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The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

Washington Post: “An early Titian masterpiece — once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries — caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective, and returned. This week, the oil painting 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for more than $22 million at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice. Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as 'the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.'”

Washington Post: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare material, has undergone a major renovation. "The change to the building is pervasive, both subtle and transformational."

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Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns


Friday
Nov022018

The Commentariat -- November 3, 2018

Afternoon Update:

ABC 7 New York: "Police have made an arrest after disturbing messages of hate were found inside a Brooklyn synagogue Thursday evening, the latest in a string of anti-Semitic incidents across the nation. 26-year-old James Polite is charged with four counts of criminal mischief as a hate crime and making graffiti. Polite has been sent to Woodhull Hospital for psychiatric observation, authorities say." ...

... Steve Sadin of the Chicago Tribune: "A 39-year-old Winthrop Harbor man was arrested Thursday by Highland Park police for allegedly making threatening statements in an Oct. 29 phone call to the Central Avenue Synagogue in Highland Park[, Illinois]. Police say the phone call was placed just two days after 11 people were fatally shot and six others injured during services at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Dean R. West, of the 1100 block of Sheridan Road, Winthrop Harbor, has been charged with a hate crime against a church or synagogue, according to Cynthia Vargas, spokeswoman for the Lake County State's Attorney's office." Mrs. McC: The article is accompanied by a photo (mug shot?) of West, who looks just like what you thought a hate-filled bigot looks like. Obviously, lack of originality is hardly West's worst trait, but it is a trait.

Some people just don't appreciate 7th-grader fart jokes:

*****

Matthew Dessem of Slate: "In unrelated news, actress Tilda Swinton and her partner, artist Sandro Kopp, directed a music video for Anthony Roth Costanzo's performance of 'Rompo i Lacci,' from Handel's Flavio, starring her dogs running around on a beach in slow motion. It probably won't make you feel much better. It might not make you feel any better at all. You could watch the entire thing and close the tab and still feel like the American experiment is collapsing all around you." Thanks to Aunt Hattie for the link. ...

In unrelated news... Des Shoe of the New York Times: "He's a Mandarin duck, and his species is native to East Asia. He should not be paddling in the Pond in Central Park, and yet there he is. Nobody is sure how he got to Manhattan, but he appears healthy and is getting along well with the local mallards. His glorious plumage is already attracting fans." ...

Nicole Lafond of TPM: "President Donald Trump took his 'enemy of the people' diatribe a step further on Friday, accusing 'fake news' and reporters of 'creating violence' by their 'questions.' 'No, no, you know what, you're creating violence by your questions,' he said. ' You are creating, you. And also a lot of the reporters are creating violence by not writing the truth. The fake news is creating violence.'" --s ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: As Marvin S. says, the POTUS* is mentally ill.

Nick Miroff & Missy Ryan of the Washington Post: "Seizing on immigration as his main campaign theme ahead of Tuesday's midterm elections, Trump has depicted the caravans -- at least four have formed, though they remain hundreds of miles away -- as a grave danger to U.S. national security, claiming they are composed of 'unknown Middle Easterners,' hardened criminals and 'very tough fighters.' He also insists the number of migrants heading north is much larger than estimates put forward by U.S. and Mexican government officials. The [U.S.] military assessment does not support any of those claims." ...

... James LaPorta, et al., of Newsweek: "The Trump administration's plan to deploy thousands of troops to the U.S. border took officials by surprise, with many senior-level Defense Department officers saying they believed the move was politically motivated and a waste of money, multiple Pentagon sources with knowledge of the directive told Newsweek. Four sources with direct knowledge of how plans for the troop deployment -- dubbed Operation Faithful Patriot -- came together said that the initial directive to send troops to the border came directly from the president's office, known in Pentagon parlance as National Command Authority, which would mean ... Donald Trump or Defense Secretary James Mattis.... But ultimately, the decision to move forward with the southern-border deployment was unexpected by military planners. Speaking to Newsweek on condition of anonymity..., the four U.S. military sources said senior leaders within the Pentagon had derided the deployment not only as a significant waste of taxpayer dollars but as running counter to military readiness, but that a minority lauded the Trump administration's hardline crackdown on immigration." ...

... Ryan Browne & Nicole Gaouette of CNN: "When the Trump administration first asked the Pentagon to send troops to the southern border, the administration wanted the troops to take on duties that Department of Defense officials viewed as law enforcement functions.... The Pentagon said no.According to two defense official familiar with the request, the Department of Homeland Security asked that the Pentagon provide a reserve force that could be called upon to provide 'crowd and traffic control' and safeguard Customs and Border Protection personnel at the border to counter a group of Central American migrants walking to the US border to request asylum.... Defense officials have repeatedly emphasized the troops at the border are there to support civil authorities and that they are not expected to come into any contact with migrants." ...

     ... Paul Yingling has "Advice For US Troops Sent To The Mexican Border In An Age Of Terrible Leaders." Thanks to Monoloco for the link. Mrs. McC: Kwitcherbitchin. Young officers & enlisted personnel have it worse than most of us do. ...

... David Ignatius of the Washington Post: "When President Trump issues an election-time order to send up to 15,000 troops to confront what many experts say is a nonexistent threat on the U.S.-Mexico border, what should Defense Secretary Jim Mattis do about it? Mattis's answer, so far, has been to support the president and mostly keep his mouth shut. He gruffly batted back a reporter's question Wednesday about whether Trump's troop deployment order was a political stunt by saying, 'We don't do stunts in this department.' Unfortunately, some of Mattis's colleagues fear he's doing just that in implicitly backing Trump's incendiary talk of an immigrant 'invasion' that requires sending active-duty troops. Watching Mattis walk the Trump tightrope is agonizing. For many Americans, the retired Marine four-star general is the model of a stand-up guy -- the sort of independent, experienced leader who can steady the nation in a time of division. But in dealing with Trump, Mattis often takes a seat and quietly accommodates the president's erratic and divisive rhetoric -- evidently believing that it's better to hold fire and work from inside to sustain sensible policies." (Also linked yesterday.)

Words Matter

Trump's Remarks Used to Justify Mass Murder. Dionne Searcey & Emmanuel Akinwotu of the New York Times: "The Nigerian Army, part of a military criticized for rampant human rights abuses, on Friday used the words of President Trump to justify its fatal shootings of rock-throwing protesters. Soldiers opened fire this past Monday on a march of about 1,000 Islamic Shia activists who had been blocking traffic in the capital, Abuja. Videos circulated on social media showed several protesters hurling rocks at the heavily armed soldiers who then shot fleeing protesters in the back. The Nigerian military said three protesters were killed but the toll appears to have been much higher. Amnesty International as well as leaders of the protest said more than 40 people were killed at the march and two other smaller marches, with more than 100 wounded by bullets. A Reuters reporter counted 20 bodies at the main march.... The Army's official Twitter account posted a video, 'Please Watch and Make Your Deductions,' showing Mr. Trump's anti-migrant speech on Thursday in which he said rocks would be considered firearms if thrown toward the American military at the nation's borders.... 'We're not going to put up with that,' Mr. Trump said in the clip. 'They want to throw rocks at our military, our military fights back.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Update. Matthew Choi of Politico: "... Donald Trump told reporters Friday that U.S. troops will not necessarily shoot at migrants heading toward the southern border if the asylum-seekers throw rocks, in contrast to earlier comments he made that troops on the border should treat hurled rocks as firearms." ...

... Remembrances of Slurs Past. Michael Cohen Recalls Some of Trump's Racist Remarks. Emily Fox of Vanity Fair: "Cohen recalled a discussion at Trump Tower, following the then-candidate's return from a campaign rally during the 2016 election cycle. Cohen had watched the rally on TV and noticed that the crowd was largely Caucasian.... 'I told Trump that the rally looked vanilla on television. Trump responded, "That's because black people are too stupid to vote for me."'" There's more. ...

