The Commentariat -- September 11, 2018

New Hampshire's primary is today. Sydney Ember of the New York Times reports on the top races.

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Sharon Otterman of the New York Times: "The family members and loved ones of the victims of the Sept. 11 terror attacks gathered under misty skies at the World Trade Center site on Tuesday to honor and remember the legacies of those lost by reading their names aloud in a somber ritual repeated each year in New York on the anniversary of the attacks." ...

... MEANWHILE, WTF is wrong with this man?

Donald & Melania Trump arriving in Pennsylvania for ceremony to honor the Shanksville heroes of 9/11.... Tierney McAfee of People: "Donald Trump is facing widespread social media backlash after he was pictured greeting supporters with a triumphant double fist pump as he arrived to a 9/11 memorial service on Tuesday, the 17th anniversary of the terror attacks.... 'We have found nothing to show collusion between President Trump & Russia, absolutely zero, but every day we get more documentation showing collusion between the FBI & DOJ, the Hillary campaign, foreign spies & Russians, incredible,' [Trump tweeted this morning.]... As more than one Twitter critic noted, Trump first marked Tuesday's 9/11 anniversary 'with an angry morning tweet about Russia and Hillary Clinton.'" ...

     ... Update: See Akhilleus's commentary below on how Trump behaved in the days following September 11, 2001.

Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "As politicians and others went on Twitter on Tuesday morning to mark the 17th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, President Trump used the platform to launch a fresh round of assaults on the FBI and Justice Department. Trump -- apparently seizing on allegations leveled the night before by one of his conservative allies in Congress -- referred in particular two former FBI officials who have become infamous for trading anti-Trump texts: Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. The president repeated a claim from Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) that the pair employed a 'media leak strategy' to undermine his administration.... The claim from Meadows is debatable; Strzok's attorney said his client's reference to a 'media leak strategy' was an effort to stem unauthorized disclosures of information. Both Strzok and Page have left the FBI, Strzok because he was fired over his anti-Trump texts. 'New Strzok-Page texts reveal "Media Leak Strategy." @FoxNews So terrible, and NOTHING is being done at DOJ or FBI - but the world is watching, and they get it completely,' Trump wrote."

*****

Erin Durkin of the Guardian: "As people who lost loved ones in the [9/11] attack on lower Manhattan will gather on Tuesday once again to mark the anniversary, on the site of the towers, New York is nearing a grim milestone: 10,000 people diagnosed with cancer linked to September 11, 2001.... In all, more than 43,000 people have been certified with a September 11-related health condition.... Survivors are speaking out to encourage others to sign up for the health program and get checked. Anyone who lived, worked or went to school near the site and develops a related illness is eligible for health care and possible compensation under the ;Zadroga Act." --safari

Ignoramus-in-Chief. Pilar Menendez of The Daily Beast: "In what now seems like a daily occurrence, Donald Trump woke up Monday morning and fired off 16 bizarre tweets, including several misleading or false claims about the economy -- one of which was so patently false that both Fox News and Trump's own top economic adviser had to publicly correct the president. 'The GDP Rate (4.2%) is higher than the Unemployment Rate (3.9%) for the first time in over 100 years!,' Trump wrote at 6:03 a.m. [The truth is 10 years, not 100].... The president's claim that the U.S. gross domestic product is higher than the unemployment rate for the first time in over a century is, however, incorrect....In fact -- though comparing unrelated economic measurements is already odd -- this has happened several times since 1948, according to several economists and the Fox News research team...[I]n the 70 years since the U.S. Labor Department started publishing monthly unemployment statistics, the growth rate has been higher than the jobless level more than 20 percent of the time." --safari ...

... The News from Professor Plump Trump, Economic Historian:

The GDP Rate (4.2%) is higher than the Unemployment Rate (3.9%) for the first time in over 100 years! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet yesterday

False. It has happened in 185 months since 1948, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. -- Linda Qiu, New York Times

Hahahahaha. Emily Goldberg of Politico: "... Donald Trump promised Monday that he would 'write the real book' to set the record straight on his administration, once again lashing out against veteran Washington reporter Bob Woodward, whose incendiary book about the Trump White House will be released this week. 'The Woodward book is a Joke -- just another assault against me, in a barrage of assaults, using now disproven unnamed and anonymous sources. Many have already come forward to say the quotes by them, like the book, are fiction,' Trump tweeted on Monday morning. 'Dems can't stand losing. I'll write the real book!' Trump added on Twitter, 'The White House is a "smooth running machine." We are making some of the biggest and most important deals in our country's history -- with many more to come! The Dems are going crazy!'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: As Colbert says to Trump, "That a bold statement, considering that you didn't even write your own fake book."

... Annie Karni of Politico: "... Donald Trump has called journalist Bob Woodward’s book on his administration a work of 'fiction' and a 'scam,' claiming that quotes in the book are 'made up' and that the author is a 'liar.' At the same time..., he is livid at his former economic adviser, Gary Cohn, and his former staff secretary, Rob Porter, for 'leaking' to Woodward. It's difficult to rationally argue that the book could be both: fiction dreamed up by Woodward, and a betrayal by former top stewards of the administration...."

Courtney Cube & Carol Lee of NBC News: "As ... Donald Trump issues a steady stream of praise for Kim Jong Un in interviews and on Twitter, a steady stream of evidence that North Korea is still making nuclear weapons has pushed his administration to take a much more aggressive stance toward Pyongyang. The newest intelligence shows Kim's regime has escalated efforts to conceal its nuclear activity, according to three senior U.S. officials. During the three months since the historic Singapore summit and Trump's proclamation that North Korea intends to denuclearize, North Korea has built structures to obscure the entrance to at least one warhead storage facility, according to the officials." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Yes But. As we learned last week, Trump needs Kim as a character witness.

Trump's Giant Fart. Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "The Trump administration, taking its third major step this year to roll back federal efforts to fight climate change, is preparing to make it significantly easier for energy companies to release methane into the atmosphere. Methane, which is among the most powerful greenhouse gases, routinely leaks from oil and gas wells, and energy companies have long said that the rules requiring them to test for emissions were costly and burdensome. The Environmental Protection Agency, perhaps as soon as this week, plans to make public a proposal to weaken an Obama-era requirement that companies monitor and repair methane leaks, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times." ...

... Joe Romm of ThinkProgress: "Under President Donald Trump, the staff of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has shrunk to levels not seen since the Reagan administration. But if Trump has his way, pollution levels will rise to Reagan-era levels too. Not only is the president seeking to roll back or terminate countless clean air and clean water rules, but he wants to make sure that the laws we do have in place are not enforced. Since Trump took office, some 1,600 workers have left the EPA.... EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance has shrunk a stunning 15.7 percent in the past 18 months -- nearly one in six workers have left.... As one recently retired 34-year EPA veteran described the current regime, 'These people are like termites, gnawing at the foundation.'" --safari ...

... MEANWHILE. Paul Rogers & Katy Murphy of the (San Jose) Mercury News: "In a major environmental milestone, Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday signed a law requiring California to obtain 100 percent of its electricity from clean sources such as solar, wind and hydropower by 2045. The new law keeps California at the forefront of addressing climate change and essentially commits the world's fifth-largest economy with 40 million people to a phase-out of fossil fuels from power plants. It also requires that 50 percent of the state's electricity come from renewable energy by 2026 and 60 percent by 2030, up from the current level of 32 percent. At a ceremony in the state Capitol, Brown signed SB 100, by State Sen. Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles. The new law gives California the most far-reaching clean energy goals of any U.S. state, along with Hawaii, which set a similar target in 2015 of 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2045." ...

