.
He did say that he hoped that Hillary had "learned from her mistakes" in backing the wars in Iraq and Libya. First, we are not at war in Libya, okay? It in no way resembles Iraq. Second, and most importantly, Haas not only backed The Decider's War of Choice, he was in a much better position than Hillary Clinton to do something about it, being an insider on international affairs in the Bush Clusterfuck Administration.
He now says he was against that war (and has written several books to try to prove that he was not at fault) but there is no public evidence of this except what he's now saying. He claimed in a recent book that he was 60-40 against the war, which means he was for it to the tune of 40%, which does not sound to me like he was "against" it. He was one of the guys who was dead sure there were WMDs, giving The Decider plenty of cover for his war of choice.
But if Haas were such a staunch believer in diplomacy and caution, as he now claims (while whacking Clinton for not being as circumspect as himself), he should have resigned and gone public with his warnings. But did he? Fuck no. Why not? "I thought the war was a mistake, but you can’t fall on your sword every time you oppose a certain decision." Got that? You can't fall on your sword for every little thing. Except this wasn't like Bush deciding he wouldn't offer unlimited support to Lichtenstein in the event of a general strike by postal workers. This was a fucking international war, an invasion of a sovereign state, based on nothing more than lies and half-assed suppositions which the haughty Mr. Haas, reveling now in his hindsight superiority and sagacity, could have done something about. If a war based on lies is not reason enough to resign in protest then there is no reason under the sun adequate enough. But now we're asked to take it on faith that this guy is a wise and truthful expert in the area of foreign affairs. It's like taking the word of the Deepwater Horizon inspectors that your oil rig is perfectly safe.
My whole point in going on at length about this is that all these people trotted out as "experts" like this Haashole, talking about Trump in serious tones as if he's anything more than an ignorant, loopy dilettante, are almost as dangerous as Trump himself. What he was saying here, on fucking NPR, fercrissakes, is that Trump is the equal of Hillary Clinton and perhaps better because he was against the Iraq War of Choice (but HE WASN'T!!!!!), that Hillary is suspect because she was for the war in Iraq and the current "war" in Libya. All this from a guy who was INSTRU-fucking-MENTAL in making the sure the Iraq War went forward in spite of all the red flags waving in his face.
No comeback, no cross examination, no additional questions. Just introduced as Richard Haas of the Foreign Relations Council Mucky-Muck Expert Wiseman, not a guy who was fatally wrong about the worst foreign policy disaster in US history now sniffing about others who weren't as "smart" as he was and giving cover to a dangerous would be dictator just as his sycophantic ass did for the previous dangerous Confederate in the White House.
Christ!
But back to my original point (aren't you happy?).
If the GOP is getting antsy about all the crazy conspiracy theories spun by the Trump Band of Fabulists, which they feel make them all look like Ma and Pa Kettle on crack, they have only themselves to blame. The current epidemic of lies and mythmaking on demand is a direct result of their belief that no one but Republicans should be allowed to govern. They turned this belief into policy during both the Clinton and Obama administrations and now the outliers have picked up on this and are employing any and all of the basest tricks and lies to make sure Democrats are not allowed to govern, even if they win an election. The Healther bullshit is all of a piece with this GOP standard.
But my larger point is that the media lets them get away with it by continuing to give a platform to people like Richard Haas to spout their revisionist bullshit and to get away with pretending things like 9/11, the Iraq War, the economic crisis, the immigration crisis, the crumbling of US infrastructure, the decline in education, and a myriad of other troubles, have nothing whatsoever to do with them.
Shit, they were just minding their own business and all this crazy stuff just happened. Who knew?
Debate Moderators Unfair to Trump! Call out the dogs!
So what do we have? A non-white guy, a woman, a gay guy, and a Fox guy who once caught Trump in a lie. Veeeerrrrry unfair to Trump.
What to do? What to do?
The only real answer is Trump gets to moderate the debates himself. That really is the only way this will be fair for Trump. He can't have just anyone asking the royal person questions. Especially not ones that haven't been pored over by his team of demented boing-boings.
Well, he already has his excuse, if the debates go badly for him, for looking like King of the Lost Boys, the kids who fell out of their prams as babies, were spirited off to Never Never Land, and never grew up.
Thinking of Never Never Land I'm reminded of the childlike quality of many stormtrumpers. Well, okay, children with sub-machine guns and confederate flag tattoos, but still children.
Anything out of his mouth, they believe.
Mexicans are rapists! (wild cheers)
Mexico will pay for my wall (delirious delight).
Hillary has brain damage (ecstasy unbound!).
It doesn't matter. He could say black people have only half a brain and they'd believe it. And unfortunately for some members of the very sad GOP, like children, they repeat this nonsense when company comes over. "Hey, did you know black people only have half a brain?" "Not now kids....time for bed. They, ah...they're only kidding. C'mon kids, bedtime..."
