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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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A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. -- Edward R. Murrow

Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns


Tuesday
Oct302018

The Commentariat -- October 31, 2018

Afternoon Update:

... 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.) ...

William Saletan of Slate "proves" that the "real victim" of the past week's attacks was Donald Trump. Saletan is kidding. Trump is not.

** 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

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."

Alexander 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."

Sarah Okeson of DCReport: "The Trump administration is trying to 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

Ezra Klein of Vox: "Why are Republicans spending so much time lying about their health care policy?... How did Republicans get here? 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

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.

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

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.

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."

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

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?"

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

*****

Just thought I'd ruin a meaningless holiday for you.

It's the thing that he does best: He's scaring the shit out of his voters. It's sort of like Halloween, but a racist Halloween. Or as Megyn Kelly calls it, Halloween. -- Trevor Noah, on Trump's campaign strategy

The campaigns have been dominated by fear and just really terrible, heartbreaking events. That's why for Halloween, instead of decorating my house with witches and goblins, I just hung up newspapers. -- Stephen Colbert

 

 

Nancy LeTourneau of the Washington Monthly: "The big story of [Tuesday was] that Trump plans to end birthright citizenship by executive order. But neither the president nor the White House made an announcement to that effect.... It was Jonathan Swan of Axios who brought up the issue of birthright citizenship and then asked the president, 'Have you thought about that?'... The president responded by saying that it is in process and that it will happen.... Pardon my skepticism, but since when do we believe what Trump says in a moment like that? This is the same man who has pretended for years that he's working on a fantastic reform of our health care system and great middle class tax cuts.... Beyond giving Trump a prompt about how to ramp things up with his base just prior to the midterms, that interview clip has put the reporters at Axios front and center of the biggest story of the day. I suppose you could suggest that I've gone from skeptical to cynical with that observation. But actual reporting on this president requires a whole new level of vigilance, which has to be grounded in something other than click bait." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...


     ... Via Steve M. ...

... Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. "Axios of Evil."* Sam Biddle of the Intercept: "... Tuesday morning held a sort of public relations convergence of interests that typifies the worst of political reporting: Axios and HBO gave viewers the first look at a new television show by teaming up with the White House to unveil a new entry in its xenophobic domestic policy lineup.... The new video clip debuted today by Axios may be the ne plus ultra of media toadying.... Today's video interview snippet, plucked from the upcoming Axios show on HBO, put the website's bright star Jonathan Swan in a chair across from Trump. Prompted by Swan, Trump announced an innovative plan to bar nonwhite infants from attaining U.S. citizenship. It was, in Swan's [Twitter] words, an 'exciting' moment to behold.... 'Excited to share' is usually how one begins a sentence about a pregnancy or a promotion, not the revelation of a plot to deny citizenship to newborns.... The video itself, however, is somehow even worse than the tweet. We see firsthand just how pumped up Swan is to discuss Trump's long-term ethnic exclusion strategies with the big man himself." ...

     ... * Thanks, Scott Lemieux. ...

... Libby Watson of Splinter: "... as you'll see if you watch the clip itself, this is less a news story than it is a press release. This is a news outlet willingly staging a press event for a racist administration.... Axios' Jonathan Swan is eager to help the president explain this little gambit with almost no pushback -- when the president says other countries don't have birthright citizenship, which is a lie, Swan says nothing, and Axios' story was only updated after publication to reflect that reality. Be Smart! But he's also eager to prove himself as a good and clever little boy. 'Exactly,' he says, when Trump says he can change the Constitution with an executive order. It's chummy and sordid, but it's also just ... pathetic. He looks like he won a contest to be there. He's fucking laughing!... Jonathan Swan does not care if he's enabling an administration that has shown from the very beginning its determination to make racism a cornerstone of its immigration policy, and in the last few weeks has shown its intent to scale up to full-blown fascism -- deploying thousands of troops to the border and stirring up fears about migrants coming to destroy the U.S., denouncing the press as the 'Enemy of the People,' and apparently toying with the idea of amending the Constitution by executive order."

... Ha Ha. George Conway & Neal Katyal in a Washington Post op-ed: "Sometimes the Constitution's text is plain as day and bars what politicians seek to do. That's the case with President Trump's proposal to end 'birthright citizenship' through an executive order. Such a move would be unconstitutional and would certainly be challenged. And the challengers would undoubtedly win." Mrs. McC: You may recall Katyal as President Obama's acting solicitor general. You may recall George Conway as Kellyanne's husband. ...

... ** Garrett Epps of the Atlantic: "At its base, the claim [Trump & some others have made] is that children born in the U.S. are not citizens if they are born to noncitizen parents. The idea contradicts the Fourteenth Amendment's citizenship clause; it flies in the face of more than a century of practice; and it would at a stroke create a shadow population of American-born people who have no state, no legal protection, and no real rights that the government is bound to respect. It would set the stage for an internal witch hunt worse than almost anything since the anti-immigrant rage of the 1920s.... Our Constitution is a gift to us from the generations that went before, and particularly the millions who died in the Civil War; the Fourteenth Amendment is the centerpiece of that Constitution. If we let Donald Trump destroy it, then history will regard both him and us with equal contempt." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Trump Tries Fascism. Matt Ford of the New Republic: "The wave of violence and attempted assassinations have not deterred Trump. If anything, he's grown bolder in his efforts to impose a narrower, ethnocentric vision on the bounds of American civic life. By insisting that he can revise the Constitution's definition of citizenship through an executive order, the president is assuming unprecedented authority to decide who is and isn't an American. Next week's elections will technically determine the future composition of the House, the Senate, and of state governments. They may also decide the future composition of America itself."

Is Trump Really This Dumb? Or Does He Just Think His Bots Are? John Wagner of the Washington Post: "President Trump complained Monday about the news coverage he has received related to the alleged pipe bomber, saying a different standard was applied to then-President Barack Obama when nine black worshipers were killed at a church in Charleston, S.C., during his tenure. Trump highlighted the contrast during a wide-ranging interview with Laura Ingraham of Fox News.... 'I was in the headline of The Washington Post, my name associated with this crazy bomber,' Trump said. 'They didn't do that with President Obama with the church, the horrible situation with the church -- they didn't do that.' Dylann Roof, who was convicted of 33 counts of federal hate crimes in the 2015 shootings at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, was a self-described white supremacist who displayed Confederate flags on social media and expressed no affection for Obama." Wagner also shoots down the premise of Trump's Nobody-Picked-on-Bernie whine. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... ** OR, as the headline to Eric Levitz's post succinctly puts it, "Trump: The Media Is Biased Because It Didn't Blame Obama for Dylann Roof Killing Black People." Levitz's post is a devastating indictment of Trump (and reveals that Nikki Haley is as duplicitous [or dimwitted] as Trump, in case you were thinking her sweet smile meant she was a nice person).

Campbell Robertson, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump arrived in Pittsburgh on Tuesday as the city began to bury the victims of Saturday's synagogue attack and as many officials and residents made clear his visit was not welcome. As Mr. Trump arrived with the first lady, Melania Trump, as well as his daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, about 1,000 protesters gathered on a leafy street near the synagogue in opposition to his visit. Their signs read 'Words matter' and 'President Hate is not welcome in our state.' Though some people in Pittsburgh have pushed back on the idea that Mr. Trump has fomented an atmosphere of social division, many protesters had no doubt of what one called 'the dotted line' between presidential rhetoric and violence. Mr. Trump's first stop was at the Tree of Life Synagogue, where he was greeted by Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, the spiritual leader of the congregation. Mr. Trump and the members of his family who accompanied him entered a vestibule to light candles for each of the 11 shooting victims. Outside the synagogue, Mr. Trump placed stones from the White House and white roses at a makeshift memorial comprised of white Stars of David bearing the victims' names." ...

... Moriah Balingit, et al., of the Washington Post: "A mourning family doesn't want to meet him. Leaders of his own party declined to join him. The mayor has explicitly asked him not to come. And yet President Trump plans to visit this grief-stricken city Tuesday, amid accusations that he and his administration continue to fuel the anti-Semitism that inspired Saturday's massacre inside a synagogue.... More than 1,200 people have so far signed up for a demonstration at the same time -- declaring Trump 'unwelcome in our city and in our country.'... Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) -- have all declined invitations to join Trump on his visit." [Mrs. McC: Mitch said he was busy. Getting a haircut or raking leaves, maybe.] (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Richard Oppel of the New York Times: "The accused synagogue gunman, Robert Bowers, legally purchased the guns he used to kill 11 people in what is believed to be the deadliest attack against the Jewish community in the United States, according to the federal authorities. Officials have said Mr. Bowers used four guns -- an AR-15 assault rifle and three Glock .357 handguns -- in his shooting spree at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on Saturday morning.... He also had a handgun license, an A.T.F. spokeswoman, Charlene Hennessy, said. Ms. Hennessy said the A.T.F.'s investigation found that Mr. Bowers owned 10 guns in total, all purchased and possessed legally: the four found at the synagogue; three handguns and two rifles recovered from his residence; and a shotgun recovered from his car outside the synagogue.... The shooting in Pittsburgh has prompted gun-control proponents to question whether someone so boiling with rage and religious hatred should have been able to acquire a small arsenal that included a civilian version of the military's primary combat rifle.... Hours after the shooting, former President Barack Obama ... tweeted: 'We have to stop making it so easy for those who want to harm the innocent to get their hands on a gun.'" ...