Mass Murderer & Bomb Mailer Are Inconvenient. Morgan Gstalter of the Hill: "President Trumpwhose actions halted Republican momentum ahead of Tuesday's midterm elections. 'We did have two maniacs stop a momentum that was incredible, because for seven days nobody talked about the elections,' Trump aid at a Missouri campaign rally. 'It stopped a tremendous momentum.'... The president had previously lamented that the mailed bombs had stolen headlines away from the GOP so close to the midterms." (Also linked yesterday.)

Amy Sorkin of the New Yorker: "At the White House, on Thursday, after President Trump had wrapped up his remarks about immigration..., he continued, 'I don't want them [the migrants] in our country. And women don't want them in our country. Women want security. Men don't want them in our country. But the women do not want them. Women want security. You look at what the women are looking for.' Less than a week before the midterm elections, Trump has returned to the image that he invoked on the day, three years ago, when he announced that he was running for President: rapists on their way from Mexico. Trump is not subtle about the racial aspects of this appeal to fear.... Nor are there any limits, it seems, on the President's willingness to ply the country with conspiratorialism.... Treating migrants as soldiers or terrorists would hardly be more radical than one that Trump has already proposed: ending birthright citizenship, a fundamental promise of the Fourteenth Amendment[.]" --s

Sharon LaFraniere of the New York Times: "A federal judge in Maryland on Friday ordered evidence-gathering to begin in a lawsuit accusing President Trump of violating the Constitution by maintaining a financial interest in his company's Washington hotel. The plaintiffs are seeking records that could illuminate potential conflicts of interest between Mr. Trump and foreign leaders or state officials who patronize Trump International Hotel, blocks from the White House. The judge, Peter J. Messitte of the United States District Court in Greenbelt, Md., said the Justice Department had failed to show a compelling reason to hold up the case while its lawyers appeal his earlier rulings. He ordered the parties to come up with a timeline within 20 days to produce evidence. The lawsuit, filed by the District of Columbia and the State of Maryland, seeks for the first time to define the meaning of constitutional language that restricts the president from accepting financial benefits, so-called emoluments."

She Doesn't Care. Erika Harwood of Vanity Fair: "According to federal spending records, [Melanie (sic)] Trump's hotel bill during her stop in Cairo cost taxpayers $95,050 -- even though, as spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham told Quartz, Trump did not even stay overnight at the InterContinental Semiramis hotel and was only in Cairo for six hours. It's unclear how the First Lady and her staff racked up the bill at the hotel, where rooms start at $119 and go up to $699 for the presidential suite." --s


Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "A senior Trump administration official in line to become special counsel Robert Mueller's new supervisor if there's a Justice Department shakeup secured White House approval earlier this year on what critics say is a potential ethics hurdle that could have kept him from assuming the high-profile role. Solicitor General Noel Francisco has long been considered a likely candidate to oversee Mueller's Russia probe if Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is fired or quits. But the 49-year-old conservative lawyer has also been dogged by conflict of interest concerns because he previously worked as a partner at Jones Day, the same law firm that represents Donald Trump's presidential campaign in the Russia probe." --s ...

... Frank Dale of ThinkProgress: "Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility (CREW) revealed on Friday that Trump signed a secret waiver to prevent Solicitor General Noel Francisco, the man who 'built his law practice as if his primary goal was to troll the libs' and is poised to oversee Mueller's probe if Trump fires Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, from having to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. Trump's campaign is represented by Francisco's former law firm, Jones Day, in [Robert] Mueller's investigation.... To make all of this even more questionable, Francisco is not included on the list of waivers on the government website for 'preventing conflicts of interest in the executive branch.'"

... Betsy Woodruff & Spencer Ackerman of the Daily Beast: "The Senate intelligence committee has asked the National Rifle Association to provide documents on its connections to Russia -- including documents related to a 2015 trip some of its top leaders made to Moscow.... Former NRA President David Keene and soon-to-be president Peter Brownell were both on the trip.... The NRA's Russia connections have drawn growing public scrutiny after a key figure in Russian outreach to the powerful gun lobby, Maria Butina, was indicted in July on charges of being an undeclared Russian operative connected to the country's intelligence apparatus.


Gardiner Harris of the New York Times: "The Trump administration announced on Friday that it was exempting eight countries from bruising sanctions that the United States was reimposing against Iran, undercutting its pledge to economically punish Tehran's regional aggressions while widening a profound rift with European allies. Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, did not identify the eight countries that were being granted six-month waivers, but a senior official confirmed that they include India, South Korea, Japan and China -- among the world's largest importers of Iranian oil. Mr. Pompeo said the European Union, which recently announced the creation of an economic channel to continue financial dealings with Iran, was not among those receiving waivers. The sanctions were promised in May, when President Trump announced that the United States was withdrawing from a 2015 deal with world powers to limit Iran's nuclear program."

Fake Diplomacy Falters. Jiyhe Lee of Bloomberg: "North Korea stepped up its attack on U.S.-led sanctions, threatening to resume its nuclear program if the measures aren't lifted. The Foreign Ministry's Institute for American Studies said it could revive its policy of economic construction and nuclear development if sanctions continue. The U.S. 'had better stop the self-destructive act of putting pressure' on the North, the Korean Central News Agency cited director Kwon Jong Gun as saying.... The remarks come a week before a planned meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and North Korean official Kim Yong Chol to discuss details of a potential second summit between Kim [Jong-un] and President Donald Trump." [Open in private window]--s

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court refused Friday to delay an upcoming trial in which a number of states and civil rights organizations allege there was an improper political motive in Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross's decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. The trial is scheduled to begin Monday in New York. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch said they would have granted the Trump administration's request to delay the trial. It is unclear how the other six voted -- including new Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh -- because justices are not required to publish their votes in such procedures. But at least five of the six were unwilling to block the trial."

Heather Long of the Washington Post: "The big news Friday is that wages are growing above 3 percent for the first time since 2009. It's a significant milestone after years of sluggish wage growth and most economists say workers are likely to see strong gains for the foreseeable future. But the good news comes with two caveats. The first is that the 3.1 percent annual wage growth figure the Labor Department reported Friday is slightly inflated because of some hurricane effects.... The second caveat is that while wage growth is getting better, it's still well below the norm.... Corporate profits, meanwhile, are at an all-time high.... Corporate tax cuts have enabled companies to boost profitability, many analysts and executives say. But companies are spending a lot of their extra cash on stock buybacks and dividends, leaving only a little extra for workers." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration is waiting to see the results of a Saudi investigation into the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, according to U.S. officials, and appears in no hurry to decide whether and how to punish Saudi Arabia. The only specific response suggested so far has come from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said this week that the administration was 'reviewing putting sanctions on the individuals ... engaged in that murder.'... While President Trump has demanded the truth and all options are said to be on the table, he has repeatedly emphasized that business as usual with Saudi Arabia is precisely what he has in mind. He has cited the economic importance of Saudi purchases of U.S. weapons, the stability of international oil markets and what he considers the kingdom's key role in advancing U.S. objectives in the Middle East.&" ...

... President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, in a Washington Post op-ed: "Over the course of the past month, Turkey has moved heaven and earth to shed light on all aspects of [the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi]. As a result of our efforts, the world has learned that Khashoggi was killed in cold blood by a death squad, and it has been established that his murder was premeditated. Yet there are other, no less significant questions whose answers will contribute to our understanding of this deplorable act. Where is Khashoggi's body? Who is the 'local collaborator' to whom Saudi officials claimed to have handed over Khashoggi's remains? Who gave the order to kill this kind soul? Unfortunately, the Saudi authorities have refused to answer those questions." ...

... Yaron Steinbuch of the New York Post: "Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu said Friday that Saudi Arabia should get a pass for murdering US-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi because the kingdom is an ally of the Jewish state against Iran. 'What happened at the Istanbul consulate was horrendous and it should be duly dealt with. But at the same time, it is very important for the stability of the region and the world that Saudi Arabia remain stable,' Netanyahu said in Bulgaria, the Times of Israel reported."