     ... AND. Somini Sengupta of the New York Times: "Warning of the risks of 'runaway' global warming, the United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, on Monday called on global leaders to rein in climate change faster. 'If we do not change course by 2020, we risk missing the point where we can avoid runaway climate change,' Mr. Guterres said at United Nations headquarters in New York. 'Climate change is the defining issue of our time, and we are at a defining moment,' he said.... His remarks came with countries around the world far short of meeting the goals they set for themselves under the 2015 Paris accord to reduce the emissions that have warmed the planet over the last century. The next round of climate negotiations is scheduled for this year in Poland."

Mark Landler of the New York Times: "The Trump administration threatened the International Criminal Court with sanctions if it pursued an investigation of American troops in Afghanistan, opening a harsh new attack on an old nemesis of many on the political right. 'The United States will use any means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court,' President Trump's national security adviser, John R. Bolton, said in a speech on Monday in Washington.... Mr. Bolton also announced that the United States would shut down the Palestine Liberation Organization's office in Washington -- a decision linked to the International Criminal Court, which he said was being prodded by the Palestinians to investigate Israel." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Reuters: "The international criminal court has said that it will 'continue to do its work undeterred', a day after US national security adviser, John Bolton, threatened sanctions if the tribunal investigated US activities in Afghanistan. The Hague-based court said in a statement it was an independent and impartial institution with the backing of 123 countries.... ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said last year there was a 'reasonable basis to believe' war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed in Afghanistan and that all sides in the conflict would be examined, including members of the US armed forces and Central Intelligence Agency." --safari

** Josh Lederman, et al., of NBC News: U.S. "Intelligence agencies investigating mysterious 'attacks' that led to brain injuries in U.S. personnel in Cuba and China consider Russia to be the main suspect, three U.S. officials and two others briefed on the investigation tell NBC News. The suspicion that Russia is likely behind the alleged attacks is backed up by evidence from communications intercepts, known in the spy world as signals intelligence, amassed during a lengthy and ongoing investigation involving the FBI, the CIA and other U.S. agencies. The officials declined to elaborate on the nature of the intelligence. The evidence is not yet conclusive enough, however, for the U.S. to formally assign blame to Moscow for incidents that started in late 2016 and have continued in 2018, causing a major rupture in U.S.-Cuba relations." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Yeah, well, Donald can just call his BFF Vlad & ask him about that.

Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "A federal judge on Monday blasted U.S. prosecutors and defense attorneys during a hearing in which the defense sought to have a Russian woman freed on bail pending trial on charges she was a foreign agent attempting to infiltrate the National Rifle Association and other American conservative groups. In ordering continued detention for Maria Butina, 29, U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan said Butina remained a serious flight risk. Chutkan also imposed a gag order after slamming prosecutors for their mistaken claim in court filings that Butina traded sex for access, and her defense for repeated public statements that the judge said could bias potential jurors." ...

... It's Not about the Sex. Vera Bergengruen of BuzzFeed News: "A tantalizing sentence inserted into the case against Maria Butina proved irresistible for journalists and lawyers alike. Although it was just an aside in a sweeping case alleging that the 29-year-old Russian worked to curry favor with American conservatives, the claim that she had offered sex for a job dominated much of the news coverage about her for weeks. So did the Justice Department's two-line acknowledgment in a 22-page late-night filing Friday that the allegation was false. But the breathless coverage of a sexual-proposition-that-wasn't missed many new details that the court filing reveals about a calculated five-year effort to make inroads with prominent Republicans through gun rights and religion, including the assertion that Butina and her American partner, GOP operative Paul Erickson, saw the scrutiny brought on by hacking of the Democratic National Committee's computer system as undoing a years-long influence campaign." ...

... Tim Dickenson of Rolling Stone: "In a federal court filing, prosecutors allege that [Maria] Butina has offered to flip on [Paul] Erickson -- who is also identified as 'Person 1' in case documents. 'Although the defense contends that the defendant is in a committed relationship with Person 1,' the feds write, 'she recently offered to provide information to the government about his illegal activities.'"

Cristian Farias of New York puts the Papadopoulos flop in perspective. Observers thought he was the key to unlocking a great criminal conspiracy. But the Mueller team saw early on that Papadopoulos was just a petty liar with grand ambitions. Now he's off to Hollywood to shop his life story or something.

** Hamed Aleaziz of BuzzFeed News: "Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday warned incoming immigration judges ... against allowing sympathy for the people appearing before them, which might cause them to make decisions contrary to what the law requires. 'When we depart from the law and create nebulous legal standards out of a sense of sympathy for the personal circumstances of a respondent in our immigration courts, we do violence to the rule of law and constitutional fabric that bind this great nation. Your job is to apply the law -- even in tough cases, he said. The comments immediately drew criticism from the union that represents the judges and from former judges.... Sessions also told the judges that they should focus on maximum production and urged them to get 'imaginative and inventive' with their high caseload. The courts currently have a backlog of hundreds of thousands of deportation cases." ...

... Andrew Gumbel of the Guardian: "The childhood rabbi to Stephen Miller, special adviser to Donald Trump and a key architect of his 'zero-tolerance' immigration policies, criticized his former charge on Monday as a purveyor of 'negativity, violence, malice and brutality' who had learned nothing from his Jewish spiritual education. Rabbi Neil Comess-Daniels of Beth Shir Shalom, a progressive reform synagogue in the beachside city of Santa Monica where Miller grew up, devoted his sermon marking the Jewish New Year to a striking denunciation of Miller and the now-abandoned policy he championed of separating immigrant families at the border."

Eric Levitz: "Susan Collins won election to the Senate by running as a pro-choice Republican who would put Mainers, and ideological moderation, above her party and its orthodoxy.... And yet, Susan Collins has signaled that she's happy to make her constituents look stupid by (once again) playing Mitch McConnell's useful idiot.... In mid-August, liberal activists started a crowdfunding campaign that aimed to raise $500,000 for Collins's Democratic challenger in 2020 -- a sum that it pledged to return to donors if the incumbent Republican votes 'no' on Brett Kavanaugh's nomination. As of this writing, that campaign has raised more than $878,000." ...

... Michael Tomasky of The Daily Beast: "Brett Kavanaugh lied. The best estimate is that he lied five times.... Senator Pat Leahy, usually a man of rhetorical restraint, tweeted: 'Untruthful testimony, under oath and on the record.'... With respect to judicial fights, the Republican Party is intent on accomplishing two goals. The first is stacking the Court -- actually all federal courts -- with hard-right originalists. The second is getting them on the bench in as belligerent and aggressive a way as possible.... The Trump administration had loads of people to choose from who weren't involved in making torture policy and didn't read pilfered papers and then mislead the Senate about it under oath 14 years ago. But they said fuck it. This is our man, and to boot, we're going to short-circuit the process[.]" --safari ...

... Michelle Goldberg: "Garza v. Hargan was the only major abortion-rights case Kavanaugh ever ruled on. ... Even on a lower court, Kavanaugh put arbitrary obstacles in the way of someone desperate to end her pregnancy. Thanks to Trump, he may soon be in a position to do the same to millions of others.... We shouldn't expect a Trump nominee, however personally decent his friends say he is, to care about women's wishes." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: What restricting or overturning Roe v. Wade will do is further divide the country into blue states that respect women & red states that do not. For women living in red states, the divide between rich & poor will be further exaggerated: traveling to a blue state for an abortion will be an inconvenience for upper-middle-class women & their families; it may be a near-impossibility for poor women. Republican men understand this: they will make sure their wives & daughters have access to abortion & other reproductive needs, but they don't care about other women. This is, as they say, every man for himself. ...