... Eli Rosenberg of the Washington Post: "In the emergency room when he arrived, [the (alleged mass murderer)] was shouting, 'I want to kill all the Jews,' according to the hospital's president.... At least three of the doctors and nurses who cared for Robert Bowers at the Allegheny General Hospital were Jewish, according to President Jeffrey K. Cohen.... Cohen is personally connected to the shooting beyond his role at the hospital. He lives so close to Tree of Life synagogue that he heard the gunshots as the massacre unfolded. He knew nine of the people who were killed, he told the Tribune-Review. Still that didn't stop him from going to check in on Bowers to ask him whether he was in pain. The man said he was fine. 'He asked me who I was, I said "I'm Dr. Cohen, the president of the hospital,"' Cohen said. 'And I turned around and left. And the FBI agent that was guarding him said, "I don't know that I could have done that."'... Cohen saved his harsh words for the people he said are responsible for the toxic climate in the country. 'It's time for leaders to lead,' he said. 'And the words mean things. And the words are leading to people doing things like this, and I find it appalling.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

Pharrell Williams does not think this is an appropriate response to Anti-Semitic mass murder:

... Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "On Saturday, hours after a gunman burst into Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and killed 11..., President Trump was scheduled to appear at a convention in Indiana to address a group of student farmers. While they waited for Trump to take the stage, the crowd danced to a playlist of upbeat music, including 'Girls Just Want to Have Fun' by Cyndi Lauper and 'Happy' by Pharrell Williams. Now Williams, a popular recording artist, is threatening to take legal action for the use of his song. On Monday, his attorney Howard King issued a cease-and-desist letter to Trump, saying the use of 'Happy' constituted copyright infringement and a trademark violation. 'On the day of the mass murder of 11 human beings at the hands of a deranged "nationalist," you played his song "Happy" to a crowd at a political event in Indiana,' the letter stated. 'There was nothing "happy" about the tragedy inflicted upon our country on Saturday and no permission was granted for your use of this song for this purpose.' The letter indicated Williams's cease-and-desist would apply to all of his songs, not just 'Happy.'"

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Mrs. McCrabbie: I didn't get around to reporting this Fox "News" health alert yesterday, but Media Matters has a list of some of the diseases the Central American "invaders" are preparing to "infest" you with.

Robert Costa, et al., of the Washington Post: "As part of his investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 campaign, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III appears to be focused on the question of whether WikiLeaks coordinated its activities with [Roger] Stone and the campaign, including the group's timing.... On Friday, Mueller's team questioned Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump's former chief strategist, about claims Stone is said to have made privately about WikiLeaks before the group released emails that prosecutors say were hacked by Russian operatives, according to people familiar with the session.... Investigators have questioned witnesses about events surrounding Oct. 7, 2016, the day The Washington Post published a recording of Trump bragging about his ability to grab women by their genitals, the people said. Less than an hour after The Post published its story about Trump's crude comments..., WikiLeaks ... releas[ed] a trove of emails hacked from the account of [Hillary Clinton's] campaign chairman John Podesta." ...

The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley. -- Robert Burns, "To a Mouse" ...

... Natasha Bertrand of the Atlantic: "An alleged scheme to pay off women to fabricate sexual assault allegations against Special Counsel Robert Mueller has been referred to the FBI for further investigation, according to a spokesman for the special counsel's office, Peter Carr.... The special counsel's attention to this scheme -- which was brought to the office by a woman claiming she herself had been offered money to make up sexual harassment claims against Mueller -- and its decision to release a rare statement about it to reporters indicates the seriousness with which the office is taking the purported scheme.... The special counsel's office confirmed that the scheme was brought to its attention by several journalists who were told about it by a woman alleging that she herself had been offered roughly $20,000 by a GOP activist named Jack Burkman 'to make accusations of sexual misconduct and workplace harassment against Robert Mueller.' The woman told journalists that she had worked for Mueller as a paralegal at the Pillsbury, Madison, and Sutro law firm in 1974.... Around the time that the [woman began contacting journalists], Burkman released a video on his Facebook page claiming, without evidence, that Mueller 'has a whole lifetime history of harassing women.'... Burkman, a conservative radio host, is known for spreading conspiracy theories. He launched his own private investigation into the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Here's the whistleblower's e-mail, via digby. ...

... Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "The plot appeared to be the latest, and one of the more bizarre, in a string of attempts by supporters of President Trump to discredit Mr. Mueller's investigation.... As the plan to target Mr. Mueller came to light on Tuesday, it quickly unraveled as news organizations unearthed gaps and inconsistencies in the allegations." Mrs. McC: Goldman provides various aborted efforts on the parts of some fringey -- and very clumsy -- conspirators, one of whom, when exposed, hilariously complained that the press 'has launched a coordinated smear campaign against me.'" ...

... Andrew Prokop of Vox also provides an "explainer." Mrs. McC: The good news is that you -- like the mythical 400-pound New Jersey man working out of his basement -- can single-handedly create & carry out a scheme to bring down a major public figure. (Tools of the trade include copying & pasting pictures of little-known actors & IDing them as your staff & performing a series of fake voices representing said fake staff when reporters call you on your mom's phone.) The bad news: you will be caught, get your very own FBI referral & maybe go to jail where dangerous criminal invaders from Honduras will rape you & give you leprosy & smallpox. Your limbs will fall off till you're dead.

Juliet Eilperin & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "The Interior Department's Office of Inspector General has referred one of its probes into the conduct of Secretary Ryan Zinke to the Justice Department for further investigation, according to two individuals familiar with the matter. Deputy Inspector General Mary L. Kendall, who is serving as acting inspector general, is conducting at least three probes that involve Zinke. These include his involvement in a Montana land deal and the decision not to grant two tribes approval to operate a casino in Connecticut. The individuals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly, did not specify which inquiry had been referred to the Justice Department."

Paul Krugman: "In America 2018, whataboutism is the last refuge of scoundrels, and bothsidesism is the last refuge of cowards. In case you hadn't noticed, we're in the midst of a wave of hate crimes.... All of these hate crimes seem clearly linked to the climate of paranoia and racism deliberately fostered by Donald Trump and his allies in Congress and the media.... So how are Trump apologists dealing with this ugly picture?... Trump supporters try to kill his critics? Well, some Trump opponents have yelled at politicians in restaurants!... False equivalence, portraying the parties as symmetric even when they clearly aren't, has long been the norm among self-proclaimed centrists and some influential media figures.... The fact is that one side of the political spectrum is peddling hatred, while the other isn't. And refusing to point that out for fear of sounding partisan is, in effect, lending aid and comfort to the people poisoning our politics. Yes, hate is on the ballot next week." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Election 2018

John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "Trump doesn't give a fig about the accuracy of his claims, of course. He wants to increase Republican voter turnout next week. He has a low opinion of the party's voters. And he thinks the best way to get them to the polls is to raise the spectre of white America being swamped by non-white immigrants. So, with the support of Mike Pence, Lindsey Graham, and many other Republicans, he's going at it -- pledging to send in the army, rewrite the Constitution, and who knows what else in the days ahead. As he said, there are some 'very bad people.' But they aren't in the caravan."

Georgia. Michelle Goldberg: "Right now America is tearing itself apart as an embittered white conservative minority clings to power, terrified at being swamped by a new multiracial polyglot majority. The divide feels especially stark in Georgia, where the midterm election is a battle between Trumpist reaction and the multicultural America whose emergence the right is trying, at all costs, to forestall.... Racists in Georgia, like racists all over America, are emboldened.... On Saturday morning, [Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey] Abrams closed [a campaign event] by reminding the crowd of [her Republican opponent Brian] Kemp's views on democracy. 'He said he is concerned that if everyone eligible to vote in Georgia does so, he will lose this election,' she said. 'Let's prove him right.' In a week, American voters can do to white nationalists what they fear most. Show them they're being replaced."

Iowa. Eric Levitz: "... despite this long record of overt white nationalist advocacy, Steve King [R-White Supremacy] might actually lose reelection in western Iowa this November. A poll released Tuesday by Change Research, a firm aligned with the Democratic Party, found King leading his Democratic challenger, former baseball player J.D. Scholten, by the razor-thin margin of 45 to 44 percent. King has held his seat since 2012, and won his last two reelection bids with more than 60 percent of the vote. Iowa's fourth district is heavily rural, and backed Trump in 2016 by a landslide margin. As of last month, an Emerson College poll had King up by 10 points. By all appearances, this data led King to assume that he could win again this fall -- even if he spent much of campaign season palling around with his favorite fascists in Austria, instead of shaking hands in Sioux City.... The historically Republican Sioux City Journal endorsed Scholten." ...

... Deena Shanker & Lydia Mulvany of Bloomberg: "Dairy giant Land O'Lakes announced on Tuesday that it will no longer make financial contributions to Representative Steve King of Iowa after a gun-fueled massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue brought new attention to the Republican's incendiary comments about race and association with white nationalism. Purina PetCare made a similar announcement Tuesday afternoon.... In an extraordinary disavowal [Tuesday] afternoon, Representative Steve Stivers of Ohio, chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in a post on Twitter that 'Steve King's recent comments, actions, and retweets are completely inappropriate. We must stand up against white supremacy and hate in all forms, and I strongly condemn this behavior.' Two days ago, however, Stivers defended the continued use of [George] Soros by Republicans in campaign ads, despite the attempted bombing of his New York home and the mass-murder in Pittsburgh."


Trump-o-nomics. Paul Davidson of USA Today: "Despite an unemployment rate that has reached a 50-year low of 3.7 percent, most jobs across the U.S. don't support a middle-class or better lifestyle, leaving many Americans struggling, according to a new study. Sixty-two percent of jobs fall short of that middle-class standard when factoring in both wages and the cost of living in the metro area where the job is located, according to the study by Third Way, a think tank that advocates center-left ideas. 'There's an opportunity crisis in the country,' says Jim Kessler, vice president of policy for Third Way and editor of the report. 'It explains some of the economic uneasiness and, frankly, the political uneasiness' even amid the most robust U.S. economy and labor market since before the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

It will sadden you to learn that political philosopher Kanye West is "distancing" himself from politics because he's been "used to spread messages" he doesn't believe in. TMZ reports.

