The Commentariat -- August 6, 2018

Late Morning Update:

Hope Yen & Calvin Woodward of the AP run down a series of false & delusional remarks Trump has made in the past week. "... Donald Trump is imagining steel mill openings that aren't happening and in denial about Russia's role in the 2016 presidential election."

Like Akhilleus, in yesterday's commentary, Aaron Blake of the Washington Post is unimpressed with the Trump administration's newest "explanation" that "facts develop": "... the spokespeople and advisers tasked with squaring Trump's version of reality with actual reality must often contort themselves accordingly. Early in the administration, this meant Kellyanne Conway talking about how the administration had 'alternative facts.' Later, it was Sean Spicer explaining that he didn't 'knowingly' lie to the American people. On Sunday, they tried a couple of new tacks: asserting that 'facts develop' and saying that the president 'misspoke' -- while saying something he has said dozens of times.... Facts might have 'developed' from [Trump attorney Jay] Sekulow's perspective, but the actual events never changed.... national security adviser John Bolton offered another extremely hard-to-stomach explanation for Trump's soft stance toward Vladimir Putin on Russia's interference in the 2016 U.S. election, saying Trump merely 'misspoke.'... As the video clip [Chris] Wallace played shows, [the would-wouldn't claim] was hardly the only moment in the joint news conference with Putin in which Trump played down the idea that Russia interfered." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: "Misspeaking" means saying something you don't mean, often because you garbled what you intended to say. But politicians use "I misspoke" to explain away things they've said that they do mean but wish they hadn't admitted. Saying "would" for "wouldn't" would be a good example of misspeaking, would that it were not another Trump lie-excuse. One cannot repeatedly "misspeak" the same thing. "What a waste it is to lose one's mind" is misspeaking; making approving remarks about Putin over & over again is not.

Gardiner Harris of the New York Times: "The Trump administration said it would restore sanctions on Iran that had been lifted under the 2015 nuclear accord at midnight on Monday, ratcheting up pressure on Tehran while worsening a divide with Europe. The new sanctions are a consequence of President Trump's decision in May to withdraw from the nuclear deal with world powers. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday that the goal was to get Iran to change its ways -- namely, ending its support of brutal governments or uprisings in the Middle East. European officials have said that the Iran nuclear agreement is crucial to their national security. International inspectors have concluded that Iran is complying with the accord."

But will they wear long pants?Rebecca Morin of Politico: "Sen. Rand Paul, who has supported ... Donald Trump's effort to improve relations with Russia, announced Monday that Russian lawmakers have agreed to visit the U.S. Capitol.... He is currently in Moscow meeting with Russian officials...."

Steven Chase of the (Canadian) Globe & Mail: "Saudi Arabia has expelled Canada's ambassador and frozen new trade deals with [Canada] in a growing dispute over the Canadian government's criticism of human-rights violations in the Islamic kingdom. This comes in the wake of statements by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and her department last week where Ottawa called on the Saudis to release arrested civil-rights activists and signalled concern at a new crackdown in the Mideast country. In public statements on Sunday, Riyadh gave Canadian ambassador Dennis Horak 24 hours to leave the country and recalled its own envoy."

Ryan Broderick of BuzzFeed News: "It's Looking Extremely Likely That QAnon Is A Leftist Prank On Trump Supporters." Broderick posts some of the circumstantial evidence for this theory.

*****

Ashley Parker & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Sunday offered his most definitive and clear public acknowledgment that his oldest son met with a Kremlin-aligned lawyer at Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign to 'get information on an opponent.'... It is ... against the law for U.S. campaigns to receive donations or items of value from foreigners, and that June 2016 meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and Natalia Veselnitskaya is now a subject of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's Russia probe.... 'Fake News reporting, a complete fabrication, that I am concerned about the meeting my wonderful son, Donald, had in Trump Tower,' the president wrote in one of several early morning tweets Sunday, many of which took aim at the media. 'This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics -- and it went nowhere.' He concluded by further distancing himself from the meeting his son arranged, writing: 'I did not know about it!'... ... In one tweet, [Trump] declared the media the 'Enemy of the People' and accused them of sowing division and distrust. 'They can also cause War!' Trump wrote. 'They are very dangerous & sick!' In another, he expressed frustration with both the media and Mueller's probe. 'Too bad a large portion of the Media refuses to report the lies and corruption having to do with the Rigged Witch Hunt -- but that is why we call them FAKE NEWS!'... On Sunday, one of the president's attorneys [Jay Sekulow] defended the 2016 meeting as something that would not have been illegal under any federal statute.... Sekulow on Sunday also noted that he himself had given a misleading statement a year ago when, on 'This Week' and other media appearances, he said that Trump had nothing to do with the misleading statement given to the New York Times." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... OR, as Marcy Wheeler put it, "Trump tweets a confession, then Sekulow admits his client has been lying about his involvement.... Amid a series of batshit tweets just now, in an attempt to rebut reporting in this [WashPo] story, Trump admitted that his spawn took a meeting with people described as 'part of Russia and its government's support' for his father to obtain dirt on his opponent." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Michael Shear & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "It is illegal for a campaign to accept help from a foreign individual or government. The president and his son have maintained that the campaign did not ultimately receive any damaging materials about Mrs. Clinton as a result of the meeting. But some legal experts contend that by simply sitting for the meeting, Donald Trump Jr. broke the law.... Mr. Trump's tweet on Sunday was one in a series in which he renewed his attacks on Mr. Mueller, saying his inquiry was riddled with 'lies and corruption.'" Mrs. McC: And here we are again, with Trump accusing of others of bad behavior that accurately characterizes is own.