... Mark Stern of Slate: "Brett Kavanaugh hasn't even been confirmed to the Supreme Court, and lower-court judges have already declared war on Roe v. Wade. On Monday morning, the 8^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an astonishing decision upholding a law that’s virtually identical to an anti-abortion measure the Supreme Court struck down in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt. The three-judge panel, composed entirely of Republican appointees (including a Trump judge), essentially defied the Supreme Court in allowing Missouri to saddle abortion clinics with pointless regulations designed to guarantee their closure. It's a preview of how the courts will overturn Roe &'' swiftly, ruthlessly, and dishonestly -- once Kavanaugh is confirmed."

"Capitalism is Awesome", Ctd. Kelly Weill of The Daily Beast: "Jeff Bezos's tech giant is the second U.S. company to be worth thirteen-digits on the stock market, following Apple, which hit $1 trillion in August. That's all well and good for Bezos, whose net worth exceeds $150 billion. But workers at the growing network of Amazon-owned companies say they aren't seeing the money and Senator Bernie Sanders rolled out a new bill that would penalize Amazon for leaving workers dependent on public assistance.... [T]he Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies Act (Stop BEZOS Act) ... would penalize large employers for every dollar of public assistance their workers receive. Sanders, who drafted the bill after polling Amazon employees on their pay and work conditions, said the legislation could save the U.S. $150 billion annually." --safari

Election 2018

** Conservative Men's Nightmare. Elena Schneider of Politico: "A flood of women, minorities and first-time candidates is poised to radically alter the composition of Congress next year after winning Democratic primaries in record numbers in 2018. White men are in the minority in the House Democratic candidate pool, a Politico analysis shows. Democrats have nominated a whopping 180 female candidates in House primaries -- shattering the party's previous record of 120, according to Rutgers' Center for American Women and Politics. Heading into the final primaries of 2018 this week, Democrats have also nominated at least 133 people of color and 158 first-time candidates to run for the House.... Their success in primaries could herald a major shift in Congress, which is majority-white, majority-male and still mostly made up of former state legislators who climbed the political ladder to Washington. And the candidates could also mark the beginning of a new era for the rebuilding Democratic Party, which is counting on new types of candidates to take back the House." --safari ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Now even Democratic party leaders are starting to look a lot like America, where white men have always been the minority.

One of Republicans' favorite voter suppression mechanisms:

Senate Race. How perceptions of health insurance have changed:

Goobernatorial Races

Florida. Mrs. McCrabbie: I could have done this myself, but not as well as Akhilleus did, so I'm going with his take: "Florida goobernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis has announced that he is stepping down from his do-nothing job in the Confederate House so that he might have more time for some high quality -- and quantity -- racist tweeting." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Wisconsin. Natasha Korecki of Politico: "There's every reason to believe this is the beginning of the end for Scott Walker.... The signs that Walker is ripe to be taken down are everywhere. His opponent, Schools Superintendent Tony Evers, has a slight lead in recent polls and there's evidence that critical suburban voters are shifting leftward. Three former Walker aides have even turned on the governor, with two cutting ads for Evers.... A career educator, Evers presents a crisp contrast with Walker, who's held elected office for more than two decades. Democrats have seized on a 'Walker fatigue' message that blames him for a teacher shortage, deteriorating roads ('Scottholes' as one group calls them) and rising health care costs." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Way Beyond the Beltway

Karen McVeigh of the Guardian: "Starvation being used as a weapon of war has become the new normal, according to Save the Children. Its analysis shows more than half a million infants in conflict zones could die of malnutrition by the end of the year if they do not receive treatment, the equivalent of one every minute. The charity makes its own estimates using UN data, and projects that 4.5 million under-fives will need treatment for life-threatening hunger this year in the most dangerous conflict zones -- an increase of 20% since 2016. At current rates, only one in three will receive treatment, and 590,000 could die as a result." --safari

Alice Speri of The Intercept: "In his riveting book, 'The Good Mothers: The True Story of the Women Who Took on the World's Most Powerful Mafia,' journalist Alex Perry explores the tragedy ... of four women who turned against their own families and stood up to the [Italian] ’Ndrangheta [mafia clan].... Perry makes an urgent case that the group's meteoric journey to the vortex of global crime -- it controls nearly three-quarters of Europe's cocaine traffic, launders money on behalf of a host of other criminal groups, and sells weapons to multiple actors in the Syrian conflict -- transpired before our eyes. He argues that modern organized crime is an often-ignored but ballooning threat[.]" --safari

Justin McCurry & Graham Readfearn of the Guardian: "Japan has launched a controversial bid to end the ban on commercial whaling, claiming that populations of certain types of whale have recovered sufficiently to allow the resumption of 'sustainable' hunting.... Although Japan is not expected to secure the votes it needs to reform the IWC [International Whaling Commission]'s decision-making rules, conservation groups warned against complacency.... It wasn't immediately clear when IWC members would vote on Japan's proposal. Waiting until Friday, when the meeting ends, would give dozens of Japanese officials in Florianópolis more time to lobby other delegations -- a tactic they have used in the past to frustrate measures to protect other marine species." --safari

The Guardian: "Saudi authorities have arrested an Egyptian hotel worker who appeared in what officials described as an 'offensive' video eating breakfast with a female co-worker.... The point that has prompted the most anger is at the end of the 30-second video when the woman appears to feed the man.... The backlash underscores the challenges facing the prince as he seeks to modernise a country steeped in conservatism. In April, Saudi sports authorities shut down a female fitness centre in Riyadh over a contentious promotional video that appeared to show a woman in tight gym clothes. Later in June, Saudi Arabia sacked the head of its entertainment authority, following an online backlash against a circus featuring women wearing skin-tight leotards." --safari: mike pence's dream

News Ledes

(South Carolina) State: "As nearly a million people hit the road before Hurricane Florence nears the coast, 934 inmates and as many as 119 prison staff were ordered to stay behind despite a mandatory evacuation." ...

... Weather Channel: "Hurricane Florence will lash the Carolinas beginning late Thursday as an intense Category 4 hurricane with life-threatening storm surge, destructive winds and massive inland rainfall flooding in one of the strongest strikes on record for this part of the East Coast. Tuesday morning, a hurricane watch and storm surge watch were issued for the entire coast of North Carolina..., and the South Carolina coast as far south as Edisto Beach. This includes Charleston, Myrtle Beach, Wilmington and the Outer Banks." ...

... Washington Post: "State and local officials in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia have ordered about 1.5 million people to evacuate a lengthy stretch of coastline ahead of Hurricane Florence's potentially catastrophic landfall, which is expected Thursday." ...

"The [Washington] Post has removed article limits on coverage of Hurricane Florence to make these stories available without a subscription."

New York Times: "Adam Clymer, who covered congressional intrigue, eight presidential campaigns and the downfall of both Nikita S. Khrushchev and Richard M. Nixon as a reporter and editor for The New York Times and other newspapers, died early Monday at his home in Washington. He was 81."

The Commentariat -- September 10, 2018

Afternoon Update:

Hahahahaha. Emily Goldberg of Politico: "... Donald Trump promised Monday that he would 'write the real book' to set the record straight on his administration, once again lashing out against veteran Washington reporter Bob Woodward, whose incendiary book about the Trump White House will be released this week. 'The Woodward book is a Joke -- just another assault against me, in a barrage of assaults, using now disproven unnamed and anonymous sources. Many have already come forward to say the quotes by them, like the book, are fiction,' Trump tweeted on Monday morning. 'Dems can't stand losing. I'll write the real book!' Trump added on Twitter, 'The White House is a 'smooth running machine.' We are making some of the biggest and most important deals in our country's history -- with many more to come! The Dems are going crazy!'"