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Monday
Oct292018

The Commentariat -- October 30, 2018

Afternoon Update:

Trump-o-nomics. Paul Davidson of USA Today: "Despite an unemployment rate that has reached a 50-year low of 3.7 percent, most jobs across the U.S. don't support a middle-class or better lifestyle, leaving many Americans struggling, according to a new study. Sixty-two percent of jobs fall short of that middle-class standard when factoring in both wages and the cost of living in the metro area where the job is located, according to the study by Third Way, a think tank that advocates center-left ideas. 'There's an opportunity crisis in the country,' says Jim Kessler, vice president of policy for Third Way and editor of the report. 'It explains some of the economic uneasiness and, frankly, the political uneasiness' even amid the most robust U.S. economy and labor market since before the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009."

Nancy LeTourneau of the Washington Monthly: "The big story of the day is that Trump plans to end birthright citizenship by executive order. But neither the president nor the White House made an announcement to that effect.... It was Jonathan Swan of Axios who brought up the issue of birthright citizenship and then asked the president, 'Have you thought about that?'... The president responded by saying that it is in process and that it will happen.... Pardon my skepticism, but since when do we believe what Trump says in a moment like that? This is the same man who has pretended for years that he's working on a fantastic reform of our health care system and great middle class tax cuts.... Beyond giving Trump a prompt about how to ramp things up with his base just prior to the midterms, that interview clip has put the reporters at Axios front and center of the biggest story of the day. I suppose you could suggest that I've gone from skeptical to cynical with that observation. But actual reporting on this president requires a whole new level of vigilance, which has to be grounded in something other than click bait." ...


     ... Via Steve M. ...

... ** Garrett Epps of the Atlantic: "At its base, the claim [Trump & some others have made] is that children born in the U.S. are not citizens if they are born to noncitizen parents. The idea contradicts the Fourteenth Amendment's citizenship clause; it flies in the face of more than a century of practice; and it would at a stroke create a shadow population of American-born people who have no state, no legal protection, and no real rights that the government is bound to respect. It would set the stage for an internal witch hunt worse than almost anything since the anti-immigrant rage of the 1920s.... Our Constitution is a gift to us from the generations that went before, and particularly the millions who died in the Civil War; the Fourteenth Amendment is the centerpiece of that Constitution. If we let Donald Trump destroy it, then history will regard both him and us with equal contempt."

Is Trump Really This Dumb? Or Does He Just Think His Bots Are? John Wagner of the Washington Post: "President Trump complained Monday about the news coverage he has received related to the alleged pipe bomber, saying a different standard was applied to then-President Barack Obama when nine black worshipers were killed at a church in Charleston, S.C., during his tenure. Trump highlighted the contrast during a wide-ranging interview with Laura Ingraham of Fox News.... 'I was in the headline of The Washington Post, my name associated with this crazy bomber,' Trump said. 'They didn't do that with President Obama with the church, the horrible situation with the church -- they didn't do that.' Dylann Roof, who was convicted of 33 counts of federal hate crimes in the 2015 shootings at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, was a self-described white supremacist who displayed Confederate flags on social media and expressed no affection for Obama." Wagner also shoots down the premise of Trump's Nobody-Picked-on-Bernie whine. ...

... Moriah Balingit, et al., of the Washington Post: "A mourning family doesn't want to meet him. Leaders of his own party declined to join him. The mayor has explicitly asked him not to come. And yet President Trump plans to visit this grief-stricken city Tuesday, amid accusations that he and his administration continue to fuel the anti-Semitism that inspired Saturday's massacre inside a synagogue.... More than 1,200 people have so far signed up for a demonstration at the same time -- declaring Trump 'unwelcome in our city and in our country.'... Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) -- have all declined invitations to join Trump on his visit." [Mrs. McC: Mitch said he was busy. Getting a haircut or raking leaves, maybe.] ...

... Eli Rosenberg of the Washington Post: "In the emergency room when he arrived, [the (alleged mass murderer)] was shouting, 'I want to kill all the Jews,' according to the hospital's president.... At least three of the doctors and nurses who cared for Robert Bowers at the Allegheny General Hospital were Jewish, according to President Jeffrey K. Cohen.... Cohen is personally connected to the shooting beyond his role at the hospital. He lives so close to Tree of Life synagogue that he heard the gunshots as the massacre unfolded. He knew nine of the people who were killed, he told the Tribune-Review. Still that didn't stop him from going to check in on Bowers to ask him whether he was in pain. The man said he was fine. 'He asked me who I was, I said "I'm Dr. Cohen, the president of the hospital,"' Cohen said. 'And I turned around and left. And the FBI agent that was guarding him said, "I don't know that I could have done that."'... Cohen saved his harsh words for the people he said are responsible for the toxic climate in the country. 'It's time for leaders to lead,' he said. 'And the words mean things. And the words are leading to people doing things like this, and I find it appalling.'"

Paul Krugman: "In America 2018, whataboutism is the last refuge of scoundrels, and bothsidesism is the last refuge of cowards. In case you hadn't noticed, we're in the midst of a wave of hate crimes.... All of these hate crimes seem clearly linked to the climate of paranoia and racism deliberately fostered by Donald Trump and his allies in Congress and the media.... So how are Trump apologists dealing with this ugly picture?... Trump supporters try to kill his critics? Well, some Trump opponents have yelled at politicians in restaurants!... False equivalence, portraying the parties as symmetric even when they clearly aren't, has long been the norm among self-proclaimed centrists and some influential media figures.... The fact is that one side of the political spectrum is peddling hatred, while the other isn't. And refusing to point that out for fear of sounding partisan is, in effect, lending aid and comfort to the people poisoning our politics. Yes, hate is on the ballot next week."

Natasha Bertrand of the Atlantic: "An alleged scheme to pay off women to fabricate sexual assault allegations against Special Counsel Robert Mueller has been referred to the FBI for further investigation, according to a spokesman for the special counsel's office, Peter Carr.... The special counsel's attention to this scheme -- which was brought to the office by a woman claiming she herself had been offered money to make up sexual harassment claims against Mueller -- and its decision to release a rare statement about it to reporters indicates the seriousness with which the office is taking the purported scheme.... The special counsel's office confirmed that the scheme was brought to its attention by several journalists who were told about it by a woman alleging that she herself had been offered roughly $20,000 by a GOP activist named Jack Burkman 'to make accusations of sexual misconduct and workplace harassment against Robert Mueller.' The woman told journalists that she had worked for Mueller as a paralegal at the Pillsbury, Madison, and Sutro law firm in 1974.... Around the time that the [woman began contacting journalists], Burkman released a video on his Facebook page claiming, without evidence, that Mueller 'has a whole lifetime history of harassing women.'... Burkman, a conservative radio host, is known for spreading conspiracy theories. He launched his own private investigation into the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich...."

*****

A Show of Force Against Desperate Families. Julie Davis of the New York Times: "The Defense Department will deploy at least 5,200 active-duty troops to the southern border by the end of this week to help harden security there, officials announced on Monday, part of an election-season response by President Trump to hold off a group of Central American migrants moving north through Mexico. An initial group of 800 soldiers already is heading to Texas from Fort Campbell and Fort Knox, according to Terrence J. O'Shaughnessy, the commander of the United States Northern Command. The deployment is the first piece of a multistage approach that Mr. Trump has been considering for several weeks, and which also is expected to include executive action to bar entry to Central Americans, including for those seeking asylum." ...

... digby: "It's [a] military pageant to give Trump and his followers a thrill. It has no purpose other than to turn this country into a dystopian hate-filled hellhole." ...

... Eric Levitz of New York: "It is not clear that these migrants will ever arrive at the U.S. southern border; if they do, they have legal right to seek asylum and there's no reason to believe they will assert that right in anything but a peaceful manner; America is perfectly capable of absorbing another 3,500 asylum-seekers; and even if none of those things were true, U.S. soldiers still wouldn't be able to provide anything but logistical support to border patrol -- and it's hard to see why 5,200 troops are needed to serve that function. But it's relatively easy to see why a political party that believes it can only win elections by sowing paranoid fear would want to engineer headlines about 5,200 troops headed to the border to counter the migrant 'invasion' shortly before Election Day." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Obviously, Trump is sending the troops to try to divert your attention from the domestic terror he encourages to the fake foreign "terror" he manufactured to frighten dimwitted white people. Who is more of an existential threat? -- a bigoted, murderous homeboy with an AR-15 or a young mother & her children yearning to be free? Not a tough question. ...

     ... To wit: Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "For the last two weeks, Mr. Trump and his conservative allies have operated largely in tandem on social media and elsewhere to push alarmist, conspiratorial warnings about the migrant caravan more than 2,000 miles from the border. They have largely succeeded in animating Republican voters ... around the idea of these foreign nationals posing a dire threat to the country's security, stability and identity.... 'Many Gang Members and some very bad people are mixed into the Caravan heading to our Southern Border. Please go back, you will not be admitted into the United States unless you go through the legal process. This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!' [Trump tweeted Monday]. But ... there is clear overlap between the hatred and delusion that drove [the Pittsburgh mass murderer & the pipe-bomb mailer] and the paranoia and misinformation surrounding the caravan. The baseless claims that George Soros is financing the migrants as they trek north, which carry a strong whiff of anti-Semitism, have been one of the most consistent themes of commentary on the caravan from the right.... Mr. Trump tweeted a video on Oct. 18 that purported to be of someone connected to Mr. Soros handing out cash to the migrants.... Then, on Oct. 22, a pipe bomb was found at Mr. Soros's house.... Robert Bowers ... also pushed online conspiracy theories about the migrant caravan, in addition to anti-Semitic diatribes." ...