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Trump appears to have broken some new ground here when it comes to admitting the true purpose of the Trump Tower meeting with a Kremlin-aligned lawyer -- and even further contradicted the initial statement he helped draft about it.... The second issue here are the final words of the tweet. 'I did not know about it!'... If you've got no real concern about legal exposure from the meeting, why distance yourself from it?... [This suggests] he isn't as convinced as he'd like us to believe that there's nothing to see here." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Adam Davidson of the New Yorker: "August 5, 1974, was the day the Nixon Presidency ended. On that day, Nixon heeded a Supreme Court ruling and released the so-called smoking-gun tape, a recording of a meeting, held two years earlier, with his chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman.... On August 5, 2018, precisely forty-four years after the collapse of the Nixon Presidency, another President, Donald Trump, made his own public admission.... The President's Sunday-morning tweet should be seen as a turning point.... It ends any possibility of an alternative explanation.... What do we do when a President has openly admitted to attempted collusion, lying, and a coverup?" Mrs. McC: If you're a GOP MoC, you place your fat ass firmly on your dirty hands, turns your eyes to the heavens & whistle "Dixie." ...

     ... If you're Rudy, you make faces. J.M. Rieger of the Washington Post: "Over the past three months, President Trump has sent his lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani on a public-relations campaign to undermine the investigations surrounding Trump before they even conclude. Part of Giuliani's rhetorical tactics ... include dramatic facial expressions, laughs, sighs and over-the-top reactions, which he employs liberally and are meant to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the questions or topics in interviews...." ...

... Jeet Heer: "... an intriguing timeline of events: 1) On June 9, 2016, Donald Trump Jr. and other Trump campaign officials meet with a Russian group led by Natalia Veselnitskaya to get opposition research on Hillary Clinton. 2) On July 8, 2017, the president dictates a statement giving a false account of that meeting. His lawyer Jay Sikulow subsequently make the false statement that Trump had no role in dictating that false statement. 3) On August 5, 2018, Trump admits the meeting was about collecting opposition research and Sikulow admits Trump had a role in crafting the false statement. If Robert Mueller wants to pursue an obstruction of justice charge against Trump and others in his White House, he has a lot of material to work with." Mrs. McC: Nonethless, it's not against the law to lie to the news media. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... David Lurie of Slate: "On Sunday, Donald Trump's lawyer Jay Sekulow admitted that ... Trump ghostwrote, and instructed his son Donald Trump Jr. to issue, a false statement to the press about an active criminal investigation. Then, after the falsity of Trump Jr.'s statement was uncovered, the president seemingly lied to Sekulow, telling his lawyer that he had played no role in drafting it, and thereby induced Sekulow to repeat that falsehood to the nation. While Sekulow argues that there was nothing illegal about the president's conduct here, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has argued the opposite.... Kavanaugh drafted the section of the Starr Report that set out the legal theories supporting the independent counsel's claim that Bill Clinton had committed offenses that could merit impeachment. Central to that argument was a claim that Clinton had obstructed justice by attempting to encourage a witness to lie, as well as by lying to the nation himself.... The Starr Report's obstruction theory ... is far more compelling when applied to President Trump's role in the Trump Jr. statement." ...

... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I've been seeing some hoohah recently -- a column by the WashPo's Mark Thiessen last week, for instance -- that "Hillary did the same thing," except that she used cutouts -- a lawyer & an oppo research team -- to get dirt on Trump from foreign national Christopher Steele. This is a false equivalency, as conservative columnist Eli Lake wrote in Bloomberg last October: "'There is a real meaningful distinction,' said [Adav] Noti, [a former FEC lawyer,].... 'The Clinton campaign based on what has been reported, paid for opposition research, which included paying people to dig up dirt in foreign countries.'... Noti said that if the Trump officials solicited the information, 'the act itself was unlawful.'" An organization Noti heads up is suing the Clinton campaign for hiding the payments, not for collecting the info in the dossier. It is not against U.S. law for foreign nationals to work for a contractor (or in this case, a subcontractor), at least as long as they're not "decision-makers." As Lake (or his headline writer) put it, "Both Campaigns Sought Russian Dirt. Clinton's Way Was Legal."

Roey Hadar of ABC News: "A member of President Trump's legal team said that if special counsel Robert Mueller subpoenas Trump to testify in the Russia investigation, it would spark a legal battle that would go to the Supreme Court. Lawyer Jay Sekulow told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos on 'This Week' Sunday that the president's legal team's inclination at this point is not to have the president meet with Mueller. If Mueller were to try to compel the president's testimony, there would be a legal fight over the constitutionality of requiring such an act of a sitting president, Sekulow said."

Jonathan Swan of Axios: "... President Trump likes to watch replays of his debate and rally performances. But instead of looking for weaknesses in technique or for places to improve, Trump luxuriates in the moments he believes are evidence of his brilliance.... >Trump commentates as he watches, according to sources who've sat with him and viewed replays on his TiVo, which is pre-loaded with his favorites on the large TV in the private dining room adjoining the Oval Office. When watching replays, Trump will interject commentary, reveling in his most controversial lines. 'Wait for it. ... See what I did there?' he'll say."

Melanie Resists. Sort of. Jonathan Lemire & Darlene Superville of the AP: "First lady Melania Trump's move to distance herself from ... Donald Trump's criticism of NBA superstar LeBron James was the latest instance of her quiet but seemingly concerted effort to subtly create space between herself and her husband, careful not to criticize him directly while making clear she does not agree with him." ...

... BUT Melanie Was Following an Old GOP Playbook. Christina Cauterucci of Slate: "In the past week, both Melania and Ivanka Trump have burnished their reputations as the smarter, better Trumps by contradicting the president's views in public.... These statements from the women closest to Donald Trump are deliberate decoys meant to soften the president's image, conferring him humanity by association.... By making public statements that gently criticize her father, and by leaking through anonymous sources that she disagrees with him, all while continuing to stand by him in every way that matters, Ivanka has helped clear the way for her father's agenda.... Melania's statement in support of LeBron James on Saturday ... feign[ed] ignorance of the reason why anyone was talking about James' intelligence in the first place.... The strategy of dispatching a female family member to stage a public disagreement has historically been popular with Republican politicians.... A Trump family member who publicly criticizes the president does far more to ease the consciences of people who will always support Donald Trump than to nudge voters or the GOP toward any policy change." ...