Courtney Cube & Carol Lee of NBC News: "As ... Donald Trump issues a steady stream of praise for Kim Jong Un in interviews and on Twitter, a steady stream of evidence that North Korea is still making nuclear weapons has pushed his administration to take a much more aggressive stance toward Pyongyang. The newest intelligence shows Kim's regime has escalated efforts to conceal its nuclear activity, according to three senior U.S. officials. During the three months since the historic Singapore summit and Trump's proclamation that North Korea intends to denuclearize, North Korea has built structures to obscure the entrance to at least one warhead storage facility, according to the officials." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Yes But. As we found out last week, Trump needs Kim as a character witness.

Mark Landler of the New York Times: "The Trump administration threatened the International Criminal Court with sanctions if it pursued an investigation of American troops in Afghanistan, opening a harsh new attack on an old nemesis of many on the political right. 'The United States will use any means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court,' President Trump's national security adviser, John R. Bolton, said in a speech on Monday in Washington.... Mr. Bolton also announced that the United States would shut down the Palestine Liberation Organization's office in Washington -- a decision linked to the International Criminal Court, which he said was being prodded by the Palestinians to investigate Israel." Related Bloomberg story linked below.

One of Republicans' favorite voter suppression mechanisms:

Senate Race. How perceptions of health insurance have changed:

Mrs. McCrabbie: I could have done this myself, but not as well as Akhilleus did, so I'm going with his take: "Florida goobernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis has announced that he is stepping down from his do-nothing job in the Confederate House so that he might have more time for some high quality -- and quantity -- racist tweeting." ...

... Speaking of Goobernatorial Candidates. Natasha Korecki of Politico: "There’s every reason to believe this is the beginning of the end for Scott Walker.... The signs that Walker is ripe to be taken down are everywhere. His opponent, Schools Superintendent Tony Evers, has a slight lead in recent polls and there's evidence that critical suburban voters are shifting leftward. Three former Walker aides have even turned on the governor, with two cutting ads for Evers.... A career educator, Evers presents a crisp contrast with Walker, who's held elected office for more than two decades. Democrats have seized on a 'Walker fatigue' message that blames him for a teacher shortage, deteriorating roads ('Scottholes' as one group calls them) and rising health care costs."

*****

Jonathan Swan of Axios: It's hard to overstate the extremity and variety of pressures bearing down on President Trump and his understaffed White House.... Trump's 'fine-tuned machine' is creaking under this stress.... Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen and campaign chairman Paul Manafort are going to prison. Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have granted immunity to Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization's chief financial officer.... Trump has grown to resent and distrust his White House Counsel, Don McGahn.... McGahn leaves this fall and he leaves behind an office unprepared to deal with the blizzard of subpoenas, investigations and possible impeachment proceedings that likely await it next year.... Bob Woodward's book hits the stands on Tuesday..., and the president now knows that some of his previously trusted White House aides play starring roles in Woodward's narrative.... The New York Times published an op-ed from an anonymous 'senior administration official' who claims to be part of a wide-reaching resistance to Trump's presidency.... The White House press and communications teams are very thin.... They are wrestling with a firehose of bad news."

David Martin of CBS News interviews Bob Woodward:

There Are No Adults in the Room

The Set-up. He's not a detail guy. Never put more than one page in front of him. Even if he'll glance at it, he.s not going to read the whole thing. Make sure you underline or put in bold the main points ... you'll have 30 seconds to talk to him. If you haven't grabbed his attention, he won't focus. -- Zach Fuentes, assistant to John Kelly, cited in Woodward's book Fear ...

... ** The Pay-off. Isaac Chotiner of Slate: "... Fuentes wasn't talking about Donald Trump; no, he was talking about John Kelly. And Woodward&'s book -- which arrived at around the same time as the already infamous, still-currently anonymous New York Times op-ed about the men and women in the executive branch supposedly working to protect America from Donald Trump -- is as much a portrait of the craven, ineffective, and counterproductive group of 'adults' surrounding Trump as it is a more predictable look into the president's shortcomings.... Fear will make plain to the last optimist that, just as Republicans in Congress are unlikely to save us, neither are the relative grown-ups in the Trump administration.... Moreover, many of these aides are tasked with -- or see their roles as -- not preventing policy decisions, but instead as putting the nicest, non-Trumpy face on Trumpism; the ethics of this deserves its own debate." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: If you have been buying into the hype-du-jour about Woodward's being an "impeccable journalist," do read Chotiner's review. Woodward is an "impeccable journalist" to the extent he can get the interviews others can't (tho he couldn't get Trump, could he?), & he has the tenacity to get substantive quotes from his subjects, but as an analyst, he sucks. P.S. He's a Republican. ...

... Quint Forgey of Politico: "Vice President Mike Pence on Saturday denied participating in any conversation about invoking the 25th Amendment in a bid to oust ... Donald Trump. 'No. Never,' Pence told Margaret Brennan of CBS News in an interview to be broadcast Sunday on 'Face the Nation.'... [Anonymous] asserted that Trump's cabinet considered invoking the 25th Amendment early on in his administration because of the 'instability many witnessed.'" Mrs. McC: What with Karen Pence having long since finished sewing up new calico curtains for the Oval, I find that hard to believe. ...

... Axios: "Former White House staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman claimed on MSNBC Sunday that she and other members of the Trump administration texted each other the hashtag '#tfa,' referring to the 25th Amendment, 'more than 100 times' during her tenure to discuss President Trump's 'unhinged' actions."

Andrew Restuccia, et al. of Politico: "Increasingly isolated and prone to conspiracy theories, President Donald Trump in recent weeks has become fixated on the idea that the country's largest tech giants -- Google, Facebook and Twitter -- are silencing his conservative base. Trump has come to view his supposed mistreatment at the hands of Silicon Valley as emblematic of a wide-reaching campaign to undermine his presidency.... Even though he doesn't use a computer and is seen by those around him as a tech neophyte, the president knows a powerful wedge issue when he sees one.... The president's embrace of anti-Silicon Valley rhetoric has been shaped by advisers who see it as the latest front in the country's long-running culture wars and believe it has the potential to rally conservative voters ahead of the midterms and the president's own reelection campaign in 2020." --safari

Jonathan Swan & Lauren Meier of Axios: "President Trump is expected to declassify, as early as this week, documents covering the U.S. government's surveillance of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and the investigative activities of senior Justice Department lawyer Bruce Ohr, according to allies of the president.... Republicans on the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees believe the declassification will permanently taint the Trump-Russia investigation by showing the investigation was illegitimate to begin with. Trump has been hammering the same theme for months." ...

... ** David Leonhardt of the New York Times: Donald Trump "could make his life easier if only he treated Vladimir Putin the way he treats most people who cause problems -- and cast Putin aside. Yet Trump can't bring himself to do so. This odd refusal is arguably the biggest reason to believe that Putin really does have leverage over Trump. Maybe it's something shocking.... Or maybe it's the scandal that's been staring us in the face all along: Illicit financial dealings -- money laundering -- between Trump's business and Russia. The latest reason to be suspicious is Trump's attacks on a formerly obscure Justice Department official named Bruce Ohr.... In his highly respected three-decade career in law enforcement, [Ohr] has specialized in going after Russian organized crime. It just so happens that most of the once-obscure bureaucrats whom Trump has tried to discredit also are experts in some combination of Russia, organized crime and money laundering." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Both Natasha Bertrand & Rachel Maddow ((and likely others) have made this point, but it bears repeating.

Jonathan Swan: "President Trump was bluffing when he tweeted that he knows the successor to White House counsel Don McGahn, and instead he is vacillating about new legal leaders.... McGahn is leaving soon, almost all of his deputies have departed and the office is nowhere near equipped for the storm that's likely coming.... Trump wants somebody who'll be unquestioningly loyal -- who'll be 'his guy' and defend him on TV, said a source familiar with his thinking." Mrs. McC: Yeah, & he wanted Jeff Sessions to do the same. The White House counsel represents the presidency, not the president. The attorney general is the government's chief lawyer, not the president's. But of course Trump can't get over his Louis XIV L'état, c'est moi monarchic view of the presidency, at least as long as he's the president.