Which reminds me of that show we probably all watched as kids. You remember Mary Martin as Peter Pan? Very cool stuff when you're five or six. I'm thinking specifically of that scene where Tink is dying and Peter looks at the camera and beseeches all the kids watching at home to "clap if you believe in fairies", which, of course most of us did (the ones who didn't, you know who you are). It was fun. And Tinkerbell was revived.
I took my kid, when he was four, to see a theatrical production of Peter Pan. At that scene he smiled up at me and we both clapped like mad. Tink "woke up" and we both laughed. He thought it was a pretty cool thing. But I'm pretty sure he never believed it was real.
Unfortunately for the country, the Trumpbots don't know as much as my kid did when he was four.
"C'mon kids! Clap for Trumperbell! Make him all better! He'll bomb Mexico for you, kids!"
Is Mary Martin still around? I'd rather vote for her.
The Trump Management Style: Stiff Everyone
Donaldo and his enablers are constantly bragging about his mad skills at management. Ooooh he saves so much money! they coo. Of course he does. Everyone could save money if they didn't pay their bills.
"Those who have so far not been paid, the filings show, include recently departed campaign manager Paul Manafort, California state director Tim Clark, communications director Michael Caputo and a pair of senior aides who left the campaign in June to immediately go to work for a Trump Super PAC."
And a lot more too.
Doesn't pay taxes, stiffs his employees, wants a foreign government to pay for his wall. It's a wonderful way to go through life expecting that everyone will pick up the tab for your every whim.
President Deadbeat. Got kind of nice lilt to it, doncha think?
<< . . . like Ma & Pa Kettle on crack . . . >>
Thank you, Akhilleus, for (yet again) evoking laughter. . . a sound rarely coaxed from me when the context is 'What's Goin' On". (Saluting Marvin Gaye & realizing both "?" and "!" - as end-punctuations - work here.)
My thanks also - if belatedly - for your vivid NYC recollection of 'youthful idealism' . . . a condition that manages, still, to breathe within me, if wheezing beneath the layers of rage & disbelief.
A tag to my earlier post from today:
"Politics is the entertainment arm of the military industrial complex "
Frank Zappa
Okay - Just One More - Which *Is* Making Me Laugh . . .
As written, I've unwittingly conveyed that it was my "derrière" blocking the entrance to Grumman! [Kindly forgive my Four Lettered Pun, but - butt? - I'm LMAO].
As a slender, 5' 4" dancer, that would not have been possible. Yet, I can vouch for a set of "pipes" that transmitted far & wide: most utilitarian at Marches, Human Blockades, etc. etc. etc.
Marie wrote: "In any event, it's pathetic that Trumpbots who are screaming for their freeedoms will voluntarily agree to give up their most fundamental Constitutional freedom for the remainder of their lives."
Yes it is pathetic, but also sadly predictable. For many of these people the words "freedom" and "Constitution" are mere shibboleths, markers, like tattoos, denoting membership in the "We Hate Anyone Who Isn't With Us" club. Most of these people likely have never read the Constitution, or if they have, they've read only a single line, the one about weapons, and not even the entire sentence. Their concern for freedom goes as deep as their interest in being able to do and say what they want as long as others are denied that right, because, well....because FREEEEDOM.
Freedom of religion only means freedom for those who are far-right evangelical Christians. Freedom of speech means they get to call people niggers and faggots without the evil pain in the ass PC police denouncing their hate speech. They would likely never use their freedom of speech to denounce one who hates freedom of speech for anyone but himself because they feel the same way.
And, like Khizr Khan, I'd offer Trumpado or any one of his bots my copy of the Constitution (I don't have a pocket version however) but I doubt they'd care. They have zero interest in a more perfect union, the establishment of justice (for any but themselves), the insurance of domestic tranquility, or the Blessings of Liberty to any non-white person. They'd sooner read "Mein Kampf".
Ophelia,
That youthful idealism should never burn off. The traditional wisdom from some is that people are liberal when they're 18 but conservatives when they're 40. If that were the case the Rat would now be in the White House. My problem is, given the baleful effect of Fox and the screaming from the Confederacy that has intubated many younger voters, if you're a Nazi when you're 18, what the hell will you be when you're 40? The answer, as I've discovered, is a Trump voter.
It's those of us who have never forgotten our youthful idealism who have helped maintain the sanity of the nation in the face of vile winger hatred, so, you go, girl.
@Akhilleus Very good on the moderators. I just saw the selections and wondered if Donald Fedorovich would accept debating without either Limbaugh or Hannity as a moderator.
Many people lie about their position on the Iraq war. As Akhilleus comments, this is something you resign over, as several talented, senior British Labour cabinet ministers did, ending their careers. Among them Robin Cook. This excellent resignation speech serves as a reminder of the issues as they were even at the time. I recommend taking ten minutes to listen to this speech, it contains a lot of context.