... Trump & Mass Murderer Speak the Same Language. Noah Lanard of Mother Jones: "... Donald Trump is making more unfounded claims about a migrant caravan 'invasion,' two days after a man who posted similar language on social media killed 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue.... Robert Bowers ... repeatedly referred to caravan members as 'invaders,' CNN reported on Saturday. In one post, he wrote, 'I have noticed a change in people saying "illegals" that now say "invaders." I like this.' He also shared a post by another user that railed against the 'third world caravan' as a group of 'invaders,' according to the Washington Post. The Trump administration has produced no evidence to support the president's repeated claims that criminals are in the caravan." ...

... Fox "News" & Mass Murderer Speak the Same Language. Brian Stelter of CNN: "On Fox News, the word 'invasion' was used in relation to the caravan more than 60 times in October, according to closed captioning transcripts. (This includes repeats of programs.) 'Invading' was brought up more than a dozen times. On Fox Business, the word 'invasion' was invoked more than 75 times in October, mostly on Lou Dobbs' program. Fox's Tucker Carlson referenced an 'invasion' as early as October 16. Eleven days later, on October 27, minutes before entering the Tree of Life synagogue, the suspect wrote another post about 'invaders' and said 'I'm going in,' seemingly linking his anti-immigrant attitudes to his attack on the synagogue. One of the congregations that rents space at the synagogue, Dor Hadash, reportedly has a partnership with HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, which has a long history of helping refugees. The suspect claimed in his final post on Gab that 'HIAS likes to bring in invaders that kill our people.'" ...

... Eric Levitz: "Taken together, then, the president and his allies have been telling millions of Americans that the (Soros-funded) Democrats are orchestrating an invasion of the United States by violent Central American migrants, because, allegedly, the Democrats believe that doing so will help them steal the November 6 elections in the immediate term, and render Republicans incapable of reclaiming power through the democratic process.... The primary problem with the Republican Party's claims about the migrant caravan is not that they are evocative of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, or liable to inspire violence -- but rather, that they are wildly dishonest, and thus, aid Nazi propagandists and increase the risk of political violence for no defensible purpose." ...

...Steve Schmidt, a lifelong conservative, articulates the current national emergency, "Trump's Reichstag Fire" --s

... Campbell Robertson of the New York Times: "Wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants, shackled and with a vacant expression, Robert Bowers sat before a federal judge in a downtown [Pittsburgh] courtroom on Monday afternoon. Mr. Bowers, the man accused of killing 11 congregants in a hate-filled attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue named Tree of Life, arrived in a wheelchair pushed by a United States marshal. The judge, Magistrate Judge Robert C. Mitchell, gave an overview of the 29 criminal charges against him and asked him if he had received a copy of the complaint. 'Yes,' Mr. Bowers replied firmly. Those charges included obstructing the free exercise of religious beliefs -- a hate crime, which can carry the death penalty, a sentence that federal authorities said Sunday they intended to pursue. He also faces state charges." ...

... Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "Still reeling from the horror and grief after Saturday's massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue, Pittsburgh is now dealing with something else: the barbed politics of the 2018 midterms and widespread opposition to President Trump's plan to visit here Tuesday. Jewish leaders said that President Trump was not welcome in Pittsburgh and accused him of stirring up extremism. Mayor William Peduto, who strongly rejected Mr. Trump's suggestion that armed guards in houses of worship are the answer to violence, warned that the president would be a distraction from funerals taking place Tuesday. Many in the Jewish community in Pittsburgh cited what they saw as the president's divisive rhetoric, which they feel had a role in enabling the violence here, as well as other recent episodes including the mail bombs sent from Florida to prominent Democratic figures and what appears to be the racial killing of two black shoppers near Louisville, Ky.... Chants of 'Vote! Vote! Vote!' broke out during vigils for victims of the synagogue shootings." ...

... Allyson Chiu & Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "More than 30,000 people have signed an open letter to President Trump from the leaders of a Pittsburgh-based Jewish group who say the president will not be welcome in the city unless he denounces white nationalism and stops 'targeting' minorities after a mass shooting Saturday at a local synagogue left 11 dead. The letter, which was published and shared on Sunday, was written by 11 members of the Pittsburgh affiliate of Bend the Arc, a national organization for progressive Jews focused on social justice, following what is being called the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history. The shooting at Tree of Life synagogue also left several people injured, including law enforcement." This is an update to a Hill story linked below." The Bend the Arc letter is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... BUT Trump is undeterred:

... David Jackson, et al., of USA Today: "... Donald Trump will travel to Pittsburgh on Tuesday after a gunman left 11 dead in a shooting at a synagogue over the weekend.... The president will 'express the support of the American people and grieve with the Pittsburgh community,' White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters Monday. Sanders said first lady Melania Trump will travel with the president. Fighting back tears, Sanders noted that Trump 'is the grandfather of several Jewish grandchildren.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Worse Than Trump. Isaac Stanley-Becker of the Washington Post: "Two days after the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history, Vice President Pence bowed his head at a rally on Monday in Michigan as a religious leader who casts himself as a 'rabbi' offered a prayer for the victims in Pittsburgh. But the man who shared a stage with Pence, Loren Jacobs, preaches Messianic Judaism, a tradition central to Jews for Jesus, a group condemned by Jewish leaders as a form of Christian evangelism.... Appearing with the vice president on Monday, Jacobs invoked 'Jesus the Messiah' and 'Savior Yeshua' -- another name for Jesus -- as he offered a prayer for the dead and wounded in Pittsburgh.... The major Jewish denominations join the state of Israel in viewing followers of Messianic Judaism as Christian, not Jewish. His appearance drew outrage on social media. Jason A. Miller, a Detroit-area rabbi, wrote on Facebook that more than 60 rabbis appeared in a directory of the Michigan Board of Rabbis -- 'and yet the only rabbi they could find to offer a prayer for the 11 Jewish victims in Pittsburgh at the Mike Pence Rally was a local Jew for Jesus rabbi?'... A Pence aide told the Associated Press that Jacobs had been invited by Lena Epstein, a Republican congressional candidate, and said Pence did not know who the religious leader was when he brought him onstage at the rally.... Jacobs appealed to the Almighty to favor the Republican Party in the midterm elections next month. He did not name the individual victims of the Pittsburgh massacre, but named four Republican candidates, including Epstein." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: If pence's staff really didn't know what faith Jacobs followed, shame on them. But I suspect this was no mistake. Rather, pence & his people planned to slap down Jews at a supposed memorial to the horror of their persecution. They might as well have said, "Look, people, if you don't want to be saved from hate crimes, come to Jesus." Pence is positively medieval. ...

... Kevin Roose of the New York Times has more on Gab, the site that hosted the Pittsburgh mass murderer & other right-wing extremists. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump on Monday blamed what he deems unfair media coverage for causing 'great anger' in the country in the wake of a violent week that saw a spate of mail bombs and a shooting that killed 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue. The president said in a pair of tweets that the 'Fake News Media' is 'the true Enemy of the People,' reviving a derisive term for the press less than a week after an explosive device was mailed to CNN's New York City offices. 'There is great anger in our Country caused in part by inaccurate, and even fraudulent, reporting of the news. The Fake News Media, the true Enemy of the People, must stop the open & obvious hostility & report the news accurately & fairly,' Trump wrote on Twitter. 'That will do much to put out the flame of Anger and Outrage and we will then be able to bring all sides together in Peace and Harmony,' he added." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

      ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump doesn't ID which fake media he means. It is true that Fox "News," Alex Jones, Breitbart & other right-wing outlets produce fake news that purposely riles the crazies, there's no reason to believe these are the fake media Trump is citing. When he calls out those outlets that support him & back up his incendiary rhetoric with nonsense of their own, he'll be on the right track. ...

... Matt Zapotosky, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Florida man accused of sending more than a dozen possible bombs to prominent Democratic and media figures who have been critical of President Trump kept a list of more than 100 possible targets, a law enforcement official said Monday, as authorities intercepted another suspicious package addressed to CNN. The FBI recovered the list during its investigation of 56-year-old Cesar Sayoc and has been notifying those on it so they can take precautions in checking their mail, the official said. The list includes high-profile celebrities and media personalities similar to those who already were sent possible bombs, the official said. The latest package to CNN was intercepted at an Atlanta mail facility Monday, and the FBI said it was 'similar in appearance' to the other 14 they believe Sayoc has mailed to targets recently.... Sayoc appeared in federal court in Miami for the first time Monday, his demeanor relaxed as he sat behind seven other inmates who were there for hearings. Dressed in tan jail clothes, he said his name in a raspy voice and nodded that he understood his legal rights." ...

... Trump Made Him Do It. Ryan Reilly of the Huffington Post: "Attorneys for a ... Donald Trump supporter who was convicted in a domestic terrorism plot aimed at slaughtering Muslim refugees asked a federal judge to factor in the 'backdrop' of Trump's campaign rhetoric when deciding their client's sentence this week.... '2016 was "lit." The court cannot ignore the circumstances of one of the most rhetorically mold-breaking, violent, awful, hateful and contentious presidential elections in modern history, driven in large measure by the rhetorical China shop bull who is now our president,' they wrote [in a sentencing memo]." ...

... Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post names names, starting with Trump & running through Rupert Murdoch & his TV personalities, Instagram & Twitter, Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy & right-wing publications & Websites.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.... -- Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ...

Fagddaboudit. -- Donald Trump

John Wagner of the Washington Post: "President Trump is planning to sign an executive order that would seek to end the right to U.S. citizenship for children of noncitizens born on U.S. soil, he said in a television interview taped on Monday. The move, which many legal experts say runs afoul of the Constitution, would be the boldest yet by a president elected to office pledging to take a hard line on immigration, an issue he has revived in advance of next week's midterm elections. 'We're the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years with all of those benefits,' Trump said during an interview with Axios scheduled to air as part of a new HBO series starting this weekend. 'It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And it has to end.' Trump, who has long decried 'anchor babies,' said he has discussed the move with his legal counsel and believes it can be accomplished with executive action, a view at odds with the opinions of many legal scholars. 'It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don't,' Trump told Axios. 'It's in the process. It'll happen ... with an executive order,' he said, without offering a time frame." ...

... Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress: "Donald Trump ... said that he plans to sign an executive order stripping many Americans of their citizenship. Though it is unclear how far Trump wants to go..., Trump apparently wants to target the children of undocumented immigrants.... Trump's plan is ... not even arguably constitutional. It is so obviously unconstitutional that it was rejected by a notoriously racist Supreme Court more than a century ago. If the Roberts Court ultimately upholds such an order, it will reveal that its Republican majority is so captured by partisanship that it cannot even be trusted to read the clear words of the Constitution.... It's unclear why Trump believes that the text of the Fourteenth Amendment does not apply to him.... Trump is literally taking a position to the right of many of the justices who gave us separate-but-equal." --s ...

... Barbie Latza Nadeau of The Daily Beast: "Donald Trump says the 14th Amendment, which gives citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil, is a uniquely American mistake. He's totally wrong.... In reality, America is by no means the only country that grants citizenship this way. The Center for Immigration Studies names 30 of the world's 194 countries, including Canada and Mexico, that offer jus soli, or the law of the soil. No European countries offer birthright, which could be what Trump was referring to, but many offer conditional birthright status based on the number of years a child lives in the country and the parents' legal status." --s

Maggie Haberman & Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "A new lawsuit accuses President Trump, his company and three of his children of using the Trump name to entice vulnerable people to invest in sham business opportunities.Filed in federal court in Manhattan on Monday, the lawsuit comes just days before the midterm elections, raising questions about whether its timing is politically motivated. It is being underwritten by a nonprofit whose chairman has been a donor to Democratic candidates.The allegations take aim at the heart of Mr. Trump's personal narrative that he is a successful deal-maker who built a durable business, charging he and his family lent their name to a series of scams. The 160-page complaint alleges that Mr. Trump and his family received secret payments from three business entities in exchange for promoting them as legitimate opportunities, when in reality they were get-rich-quick schemes that harmed investors, many of whom were unsophisticated and struggling financially."

Newsweek artwork.... The Laziest President. Eliana Johnson & Daniel Lippman of Politico: "... Donald Trump had about three times as much free time planned for last Tuesday as work time, according to his private schedule. The president was slated for more than nine hours of 'Executive Time,' a euphemism for the unstructured time Trump spends tweeting, phoning friends and watching television. Official meetings, policy briefings and public appearances -- traditionally the daily work of being president -- consumed just over three hours of his day.... While the notion of Executive Time, and the president's increasingly late start to the day, has come under scrutiny over the last year, this new batch of schedules obtained by Politico offers fresh insight into the extent to which that unscheduled time dominates Trump's week and is shaping his presidency, allowing his whims and momentary interests to drive White House business.... The president's official commitments last week began no earlier than 11 a.m..., and on Tuesday -- in the midst of a potential serial bomber and two weeks ahead of the midterm elections -- they didn't start until 1 p.m. The president spent just over two hours of his week in policy briefings, according to his schedules, and he was scheduled to receive the President's Daily Brief on just two of the five days reviewed." (Also linked yesterday.)

AND It's Time for Sarah Sanders to Retire. Emily Birnbarm of the Hill: "White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders during a Monday press briefing said President Trump won by an 'overwhelming majority' of 63 million votes -- despite the fact that his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, won 65.8 million votes and he lost the popular vote.... She make the remark while going over the accomplishments of the president, which she said were ignored by much of the news media. Sanders's comment on Monday was only the most recent attempt by the White House to claim that Trump won a majority of votes in 2016. Sanders spent the bulk of the press briefing casting blame on the news media for dividing the country, saying the media typically reports negatively about the president. She declined to name any media outlets in particular." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Sanders actually was pretty explicit here. The news media are "dividing the country" by not simply typing Trump's self-aggrandizing lies (like winning a majority of votes) & putting them on the front page.

Mike Stone of Reuters: "Every time President Donald Trump mentions the $110 billion arms deal he negotiated with Saudi Arabia last year, he quickly follows up, saying 'It's 500,000 jobs.' But if he means new U.S. defense jobs, an internal document seen by Reuters from Lockheed Martin forecasts fewer than 1,000 positions would be created by the defense contractor, which could potentially deliver around $28 billion of goods in the deal. Lockheed instead predicts the deal could create nearly 10,000 new jobs in Saudi Arabia, while keeping up to 18,000 existing U.S. workers busy if the whole package comes together - an outcome experts say is unlikely." --s

Election 2018

Florida. John Wagner of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Monday accused Andrew Gillum, the Democratic candidate for governor of Florida, of being a 'thief,' without citing any evidence.... 'In Florida there is a choice between a Harvard/Yale educated man named @RonDeSantisFL who has been a great Congressman and will be a great Governor - and a Dem who is a thief and who is Mayor of poorly run Tallahassee, said to be one of the most corrupt cities in the Country!' Trump wrote on Twitter.... Gillum responded to Trump on Twitter, saying the president was 'howling because he's weak.'.... Trump also drew accusations on social media of sending a racially coded message.... On Twitter, terrorism expert and MSNBC commentator Malcom Nance referred to Trump as 'the #RacistinChief,' writing: 'There it is. America is burning & this petulant crying baby wannabe King is publicly calling a distinguished Black man running for Governor a "Thief"'[.]" ...

... Sam Stein of the Daily Beast: "Just days after federal authorities discovered a bomb left on George Soros' property, Ron DeSantis, the Republican candidate for governor of Florida, spread fears that the Democratic financier could infiltrate the state's government.... 'He could be seeding, into our state government, you know, Soros-backed activists,' DeSantis said of his opponent [Andrew Gillum]."

Georgia. Former President Jimmy Carter, a Georgia resident, wrote on his official letterhead to his state's Republican nominee for governor, Brian Kemp, asking him to resign as Georgia secretary of state. The secretary of state oversees elections. The article cites the full text of Carter's letter. Here's part of it: "In Georgia's upcoming gubernatorial election, popular confidence is threatened not only by the undeniable racial discrimination of the past and the serious questions that the federal courts have raised about the security of Georgia's voting machines, but also because you are now overseeing the election in which you are a candidate. This runs counter to the most fundamental principle of democratic elections -- that the electoral process be managed by an independent and impartial election authority."

Pennsylvania. Ian Millhiser: "On Monday, the Supreme Court turned away an effort to reinstate Pennsylvania's gerrymandered congressional maps. Although this is not the first time the Court refused to bail out the GOP's partisan gerrymander in this state, it is the first time it turned away this case since Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation gave Republicans a solid majority on the Supreme Court." --s

Texas. Daniel Marans of the Huffington Post: "Rep. Pete Olson, a Texas Republican in a tough re-election battle, would not explain to a constituent why he recently called his Democratic opponent an 'Indo-American carpetbagger.'... In a video of a previous campaign stop obtained by CNN, Olson described [his Democratic opponent, Sri Preston] Kulkarni, who is of Indian heritage, as a 'liberal, liberal, liberal Indo-American who's a carpetbagger' and questioned whether donations raised for him through the online fundraising site ActBlue were 'coming from overseas.' 'Why would you mention his race?' [the constituent] demanded. 'I didn't mention his race. Carpetbagger's not a race,' Olson responded.... Last month, Olson claimed that 'terrorists from Pakistan' perpetrated the Sept. 11 attacks on America. None of the 19 men who hijacked four planes were from Pakistan, and Olson later said he misspoke. But critics believe he was trying to exploit anti-Pakistani sentiment within his district's Indo-American community."

Virginia. Justin Wise of The Hill: "President Trump on Monday endorsed House candidate Denver Riggleman (R), saying he was a 'big help' with tax cuts, even though Riggleman was not in Congress last year when Republicans passed their tax overhaul legislation.... New York Magazine noted that Trump initially referred to Riggleman as 'congressman' in a since-deleted tweet." --s ...

... GOP Extremists. Frank Dale of ThinkProgress: "A Monday campaign event for Corey Stewart, the Republican Senate candidate from Virginia and Minnesota man who is very concerned about the destruction of Confederate monuments, featured a speaker who urged conservatives 'to turn that "blue wave" into a blue grave.' Jennifer Brown [who made the comment, is] chair of the Republican Committee in Virginia's 6th district.... The remarks come just one week after several prominent Democrats who have been frequent targets of Trump's incendiary rhetoric were sent explosive devices.... The Republican trails [Tim] Kaine [D] by an average of nearly 20 percentage points in recent polling." --s

Washington. Where 31% Is a Passing Grade. Mark Hand of ThinkProgress: "[A]long with expressing his climate denial views, [Republican candidate Dino Rossi] also is touting an award that he received from an environmental group that strongly opposes Trump's environmental record.... Environmental groups have accused Rossi, who has served in the Washington state Senate, of 'greenwashing' his record. At [a] debate, Rossi pointed out that the Washington Conservation Voters, a state group affiliated with the League of Conservation Voters, gave him a 'Distinguished Deeds' recognition. However, that recognition came in 2002.... Rossi's environmental record has declined since he received the award.... His scorecard in the Washington state legislature in 2017 was 0 percent. For his entire career in the state Senate, Rossi has a 31 percent lifetime score from the state environmental group." --s

Liam Stack of the New York Times interviews PBS's Rick Steves on his campaign to legalize recreational marijuana. Steves sees legalization as a social justice issue: "This is a law that is enforced inconsistently. It's a racist law and it is not rich white guys like me who are getting arrested. It is poor people and people of color. It's the new Jim Crow." Good point.