Margaret Hartmann: "On Friday a lawyer for Essential Consultants, the company [Michael] Cohen set up to pay [Stormy] Daniels, sought to void the agreement in a legal filing, and get the $130,000 payment back. (Trump reimbursed Cohen for the $130,000, and it's unclear who would get the money if Daniels returned it.)... On Saturday, Trump's attorney Charles Harder said in a separate court filing that the president would not seek to enforce the agreement, and would not contest Daniels's 'assertion that the Settlement Agreement was never formed, or in the alternative, should be rescinded.' Harder called on Daniels to 'immediately dismiss' Trump from her lawsuit.... [Daniels' lawyer, Michael] Avenatti dismissed Trump's latest moves as an effort to avoid giving a deposition under oath, and said they would keep pursuing the case until they have 'full disclosure and accountability.'"

Juan Cole: "One of Trump's more dangerous features is his brittleness and thin skin.... But the most dangerous of all is his pettiness, the jabs at perceived enemies, no matter how minor. The treatment of 'plaid shirt guy' by Trump's staffers and the secret service assigned to him this weekend at Billings, Montana, is a case in point. Three local high schoolers attended the rally and unexpectedly ended up being very visible behind Trump. Senior Tyler Linfesty hammed it up, doing double takes or smiling knowingly when Trump told one of his famous whoppers. Trump's handlers, alarmed by the insufficiently beatific expression on Linfesty's face, came and got all three of the young students.... It is the kind of thing that happens in dictatorships all the time, though of course with worse consequences. But the difference is one of degree, not of kind." --safari

Josh Smith of Reuters: "With no long-range missiles on display, North Korea staged a military parade on Sunday focused on conventional arms, peace and economic development as it marked the 70th anniversary of the country's founding. The reduced display compared to past years earned a thank you note from ... Donald Trump, who hailed it as a 'big and very positive statement from North Korea.' Trump on Twitter quoted a Fox News description of the event without long-range nuclear missiles as a sign of North Korea's 'commitment to denuclearize.'" Mrs. McC: Once again, Trump got his daily briefing from Fox "News," not from intelligence staff. This is appalling.

Neal Boudette of the New York Times: "President Trump on Sunday suggested Ford Motor could begin making a small car in the United States instead of importing it from China. But the automaker quickly issued a statement saying it has no such plans. In August, Ford announced it had killed a plan to import the Focus Active, a roomy hatchback, saying the tariffs Mr. Trump has threatened to impose on vehicles built in China would increase costs too much for the company to hit its profit targets. Mr. Trump hailed the decision in a Twitter post on Sunday, apparently after he saw a report about the Focus Active on television. '"Ford has abruptly killed a plan to sell a Chinese-made small vehicle in the U.S. because of the prospect of higher U.S. tariffs." CNBC. This is just the beginning. This car can now be BUILT IN THE U.S.A. and Ford will pay no tariffs!'... After Mr. Trump's tweet, the company responded...: 'It would not be profitable to build the Focus Active in the U.S. given an expected annual sales volume of fewer than 50,000 units and its competitive segment.'..."...

     ... OR, as Trump's nice chief-of-staff would say, "Thanks for the advice, Mr. Prez*. You can shove it up your ass six different times."

Full Court Press. Reuters: "U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered that $25 million earmarked for the care of Palestinians in East Jerusalem hospitals be directed elsewhere as part of a review of aid, a State Department official said on Saturday.... Last month, the Trump administration said it would redirect $200 million in Palestinian economic support funds for programs in the West Bank and Gaza. And at the end of August, the Trump administration halted all funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).... Palestinian refugees have reacted with dismay to the funding cuts, warning they would lead to more poverty, anger and instability in the Middle East." --safari...

... David Tweed of Bloomberg: "The Trump administration is expected to announce that it will close the Palestine Liberation Organization's office in Washington, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing unidentified White House officials. Monday's announcement is expected to be made in prepared remarks by National Security Adviser John Bolton, and is part of a widening U.S. pressure campaign on Palestinian officials amid stalled Middle East peace efforts, the paper reported." [Open in private window.] --safari

Matthew Mosk & Kaitlyn Folmer of ABC News: "George Papadopoulos, the one-time foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump who became swept up in the special counsel investigation, says members of the Trump campaign team were 'fully aware' and in many cases supportive of his efforts to broker a summit [between Trump &] Russian President Vladimir Putin." (Also linked yesterday.)

Maria Kiselyova of Reuters: "U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry will visit Moscow from Sept. 11 to 13, Russian media reported on Sunday, citing a diplomatic source." Mrs. McC: I was just wondering whatever happened to Rick Perry. I guess he's been brushing up on his Russian.

Juan Cole: "Environmental activists protested Saturday in 90 countries and 800 cities across the globe and the United States against inaction on the Climate Crisis in the run-up to a major climate conference in San Francisco organized by Gov. Jerry Brown for Wednesday in the wake of Trump's violation of the Paris Climate Accords." --safari

2018 Election

Edward-Isaac Dovere: "Two days in, lots of prominent Republicans have complained about Barack Obama's speech on Friday calling Donald Trump's presidency a betrayal of America and a threat to its core -- but they haven't said he's wrong. Most prominent on that list is Trump himself, who, for a man his aides have often held up as someone who punches back, has so far said less to attack Obama than he has previously about the FBI, Steve Bannon, LeBron James or pretty much anyone else." Also, too, Trump can't spell "Barack." Mrs. McC: I wonder if that's why the investigators Trump supposedly sent to Hawaii couldn't find Obama's birth certificate. If you assume (and I don't, but it's an oft-repeated claim) that Trump ran for president because Obama pissed him off by making fun of his birther campaign at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, then it could be our national nightmare is the result of a misspelling.

Gubernatorial Races

New York. New York Times Editors: "This is dirty politics, nearly as sleazy as it gets. Days before [Gov. Andrew] Cuomo's primary race for re-election on Thursday, the New York State Democratic Committee has sent voters a campaign mailer falsely accusing his challenger, Cynthia Nixon, of being 'silent on the rise of anti-Semitism.' It says she supports the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement against Israel over its treatment of Palestinians. She does not. It accuses Ms. Nixon of opposing funding yeshivas, private religious schools attended by many of the city's Orthodox Jews. She has never said that. 'With anti-Semitism and bigotry on the rise, we can't take a chance,' the mailer reads. 'Re-Elect Governor Andrew Cuomo.' This is the lowest form of politics, and the most dangerous, exploiting the festering wounds and fears along ethnic and religious lines. 'I didn't know about the mailer,' Mr. Cuomo said at a news conference Sunday in Manhattan.... Sorry, Mr. Cuomo, but that strains credulity. Mr. Cuomo dominates the state Democratic Party." Nixon attends a synagogue. ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The New York Times Editors endorsed Cuomo. They are not rescinding their endorsement here. ...

... Benjamin Hart of New York has more on the fallout & backlash against the mailer. Mrs. McC: The question for New York Democrats is: would I rather have a sleazy governor or an incompetent one? If I were still a New York voter, I think I'd go for incompetent. Either would screw up, but at least the incompetent governor would (likely) do so honestly.