Election 2018

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "As he hit the campaign trail this fall, [President Barack] Obama has vented his exasperation loud and often, assailing his successor in a sharper, more systematic way arguably than any former president has done in three-quarters of a century. Although some admirers believe he remains too restrained in an era of Trumpian bombast, Mr. Obama has excoriated the incumbent for 'lying' and 'fear-mongering' and pulling 'a political stunt' by sending troops to the border. As he opened a final weekend of campaigning before Tuesday's midterm elections, Mr. Obama has re-emerged as the Democrats' most prominent face, pitting president versus president over the future of the country." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This has all been very upsetting to that nice Karl Rove: "I was taken aback by the amount of space in Presiden Obama's speeches that are devoted to a full frontal assault on Donald J. Trump and his administration. He spends a considerable amount of his time to get up there and trash Trump" ...

** The Desperate Demagogue. Laura McGann & Stavros Agorakis of Vox: "President Donald Trump's closing argument for the 2018 midterm elections represents a dangerous escalation of demagogic rhetoric.... He smears minority groups, particularly immigrants, with impunity.... It looked erratic or even desperate.... It might be desperate, but it's not irrational. Trump has a good reason to act as he has. It's his most effective political strategy. And it's a strategy that demagogues know has to keep ratcheting up to work. And if he's not stopped now, he'll only get worse.... Trump's message is growing increasingly extreme.... While the media and other political observers struggle to see anything but a meltdown, his supporters see exactly what they want to see. They don't support him in spite of his behavior. They support him because of it.... Trump's approval numbers nationally are underwater. But among Republicans, 89 percent approved of the job he's doing, according to Gallup's most recent poll.... [According to] Michael Signer, a professor at the University of Virginia..., 'This is one of, if not the greatest, tests constitutional democracy has been through.'" --s ...

... Dana Milbank: "On Tuesday, voters will make a decision in what is the purest midterm referendum on a sitting president in modern times: Will we take a step, even a small one, back from the ugliness and the race-baiting that has engulfed our country? Or will we affirm that we are really the intolerant and frightened people Donald Trump has made us out to be? If we choose the latter, 2018 will in some ways be more difficult to take than 2016. This time, we don't have the luxury of saying we didn't really know what Trump would do. Our eyes are wide open." Milbank recalls many of Trump's atrocities in office.

Jacques Billeaud of the AP: "A political ad from ... Donald Trump that shows a Mexican immigrant bragging about killing police officers has put the spotlight back on noted immigration hard-liner Joe Arpaio, who detained and released the man in the video years ago.... Trump blames Democrats for weak laws that allowed the man to keep coming across the border, even though he was deported during the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Bracamontes was also incarcerated four times in jails run by Arpaio, a Republican who is known for his crackdowns on illegal immigration and being the first person to receive a pardon from Trump. He campaigned for Trump on several occasions during the presidential campaign...." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I know I've run a couple of stories on this before, but it just irritates me to no end that Trump blames Democrats for something Joe Arpaio -- the scourge of decent people -- did. Too bad Fox "News" will never cover this (unless Shep Smith has).

Thanks, Supremes. Richard Hasen in Slate: "In separate rulings on Thursday, two federal courts had the same message for minority voters making credible claims of potential disenfranchisement: Your arguments may be good on the merits, but it's too late. These courts, which were examining onerous voting rules in North Dakota and Kansas, took their cues from the U.S. Supreme Court, which has embraced an unfortunate rule that even serious voting problems cannot be remedied in the period before Election Day." --s

Christopher Bing of Reuters: "Twitter Inc ... deleted more than 10,000 automated accounts posting messages that discouraged people from voting in Tuesday's U.S. election and wrongly appeared to be from Democrats, after the party flagged the misleading tweets to the social media company.... The removals represent an early win for a fledgling effort by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or DCCC, a party group that supports Democrats running for the U.S. House of Representatives.... The Tweets included ones that discouraged Democratic men from voting, saying that would drown out the voice of women...."

California. Courting Extremists. Elham Khatami of ThinkProgress: "Rep. Steve Knight (R-CA) is 'proud' to have the vote of a veteran who has posted numerous anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, and racist comments on Facebook. Knight ... is currently facing a tough re-election campaign against Democratic challenger Katie Hill.... In a screenshot obtained by the Los Angeles Times, Knight also shared [an] ad on his campaign Facebook page, writing that he is 'proud to have earned David Brayton's vote.' The LA Times reported that, in addition to Brayton's dozens of bigoted comments, he has also posted comments promoting violence against the media and left-wing protesters, while praising President Donald Trump." --s ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The LA Times report, which lays out some of Brayton's disgusting remarks, was linked here Thursday.

Georgia. Daniel Strauss of Politico: "Former President Barack Obama joined the chorus of Democrats criticizing Georgia Republican gubernatorial nominee Brian Kemp for his record on voting rights, contrasting the Georgia secretary of state with Democrat Stacey Abrams, whom the president called 'most experienced, most qualified candidate in this race.' Obama made the remarks in front of a packed audience at Morehouse College on Friday night, just a few days ahead of the midterm elections as Georgia braces for a close gubernatorial race.... 'How can you actively try to prevent the citizens from your state from exercising their most basic right?. Obama said.... Earlier in the evening, former Attorney General Eric Holder made similar warnings about Kemp and national Republicans." ...

... Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "President Trump disparaged Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee for governor of Georgia, in ambiguous and unusually personal terms on Thursday, warning that 'her past' left her 'not qualified to be the governor.' Mr. Trump did not elaborate and offered no evidence for his assertion, which seemed to be a potential preview of the political message he will deliver on Sunday, two days ahead of the election, at a Georgia rally for Brian Kemp, Ms. Abrams's Republican rival. But the decision of the president, who has been criticized for inflammatory language, to invoke Ms. Abrams's background so broadly was a distinct escalation in his attacks on her bid to become the first black woman to be elected governor in the United States. Ms. Abrams, a former Democratic leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, has staked out an array of liberal positions during her campaign, but her tenure in the Legislature has drawn measured praise from the Republicans who led the State Capitol." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Mark Niesse of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "A federal judge ordered Georgia election officials to end the 'severe burden' facing some new U.S. citizens trying to vote for the first time, deciding Friday that they must be allowed to cast regular ballots if they show proof of citizenship at the polls. U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross ruled against Secretary of State Brian Kemp, the Republican candidate for governor who faces Democrat Stacey Abrams in Tuesday's election. Kemp, who oversees Georgia's elections, had argued that state law already provides a process for new citizens to vote. Ross wrote in her order that the state's process wasn't working because some new citizens who signed up to register to vote have been turned away at early-voting locations. Her injunction, coming just four days before Election Day, orders that anyone whose voter registration has been put on hold because of his or her citizenship status can vote on a regular ballot after showing proof to a poll manager or deputy registrar. Previously, only deputy registrars could verify citizenship, and they weren't always available when voters tried to cast their ballots."