Damian Carrington of the Guardian: "Humanity has wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since 1970, leading the world's foremost experts to warn that the annihilation of wildlife is now an emergency that threatens civilisation. The new estimate of the massacre of wildlife is made in a major report produced by WWF and involving 59 scientists from across the globe. It finds that the vast and growing consumption of food and resources by the global population is destroying the web of life, billions of years in the making, upon which human society ultimately depends for clean air, water and everything else.... Mike Barrett ... of ... WWF [said] 'If there was a 60% decline in the human population, that would be equivalent to emptying North America, South America, Africa, Europe, China and Oceania. That is the scale of what we have done.'" --s ...

... Reuters has a new investigative piece called 'Ocean Shock', on the effects of climate change changing marine populations' habits. --s ...

... Way Beyond the Beltway ...

... Leyland Cecco of the Guardian: "Scientists in Canada have warned that massive glaciers in the Yukon territory are shrinking even faster than would be expected from a warming climate -- and bringing dramatic changes to the region.... The rate of warming in the north is double that of the average global temperature increase, concluded the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in its annual Arctic Report Card, which called the warming 'unprecedented'." ...

... Christopher Bodeen of the AP: "China says it will allow trading in products made from endangered tigers and rhinos under 'special circumstances,' reversing a previous ban and bringing condemnation from conservation groups.... No reason was given for the lifting of the ban, which was implemented in 1993 amid a global push to protect fast-disappearing endangered species.... The World Wildlife Fund said the move to overturn the ban would have 'devastating consequences globally' by allowing poachers and smugglers to hide behind legalized trade." --s

News Ledes

NBC News: "Notorious Boston gangster James 'Whitey' Bulger was found dead at a federal prison in West Virginia Tuesday -- on the morning after he arrived -- and the FBI has launched an investigation, federal officials said. Bulger, 89, was found unresponsive about 8:20 a.m. at the high-security penitentiary USP Hazelton in West Virginia, according to a Justice Department statement.... Bulger had spent 16 years as as one of the nation's most wanted fugitives before he was captured in Santa Monica, Calif., in 2011." ...

     ... Update. New York Times: "James (Whitey) Bulger, the South Boston mobster who was captured after years on the run, was killed in a West Virginia federal prison by at least two inmates, according to two Federal Bureau of Prisons employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity.... Mr. Bulger, 89, had been transferred to the U.S. Penitentiary, Hazelton in Bruceton Mills, W. Va., on Monday and was beaten to death shortly after his arrival, according to the two prison workers. One of workers said that the inmates were thought to be 'affiliated with the mob,' but did not know the specifics of the association. A senior law enforcement official who oversees organized crime cases but was not involved in the investigation into Mr. Bulger's death, said he was told by a federal law enforcement official that an organized crime figure was believed to be responsible for the killing." ...

... Here's the New York Times' obituary of Bulger.

Comments Off
Monday
Oct292018

The Commentariat -- October 29, 2018

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Allyson Chiu &> Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "More than 30,000 people have signed an open letter to President Trump from the leaders of a Pittsburgh-based Jewish group who say the president will not be welcome in the city unless he denounces white nationalism and stops 'targeting' minorities after a mass shooting Saturday at a local synagogue left 11 dead. The letter, which was published and shared on Sunday, was written by 11 members of the Pittsburgh affiliate of Bend the Arc, a national organization for progressive Jews focused on social justice, following what is being called the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history. The shooting at Tree of Life synagogue also left several people injured, including law enforcement." This is an update to a Hill story linked below." The Bend the Arc letter is here. ...

... BUT Trump is undeterred:

... David Jackson, et al., of USA Today: "... Donald Trump will travel to Pittsburgh on Tuesday after a gunman left 11 dead in a shooting at a synagogue over the weekend.... The president will 'express the support of the American people and grieve with the Pittsburgh community,' White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters Monday. Sanders said first lady Melania Trump will travel with the president. Fighting back tears, Sanders noted that Trump 'is the grandfather of several Jewish grandchildren.'"

American Military News: "The Pentagon is apparently set to deploy an additional 5,000 U.S. troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, officials announced Monday. Troops would be sent from Texas, Arizona and California, the Wall Street Journal first reported. The number is a sharp increase from the 800-troop deployment that was reported last week...."

Kevin Roose of the New York Times has more on Gab, the site that hosted the Pittsburgh mass murderer & other right-wing extremists.

Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump on Monday blamed what he deems unfair media coverage for causing 'great anger' in the country in the wake of a violent week that saw a spate of mail bombs and a shooting that killed 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue. The president said in a pair of tweets that the 'Fake News Media' is 'the true Enemy of the People,' reviving a derisive term for the press less than a week after an explosive device was mailed to CNN's New York City offices. 'There is great anger in our Country caused in part by inaccurate, and even fraudulent, reporting of the news. The Fake News Media, the true Enemy of the People, must stop the open & obvious hostility & report the news accurately & fairly,' Trump wrote on Twitter. 'That will do much to put out the flame of Anger and Outrage and we will then be able to bring all sides together in Peace and Harmony,' he added."

The Laziest President. Eliana Johnson & Daniel Lippman of Politico: "... Donald Trump had about three times as much free time planned for last Tuesday as work time, according to his private schedule. The president was slated for more than nine hours of 'Executive Time,' a euphemism for the unstructured time Trump spends tweeting, phoning friends and watching television. Official meetings, policy briefings and public appearances -- traditionally the daily work of being president -- consumed just over three hours of his day.... While the notion of Executive Time, and the president's increasingly late start to the day, has come under scrutiny over the last year, this new batch of schedules obtained by Politico offers fresh insight into the extent to which that unscheduled time dominates Trump's week and is shaping his presidency, allowing his whims and momentary interests to drive White House business.... The president's official commitments last week began no earlier than 11 a.m..., and on Tuesday -- in the midst of a potential serial bomber and two weeks ahead of the midterm elections -- they didn't start until 1 p.m. The president spent just over two hours of his week in policy briefings..., and he was scheduled to receive the President's Daily Brief on just two of the five days reviewed."

*****

Peter Baker & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "For months, Republican officials have complained privately that President Trump lacks the ability to confront moments of crisis with moral clarity, choosing to inflame the divisions that have torn the country apart rather than try to bring it together. It took the importuning of his Jewish daughter and son-in-law to craft a powerful statement of outrage at anti-Semitism after Saturday's slaughter at a Pittsburgh synagogue. Then Mr. Trump went back into partisan mode, assailing his enemies. By the evening's end he was tweeting about baseball, and on Sunday he went after another foe.... Even some supporters call him tone-deaf, and critics say his fire-and-fury style has fueled a toxic moment in American history, while defenders bristle at what they consider opportunistic attacks by opponents interested only in tearing him down.... His castigation of 'globalists,' seen by some as code for Jews, and his attacks on George Soros, the billionaire financier of liberal causes, have unsettled Jewish leaders." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Is "complaining privately" more like "tolerating," "condoning," or "tacitly approving"? It sure as hell isn't "criticizing" or "rejecting." And it most certainly is "enabling." See also Jonathan Chait's post on Republicans getting worse, linked below. ...

... Morgan Gstalter of the Hill: "A group of Jewish leaders told President Trump that he is no longer welcome in Pittsburgh until he denounces white nationalism following the shooting at a synagogue there over the weekend. Eleven members of the Pittsburgh affiliate of Bend the Arc ... penned a letter to Trump following the Saturday shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue. 'Our Jewish community is not the only group you have targeted,' the group wrote. 'You have also deliberately undermined the safety of people of color, Muslims, LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities. Yesterday's massacre is not the first act of terror you incited against a minority group in our country.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump said Saturday he would go to Pittsburgh. ...

... ** Adam Serwer of the Atlantic makes a direct connection between Trump's political strategy & the massacre of Pittsburgh Jews. Serwer outlines some of the efforts Trump, pence, Homeland Security Fox "News" & other prominent usual suspects made to turn a caravan of refugees walking through Mexico into a fake national emergency where criminals & "unknown Middle Easterners," funded by George Soros & unnamed Venezuelan leftists, were on the verge of invading the U.S. "Prior to committing the Tree of Life massacre, the shooter, who blamed Jews for the caravan of 'invaders' and who raged about it on social media, made it clear that he was furious at HIAS, founded as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, a Jewish group that helps resettle refugees in the United States. He shared posts on Gab, a social-media site popular with the alt-right, expressing alarm at the sight of 'massive human caravans of young men from Honduras and El Salvador invading America thru our unsecured southern border.' And then he wrote, 'HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I'm going in.'... The apparent spark for the worst anti-Semitic massacre in American history was a racist hoax inflamed by a U.S. president seeking to help his party win a midterm election." ...

... Robert Costa & Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "President Trump and his Republican allies remained defiant Sunday amid allegations from critics that Trump's incendiary attacks on political rivals and racially charged rhetoric on the campaign trail bear some culpability for the climate surrounding a spate of violence in the United States. Trump, who has faced calls to tone down his public statements, signaled that he would do no such thing. [After berating Tom Steyer -- story linked below --] ...Trump lashed out again on Twitter...: 'The Fake News is doing everything in their power to blame Republicans, Conservatives and me for the division and hatred that has been going on for so long in our Country.'... Some Trump allies sought to shift blame to others, including media figures and Democratic leaders, arguing that recent attempts by liberal protesters to challenge GOP officials in public were perhaps more responsible for the national unrest than the president's combative politics or the rise of conspiracy theories on the right. Those theories appear to have driven the suspects behind the bombs sent to Democratic officials and the mass shooting Saturday at a Pittsburgh synagogue." ...