Florida. Beth Reinhard & Emma Brown of the Washington Post: "Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), a gubernatorial nominee who recently was accused of using racially tinged language, spoke four times at conferences organized by a conservative activist who has said that African Americans owe their freedom to white people and that the country's 'only serious race war' is against whites. DeSantis, elected to represent north-central Florida in 2012, appeared at the David Horowitz Freedom Center conferences in Palm Beach, Fla., and Charleston, S.C., in 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017, said Michael Finch, president of the organization. At the group's annual Restoration Weekend conferences, hundreds of people gather to hear right-wing provocateurs such as Stephen K. Bannon, Milo Yiannopoulos and Sebastian Gorka sound off on multiculturalism, radical Islam, free speech on college campuses and other issues. 'I just want to say what an honor it's been to be here to speak,' DeSantis said in a ­27-minute speech at the 2015 event in Charleston, a video shows. 'David has done such great work and I've been an admirer. I've been to these conferences in the past but I’ve been a big admirer of an organization that shoots straight, tells the American people the truth and is standing up for the right thing.'"

Ronan Farrow of the New Yorker: "Members of the board of the CBS Corporation are negotiating with the company's chairman and C.E.O., Leslie Moonves, about his departure. Sources familiar with the board's activities said the discussions about Moonves stepping down began several weeks ago, after an article published in the The New Yorker detailed allegations by six women that the media executive had sexually harassed them, and revealed complaints by dozens of others that the culture in some parts of the company tolerated sexual misconduct.... As the negotiations continue and shareholders and advocacy groups accuse the board of failing to hold Moonves accountable, new allegations are emerging. Six additional women are now accusing Moonves of sexual harassment or assault in incidents that took place between the nineteen-eighties and the early aughts. They include claims that Moonves forced them to perform oral sex on him, that he exposed himself to them without their consent, and that he used physical violence and intimidation against them. A number of the women also said that Moonves retaliated after they rebuffed him, damaging their careers." ...

... Brian Stelter of CNN: "Longtime CBS chief executive Les Moonves, facing new claims of sexual misconduct, is about to step down as part of a wide-ranging corporate settlement of a separate fight for control of CBS. The CBS board of directors is likely to announce the deal by Monday morning, according to three executives with direct knowledge of the matter. Lawyers were said to be putting the finishing touches on the settlement on Sunday. Internally, it is being called a 'global settlement,' meant to resolve months of litigation between Moonves and Shari Redstone, the controlling shareholder of CBS. Moonves and Redstone were locked in a tug of war even before July 27, when Ronan Farrow first reported on alleged harassment by Moonves. The CBS board initially resisted calls for Moonves to be suspended or forced out." ...

... Meg James of the Los Angeles Times: "Bowing to pressure brought on by a sexual harassment scandal, CBS Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Leslie Moonves is expected to resign late Sunday, according to two people familiar with the matter.... Moonves will leave without a severance package, according to the sources. The CBS board will wait to negotiate a financial settlement until the conclusion of an investigation by two prominent law firms into allegations of misconduct. In addition, CBS' board will get a makeover. Independent board members are poised to strike a separate settlement with its controlling shareholder family -- the Redstones. The deal being hammered out is expected to lead to a dramatic overhaul of CBS' board by installing six new board members, including several who are not aligned with the Redstone family." ...

... Update. Edmund Lee of the New York Times: "Leslie Moonves, the longtime chief executive of the CBS Corporation, stepped down on Sunday night from the company he led for 15 years. His fall from Hollywood's highest echelon was all but sealed after the publication earlier in the day of new sexual harassment allegations against him."

Eliott McLaughlin of CNN: "The US Open has fined Serena Williams $17,000 for three code violations during her loss in Saturday's women's singles final, the United States Tennis Association said. Saturday's match between Williams and Naomi Osaka in New York's Arthur Ashe Stadium was marred by controversy in the second set after umpire Carlos Ramos penalized Williams a point and then an entire game. Osaka beat Williams in straight sets -- 6-2, 6-4 -- to win her first Grand Slam title." ...

... Rebecca Traister of New York on the ump's sexist calls against Serena Williams: "The point isn't about the catsuit or the shirt or the broken racket or even the U.S. Open title. It's about the ways in which women's -- and especially nonwhite women's -- dress and bodies and behavior and expression and tone are still deemed unruly if they do not conform to the limited view of femininity established by men, especially if that unruliness suggests a direct threat to male authority." (Also linked yesterday.)

Bonnie Wertheim & Choire Sicha of the New York Times: "On Sunday night, Nia Franklin was crowned Miss America 2019. A classically trained opera singer, Ms. Franklin represented New York in the competition, focusing on equal opportunity and education in her interview questions.... The annual event and its parent organization have undergone a number of changes in the wake of the #MeToo movement. Sunday's Miss America was the first to suspend a 'swimsuit competition' since the first event, in 1921. Miss America has also been rebranded as a competition, rather than a pageant -- and yes, they're calling it Miss America 2.0. These changes followed internal reorganization over the last year. In December, the previous chief executive of the Miss America Organization, Sam Haskell, resigned after vicious and misogynist emails were made public.... The competition tonight did have fresh trappings.... Participants had platforms that were described as 'social impact statements.'"

Way Beyond the Beltway

Jon Henley of the Guardian: "Sweden faces a protracted period of political uncertainty after an election that left the two main parliamentary blocs tied but well short of a majority, and the far-right Sweden Democrats promising to wield 'real influence' in parliament despite making more modest gains than many had predicted. The populist, anti-immigrant party won 17.6% of the vote, according to preliminary official results -- well up on the 12.9% it scored in 2014, but far below the 25%-plus some polls had predicted earlier in the summer. It looked highly likely, however, to have a significant role in policymaking." --safari

News Ledes

New York Times: "With Hurricane Florence swiftly gaining strength and bearing down on the Southeast, Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina on Monday ordered more than a million people living in eight coastal counties to evacuate inland.... Evacuations were also ordered in parts of North Carolina as the region braced for a major destructive hurricane projected to make landfall late Thursday or Friday, with damaging winds, torrential rains and a potentially destructive storm surge." ...

      ... The Times has a hurricane tracker here.

Miami Herald: "The 2018 hurricane season blew into high gear on Sunday. In its 11 p.m. Sunday advisory, the National Hurricane Center upgraded Tropical Storm Isaac to a Category 1 hurricane, with winds of nearly 75 mph. Isaac became the fifth hurricane of the 2018 Atlantic Season and the third storm being actively tracked in a busy weather weekend. But the gravest threat to the U.S. remains Hurricane Florence, which is expected to strengthen considerably by Monday night and remain 'an extremely dangerous major hurricane' through Thursday, according to the Hurricane Center."

The Commentariat -- September 9, 2018

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

David Martin of CBS News interviews Bob Woodward:

Quint Forgey of Politico: "Vice President Mike Pence on Saturday denied participating in any conversation about invoking the 25th Amendment in a bid to oust ... Donald Trump. 'No. Never,' Pence told Margaret Brennan of CBS News in an interview to be broadcast Sunday on 'Face the Nation.'... [Anonymous] asserted that Trump's cabinet considered invoking the 25th Amendment early on in his administration because of the 'instability many witnessed.'” Mrs. McC: What with Karen Pence having long since finished sewing up new calico curtains for the Oval, I find that hard to believe.

Matthew Mosk & Kaitlyn Folmer of ABC News: "George Papadopoulos, the one-time foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump who became swept up in the special counsel investigation, says members of the Trump campaign team were 'fully aware' and in many cases supportive of his efforts to broker a summit [between Trump &] Russian President Vladimir Putin."

Rebecca Traister of New York on the Ump's Sexist Calls: "The point isn't about the catsuit or the shirt or the broken racket or even the U.S. Open title. It's about the ways in which women's -- and especially nonwhite women's -- dress and bodies and behavior and expression and tone are still deemed unruly if they do not conform to the limited view of femininity established by men, especially if that unruliness suggests a direct threat to male authority."