... Racist-in-Chief. Annie Karni of Politico: "The content of ... Donald Trump's dig at basketball superstar LeBron James might have been standard Trump fare -- questioning the intelligence of a prominent African-American who has been critical of him -- but the timing of the tweet made it stand out on Friday night. The post landed almost exactly a year after the deadly clash between white nationalists and Black Lives Matter protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, when the president refused to condemn white supremacists and neo-Nazis outright.... Trump ... is less constrained than he was after Charlottesville.... The advisers who tried to serve as a check on his rash impulses have since left the administration and have been replaced with people more likely to let Trump set his own agenda. And, as he did on Friday, the president has continued to inflame racial tensions -- something Democrats and Republicans alike see as fundamental to his power.... The experience of Charlottesville, as well as his ability to recover from any short-term crisis, has been empowering for Trump and his allies." ...

... Plus Misogynist-in-Chief. Charles Blow: "A review of the many insults Trump has spouted since he declared his candidacy finds that although he has called many people dumb, or dummies or low I.Q., the targeting of that particular insult at women, including minority women, occurs with curious frequency and is often a singular line of attack against them, rather than one of many.... I read in these comments an overt misogyny that has long existed in this country and the world, one that seeks to undercut the seriousness and cerebral capacity of women, to render them as emotionally unsuitable for deep deliberative analysis. It would be laughable, if so many people didn't vehemently insist that the myth has meaning."

How the Kleptocracy Works. Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "Two of America's biggest steel manufacturers -- both with deep ties to administration officials -- have successfully objected to hundreds of requests by American companies that buy foreign steel to exempt themselves from President Trump's stiff metal tariffs.... Charlotte-based Nucor, which financed a documentary film made by a top trade adviser to Mr. Trump, and Pittsburgh-based United States Steel, which has previously employed several top administration officials, have objected to 1,600 exemption requests filed with the Commerce Department over the past several months. To date, their efforts have never failed, resulting in denials for companies that are based in the United States but rely on imported pipes, screws, wire and other foreign steel products for their supply chains." Mrs. McC: Trump's trade war isn't as stupid as it is opportunistic.

"The Trump Slump." David Leonhardt of the New York Times: "For most Americans, [the economy] is downright mediocre, and it has deteriorated somewhat since President Trump took office, despite the healthy G.D.P. and unemployment statistics.... Hourly wages are suffering through a Trump slump.... [Trump] hourly wages are suffering through a Trump slump.... [Combine two factors] -- faster inflation plus mediocre nominal-wage growth -- and you get a stagnation in real wages. Welcome to the Trump wage slump." ...

... ** Frank Rich: "The mood in America is arguably as dark as it has ever been in the modern era. The birthrate is at a record low, and the suicide rate is at a 30-year high; mass shootings and opioid overdoses are ubiquitous.... Today's America is ... marked by fear and despair more akin to what followed the crash of 1929, when unprecedented millions of Americans lost their jobs and homes after the implosion of businesses ranging in scale from big banks to family farms.... The one conviction that still unites all Americans: Everything in the country is broken. Not just Washington, which failed to prevent the financial catastrophe and has done little to protect us from the next, but also race relations, health care, education, institutional religion, law enforcement, the physical infrastructure, the news media, the bedrock virtues of civility and community.... Perhaps the sole upside to the 2008 crash was that it discredited the Establishment of both parties by exposing its decades-long collusion with a kleptocratic economic order." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Rich is as tough on President Obama as he is on Trump, & IMO Rich's critique is right on. I recall then-Sen. Byron Dorgan's (D-ND) plaint to Obama, who was then choosing his DINO insider Cabinet: "You've picked the wrong people. I don't understand how you could do this. You've picked the wrong people!" ...

... Michael Tomasky in the New York Times: "... the kind of capitalism that has been practiced in this country over the last few decades has made socialism look far more appealing, especially to young people." Thanks to Patrick for the link.

"The Trump Slump," Ctd. Elizabeth Drew in the Daily Beast: "Despite a world-wide boom in travel, ever since our forty-fift president was elected, tourism to the United States from foreign countries has steadily dropped.... Trump's rhetoric and new policies and rules and regulations regarding travel have combined to blot America's long-standing image as a welcoming nation. And of course his travel ban.... While some attribute the recent drop in tourism to the U.S. to a strong dollar, in fact, the dollar was strong in 2015, when our tourism growth was at its apex, and it was strong in 2016. Yet when it declined in 2017, which should have helped tourism, foreign tourism to the U.S. dropped steeply that year.... The Pew Research Center Reserve found earlier this year that a survey of ten nations showed that a favorable opinion of the US occurred in only one country: Russia...." (Also linked yesterday.)

I Always Figured Steve Seagal Was Dumb as a Rock. Melissa Gomez of the New York Times: "On Saturday, Russian officials tapped ... action-movie star Steven Seagal ... [as] special representative to improve relations between the United States and Russia. The Russian Foreign Ministry announced the appointment on Facebook, saying his mission will include promoting 'relations between Russia and the United States in the humanitarian field, including cooperation in culture, arts, public and youth exchanges.'... 'I've always had a very strong desire to do all I can to help improve Russian-American relations,' he told the Kremlin-backed television station RT.... Mr. Seagal's grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants, according to a biography on IMDB." Mrs. McC: I'm sure -- after escaping Russian persecution -- they're rolling over in their graves. Anyway, I'll bet Steve is looking forward to his White House tour.