Montana. Allegra Kirkland of TPM: "Montana voters heading to the polls on Tuesday could be forgiven for having no idea that Republican Senate nominee Matt Rosendale once spoke at a rally held by an anti-government militia group. Rosendale's appearance at an April 2014 Oath Keepers rally in the town of Kalispell received little attention in the press, with the exception of one left-leaning local blog.... The Second Amendment rally was focused on supporting the Bundy family's armed standoff against the federal government over their illegal use of public lands." --s

North Dakota. Danielle McLean of ThinkProgress: "Hundreds of Native American voters may now be unable to vote in North Dakota this Election Day because of a new rule that requires their addresses in a government database to exactly match the one on their ID cards. Many don’t match because local emergency services changed those database addresses so officials could use GPS to more easily find locals’ homes in case of a emergency.... On Thursday, Robin Smith, enrollment director for Spirit Lake tribe, went down a list of tribal IDs she's issued since Oct. 22, plugging in voters' addresses into the state DOT website.... With a ThinkProgress reporter watching, Smith checked about a dozen voters' addresses against the website, and found just one had the correct matching address. The others had mismatching towns, mismatching zip codes, and mismatching home numbers. Smith said she would need to print out new identifications — potentially for hundreds of voters — with the updated addresses, before Election Day." --s

Virginia. Patrick Wilson of the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch: "John W. Warner, a Republican who represented Virginia in the U.S. Senate for 30 years, endorsed Democrat Abigail Spanberger in her challenge to Republican Rep. Dave Brat in a close House race that has implications for control of the chamber. Warner's endorsement was the second time this week that the second longest-serving senator in Virginia history crossed the aisle in an endorsement. Earlier, he announced support for Democrat Leslie Cockburn in the 5th U.S. House District race against Republican Denver Riggleman to succeed Rep. Tom Garrett, a Republican who did not seek re-election. Spanberger, a former CIA officer, is challenging Brat in the 7th District, which includes parts of Chesterfield and Henrico counties.... Warner endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton and her running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., in the 2016 presidential election. He has endorsed Kaine in his race this year against Republican Corey Stewart. In 2017, Warner backed Republican Ed Gillespie for governor." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: AND, speaking of Warner's endorsement of Leslie Cockburn, I apologize to the Roanoke Times for republishing this letter-to-the-editor in full:

Please explain to me why Leslie Cockburn pronounces her name Coburn. There is no way you can get 'co' out of 'cock' and please don't tell me that the CK is silent. If she finds her name offensive for some reason or another, then why doesn't she just change it? Is it because she is a Democrat and doesn't know the difference? I know this won't be printed because the paper is liberal and never wants to print the truth.

I have omitted the writer's name to spare him any further embarrassment. ...

... There are far too few perfect moments in life. This would be one.


Robert Barnes & Brady Dennis of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court Friday night refused to halt a novel lawsuit filed by young Americans that attempts to force the federal government to take action on climate change, turning down a request from the Trump administration to stop it before trial. The suit, filed in 2015 by 21 young people who argue that the failure of government leaders to combat climate change violates their constitutional right to a clean environment, is before a federal judge in Oregon. It had been delayed while the Supreme Court considered the emergency request from the government. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch would have stopped the suit. The other justices did not indicate how they voted on the government's request. The court's three-page order said the government should seek relief from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. It noted the government's assertion that the 'suit is based on an assortment of unprecedented legal theories, such as a substantive due process right to certain climate conditions, and an equal protection right to live in the same climate as enjoyed by prior generations.'"

Beyond the Beltway

Jacey Fortin of the New York Times: "A man walked into a yoga studio in Tallahassee, Fla., on Friday evening and shot six people -- two fatally -- before killing himself, the police said.... Not all of those injured had been shot; one was pistol-whipped." ...

... Tallahassee Democrat: "Andrew Gillum's campaign to be governor was disrupted Friday by a shooting in Tallahassee. The mayor locked in a tight race with Republican Ron DeSantis canceled campaign events in Miami Dade to return to the capital city. 'I'm deeply appreciative of law enforcement's quick response to the shooting at the yoga facility in Tallahassee today. No act of gun violence is acceptable. I'm in close communication with law enforcement officials and will be returning to Tallahassee tonight,' Gillum tweeted shortly after the late-afternoon shooting."

Trumpism Comes to New York City. Ali Watkins of the New York Times: "The African Burial Ground Monument in Lower Manhattan, a treasured site for the nation's black community, was defaced with a racist slur on Thursday, the authorities said.In black marker, a vandal scrawled 'Kill,' followed by the slur, on a plaque at the monument. The authorities said they did not have a suspect in the incident. Discovered in 1991 during construction of an office building, the six-acre burial ground is estimated to contain 15,000 intact skeletal remains of New York City's colonial African-American community, who were not allowed at the time to be interred in traditional church cemeteries. Many were slaves. The monument, which is steps from City Hall, is considered a literal and figurative symbol of New York's prominent and long-ignored role in colonial African-American culture. The graffiti was quickly scrubbed from the site on 290 Broadway. But soon after, the city was jarred by another incident of hate when 'Kill All Jews' and other anti-Semitic slurs were discovered written inside a Brooklyn synagogue.... According to a report from California University's Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, hate crimes have increased in major American cities over the last two years." ...

... Fanning Flames. Noor Al-Sibai of RawStory: "The New York Police Department received reports of fires at seven Hasidic Jewish institutions in a single neighborhood in Brooklyn — around the same time vandals spray-painted 'Kill All Jews' inside a reform synagogue in the same borough. City Council Member Stephen Levin and State Senator Martin Dilan released a statement about the fires Friday afternoon." --s

Way Beyond

Tom Phillips of the Guardian: "[A]lready in the few days since his victory [Jair Bolsonaro] has given Brazil -- and the world -- a dizzying, and to many disturbing, glimpse of the rightist roller-coaster ahead.... [He] has reaffirmed his regard for Brazil's 1964-85 dictatorship and vowed to brand social movements such as the Landless Workers' Movement (MST) terrorists. He has publicly embraced a radical televangelist who calls himself 'public enemy number one' of the gay movement and invited another commander of Brazil's religious right to his home, stirring fears of a puritanical tack. On Thursday, just hours after controversially naming the judge who jailed his main rival for the presidency as his justice minister, Bolsonaro announced his intention to move Brazil's embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.... He suggested building 'a very high wall' along Brazil's southwestern border with Paraguay to block gun runners and smugglers." --s

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Thursday
Nov012018

The Commentariat -- November 2, 2018

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "President Trump disparaged Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee for governor of Georgia, in ambiguous and unusually personal terms on Thursday, warning that 'her past' left her 'not qualified to be the governor.' Mr. Trump did not elaborate and offered no evidence for his assertion, which seemed to be a potential preview of the political message he will deliver on Sunday, two days ahead of the election, at a Georgia rally for Brian Kemp, Ms. Abrams's Republican rival. But the decision of the president, who has been criticized for inflammatory language, to invoke Ms. Abrams's background so broadly was a distinct escalation in his attacks on her bid to become the first black woman to be elected governor in the United States. Ms. Abrams, a former Democratic leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, has staked out an array of liberal positions during her campaign, but her tenure in the Legislature has drawn measured praise from the Republicans who led the State Capitol."

Trump's Remarks Used to Justify Mass Murder. Dionne Searcey & Emmanuel Akinwotu of the New York Times: "The Nigerian Army, part of a military criticized for rampant human rights abuses, on Friday used the words of President Trump to justify its fatal shootings of rock-throwing protesters. Soldiers opened fire this past Monday on a march of about 1,000 Islamic Shia activists who had been blocking traffic in the capital, Abuja. Videos circulated on social media showed several protesters hurling rocks at the heavily armed soldiers who then shot fleeing protesters in the back. The Nigerian military said three protesters were killed but the toll appears to have been much higher. Amnesty International as well as leaders of the protest said more than 40 people were killed at the march and two other smaller marches, with more than 100 wounded by bullets. A Reuters reporter counted 20 bodies at the main march.... The Army's official Twitter account posted a video, 'Please Watch and Make Your Deductions,' showing Mr. Trump's anti-migrant speech on Thursday in which he said rocks would be considered firearms if thrown toward the American military at the nation's borders.... 'We're not going to put up with that,' Mr. Trump said in the clip. 'They want to throw rocks at our military, our military fights back.'"

Heather Long of the Washington Post: "The big news Friday is that wages are growing above 3 percent for the first time since 2009. It's a significant milestone after years of sluggish wage growth and most economists say workers are likely to see strong gains for the foreseeable future. But the good news comes with two caveats. The first is that the 3.1 percent annual wage growth figure the Labor Department reported Friday is slightly inflated because of some hurricane effects.... The second caveat is that while wage growth is getting better, it's still well below the norm.... Corporate profits, meanwhile, are at an all-time high.... Corporate tax cuts have enabled companies to boost profitability, many analysts and executives say. But companies are spending a lot of their extra cash on stock buybacks and dividends, leaving only a little extra for workers."