... Dana Milbank: "George Washington, in his 1790 letter to the Touro Synagogue in Newport, R.I., told Jews they would be safe in the new nation. 'The government of the United States ... gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance,' he wrote. 'May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants -- while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.' Though that assurance has been tested, the United States has endured as a safe haven for Jews. Now President Trump has violated Washington's compact. He has given sanction to bigotry and assistance to persecution. After the shooting in Pittsburgh, which the Anti-Defamation League believes is the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history, there is no longer safety under the vine and fig tree." Milbank lists some of Trump's anti-Semitic "outreach." ...

... Jonathan Chait has an illuminating insight on Trump's brand of anti-Semitism: it's anti-Semitism without Jews, for the most part. "His depiction of immigrants as inherently criminal, and his attempts to connect immigration to shadowy cabals of financiers, closely track white supremacist tropes.... [Usually,] he would invoke anti-Semitic themes without any explicit reference to Jews or Judaism. Trump's closing campaign ad on television denounced 'a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities,' over images of Janet Yellen, George Soros, and Lloyd Blankfein, all of whom happen to be Jewish. Trump lambastes his enemies as 'globalists,' which, through its implication of extra-national loyalty, closely tracks the primary accusation made against Jews." Read on. ...

... ** Dahlia Lithwick of Slate: "How does one even begin to explain to one's children what it means that the president denounces violence and division as he foments both, on an hourly basis? Perhaps we can look to Florida for a tip. Last week the state's gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum said that because Neo-Nazis and white supremacists were supporting and campaigning for and contributing to his opponent Ron DeSantis, perhaps it was time to stop talking about causation entirely. 'I'm not calling Mr. DeSantis a racist,' he said. 'I'm simply saying the racists believe he's a racist.' The formulation is useful because it reframes a pointless debate about what leaders' dog whistles really mean into a debate about what their followers end up believing. If what is said no longer matters, we can perhaps still evaluate what is heard." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Roey Hadar of ABC News: "In the wake of a shooting massacre at a synagogue and a mail-bomb campaign against prominent critics of ... Donald Trump, a former Homeland Security chief said the U.S. currently has a 'toxic' political environment in which 'deranged' people 'feel it's their place' to bring about change. Jeh Johnson, who was Homeland Security Secretary under President Barack Obama, told 'This Week' Co-Anchor Martha Raddatz on Sunday..., 'We live now in a very, very toxic environment that includes an incivility in our political discourse among our leaders. The attack yesterday and the attempted pipe bombings over the course of last week should be a wake-up call to all Americans to demand change, and change has to start at the top,' he said.... 'Our president has the largest microphone; he has the largest bullhorn,' the former Homeland Security secretary said. '... Americans should demand that their leaders insist on change, a more civil discourse, and a more civil environment generally.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Julia Ioffe, in a Washington Post op-ed: "When Trump called himself a nationalist in Houston last week, the alt-right knew exactly what he meant. One alt-right commenter was elated because nationalism 'is inherently connected to race.' Another wrote that he was 'literally shaking' with glee.... The president did not tell a deranged man to send pipe bombs to the people he regularly lambastes on Twitter and lampoons in his rallies.... Trump didn't cause another deranged man to tweet that the caravan of refugees moving toward America's southern border (the one Trump has complained about endlessly) is paid for by the Jews before he shot up a synagogue.... But this definition of culpability is too narrow, too legalistic -- and ultimately too dishonest. The pipe-bomb makers and synagogue shooters and racists who mowed a woman down in Charlottesville were never even looking for Trump's explicit blessing, because they knew the president had allowed bigots like them to go about their business, secure in the knowledge that, like [Boris] Nemtsov's killers, they don't really bother the president, at least not too much. His role is just to set the tone. Their role is to do the rest." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Felicia Sonmez & Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Sunday lashed out at billionaire Democratic activist Tom Steyer, ridiculing him as a 'stumbling lunatic' days after Steyer was targeted by one of more than a dozen pipe bombs sent to prominent critics of the president. Trump's tweet came shortly after Steyer accused the president and the Republican Party of creating an atmosphere of 'political violence' in an interview on CNN's 'State of the Union.' 'Just watched Wacky Tom Steyer, who I have not seen in action before, be interviewed by @jaketapper,' Trump said in the tweet. 'He comes off as a crazed & stumbling lunatic who should be running out of money pretty soon. As bad as their field is, if he is running for President, the Dems will eat him alive!'... 'It is unthinkable that in the midst of the horrible political violence our president would resort to name-calling instead of repairing the damage to the fabric of our country,' Steyer [responded]." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Let's apply Dahlia Lithwick's Gillum Rule here. Will Trump's followers perceive that Trump is condoning violence against Steyer by belittling him just after a Trump follower sent Steyer a bomb? Why, yes. Yes, they will. Trump does not only want voter to be afraid of caravans of Middle Eastern terrorists on their way to invade the U.S. at the Rio Grande; he also wants every political foe to be afraid to walk out his door or open his mouth. Trump may not know how to close an umbrella or wipe his ass, but he sure knows how to fearmonger. ...

... Ari Berman of Mother Jones: "A day after the deadly shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, the head of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee refused to disavow a campaign ad linking a Democratic candidate to George Soros, who was sent a pipe bomb last week and has been the subject of attacks many regard as anti-Semitic.... The ad, released on October 18, targets Dan Feehan, the Democrat running against Republican Jim Hagedorn to represent Minnesota's 1st Congressional District. It features a montage with Colin Kaepernick kneeling and warnings of 'left-wing mobs paid to riot in the street,' followed by an image of Soros with stacks of bills, repeating a classic anti-Semitic trope. 'Billionaire George Soros bankrolls the resistance,' the ad says.... The head of the NRCC, Rep. Steve Stivers (R-OH), defended the ad on NBC's Meet the Press. 'Our independent expenditure arm is independent,' Stivers said. 'But that ad is factual. And it also has nothing to do with calling for violence. That ad is a factual ad.'... In fact, the ad is funded by an arm of the NRCC." ...

... Mary Papenfuss of the Huffington Post: "House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) deleted a tweet that had warned that three wealthy Jewish Democrats are 'buying' the midterm elections for their party, a posting that appeared after liberal billionaire philanthropist George Soros ― one of his targets ― had been sent a pipe bomb. The McCarthy tweet -- which also named former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and California businessman Tom Steyer-- was taken down three days before a gunman killed 11 people Saturday in an anti-Semitic attack at ... a Pittsburgh synagogue." "We canno allow Soros, Steyer and Bloomberg to buy this election," McCarthy tweeted. Mrs. McC: Cesar Sayoc also tried to send Steyer a pipe bomb. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie Update: According to Wikipedia, Steyer's father was Jewish (and a prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials) & his mother Episcopalian. It's none of my business, but I don't know that Steyer identifies as a Jew, & the Wiki page makes it seem more likely he is a Christian. Papenfuss seems to be misleading by describing Steyer as Jewish without some qualification. ...

Daniel Politi of Slate: "Why Did Synagogue Suspect Believe Migrant Caravan Is Jewish Conspiracy? Maybe He Watched Fox News.... Fox News has often talked about a connection between the caravan and George Soros, who is often described by anti-Semites as the head of a 'globalist' effort that is 'seeking to undermine a white, Christian social order,' as Talia Lavin wrote in the Washington Post recently.... On Thursday..., Lou Dobbs had a guest on the show who directly made the connection between Soros and the caravan. 'A lot of these folks have affiliates that are getting money from the Soros-occupied State Department,' Chris Farrell, Judicial Watch's director of investigations and research, said. As Josh Marshall ... pointed out on Twitter '"ZOG" is a staple of white supremacist/neo-Nazi websites/literature etc. Stands for "Zionist occupied government." ... This guy knows exactly what lever he's pulling when he uses this phrase,' Marshall wrote. A screengrab of an apparent Bowers repost on Gab appears to confirm he was well acquainted with the term.... Earlier in the month, Fox & Friends also mentioned the connection, this time citing a tweet by Rep. Matt Gaetz [R-Crazy-Fla.] that openly questioned whether Soros was funding the caravan."

... Fox "Business" Goes into Mild CYA Mode. Oliver Darcy of CNN: "On Sunday, [Fox Business N]etwork's senior vice president for programming, Gary Schreier, released a statement denouncing what many people called an anti-Semitic trope used by a guest on [Lou] Dobbs' show earlier in the week. The remark drew widespread condemnation when the episode in which it was made was rebroadcast Saturday, hours after a gunman walked into a Pittsburgh synagogue and murdered 11 people.... 'We condemn the rhetoric by the guest on Lou Dobbs Tonight,' Schreier said in a short statement. 'This episode was a repeat which has now been pulled from all future airings.' The comment in question was made by Chris Farrell, a board member of the right-wing organization Judicial Watch, during Thursday night's episode of Dobbs' show. [& is cited in Politi's post, linked above]... A Fox spokesperson told CNN Business by email that Farrell will no longer be booked for appearances on the Fox Business Network or its sister channel Fox News. Bu the Fox spokesperson did not respond when asked whether Dobbs, who did not condemn or even push back on what Farrell said, was culpable for the comment his guest made on his air.... In the past, Dobbs has referred to Soros as an 'evil SOB' and 'insidious.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I guess Schreier couldn't get too carried away with his "condemnation," because -- as digby points out -- Trump is a fan of Farrell's. AND "As you know, Trump cherishes Lou."

David Leonhardt & Ian Philbrick of the New York Times: "President Trump, his family and more than a few of his appointees are using his presidency to enrich themselves. They are spending taxpayer dollars for their own benefit. They are accepting sweetheart deals from foreigners. And they are harnessing the power of the federal government on behalf of their businesses. There's a word for this: corruption. Given how widespread Trumpian corruption has become, we thought it was time to make a list. It's meant to be a definitive list of self-dealing by the president, his family, his staff or his friends -- since he began running for president." The writers have sorted the corrupt acts into "thematic categories."