Elana Schor of Politico: "Senate Democrats are gearing up to press Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on his decades-long relationship with former Judge Alex Kozinski, who was forced into retirement last year by a mounting sexual harassment scandal. It’s not just what, if anything, Kavanaugh saw during his time as a Kozinski clerk in the early 1990s that's on Democratic minds. They also want to know how ... Donald Trump's high court pick would address the judiciary's ongoing internal reckoning with sexual misconduct that was sparked by Kozinski -- one of Kavanaugh's early mentors who introduced the younger appellate court judge at his Senate confirmation hearing in 2006.... Whether Kavanaugh should have known about Kozinski's behavior and was indirectly 'complicit' has been much discussed in prominent legal circles. No evidence has come out to disprove the broad denial on behalf of Kavanaugh...."

Congressional Race. Margaret Hartmann: "An August special election for a congressional seat Republicans have held for decades isn't the kind of thing that would usually draw any interest from GOP leaders.... But with House Speaker Paul Ryan, Vice President Mike Pence, and even President Trump showing up in Ohio's 12th Congressional District in recent days, it's obvious that Republicans are very concerned about losing Tuesday's special election, the last before voters head to the polls in November.... President Trump won the district in the Columbus suburbs by 11 points in 2016, but Tuesday's election is a toss up. A month ago, a Monmouth University poll had Troy Balderson, a 56-year-old Republican state senator, leading his opponent by 10 points. But a Monmouth poll released Wednesday showed Danny O'Connor, the 31-year-old Democratic candidate, trailing Balderson by only one point."

Senate Races

Virginia. The White Supremacists' Party. Danny Hakim & Stephanie Saul of the New York Times: Corey Stewart, Virginia's Republican nominee for Democrat Tim Kaine's Senate seat, "has styled himself as a champion of the Confederacy and its statues, and, as he puts it, 'taking back our heritage' [which is odd, since like Kaine, Stewart is from Minnesota.] This has made him a popular figure with white nationalists, much to the horror of many Virginia Republicans. While Mr. Stewart has disavowed some on the extreme right, interviews with dozens of his friends, colleagues, supporters and fellow Republicans yielded a portrait of a political opportunist eager to engage the coarsest racial fringes of his party to advance his Trumpian appeal. Some white nationalists volunteer for Mr. Stewart's campaign, and several of his aides and advisers have used racist or anti-Muslim language, or maintained links to outspoken racists like Jason Kessler, the organizer of last year's violent rally in Charlottesville, Va. Mr. Stewart has not distanced himself from those aides."

Florida. Patricia Mazzei of the New York Times: "Faced with a formidable challenge by the wealthy governor [Rick Scott (R)], [Sen. Bill] Nelson, a three-term incumbent, has been pushed into the unexpected position of underdog in one of the most closely watched Senate races of the midterms. After 18 years in office, Mr. Nelson remains less known than his opponent, and he is at risk of losing his seat in a battleground state where Democrats, fueled by anti-Trump energy, have notched four recent bellwether election victories.... Panicked Democrats started appealing to Mr. Nelson's team earlier in the summer to ratchet up the campaign.... Mr. Nelson is a low-key, gentlemanly product of an earlier Florida and a different Democratic Party." Mrs. McC: I was so alarmed by the race I sent Nelson money last week, & I'm a cheapskate.

State Races. Julie Turkewitz & Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "Almost a year into an antiharassment movement that has prompted a coast-to-coast cultural reckoning..., more than a dozen politicians who have been accused of misconduct ... are running for state legislatures again anyway.... Some candidates hope that voters will accept their apologies. Others believe constituents will dismiss the allegations as untrue -- or deem them unimportant.... [For example,] investigators [into allegations about Arizona State Rep. Don Shooter (R)] found many of the allegations to be credible, and in February, Mr. Shooter's colleagues voted by 56-3 to expel him. Mr. Shooter, who had apologized for any demeaning comments, then dropped his microphone in a defiant clatter. Security guards escorted him off the Capitol grounds. 'I've been thrown out of better places than this,' he told a reporter. Now Mr. Shooter is running for office again, hoping to jump from the State House to the State Senate...." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Shooter thinks himself quite the wag. "... the publisher of The Arizona Republic, Mi-Ai Parrish, who is Korean-American, met with Mr. Shooter to discuss a bill affecting newspapers. In the meeting, Mr. Shooter ... [said he] had done most everything on his bucket list. When Ms. Parrish asked what he had not done, he responded: 'Those Asian twins in Mexico.'"

Isaac Stanley-Becker of the Washington Post: "Apple has wiped iTunes and its podcasting app virtually clean of content by Alex Jones, in one of the most aggressive moves by technology companies and streaming services against the conspiracy theorist and owner of the right-wing media platform Infowars. As of early Monday, just one of the six Infowars programs once listed by Apple remained, RealNews with David Knight. The decision to completel pull the other shows, including 'The Alex Jones Show' and 'War Room,' represents a broader effort than those made by other companies in recent days to stop disseminating material associated with Jones, whom the Southern Poverty Law Center calls 'the most prolific conspiracy theorist in contemporary America.'... 'Apple does not tolerate hate speech, and we have clear guidelines that creators and developers must follow to ensure we provide a safe environment for all of our users,' a spokesperson [for Apple] said."

AND Andy Borowitz is back: "Asserting that 'heroic measures' were needed to save the National Rifle Association from financial catastrophe, the N.R.A.'s president, Oliver North, announced plans to sell arms to Iran." (Satire.)

Beyond the Beltway

Hannah Leone, et al., of the Chicago Tribune: "Starting about midnight Saturday, at least 40 people were shot citywide [in Chicago], four fatally, in a period of less than seven hours as gunmen targeted groups at a block party, after a funeral, on a front porch and in other gatherings, according to authorities."