*****

Watergate All Over Again. Calvin Woodward & Nancy Benac of the AP: "The White House seethes with intrigue and backstabbing as aides hunt for the anonymous Deep (state) Throat among them. A president feels besieged by tormentors -- Bob Woodward is driving him crazy -- so he tends his version of an enemies list, wondering aloud if he should rid himself of his attorney general or the special prosecutor or both. For months, the Trump administration and its scandals have carried whiffs of Watergate and drawn comparisons to the characters and crimes of the Nixon era. But this week, history did not just repeat itself, it climbed out of the dustbin and returned in the flesh. There was John Dean again, testifying on the Hill, warning anew about a cancer on the presidency. Nearly every element in ... Donald Trump's trouble has a Watergate parallel. Special prosecutor Robert Mueller is leading an independent investigation sparked by a break-in at the Democratic National Committee, the same target that opened the Watergate can of worms, though this time the burglary was digital and linked to Moscow, not the Oval Office.... 'This is a president who says things publicly that we know from the tapes that Nixon said privately,' says Timothy Naftali, a New York University historian who directed the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum."

Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "In yet another turn in a legal battle that has plagued President Trump for months, Michael D. Cohen, his longtime fixer, offered late Friday night to tear up a nondisclosure agreement with a pornographic film star who has long claimed she had an affair with Mr. Trump. It remained unclear why Mr. Cohen made the abrupt move to scrap the hush-money deal with the star, Stephanie Clifford.... But one effect of voiding the arrangement would be that it could spare Mr. Trump the embarrassment of having to give a deposition in a lawsuit related to the case. In a letter dated Sept. 7, Mr. Cohen's lawyer, Brent H. Blakely, wrote to Ms. Clifford's lawyer, Michael Avenatti, saying that Mr. Cohen had agreed 'to accept the rescission' of the deal, which was reached in October 2016, a month before the presidential election.... Shortly after the letter was filed in Federal District Court in Los Angeles, Mr. Avenatti accused Mr. Cohen on Twitter of 'playing games and trying to protect Donald Trump.'"

Spencer Hsu & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "U.S. prosecutors have acknowledged they misunderstood text messages they used to claim in court that a Russian woman traded sex for access and should be jailed pending trial on charges she was a foreign agent attempting to infiltrate the National Rifle Association and other American conservative groups. The concession came in a late-night court filing Friday in which prosecutors said Maria Butina, 29, should stay in custody as a flight risk but wrote 'the government's understanding of this particular text conversation was mistaken.'"

Josh Gerstein, et al., of Politico: "Talk show host and liberal activist Randy Credico testified for more than two hours Friday before a grand jury run by special counsel Robert Mueller's office that appears to be zeroing in on former Trump adviser Roger Stone. Credico emerged from the questioning, describing it as something of an ordeal. 'It was like sitting on an electric chair for a couple of hours,' he told Politico.... Credico is a devoted advocate for [WikiLeaks founder Julian] Assange, and Stone's contacts with Credico have led to speculation that Credico served as an intermediary of sorts between Assange and Stone." (Also linked yesterday.)

Ernesto Londoño & Nicholas Casey of the New York Times: "The Trump administration held secret meetings with rebellious military officers from Venezuela over the last year to discuss their plans to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro, according to American officials and a former Venezuelan military commander who participated in the talks. Establishing a clandestine channel with coup plotters in Venezuela was a big gamble for Washington, given its long history of covert intervention across Latin America. Many in the region still deeply resent the United States for backing previous rebellions, coups and plots in countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, Brazil and Chile, and for turning a blind eye to the abuses military regimes committed during the Cold War.... One of the Venezuelan military commanders involved in the secret talks was hardly an ideal figure to help restore democracy: He is on the American government's own sanctions list of corrupt officials in Venzuela.... American officials eventually decided not to help the plotters, and the coup plans stalled. But the Trump administration's willingness to meet several times with mutinous officers intent on toppling a president in the hemisphere could backfire politically.... The White House, which declined to answer detailed questions about the talks, said in a statement that it was important to engage in 'dialogue with all Venezuelans who demonstrate a desire for democracy.'..." ...

... Because nothing says 'desire for democracy' quite so well as a military coup. -- Schlub, in today's Comments

Elise Viebeck of the Washington Post: "President Trump will provide written answers under oath in the defamation lawsuit brought by former 'Apprentice' contestant Summer Zervos, who claims Trump sexually assaulted her in 2007, a new court filing stated."

Gideon Resnick of the Daily Beast: "In the late summer of 2016, when Donald Trump's presidential bid appeared to be in shambles, campaign chairman Paul Manafort was dismissed and [Steve] Bannon was brought on board. Bannon, the former executive chairman of Breitbart News, had to cozy up to [Reince] Priebus and the RNC out of necessity.... Bannon, [Bob] Woodward wrote, 'wanted to be sure that the RNC was not going to leave Trump' because 'there were rumors about donors fleeing and how everyone in the party was trying to figure a way out of the Trump mess.'... 'As Bannon later remarked..., "I reached out and sucked Reince Preibus' dick on August 15 and told the establishment, we can't win without you."’” Mrs. McC: Yeah, I can picture it. Ewww!

Jennifer Bendery of the Huffington Post: "For all the speculation about Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and whether she'll vote for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, there is an issue beyond abortion rights perhaps weighing more heavily on her...: protections for Alaska Natives. Advocates for Alaska Natives, who were crucial to Murkowski's re-election in 2010, tell HuffPost they've been flooding her office all week and urging her to oppose Kavanaugh. They're raising concerns about his record on climate change, which is already causing real damage in Alaska. As a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Kavanaugh in 2017 held that the Environmental Protection Agency lacks the authority to regulate hydrofluorocarbons, chemicals linked to global warming. They're also unhappy with his record on voting rights. Kavanaugh voted in 2012 to uphold a South Carolina voter ID law that disenfranchised more than 80,000 minority registered voters. The most pressing matter, however, is a case the Supreme Court is reviewing on Nov. 5 that could devastate Alaska Natives' subsistence fishing rights. The case, Sturgeon v. Frost, raises questions about who has the authority to regulate water in national parks in the state ― the federal government or the state of Alaska." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Nope, not a fish fighting chilly weather (or a poet): "The case arose after Alaska resident John Sturgeon, who was on an annual moose-hunting trip, was riding a hovercraft on a river running through a national park when Park Service officials threatened to give him a citation. Sturgeon is arguing that his ability to use his hovercraft in this scenario is about states' rights and that federal authority should be eliminated." Murkowski is tougher than Susan Collins. When she lost her primary election in 2010 to a Tea Party winger, she ran as a write-in candidate, in defiance of Mitch McConnell & the gang. "Her write-in campaign was aided in large part with substantial monetary aid and assistance from the Native corporations and PACs...." ...

... digby: Alaska Natives "are also worried about health care since a large majority of Alaska natives benefit from Medicaid and Obamacare. (So do plenty of non-native Alaskans for that matter.) Breaking with the man who thinks it's funny and cool to call Elizabeth Warren 'Pocohontas' won't hurt her[.]" ...

... Joe Lawlor of the Portland (Maine) Press Herald: "Sen. Susan Collins of Maine on Friday said that she remains undecided on whether she will vote to confirm Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Collins acknowledged that many are lobbying her and want to know where she stands. Though she has read or watched most of Kavanaugh's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week, she has yet to review all of the material presented during the hearing." Mrs. McC: Uh-huh. ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: I meant to embed this Friday night. It's an incredible thing that answers the usually-unanswerable historical question: What would So-&-So think if s/he could see what's going on today? John Dean is not rolling over in his grave nearly half a century after his Watergate committee testimony: he's testifying:

... Jeff Toobin of the New Yorker: "The past week in Washington offered what appeared to be a startling contrast: on the one hand, tales of a President unhinged, issuing garbled, contradictory commands to appalled aides who were conspiring against him; on the other, a thoughtful Supreme Court nominee, calmly parrying the futile assaults of a frustrated senatorial minority. Donald Trump and Brett Kavanaugh looked and sounded very different, but those appearances deceived. Both men were pulling the country in the same direction, toward more inequality, more pollution, and, to put the matter bluntly, women once more dying from botched abortions."