Patrick Wilson of the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch: "John W. Warner, a Republican who represented Virginia in the U.S. Senate for 30 years, endorsed Democrat Abigail Spanberger in her challenge to Republican Rep. Dave Brat in a close House race that has implications for control of the chamber. Warner's endorsement was the second time this week that the second longest-serving senator in Virginia history crossed the aisle in an endorsement. Earlier, he announced support for Democrat Leslie Cockburn in the 5th U.S. House District race against Republican Denver Riggleman to succeed Rep. Tom Garrett, a Republican who did not seek re-election. Spanberger, a former CIA officer, is challenging Brat in the 7th District, which includes parts of Chesterfield and Henrico counties.... Warner endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton and her running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., in the 2016 presidential election. He has endorsed Kaine in his race this year against Republican Corey Stewart. In 2017, Warner backed Republican Ed Gillespie for governor."

Mass Murderer & Bomb Mailer Are Inconvenient. Morgan Gstalter of the Hill: "President Trump on Thursday described the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting suspect and the man accused of mailing pipe bombs to prominent Democrats as a pair of 'maniacs' whose actions halted Republican momentum ahead of Tuesday's midterm elections. 'We did have two maniacs stop a momentum that was incredible, because for seven days nobody talked about the elections,' Trump aid at a Missouri campaign rally. 'It stopped a tremendous momentum.'... The president had previously lamented that the mailed bombs had stolen headlines away from the GOP so close to the midterms."

David Ignatius of the Washington Post: "When President Trump issues an election-time order to send up to 15,000 troops to confront what many experts say is a nonexistent threat on the U.S.-Mexico border, what should Defense Secretary Jim Mattis do about it? Mattis's answer, so far, has been to support the president and mostly keep his mouth shut. He gruffly batted back a reporter's question Wednesday about whether Trump's troop deployment order was a political stunt by saying, 'We don't do stunts in this department.' Unfortunately, some of Mattis's colleagues fear he's doing just that in implicitly backing Trump's incendiary talk of an immigrant 'invasion' that requires sending active-duty troops. Watching Mattis walk the Trump tightrope is agonizing. For many Americans, the retired Marine four-star general is the model of a stand-up guy -- the sort of independent, experienced leader who can steady the nation in a time of division. But in dealing with Trump, Mattis often takes a seat and quietly accommodates the president's erratic and divisive rhetoric -- evidently believing that it's better to hold fire and work from inside to sustain sensible policies."

*****

A Lot of People Say ... How Trump Stokes Conspiracy Theories, with Media Assists. John Wagner of the Washington Post: "President Trump suggested Wednesday that there might be truth to an unfounded conspiracy theory that philanthropist and Democratic megadonor George Soros is funding a caravan of Central American migrants, telling reporters that he 'wouldn't be surprised' if that is the case. As he left the White House, Trump was asked whether he thinks somebody is funding the migrant caravan that is slowly making its way through Mexico toward the U.S. border. 'I wouldn't be surprised, yeah. I wouldn't be surprised,' Trump responded. Asked whether the funder could be Soros, Trump said: 'I don't know who, but I wouldn't be surprised. A lot of people say yes.'" ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I'm not sure how useful it is for reporters to goad Trump into saying stupid, bigoted stuff on the record, but this does seem to be a game the White House press corps likes to play. Next question: Are white European Christians superior to people of other backgrounds? ...

... Linda Qiu of the New York Times: "... in the lead-up to the midterm elections, President Trump issued a warning to the migrant caravan headed toward the United States. His speech was filled with inaccurate claims." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Yesterday, anchors at CNN & MSNBC were complaining that the White House billed the speech as a policy initiative, but it was nothing more than a political harangue. If the speech had been a real policy speech by a real president, White House & other administration experts would have vetted it carefully, & it would have contained no outright misstatements of fact. In the interest of accuracy, it is necessary to call the current occupant of the White House "the President*" and not "the President." ...

... Ted Hesson, et al., of Politico: "... Donald Trump announced Thursday that the U.S. military would treat any rocks or stones being thrown by asylum-seeking migrants slowly heading toward the U.S.-Mexico border as firearms.... In his remarks, Trump said that 'there's not much difference' between a firearm and getting hit in the face with a rock. 'They want to throw rocks at our military, our military fights back,' the president said. 'We'll consider -- and I told them -- consider it a rifle. When they throw rocks like they did at the Mexico military and police, I say consider it a rifle.'... Trump's comments ... [raise] questions about the possibility for violent confrontation between migrants and troops or Border Patrol agents.... Under existing rules of engagement, deployed troops should use deadly force only 'when there is a reasonable belief' the subject 'poses an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm.' U.S. Customs and Border Protection's use-of-force handbook offers similar guidance.... Trump also said Thursday that the administration would seek to detain all migrants arrested at the border, including families and asylum seekers. To accomplish that, he said, the troops would build tent cities on the border." See safari's comment below on rocks as rifles. ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: Looks as if there's a better chance that the troops will be less engaged with stone-throwing Hondurans than with armed right-wing American militia boys:

... James LaPorta & Chantal Da Silva of Newsweek: "As ... Donald Trump directs thousands of troops to the U.S.-Mexico border in a show of military force against an approaching caravan of migrants from Central America, preliminary intelligence assessments are preparing for encounters with a litany of groups from unregulated militias to transcontinental criminal organizations, according to documents obtained by Newsweek.... 'Estimated 200 unregulated armed militia members currently operating along the southwest border. Reported incidents of unregulated militias stealing National Guard equipment during deployments. They operate under the guise of citizen patrols supporting CBP [Customs and Border Protection] primarily between POEs [Points of Entry],' according to the documents." ...

... The More Often Trump Speaks, the More Often He Lies. Glenn Kessler, et al., of the Washington Post: "In the first nine months of his presidency, Trump made 1,318 false or misleading claims, an average of five a day. But in the seven weeks leading up the midterm elections, the president made 1,419 false or misleading claims -- an average of 30 a day.... The flood of presidential misinformation has picked up dramatically as the president has barnstormed across the country, holding rallies with his supporters. Each of those rallies usually yields 35 to 45 suspect claims. But the president often has tacked on interviews with local media (in which he repeats the same false statements) and gaggles with the White House press corps before and after his trips.... Put another way: September was the second-biggest month of the Trump presidency, with 599 false and misleading claims. But that paled next to October, with almost double: 1,104 claims, not counting Oct. 31."

This Russia Thing, Ctd.

Sharon LaFraniere, et al., of the New York Times: An October 2016 e-mail exchange between Steve Bannon and Roger Stone about remarks by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange "underscores how Mr. Stone presented himself to Trump campaign officials: as a conduit of inside information from WikiLeaks, Russia's chosen repository for documents hacked from Democratic computers. Mr. Bannon and two other former senior campaign officials have detailed to prosecutors for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, how Mr. Stone created that impression.... One of them told investigators that Mr. Stone not only seemed to predict WikiLeaks's actions, but that he also took credit afterward for the timing of its disclosures that damaged Hillary Clinton's candidacy. But at the same time, the top tier of Mr. Trump's campaign was deeply skeptical of Mr. Stone.... Still, Mr. Bannon's October 2016 email correspondence shows that the perception that Mr. Stone knew what WikiLeaks had in store for Mrs. Clinton spread to the highest levels of the Trump campaign. No evidence has emerged that Mr. Trump or his advisers alerted the authorities." ...

... Michael Schmidt, et al., of the New York Times: "What is still not clear is how much Trump campaign advisers knew about the [Russian] hacks at the time -- a subject of the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III -- or the extent of their interactions with far-right figures eager to undermine Mrs. Clinton. Emails obtained by The New York Times provide new insight into those connections, as well as efforts by Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime informal adviser to President Trump and political operative, to seek funding through the campaign for his projects aimed at hurting Mrs. Clinton." Here are copies of the cache of e-mails the Times obtained. ...