Two Views of the Same Parade

     ... Corey Pein of the Daily Beast: "Hundreds of armed supporters of ... Donald Trump, led by a fringe Republican congressional candidate, marched on [Portland, Oregon] Saturday, leaving blood from scattered street fights in their wake. Ostensibly a campaign event for long-shot U.S. Senate hopeful Joey Gibson, members of his group Patriot Prayer urged the president to lock up his political opponents, including Hillary Clinton, and promised violent retribution for anyone who threatened their right to 'free speech' or armed self-defense. Groups of Trump supporters swarmed through the streets, singling out people of color to fight, some of whom appeared to belong to small vigilante squads of local anti-fascists, as well as others who appeared to be mere passersby. Police announced four arrests, but gave no estimate of injuries." ...

     ... Kale Williams of the Oregonian: "The concussive crack of stun grenades echoed through the streets of downtown Portland Saturday as groups on opposing sides of the political spectrum took to the streets. But despite weeks of heated rhetoric, the protest -- which was organized by right-wing Patriot Prayer and countered by groups on the left -- resulted in little violence between the two groups. Past clashes have quickly devolved to open fistfights and mayhem. The protest, billed ostensibly as a rally for free speech and campaign event for Joey Gibson, the leader of Patriot Prayer and Republican U.S. Senatorial candidate from Vancouver, saw hundreds of his supporters, many of whom came from out of state, bussed in from across the border decked out in helmets, crash pads and shields festooned with the Confederate battle flag.... The biggest dust-up came when police in riot gear ordered a group of counter-protesters to disperse around 2 p.m. The group, which was tightly clustered near the intersection of Southwest Naito Parkway and Southwest Columbia Street, did not immediately leave and officers quickly began firing dozens of flash-bang grenades and rushing toward the crowd, shoving some protesters out of the street." ...

     ... Update: Andrew Selsky of the AP: "Portland police were accused Sunday of being heavy-handed against people protesting a rally by extreme-right demonstrators, reportedly injuring some counter-protesters and prompting the city's new police chief to order a review of officers' use of force. Police in riot gear tried to keep the two groups apart, many of whom had come on Saturday dressed for battle in helmets and protective clothing. Dozens of the extreme-right protesters were bussed to Portland, one of America's most liberal cities, from nearby Vancouver, Washington.... But on Saturday, some said police seemed to act mostly against those protesting the presence of the extreme-right demonstrators, using stun grenades and what appeared to be rubber bullets against them.... Police Chief Danielle Outlaw, who assumed command less than a year ago as Portland's first African-American female police chief, said in a statement Sunday she [had] ...directed the professional standards division to begin gathering evidence to determine if the force used was within policy and training guidelines."

Way Beyond

Kit Gillet of the New York Times: "The graffiti in a northwestern town in Romania -- ugly, obscene and anti-Semitic -- was clearly meant to shock. It was scrawled late Friday evening on the outside wall of the childhood home of a man who had been imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp an spent the rest of his life preaching against hate: the Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel. The building in Sighetu Marmatiei, Romania, is now a protected historical monument and museum. The graffiti read in part, 'Nazi Jew lying in hell with Hitler' and 'Public toilet, anti-Semite pedophile.'"

News Ledes

NBC News: "The death toll from an earthquake that struck the Indonesian resort islands of Lombok and Bali was expected to rise above 91 on Monday as new information came in from areas where thousands of buildings collapsed or were badly damaged, authorities said. Rescue workers found chaos and destruction across Lombok on Monday and the quake prompted an exodus of tourists rattled by the second powerful temblor in a week. The tremor was so powerful it was felt on neighboring Bali, where two people died."

USA Today: "Charlotte Rae, the redheaded comedian beloved as the good-natured housemother Mrs. Garrett on TV's 'Facts of Life' and 'Diff'rent Strokes,' has died at 92."

The Commentariat -- August 5, 2018

Afternoon Update:

Ashley Parker & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Sunday offered his most definitive and clear public acknowledgment that his oldest son met with a Kremlin-aligned lawyer at Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign to 'get information on an opponent.'... It is ... against the law for U.S. campaigns to receive donation or items of value from foreigners, and that June 2016 meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and Natalia Veselnitskaya is now a subject of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's Russia probe.... 'Fake News reporting, a complete fabrication, that I am concerned about the meeting my wonderful son, Donald, had in Trump Tower,' the president wrote in one of several early morning tweets Sunday, many of which took aim at the media. 'This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics -- and it went nowhere.' He concluded by further distancing himself from the meeting his son arranged, writing: 'I did not know about it!'... ... In one tweet, [Trump] declared the media the 'Enemy of the People' and accused them of sowing division and distrust. 'They can also cause War!' Trump wrote. 'They are very dangerous & sick!' In another, he expressed frustration with both the media and Mueller's probe. 'Too bad a large portion of the Media refuses to report the lies and corruption having to do with the Rigged Witch Hunt -- but that is why we call them FAKE NEWS!'... On Sunday, one of the president's attorneys [Jay Sekulow] defended the 2016 meeting as something that would not have been illegal.... Sekulow on Sunday also noted that he himself had given a misleading statement a year ago when, on 'This Week' and other media appearances, he said that Trump had nothing to do with the misleading statement given to the New York Times." ...

... OR, as Marcy Wheeler put it, "Trump tweets a confession, then Sekulow admits his client has been lying about his involvement.... Amid a series of batshit tweets just now, in an attempt to rebut reporting in this [WashPo] story, Trump admitted that his spawn took a meeting with people described as 'part of Russia and its government's support' for his father to obtain dirt on his opponent." ...

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Trump appears to have broken some new ground here when it comes t admitting the true purpose of the Trump Tower meeting with a Kremlin-aligned lawyer -- and even further contradicted the initial statement he helped draft about it.... The second issue here are the final words of the tweet. 'I did not know about it!'... If you've got no real concern about legal exposure from the meeting, why distance yourself from it?... [This suggests] he isn't as convinced as he'd like us to believe that there's nothing to see here." ...