Matt Spetalnick of Reuters: "... Donald Trump called Brazil's President-elect Jair Bolsonaro on Sunday to congratulate him on his election victory and both men expressed a strong commitment to work together, the White House said." More on Bolsonaro linked under Way Beyond the Beltway. Mrs. McC: I'm sure Trump won't have any problem "working together" with the Tropical Trump.

Jonathan Chait: "Everything that was terrible about the party that nominated Trump is significantly, terrifyingly worse today. Even more distressing: It is likely to lurch further rightward regardless of the outcome of the elections. This will happen right away.... They don't need to sell their policies to the American people. They're better off following Trump's political formula of constructing an alternate reality in which their party is cast as one of economic populists.... The defensive effort to steal the economic-populist mantle from Democrats, without making any substantive concessions toward that end [-- i.e., pretending they are this close to passing a 10% middle-class tax cut & are the one party that supports forcing insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions --] has been largely overshadowed by the louder cultural messaging that accompanies it. Republicans have stoked white racial paranoia against a shifting array of targets.... Trump's allies have gone from justifying his reality-show authoritarian persona as a necessary expedient to embracing it as a positive good." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Especially if Republicans retain full control of the federal government & do well in state slates, we should cease to consider them members of a "decaying, aging" party, as Chait and other characterize it, but as the principal mechanism by which a despot is able to control the nation.

Campbell Robertson, et al., of the New York Times: "Authorities on Sunday identified the 11 victims of a shooting rampage at a Pittsburgh synagogue in which a man armed with an AR-15-style assault rifle and three handguns shot into a morning worship service in the deadliest attack against the Jewish community in the United States in decades. The dead included eight men and three women. The oldest victim, Rose Mallinger of Squirrel Hill in Pittsburgh, was 97. Two brothers, David and Cecil Rosenthal, ages 54 and 59, were the youngest. A husband and wife, Bernice and Sylvan Simon, ages 84 and 86, of Wilkinsburg, Pa., were also among the dead. Mayor Bill Peduto called the attack the 'darkest day of Pittsburgh's history' but vowed that the city would move forward." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Sam Byford of the Verge: "Gab, the controversial social network with a far-right following, has pulled its website offline after domain provider GoDaddy gave it 24 hours to move to another service. The move comes as other companies including PayPal, Medium, Stripe, and Joyent blocked Gab over the weekend. It had emerged that Robert Bowers, who allegedly shot and killed eleven people at a Pittsburgh synagogue on Saturday, had a history of posting anti-Semitic messages on Gab.... Gab is presently inaccessible through its website, with a message stating that the company is 'under attack' and 'working around the clock to get Gab.com back online' with a new provider. 'We have been smeared by the mainstream media for defending free expression and individual liberty for all people and for working with law enforcement to ensure that justice is served for the horrible atrocity committed in Pittsburgh,' the statement reads. Yesterday Gab's Twitter account said that the network would 'likely be down for weeks' because of hosting provider Joyent's decision to pull support, though a more recent tweet today suggests it will be 'back soon.'"

Desmond Butler of the AP: "A year before federal prosecutors accused Maria Butina of operating as a secret agent for the Russian government, she was a graduate student at American University working on a sensitive project involving cybersecurity. Butina's college assignment called for her to gather information on the cyberdefenses of U.S. nonprofit organizations that champion media freedom and human rights, The Associated Press has learned. It was information that could help the groups plug important vulnerabilities, but also would be of interest to the Russian government. In fact, the Russians previously had in their sights at least two of the groups that she and other students interacted with.... The access that Butina won through her coursework illustrates how academia and the extensive network of entities that often carry out sensitive, but not classified, work for the U.S. government remain national security vulnerabilities."

Charlie Savage, et al., of the New York Times: "The Trump administration has freed an American citizen whom the military imprisoned without trial for more than 13 months as a suspected Islamic State member, United States officials said on Monday. His release brings a close to a legal saga that raised novel issues about the scope of the government's national security powers and individual rights. The man, a dual American and Saudi citizen, was captured in September 2017 by a Kurdish militia in Syria. The Kurds turned him over to the American military, which held him as a wartime detainee at a base in Iraq while a court battle over his fate played out. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he was released in Bahrain, where his wife and daughter are living. The identity of the man at the center of extraordinary case has been kept secret, so he has been called 'John Doe' in court filings and public debates. But his real name is Abdulrahman Ahmad Alsheikh...."

Election 2018

Georgia. Peter Wade of Rolling Stone: "Republican gubernatorial candidate and current Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp incorrectly canceled some 340,000 voter registrations, according to a recent investigation. Although Kemp claimed the voters left the state of Georgia or moved to another country, they hadn't, Greg Palast, who filed suit against Kemp, wrote in Truthout. According to John Lenser, who is CEO of CohereOne and who led a review of the list of purged voters for Palast, '340,000 of those voters remained at their original address. They should have never been removed from the voter registration rolls.' Palast only obtained the list after he filed suit against Kemp.... Kemp used a tactic Palast calls 'Purge by Postcard' to remove eligible voters from the rolls. Kemp sent a postcard that could have easily been mistaken for spam to voters who did not vote in the prior election. If a voter did not return the postcard, Kemp purged their registration without informing the voters it was happening. Thanks to a June 2018 Supreme Court ruling that reversed the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, this practice is now legal.... It is too late for [these individuals] to register for the upcoming midterm elections...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McC: BTW, that Supreme Court ruling ws 5-4. Sam Alito wrote the majority opinion; Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the dissent. Please don't tell me that the right-wing Supremes aren't purposely suppressing the vote. And they know full well that they are disproportionately suppressing the votes of people who vote Democratic & tend (a) to be more "occasional" voters, i.e., voters who often vote only in presidential elections, and (b) more often change domiciles. While voter state suppression laws can be reversed when Democrats gain control of state governments, the most effective solution would be an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing citizens the franchise.

New Jersey. Star-Ledger Editors: "This year's U.S. Senate race presents the most depressing choice for New Jersey voters in a generation, with two awful candidates whose most convincing argument is that the other guy is unfit to serve.... It's a miracle that [Bob] Menendez [D] escaped criminal conviction, and an act of profound narcissism that he stayed in the race despite this baggage, putting a Democratic seat at risk while Donald Trump sits in the White House. The Republican challenger, Bob Hugin, is no better. He's using the closing weeks of his campaign to spread the most vicious lie of this election season in New Jersey -- the suggestion that Menendez patronized child prostitutes in the Dominican Republic.... And when you get past ethics, the central issue in this race is Donald Trump. The question is which candidate can best fight Trump's toxic policies, his grotesque appeals to racial and ethnic tribalism, and his corrosive attacks on the pillars of our democracy, starting with the rule of law. That makes this an easy decision: Menendez is the better choice, by far. He has our endorsement." Mrs. McC: The whole editorial is worth reading. Hugin is toxic.


Kate Kelly of the New York Times: "At Georgetown Prep's annual reunion weekend, [Brett Kavanaugh] was hailed as a conquering hero." Mrs. McC: You would not want your kids going to Georgetown Prep, much less associating with its students & alums.

Way Beyond the Beltway

Ernesto Londoño & Shasta Darlington of the New York Times: "Brazil on Sunday became the latest country to drift toward the far right, electing a strident populist as president in the nation's most radical political change since democracy was restored more than 30 years ago. The new president, Jair Bolsonaro, has exalted the country's military dictatorship, advocated torture and threatened to destroy, jail or drive into exile his political opponents. He won by tapping into a deep well of resentment at the status quo in Brazil -- a country whiplashed by rising crime and two years of political and economic turmoil -- and by presenting himself as the alternative." Mrs. McCrabbie: So the majority of Brazilian voters have learned nothing from their own history nor from the U.S.'s bad example. I take no comfort in knowing others are as dumb as our fellow citizens. (Also linked yesterday.)

Josie Le Blond of the Guardian: "Angela Merkel has told members of her Christian Democrats party that she won't seek another term as chancellor when her mandate ends in 2021, German media is reporting, ending a more than decade-long era in which she has dominated European politics. Merkel also told senior party figures she will not seek re-election as party chairwoman in December, kickstarting the race to replace her as CDU candidate in 2021, when the next federal election is due. The statements were made at a meeting of the party leadership, which was called to discuss two electoral disasters in regional elections in as many weeks. Merkel's 'moving words' were greeted with a standing ovation, sources told German media. It had been widely assumed that this would be Merkel's final term as chancellor but before the reported remarks she had not confirmed that herself."

News Ledes

New York Times: "On March 31, the third day of the 2018 regular season, the Boston Red Sox moved into first place in the American League East, a position they occupied almost exclusively from that point on. By May, it was clear they were the best team in baseball. Now, after 119 wins between the regular season and playoffs, they remain unmatched. And on Sunday, the Red Sox completed the seven-month marathon by cementing their status atop the sport and among the greatest teams of all time. Riding the left arm of David Price and the powerful swings of Steve Pearce, the Red Sox easily dispatched the Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-1, in Game 5 to cap a dominant season and claim the 2018 World Series title."

Guardian: "A passenger plane carrying 189 people has crashed into the sea off Jakarta minutes after taking off on a domestic flight to an Indonesian tin-mining region. Lion Air flight JT610, travelling from Jakarta to Pangkal Pinang on the island of Bangka, lost contact with air traffic control about 13 minutes after it took off, shortly after its pilot had asked to return to base. Flight data showed it made a sudden, sharp dive into the sea. There was no sign of survivors from the Boeing 737 Max 8 jet, a new model that was launched globally only last year. The specific plane had only been in use for two months. Rescue officials said later on Monday they had recovered human remains from the crash site, about nine miles (15km) off the coast. Lion Air's chief executive, Edward Sirait, told reporters the plane had suffered 'a technical issue' on Sunday night but engineers had cleared it to fly on Monday morning."

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