... Rosalind Helderman & Manuel Roig-Franzia of the Washington Post: "Roger Stone ... sent an email to Trump's chief campaign strategist in October 2016 that implied that he had information about WikiLeaks's plans to release material that would be damaging to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. In an email to Stephen K. Bannon on Oct. 4 -- days before WikiLeaks began releasing emails hacked from the account of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta -- Stone said that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange ... would nevertheless be releasing 'a load every week going forward.'... [Stone's] newly revealed exchange with Bannon undercuts Stone's insistence this week that he never communicated with Trump campaign officials about WikiLeaks. 'There are no such communications, and if Bannon says there are he would be dissembling,' Stone told The Washington Post, which reported Tuesday that Bannon had been asked about Stone's interactions with the campaign in a recent interview with the Mueller team." ...

... Jeet Heer: "Roger Stone's defense in Russian investigation is that he's a notorious liar."

Will Sommer of the Daily Beast: "A press conference intended to publicize sexual assault claims against Special Counsel Robert Mueller collapsed in spectacular fashion on Thursday, after the pro-Trump operatives behind the event failed to demonstrate a grasp of even basic details about their accuser or explain why they had repeatedly lied about their project.... Throughout their 45-minute press conference, the two men repeatedly contradicted themselves and each other, giving cryptic non-answers that convinced approximately zero people in attendance that their allegations were anywhere close to the truth.... After initially promising that the accuser, a fashion designer named Carolyne Cass, would appear alongside them, [Jack] Burkman and [Jacob] Wohl appeared to changed their minds by the time reporters assembled inside the dimly lit Holiday Inn in Rossyln, Virginia.... Without an in-person accuser, Wohl and Burkman instead offered a signed affidavit from her that claimed Mueller raped her in a New York hotel room on August 2, 2010.... Despite their claim of an exhaustive investigation of the allegations, Wohl and Burkman failed to know how to spell the accuser's name."


Trump Wags Wall Street. Martin Ferrer of the Guardian: "Asian shares have surged on reports that Donald Trump wants to reach an agreement with Chinese president Xi Jinping about the trade dispute that has dogged markets for months.... Bloomberg later reported that the phone call -- in which Trump and Xi both expressed optimism about resolving their bitter trade disputes -- prompted Trump to ask officials to begin drafting potential terms.... The reports lit a fire under stock markets[.]" --s ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I'd say Trump was hoping the headline was, "Trump Saves Market. Only He Can Do It. Go, GOP!" ...

... Bloomberg's story, by Jenny Leonard & others, is here. Mrs. McC: This, combined with the excellent October jobs report, could seal the midterm deal for Republicans -- if Trump's "The Brown Folks Are Coming, the Brown Folks Are Coming" doesn't drown out good economic news.

Kaitlan Collins, et al., of CNN: "... Donald Trump has told advisers that Heather Nauert, the State Department spokeswoman, is his leading choice to become US ambassador to the United Nations and he could offer the post as soon as this week, two sources familiar with his pick told CNN. If named Nauert, who met with Trump Monday, would leave her role at the State Department to take over from Nikki Haley, who surprised White House officials last month when she announced her decision to step down at the end of the year. People close to the President cautioned that his pick is not final until it is formally announced.... Speaking at the White House on Thursday, Trump confirmed that Nauert is 'under very serious consideration' to become the next US ambassador to the UN.... Nauert, who came to government from Fox News, served as State Department spokesman for both Rex Tillerson and strong>Mike Pompeo but has enjoyed a closer relationship with Trump's second secretary of state than she did Tillerson.... Her elevation to a top diplomatic role underscores the importance Trump has placed on having his top aides also serve as television surrogates.... Still, as a diplomat she lacks experience." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: No problem. When Trump offered Nikki Haley the job, she protested, "I don't even know what the UN does." Trump sees no reason whatsoever for a government official to have any related professional expertise Ben Carson Rick Perry. The main qualification is that they look the parts. You don't have to think too hard to see why Trump picked Haley, Carson & Perry (with glasses) for their respective jobs, and why President Strangelove now may choose a woman who looks ever-so-Aryan to be his U.N. ambassador.

Some Things Are Both Unbelievable AND Predictable. Jesus Rodriguez of Politico: "White House national security adviser John Bolton on Thursday praised Jair Bolsonaro, the bombastic, far-right nationalist who triumphed in Brazil's presidential election over the weekend, calling him a 'like-minded' partner whose ascent should be seen as a welcome development in the region. In a speech on U.S. policy toward Latin America, Bolton said Bolsonaro could be a partner in fighting against leftist leaders who sow instability in the region. He slammed socialist leaders in three countries -- Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua -- as the 'troika of tyranny.'"

Isaac Arnsdorf of ProPublica: "A $10 billion technology upgrade championed by Jared Kushner and [a trio of] Mar-a-Lago [Friends of Trump] is at risk of failing the VA's 7 million patients. The VA gave a software company a $10 billion no-bid contract to replace the agency's records system. The new system is supposed to synchronize with data from other providers...." [Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie, in Congressional testimony, played down the involvement of the Mar-a-Lago boys, even though it was the trio's "top focus.... But the program they backed is still hurtling forward -- and not going smoothly. A recent progress report by the software company rated the program's alert level as 'yellow trending towards red.'... The Mar-a-Lago Crowd and the White House frustrated efforts to hire a qualified leader to run the project, according to interviews. The people now in charge have no experience in health care. They have gone against expert advice.... The VA justified the no-bid contract on the basis that it would create 'seamless care' for veterans...." --s

Juliet Eilperin, et al., of the Washington Post: "The White House is growing increasingly concerned about allegations of misconduct against Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, according to two senior administration officials, and President Trump has asked aides for more information about a Montana land deal under scrutiny by the Justice Department. Trump told his aides that he is afraid Zinke has broken rules while serving as the interior secretary and is concerned about the Justice Department referral, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.... No decision about Zinke's tenure has been made, the officials said. But the shift within the West Wing highlights the extent to which the interior secretary's standing has slipped in recent months." Mrs. McC: The very premise that Trump is concerned about ethics is sort of hilarious. No doubt Trump has some other reason or reasons to consider showing Zinke the door.

Azeen Ghorayshi of BuzzFeed: "An open letter that denounces attempts to define gender as a binary trait based on anatomy or genetic tests has gathered signatures from more than 1,600 scientists. The letter, which includes the signatures of eight Nobel laureates, was written in response to a memo drafted in spring of 2017 by the Department of Health and Human Services, according to the New York Times. The memo reportedly urged government agencies to adopt a legal definition of sex 'on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable.'... The memo also reportedly stated that any disputes over a person's sex would be clarified using genetic testing, a claim that scientists say is unscientific and unethical. The Trump administration has not confirmed the memo or issued any statement -- or proposed regulation -- that adopts the views in the memo. The report incited much debate on Twitter, and today more than 50 companies, including Apple, Google, and Facebook, released a letter condemning it. It also prompted 22 scientists to put together an opposition letter, addressed to 'our elected representatives.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I'm sorry, sciency people. Your life's work is meaningless, and the Trump administration would be foolish to consider it. You see, their Dear Leader has "a natural instinct for science" and doesn't need to be bothered with your averred expertise, much less common sense & decency.