... Jeet Heer: "... an intriguing timeline of events: 1) On June 9, 2016, Donald Trump Jr. and other Trump campaign officials meet with a Russian group led by Natalia Veselnitskaya to get opposition research on Hillary Clinton. 2) On July 8, 2017, the president dictates a statement giving a false account of that meeting. His lawyer Jay Sikulow subsequently make the false statement that Trump had no role in dictating that false statement. 3) On August 5, 2018, Trump admits the meeting was about collecting opposition research and Sikulow admits Trump had a role in crafting the false statement. If Robert Mueller wants to pursue an obstruction of justice charge against Trump and others in his White House, he has a lot of material to work with." Mrs. McC: Nonetheless, it's not against the law to lie to the news media.

... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I've been seeing some hoohah recently -- a column by the WashPo's Mark Thiessen last week, for instance -- that "Hillary did the same thing," except that she used cutouts -- a lawyer & an oppo research team -- to get dirt on Trump from foreign national Christopher Steele. This is a false equivalency, as conservative columnist Eli Lake wrote in Bloomberg last October: "'There is a real meaningful distinction,' said [Adav] Noti, [a former FEC lawyer,].... 'The Clinton campaign, based on what has been reported, paid for opposition research, which included paying people to dig up dirt in foreign countries.'... Noti said that if the Trump officials solicited the information, 'the act itself was unlawful.'" An organization Noti heads up is suing the Clinton campaign for hiding the payments, not for collecting the info in the dossier. It is not against U.S. law for foreign nationals to work for a contractor (or in this case, a subcontractor), at least as long as they're not "decision-makers." As Lake (or his headline writer) put it, "Both Campaigns Sought Russian Dirt. Clinton's Way Was Legal."

"The Trump Slump." Elizabeth Drew in the Daily Beast: "Despite a world-wide boom in travel, ever since our forty-fifth president was elected, tourism to the United States from foreign countries has steadily dropped.... Trump's rhetoric and new policies and rules and regulations regarding travel have combined to blot America's long-standing image as a welcoming nation. And of course his travel ban.... While some attribute the recent drop in tourism to the U.S. to a strong dollar, in fact, the dollar was strong in 2015, when our tourism growth was at its apex, and it was strong in 2016. Yet when it declined in 2017, which should have helped tourism, foreign tourism to the U.S. dropped steeply that year.... The Pew Research Center Reserve found earlier this year that a survey of ten nations showed that a favorable opinion of the US occurred in only one country: Russia...."

Bill Maher has a credible theory on why Republicans like Russia:

*****

One More Rally Just Like the Other Ones. Ashley Parker & Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "President Trump used his third campaign rally this past week to relive his 2016 election-night victory, press his hard-line immigration policies and take aim at his favorite villains -- everyone from the Democrats and the 'Russian witch hunt' to the coastal elites and the 'fake news media.' The 70-minute rally Saturday night was ostensibly to boost the candidacy of Ohio state Sen. Troy Balderson, who faces a special election for a House seat on Tuesday, but Trump placed himself center stage -- physically and figuratively -- as he touted what he said were his achievements and pressed his personal grudges. He praised the enthusiastic if sweaty crowd in the sweltering gymnasium -- 'You are the elite,' he told them, adding that they were 'smarter' and earned 'bigger incomes' than the self-proclaimed elite in the swamp of Washington -- before turning the topic back to himself." More on the rally linked below under Congressional Race. ...

... Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "In private, President Trump spent much of the past week brooding.... He has been anxious about the Russia ­investigation’s widening fallout, with his former campaign chairman standing trial. And he has fretted that he is failing to accrue enough political credit for what he claims as triumphs.... Yet in public..., The president, more than ever, is channeling his internal frustration and fear into a ravenous maw of grievance and invective. He is churning out false statements with greater frequency and attacking his perceived enemies with intensifying fury. A fresh broadside came on Twitter at 11:37 p.m. Friday, mocking basketball superstar LeBron James and calling CNN's Don Lemon 'the dumbest man on television.'... Trump ... has decamped to his New Jersey golf estate for an 11-day working vacation...." Mrs. McC: The headline might as well have been, "The POTUS* Is Nuts." ...

... Christina Caron of the New York Times: "President Trump lashed out at the basketball star LeBron James in a scathing attack on Twitter on Friday night after Mr. James criticized the president in an interview on CNN. In a wide-ranging interview with Don Lemon, an anchor on CNN, Mr. James spoke about a school for at-risk children that he recently helped open in his hometown, Akron, Ohio, in a partnership between his philanthropic foundation and the city's public schools. During the interview on Monday, he also said Mr. Trump was using sports to divide the country. 'Lebron James was just interviewed by the dumbest man on television, Don Lemon,' Mr. Trump wrote. 'He made Lebron look smart, which isn't easy to do. I like Mike!'... The reference to 'Mike' appeared to be Mr. Trump's way of taking sides in the debate over who is the greatest basketball player of all time: Mr. James or Michael Jordan. Through a representative, Mr. Jordan told reporters: 'I support L.J. He's doing an amazing job for his community.'... His tweet about Mr. James and Mr. Lemon came days after he declared at a campaign rally that Representative Maxine Waters of California, a Democrat who is black, had a 'very low I.Q.' The latest attacks, directed at prominent black people, appeared to widen the racial divide that Mr. James spoke about on CNN.... Mr. Lemon came to Mr. James's defense on Saturday morning, tweeting: 'Who's the real dummy? A man who puts kids in classrooms or one who puts kids in cages?' He added the hashtag #BeBest, a reference to an initiative by the first lady, Melania Trump, that aims to help children." ...