Election 2018

Adam Nagourney of the New York Times: "Barack Obama came to the front lines of the Democratic battle to take back Congress on Saturday, describing the coming election as a pivotal moment for a divided nation and a chance 'to restore some sanity to our politics.' 'If we don't step up, things are going to get worse,' Mr. Obama said at a rally in California, a state where Democrats are hoping to capture seven seats now held by Republicans. 'Where there is a vacuum in our democracy, when we are not participating, we are not paying attention, other voices fill the void.'... From the start of his 23-minute speech, Mr. Obama, wearing a white shirt with an open collar, made clear he had set himself a different task: He was there to promote the candidacies of Democrats in California and across the country trying to win Republican seats. To that end, he named seven such Democrats running for the House, offering them brief and enthusiastic endorsements that were captured on Democratic Party cameras and that will presumably end up in candidate advertisements before long." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Very radical -- mentioning something about the candidates you're there to endorse instead of just talking about yourself. ...

David Cay Johnston of DCReport: "Donald Trump's tweets telling the super-rich to expect another big tax cut if Republicans hold onto the House and Senate is paying off for the GOP. National Republican fundraising continues to run well ahead of Democrats, who are saddled with debt, new Federal Election Commission reports show. Republicans have raised $1.1 billion this year, while the parallel Democratic Party organizations have yet to break the billion dollar mark. The Democrats are also saddled with 11 times as much debt as the GOP.... Money alone does not win elections, but it helps." --safari (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

MEANWHILE, Democrats have to win BIG. Carol Anderson, in a chapter from her book & published in the New York Times writes, Republicans have been working hard to suppress Democratic votes since at least the 1980s. And they've convinced their own voters that extraordinary measures are necessary: as Rick Perlstein & Livia Gershon wrote in an essay appearing in TPM & linked here yesterday, "... almost three quarters [of Republicans] said voter fraud happens 'somewhat' or 'very often.'" If you're inclined not to vote for local & state offices because you don't know who the candidates are & you're afraid you'll vote in a dummy, vote for the dumb Dem anyway. As long as Republicans control the election apparatus, they'll find multiple ways to suppress Democratic votes -- maybe even yours next time. It's not as simple as gerrymandering & voter IDs, as Anderson makes clear.

Sonia Rao of the Washington Post: "When asked on Friday, the final night of the preliminary competition [of the Miss America pageant], what she believed was the most serious issue facing the nation, Madeline Collins, Miss West Virginia..., [said] 'Donald Trump is the biggest issue facing our country today.'... Collins continued: 'Unfortunately, he has caused a lot of divide in our country, and until we can trust in him and the choices that he makes for our country, we cannot become united.' Because each contestant was given only 20 seconds to respond, Collins did not go into more detail.... On Thursday, when asked how the NFL should handle players kneeling during the national anthem, Miss Virginia, Emili McPhail, emphasized that the protests are not anti-patriotic, but are 'absolutely about police brutality.' 'Kneeling during the national anthem is absolutely a right that you have, to stand up for what you believe in, and to make the right decision that's right for you,' she said."

Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Eric Levitz of New York: Dr. Richard Sackler made billions on the opioid OxyContin, which he invented & marketed with deceptive ads & other propaganda vehicles claiming OxyContin was not addictive. "Thus, Sackler created immense value for his shareholders -- while providing the American people with a product they value so greatly, demand for it has remained robust, even as opioids began killing upwards of 40,000 Americans a year.... So, after creating billions of dollars in value by selling patented opioids, he's poised to make millions selling an innovative form of buprenorphine, a mild opiate that reduces cravings for harder opioids like OxyContin." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... But, but, Eric. He's a philanthropist! (You may not be surprised to learn that Rudy Giuliani was one of Sackler's defense lawyers.) (Also linked yesterday.)

Medlar's Sports Report. Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post: "Chair umpire Carlos Ramos managed to rob not one but two players in the women's U.S. Open final. Nobody has ever seen anything like it: An umpire so wrecked a big occasion that both players, Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams alike, wound up distraught with tears streaming down their faces during the trophy presentation and an incensed crowd screamed boos at the court. Ramos took what began as a minor infraction and turned it into one of the nastiest and most emotional controversies in the history of tennis, all because he couldn't take a woman speaking sharply to him.... When Williams ... busted her racket over losing a crucial game, Ramos docked her a point. Breaking equipment is a violation, and because Ramos already had hit her with [a] coaching violation, it was a second offense and so ratcheted up the penalty.... Williams vented, 'You stole a point from me. You're a thief.' There was absolutely nothing worthy of penalizing in the statement.... [But] he gave Williams that third violation for 'verbal abuse' and a whole game penalty, and now it was 5-3, and we will never know whether young Osaka really won the 2018 U.S. Open or had it handed to her by a man who was going to make Serena Williams feel his power." Ramos has taken worse from at least one male player-- Rafael Nadal -- & let it slide.

Beyond the Beltway

His Tinfoil Hat Has Shorted Out. Laura Vozzella of the Washington Post: "Fresh off a sit-down with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Virginia state Sen. Richard H. Black turned up on an Arab TV channel last week [to claim that] ... Britain's MI6 intelligence service was planning a chemical weapons attack on the Syrian people, which it would then blame on Assad. 'Around four weeks ago, we knew that British intelligence was working toward a chemical attack in order to blame the Syrian government, to hold Syria responsible,' Black said on Al Mayadeen, an Arab news channel based in Beirut. Black (R-Loudoun) said later that he meant the British were planning not to carry out an attack themselves, but to either direct rebels to do so or stage a phony attack, with actors posing as victims. Black also said some chemical attacks previously reported to have occurred in Syria were British fakes, pulled off with help from volunteer first responders known as White Helmets.... The State Department flatly rejected Black's allegations, which echoed what it called 'outrageous' Russian and Assad-regime claims that Britain and the United States have carried out chemical attacks with help from the White Helmets. ... Black, a decorated Vietnam War veteran and retired Pentagon lawyer, regards Assad as a protector of Syrian Christians and a buffer against Islamist extremism.... Five Democrats are competing to take him on next year in elections that will determine whether Republicans hold on to their two-seat majority in the Senate." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: If you are planning a Diogenes-type mission to find the dumbest person in the U.S.A., you could save some time by checking out Republicans in state legislatures.

Way Beyond

Vogue photograph.

... Maureen Dowd: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern "is part of the club of young, progressive leaders, along with Justin Trudeau and Emmanuel Macron, trying to counter President Trump's ugly impulses against the environment and multilateralism."

News Ledes

Weather Channel: "Florence has strengthened back into a hurricane and is forecast to rapidly intensify and could pose a serious danger for the U.S. East Coast where a direct strike is increasingly likely by mid- to late week. If you are near the U.S. East Coast, develop or review your hurricane preparedness plan and be ready to implement it if necessary." ...

... Washington Post Update: "Hurricane Florence is tracking toward the East Coast [link fixed] with invariability rarely seen in storms several days away from landfall. While forecasters were careful to cite 'high uncertainty' and 'low model confidence' last week, their tone changed after watching the storm's eventual path barely shift from what they had considered to be the worst-case scenario. On Sunday evening, the National Hurricane Center was forecasting Florence to become a strong Category 4 just prior to making landfall somewhere on the Southeast or Mid-Atlantic coast on Thursday."