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. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Meet Your Elected GOP Official. John Bowden of the Hill: "The FBI says it's investigating a Washington state Republican [Rep. Matt Shea] who distributed a manifesto calling for 'war' against enemies of the Christian religion. The document, a four-page explanation of how to establish Christian law through armed struggle, calls for the end of same-sex marriage, abortion, and the death of all non-Christian males in the U.S. if religious law is not upheld. 'If they do not yield -- kill all males,' the document reads. FBI representatives told local NBC affiliate KHQ 6 that it is investigating the document, which was reported to to the bureau by Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich, who told the news station that he felt the post was dangerous. 'The document Mr. Shea wrote is not a Sunday school project or an academic study,' Knezovich added to the Washington Spokesman-Review. 'It is a "how to" manual consistent with the ideology and operating philosophy of the Christian Identity/Aryan Nations movement and the Redoubt movement of the 1990s.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Here's a kicker: Shea is running for re-election. "A spokeswoman for the Northwest Credit Union Association told Spokane Public Radio that the group had requested the return of a $1,000 donation to Shea's campaign." I'd like to know why the hell a local credit union was donating to a campaign for a guy like Shea in the first place. ...

... The Seattle Times has Shea's document here, with a related story by Chad Sokol, well-worth reading in its entirety.

$$$ One More Means of Disenfranchisement. Danielle Lang & Thea Sebastian in a New York Times op-ed: "... this country's felony laws frequently block people from full participation in our society after they've served time by denying them the right to vote. Those who have completed their sentences are all too often prevented from casting ballots simply because they have unpaid court fines and fees. In seven states --- Arkansas, Arizona, Alabama, Connecticut, Kentucky, Tennessee and Florida -- laws explicitly prohibit people who owe court debt from voting. In other states -- such as North Carolina, New Mexico and Wisconsin -- in order to regain the vote, people must complete parole or probation, which often requires paying excessive fines and fees.... Regardless of the stated goal of this policy, the effects are clear: Wealthy people can pay these fees and vote immediately, while poor people could spend the rest of their lives in a cycle of debt that denies them the ability to cast a ballot.... Nationally, about 10 million people owe over $50 billion in debt associated with the criminal justice system. Worse, this money is generally being demanded from people who are unlikely to be able to pay it."

Election 2018

The Party of Liars. Paul Krugman: "... at this point the G.O.P.'s campaign message consists of nothing but lies; it's hard to think of a single true thing Republicans are running on. And yes, it's a Republican problem (and it's not just Donald Trump). Democrats aren't saints, but they campaign mostly on real issues, and generally do, in fact, stand for more or less what they claim to stand for. Republicans don't. And the total dishonesty of Republican electioneering should itself be a decisive political issue, because at this point it defines the party's character.... It is now impossible to have intellectual integrity and a conscience while remaining a Republican in good standing." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump's assertion that a horde of Middle Eastern terrorists & Central American gang members is about to breach our Southern border unless American soldiers shoot them all dead is of course the Big Lie of the Election Season. But what Democrats, liberals & other sane people forget is that the Big Lie is metaphorically true. That is, old white Republicans' existential fear that "others" will take over the White Man's Country is demographically accurate. White men, by various means, still control the levers of business & government, but that is far less true today than it was 50 years ago & far less true than it will be 50 years from now. The U.S.'s "multi-cultural" identity will not always be limited to Mardi Gras & Cinco de Mayo celebrations. That terrifies a lot of white people to the extent that a "threat" like a few thousand needy asylum-seekers represents or symbolizes the end of American life as they know it, even though the "threat" itself is bogus. One of the cowering, terrified white people, BTW, is the President*. ...

... Philip Rucker & Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: In the lead-up to the election, Trump has gone all-racist, and many GOP candidates are following suit. ...

... Michael Shear & Julie Davis of the New York Times: "... with polls showing Democrats ahead in many critical House races, Mr. Trump is using presidential brute force to all but take over the campaign communications strategies for Republican candidates across the country. In tweets, rally speeches, interviews, campaign ads and off-the-cuff remarks to reporters, the president has made immigrants the singular object of his attention.... Mr. Trump is betting that a relentless focus on the threat he envisions from south-of-the-border immigrants, combined with his repeated assertion that Democrats are to blame for letting them into the country, will energize conservative supporters.... On Wednesday afternoon, he tweeted out a 53-second, expletive-filled video that features immigrants charged with violent crimes and images of a throng of brown-skinned men breaching a barrier and running forward. The president's message was clear: Immigrants will kill you and the Democrats are to blame.... The immigration video provoked such outrage that it spawned a flood of news coverage -- or, in the parlance of political consultants, 'earned media,' meaning the Mr. Trump did not have to spend any money to get public attention for it." ...

... William Saletan of Slate: "When you review Trump's record in its entirety, there's no question what's behind his new [incendiary] video [ad]. The pattern that runs through his political career isn't national security, public safety, or respect for the rule of law. It's exploitation of fear of Latinos. The exploitation goes beyond immigration. It extends to religious prejudice (in the case of [Ted] Cruz) and dual loyalty (in the cases of [federal judge Gonzalo Curiel and Columba Bush). So don't run away from this video. Watch it. It was designed to scare you into voting, and it should. It will show you a villain worthy of fear. But that villain isn't Bracamontes, who's locked up on death row. It's the president who goes around our country stoking hatred and violence. Republicans let that president into our White House. Republicans let him stay. On Tuesday, you can vote them out." --s ...

... As Sam Stanton of the Sacramento Bee lays out, "the president's claim [in the racist ad] that 'Democrats let [cop-killer Luis Bracamontes] into our country' is not entirely accurate, and neither is the claim that 'Democrats let him stay.'" Say, one of the people who let Bracamontes stay was, oddly enough, noted racist Sheriff Joe Arpaio: "Records in Arizona show [Bracamontes] was arrested on drug charges again in Phoenix in 1998, then released 'for reasons unknown' by Arpaio's office. Arpaio is a Republican." Mrs. McC: Yeah, and Joe is also the first guy Trump thought should get a big ole pardon. You may detect an ironical understory here, but it's kinda just more of the same: Trump & Republicans do stupid, terrible and/or unpopular things, then blame Democrats. ...

... ** Amanda Marcotte in Salon: "Republicans have nothing to offer voters. That's the main takeaway from these last days of the election season, when the final push -- led by Donald Trump and Fox News -- to get Republican voters to the polls isn't focused on policies or campaign promises, but purely on anger, spite and fear.... On Wednesday, the Republicans released an ad -- tweeted out immediately by Trump -- that's so breathtakingly racist that even CNN was willing to avoid euphemisms ... and simply ran a headline that read, 'Trump shocks with racist new ad days before midterms.'... Literally, the only reason to compare [Luis Bracamontes] to the people in the caravan -- who are largely from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador rather than Mexico... -- is a belief that all Latinos are the same.... The GOP is trying to convince white voters to show up [at the polls] ... to demonstrate their allegiance to white supremacy." Emphasis added. ...

... You don't have to take it from Marcotte. Let's Ask Bob Corker. 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." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Kevin Drum of Mother Jones: "I assume ... that Donald Trump is hoping his immigration demagoguery will trigger some kind of incident. That' why he keeps amping things up. He wants something, anything, to happen before November 6 that might scare suburban housewives. Even a modest confrontation involving undocumented workers would probably be worth a point or two at the ballot box. Keep it cool, everyone. And if you can, make sure everyone else does too." --s ...

... Eric Levitz: "... the suggestion that Trump is reviving a brand of racial demagoguery that his party abandoned in 1988 [following outrage over the Willie Horton ad] is plainly untrue. In reality, the president's web video probably isn't the most 'racially charged' Republican ad of the last three months, let alone the past three decades. In September, Republican congressman Duncan Hunter released an ad that claims his Democratic rival is working to 'infiltrate Congress' on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood, and is, therefore, a 'security risk.'... In upstate New York, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) has aired multiple commercials attacking an African-American House candidate for having once been a rap musician.... (Indicted) Republican congressman Chris Collins is airing an ad that simply features his Democratic rival Nate McMurray speaking Korean for 30 seconds, while bars of text make unsubstantiated claims insinuating that McMurray's first loyalty is to China.... In many respects, the United States is a less racially intolerant country than it was 30 years ago.... But America ... is (for now) governed by the Republican Party. And over the past three decades, the arc of the GOP's history has bent toward unashamed racist fearmongering."