... Melanie Strikes Back. Alex Horton & T.J. Ortenzi of the Washington Post: "First lady Melania Trump issued a statement Saturday in support of LeBron James, after President Trump posted a late-night tweet attacking the basketball star.... 'It looks like LeBron James is working to do good things on behalf of our next generation,' said Melania Trump's spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham. 'And just as she always has, the First Lady encourages everyone to have an open dialogue about issues facing children today.' Grisham went on to say that the first lady supports 'responsible online behavior' as part of her Be Best initiative, and said that Melania Trump would be open to visiting James's new school." ...

... Jacqueline Thomsen of the Hill: "NBA legend Bill Russell praised LeBron James and CNN host Don Lemon after President Trump attacked the two men.... Russell also cited Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and (D-Ga.), as well as NFL players attacked by Trump, saying that at 'this time & place for any African American ... to be criticised by @realdonaldtrump means you must be doing something right!' 'As I have said before- Its the biggest compliment you can get,' he added." ...

Ok, I'll take the bait.

LeBron: Born poor. Homeless as a kid. Marries high school sweetheart. Become rich. Donates $41M to build a school.

Donald: Born rich. Dad gives him millions. Files for bankruptcy. Divorced twice. Scandals! Sad! Fined $25M for defrauding students.#MAGA https://t.co/oL3FfDpa4M

-- Tommy Beer (@TommyBeer) August 4, 2018

Michael Weiss, in the New York Review of Books, examines how the Russians "handle" Trump.

Matthew Rosenberg, et al., of the New York Times: "While the charging documents [against Maria Butina] focus on her alleged efforts to infiltrate the National Rifle Association, interviews with more than two dozen people in Russia and the United States show that her attempts at connecting with prominent American conservatives extended beyond making inroads with the gun-rights group." The article details many of Butina's connections. ...

... Sara Murray of CNN: "As far as spy craft goes, Maria Butina's skills didn't seem particularly impressive. The alleged covert Russian agent liked to communicate via Twitter messages and WhatsApp. Her overly flirtatious approach left men wondering what she was truly after. She tended to brag about her ties to Russian intelligence when she was intoxicated, according to people familiar with the situation.... On at least two separate occasions she got drunk and spoke openly about her contacts within the Russian government, even acknowledging that Russian intelligence services were involved with the gun rights group she ran in Moscow. Twice, classmates [at American University] reported her actions to law enforcement because they found her comments so alarming, sources said."

Brent Griffiths of Politico: "A U.S. District Court judge on Friday issued a ruling invalidating a Federal Election Commission regulation that has allowed donors to so-called dark-money groups to remain anonymous, the latest development in a years-long legal battle that could have major implications for campaign finance. Judge Beryl A. Howell ruled the FEC's current regulation of such groups, including 501(c) 4 non-profits, fails to uphold the standard Congress intended when it required the disclosure of politically related spending.... The decision is likely to be appealed.... Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group that brought the suit against the FEC, hailed the decision as a 'major game changer' for political spending." Howell is an Obama appointee.

Congressional Race. Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Saturday implored his supporters to turn out for Republican congressional candidate Troy Balderson, as the party raced to fend off an embarrassing special election loss that could portend a November wave. During an hour-long rally in a sweltering high school auditorium, the president repeatedly lavished praise on Balderson, a state legislator who suddenly finds himself in a neck-and-neck contest for a House seat that Republicans have held for over three decades. ...

... Morgan Gstalter of the Hill: "President Trump bragged about his prowess in defeating the Republicans who oppose him, saying at an Ohio rally that he 'destroys' the careers of GOP politicians who dare defy him. 'How do you get 100 percent of anything? We always have somebody who says "I don't like Trump, I don't like our president, he destroyed my career,"' Trump said. 'I only destroy their career because they said bad things about me and you fight back and they go down the tubes and that's OK,' he added."

Bad Taste News

Jamie Ducharme of Time: "The Newseum has removed controversial 'fake news' T-shirts from its gift shop after they set off a wave of criticism from journalists. The Washington, D.C. museum, which is dedicated to all things media and the First Amendment, was as of Saturday morning selling shirts that said 'You Are Very Fake News' in its store.... 'The Newseum has removed the "You Are Very Fake News" t-shirts from the gift shop and online. We made a mistake and we apologize,' [Newseum spokesperson Sonya] Gavankar said by email [to Time]. 'A free press is an essential part of our democracy and journalists are not the enemy of the people.'... The museum sells a range of political gear..., including 'Make America Great Again' hats, American flag paraphernalia and a Constitution tie. In her second statement, Gavankar suggested that these items will not be removed." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: So what about selling Paul Manafort paper dolls? If they have MAGA cap buyers, surely they have Manafort fans. I mean, Justin Trudeau has his own paper doll. Isn't the U.S. as good as Canada? Okay, no, probably not. But still.

... Question: Did Manafort think "money laundering" meant turning money into things that can be laundered?

Way Beyond the Beltway

Scott Smith & Christine Armario of the AP: "Drones armed with explosives detonated near Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro Saturday in an apparent assassination attempt that took place while he was delivering a speech to hundreds of soldiers being broadcast live on television, officials said. Caught by surprise mid-speech, Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, looked up at the sky and winced after hearing the sound of an explosion pierce the air. 'This was an attempt to kill me,' he said later in an impassioned retelling of the events. 'Today they attempted to assassinate me.'"