Michael Tomasky of The Daily Beast: "It's a regular worry of mine that future students of this period who read mainstream journalism won't begin to grasp the full scope of the madness, mendacity, and bottomless gall of the president and his enablers.... We're not doing enough because it's impossible to keep up.... Still, I'd like to step back here and tell future students of this period that the 2018 midterm campaigns are the most dishonest and racist in modern American history on the Republican side. The racism now on public display from Republicans is raw sewage.... [I]t's also the most dishonest because Trump and Republican candidates for Congress are lying more rancidly about health care than I've ever seen either party lie about a single issue in the last 40 years.... If this campaign isn't punished, we really are not the country we thought we were."

Ryan Grim & Briahna Gray of The Intercept: "The Democratic Party has told anybody who'll listen that it sees its path back to power in the House running through so-called Whole Foods districts populated by college-educated white voters who are turned off by the GOP's more explicit turn toward bigotry in recent years.... Elsewhere, Democrats are hoping to win back the more working-class districts that went for Barack Obama in 2012 and then flipped to Trump in 2016.... But [Virginia Democratic candidate Leslie] Cockburn and a host of progressive populists around the country are looking to take it a step further.... They're running values-driven campaigns that take aim at the establishments of both parties, and the result shows a surprising number of close races in districts that national Democrats have long written off. Rural America, this wave of candidates thinks, is ready for a realignment." --s

Florida. Dan Spinelli of Mother Jones: "In one of South Florida's congressional districts, the party machine swept in to prop up a two-term incumbent by painting his opponent as a puppet of fossil fuel interests and 'dirty coal money.' The only catch? The incumbent is Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo and the party apparatus is the National Republican Congressional Committee, whose coffers this cycle contain nearly $7 million in donations from the oil and gas industry.... Curbelo has received more than $192,000 from energy and natural resource firms, in comparison to the less than $5,000 that [his Democratic opponent Debbie] Mucarsel-Powell has received from the same sector of donors, according to the Center for Responsive Politics." --s

Georgia. Greg Bluestein & Tamar Hallarman of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "The race for Georgia governor is as close as it's ever been according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution/Channel 2 Action News poll released Thursday that heightens the possibility of a December runoff between Democrat Stacey Abrams and Republican Brian Kemp. The poll, conducted by the University of Georgia's School of Public and International Affairs, has Abrams at 46.9 percent and Kemp at 46.7 percent, a statistical tie that's within the poll's margin of error of 3 percentage points. It's the third AJC/Channel 2 poll that shows the nationally watched contest is too close to call, and it mirrors other recent surveys that point to a Dec. 4 runoff if neither candidate gets the majority vote needed. Much depends on the performance of Libertarian Ted Metz, who tallies 1.6 percent of the vote, and roughly 5 percent of undecided voters."

Iowa. Frank Dale of ThinkProgress: "Please do not ask Rep. Steve King (R-IA) about being a white supremacist. Even though the Iowa Republican is in the closest race of his 15 years in Congress, King was not able to maintain civility when asked about his very long history of embracing and endorsing white supremacy on Thursday.... At an event in Des Moines, King called for an unidentified man to be removed after the latter calmly asked him about the similarities between his past racist comments and the rhetoric that reportedly inspired last weekend;s massacre of 11 people.... King erupted in a temper tantrum that was posted on Twitter by the local news site Iowa Starting Line[.]" [With video] --s

North Dakota. Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress: "Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) won her 2012 race by less than 3,000 votes -- in no small part due to support from Native Americans. Not long thereafter, North Dakota's Republican legislature passed a law that effectively strips many of these Native Americans of their voting rights. Yet, according to an order handed down by a federal judge on Thursday, this voter suppression law cannot be challenged prior to next week's election." --safari: Millhiser goes on to explain how the Supreme Court and partisan judges doomed N.D. Native American voters.

Washington State. Kate Aronoff of The Intercept: "BP has been bullish about putting a price on carbon. The oil giant was one of six companies to call on governments around the world to adopt a global price on carbon in the lead-up to the Paris climate talks in 2015.... So why is BP spending $13 million to defeat a measure to set a carbon price in Washington state?... This would be the first statewide carbon tax-like measure in the country and a bellwether for climate policy nationwide, flanked with potential wins on other climate-focused ballot initiatives in Arizona (to increase the state's renewable portfolio standard) and Nevada (to prohibit electric utility monopolies).... Overall, the oil industry has spent over $28 million to stop [Washington state's] I-1631 -- making it the most expensive Washington statewide ballot initiative in history -- and is blanketing airwaves with ads urging voters to reject it. " --s

Mark Olalde of Mother Jones: "Voters in six Western states -- Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Nevada and Washington -- will head to the polls Nov. 6 with the chance to decide on hotly contested, statewide ballot measures that propose sweeping changes to environmental regulations. Standing to lose billions in future profits, oil, gas and mining companies are opening deep pocketbooks to throw their substantial weight against those initiatives that impact topics ranging from renewable energy to hydraulic fracturing, or 'fracking.'" --s

Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd.... Until You Get Caught. Matthew Goldstein, et al., of the New York Times: "Goldman Sachs is facing one of the most significant scandals in its history, a multibillion-dollar international fraud that investigators say was masterminded by a flamboyant financier with a taste for Hollywood and carried out with help from the Wall Street firm's bankers. Federal prosecutors on Thursday unveiled a guilty plea from one former Goldman Sachs banker and announced bribery and money laundering charges against a second banker, as part of an investigation into the alleged embezzlement of billions of dollars from a state-run investment fund in Malaysia. Prosecutors also brought charges against the Malaysian businessman they believe stole some of the money: Jho Low, who spent millions of dollars on gifts to celebrities like the actor Leonardo DiCaprio and the model Miranda Kerr. The money was used to buy a Picasso painting, diamond necklaces and Birkin bags as well as to pay for the Hollywood blockbuster 'The Wolf of Wall Street.' Najib Razak, the Malaysian prime minister who established and oversaw the so-called sovereign wealth fund, lost his re-election bid over the scandal, in which American prosecutors said $731 million of the missing money was deposited into his own bank accounts.... The bank has spent years trying to rehabilitate a reputation that was severely damaged by allegations of misconduct and putting profits ahead of clients during the financial crisis."

Patrick Galey of AFP: "The world's oceans have absorbed 60 percent more heat than previously thought over the last quarter of a century, scientists said Thursday, leaving Earth more sensitive still to the effects of climate change. Oceans cover more than two thirds of the planet's surface and play a vital role in sustaining life on Earth. According to their most recent assessment this month, scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) say the world's oceans have absorbed 90 percent of the temperature rise caused by man-made carbon emissions.... [The study] found that for each of the last 25 years, oceans had absorbed heat energy equivalent to 150 times the amount of electricity mankind produces annually." --s

Beyond the Beltway

Alex Taylor & Tamar Lapin of the New York Post: "A political event hosted by 'Broad City' star Ilana Glazer at a historic Brooklyn synagogue was cancelled Thursday when a vandal scrawled 'Kill all Jews' inside.... The NYPD said 'anti-Semitic messages' were discovered on the stairwell of Union Temple in Brooklyn Heights at around 8 p.m. Thursday." --s

News Lede

Bloomberg: "American workers enjoyed the biggest leap in pay since 2009 as job gains topped forecasts and the unemployment rate held at a 48-year low, a boost for ... Donald Trump ahead of next week's midterm elections and reason for the Federal Reserve to keep raising interest rates. Nonfarm payrolls rose 250,000 [in October] after a downwardly revised 118,000 gain, a Labor Department report showed Friday. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey called for an increase of 200,000 jobs. Average hourly earnings for private workers advanced 3.1 percent from a year earlier and the unemployment rate was unchanged from September at 3.7 percent, both matching projections."

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Wednesday
Oct312018

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:

... 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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