The Commentariat -- August 4, 2018

Mark Landler of the New York Times: "In the last five days, President Trump has thanked Kim Jong-un of North Korea for his 'nice letter,' reminisced about his 'great meeting' with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and offered to meet Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani, without any preconditions. During those same five days, the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on a Russian bank accused of helping North Korea with weapons-related activities. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo listed stringent preconditions for any engagement with Iran. And the administration's top intelligence and law enforcement officials vowed to combat Russian interference in the midterm elections, while Senate Republicans pushed a bill that would impose harsh new sanctions on Moscow. There is Mr. Trump's foreign policy, and then there is the foreign policy of the rest of the Trump administration, backed by the Republican Party. This week, the two were openly at odds with each other.... Nowhere were these differences more jarring than in how the Trump administration and Republicans responded to the latest concerns that the Russian government is plotting to interfere in the midterm elections.... On Thursday, the White House produced an array of top officials to dramatize the threat and explain the nation's countermeasures. The president was conspicuously absent.... Yet at a rally in Pennsylvania hours later, Mr. Trump dismissed the special counsel's investigation of Russian interference as a 'hoax' that was impeding his efforts to nurture a constructive relationship with the Russian president."

David Brunnstrum of Reuters: "Less than two months after a landmark U.S.-North Korea summit in Singapore, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo flew back to the city state on Friday and said North Korea's continued work on weapons programs was inconsistent with its leader's commitment to denuclearize." ...

... Michelle Nichols of Reuters: "North Korea has not stopped its nuclear and missile programs in violation of United Nations sanctions, according to a confidential U.N. report seen by Reuters on Friday. The six-month report by independent experts monitoring the implementation of U.N. sanctions was submitted to the Security Council North Korea sanctions committee late on Friday.... The U.N report said North Korea is cooperating militarily with Syria and has been trying to sell weapons to Yemen's Houthis."

Rachel Weiner, et al., of the Washington Post: "One of Paul Manafort's accountants testified Friday that she went along with falsifying his tax records because she was afraid to confront a longtime client. Cindy Laporta said that in 2015, Manafort's right-hand man, Rick Gates, told her his boss couldn't afford to pay his taxes. To ease that burden, she said, Gates instructed her to misrepresent $900,000 in income as a business loan.... Laporta, who testified after she was granted immunity, said 'I very much regret' the decision to go along with a plan that she estimated saved Manafort at least $400,000 in taxes.... She testified that she also helped Manafort obtain millions of dollars in loans fraudulently, including by representing rental property as a second home, sending a bank a loan-forgiveness letter she believed to be forged, and telling another bank that Manafort expected a $2.4 million payment when she had 'no idea' if that was true.... Earlier Friday, another of Manafort's accountants took the stand, and a prosecutor asked him who among Manafort's circle was in charge of financial decisions. The tax preparer, Philip Ayliff, replied decisively: 'Mr. Manafort.'... One 2011 email showed Ayliff asking Manafort whether he had any interest in a foreign bank account. Manafort responded that he did not." ...

... Josh Gerstein & Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "An accountant for ... Paul Manafort admitted at Manafort’s tax- and bank-fraud trial Friday that she filed tax returns she thought contained false information and that she may have committed a crime in doing so. Cindy Laporta said she had a sense that what Manafort and his aide Rick Gates told her about money being transferred into their international political consulting business wasn't accurate.... The admission was the first time a witness has acknowledged knowing of potential wrongdoing during Manafort's trial...." ...

... Justin Jouvenal, et al., of the Washington Post liveblogged the Manafort trial. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Matt Apuzzo, et al., of the New York Times: Paul "Manafort’s work running the campaign is the backdrop to his federal bank and tax fraud trial in Northern Virginia. Prosecutors are not addressing that work. But as they present evidence that he was growing desperate for money, the question of why Mr. Manafort, now 69, agreed to an unpaid job for Mr. Trump has become increasingly tantalizing.... By 2016, Mr. Manafort was broke..., so it was a peculiar time to volunteer his services to the Trump campaign.... There is evidence that Mr. Manafort saw Mr. Trump's campaign as a potential loss leader -- an upfront freebie that he could use to boost his stature and eventually parlay into more work for foreign clients.... A Trump victory would have positioned him for a triumphant and lucrative return to Washington lobbying.... At the F.B.I., agents began to wonder whether Mr. Manafort had something else in the works.... The F.B.I. began investigating whether Mr. Manafort, with his deep ties to the pro-Russia political movement in Ukraine, was involved in the Russian operation to interfere in the election."

Trump Campaign "Director of National Security" Dated Butina. Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "Maria Butina, the Russian gun-rights activist who was charged last month with working as an unregistered agent of the Kremlin, socialized in the weeks before the 2016 election with a former Trump campaign aide who anticipated joining the presidential transition team, emails show, putting her in closer contact with President Trump's orbit than was previously known. Butina sought out interactions with J.D. Gordon, who [is now aged 50,] served for six months as the Trump campaign's director of national security before leaving in August 2016 and being offered a role in the nascent Trump transition effort, according to documents and testimony provided to the Senate Intelligence Committee and described to The Washington Post. The two exchanged several emails in September and October 2016, culminating in an invitation from Gordon to attend a concert by the rock band Styx in Washington. Gordon also invited Butina to attend his birthday party in late October of that year." Mrs. McC: So great "national security" there, Gordo.

The Company He Keeps. M.J. Lee & Sara Murray of CNN: "Kristin Davis, the woman famously known as the 'Manhattan Madam,' met with special counsel Robert Mueller's team for a voluntary interview on Wednesday, according to four sources familiar with the situation. Investigators appear to be interested in her ties to longtime Donald Trump adviser Roger Stone, whom she has known for a decade. Sources said investigators expressed interest in having Davis testify before a grand jury -- the latest indication that prosecutors are still aiming to build a case against Stone."

Jonathan O'Connell & David A. Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "The General Services Administration granted a $534,000 rental credit to the Trump Organization's D.C. hotel for providing 'security, utilities and janitorial services' to support tours of the building's clock tower run by the National Park Service, federal officials said, an adjustment that contracting experts say illustrates the highly unusual arrangement between the company owned by President Trump and the federal government.... There is no evidence of any wrongdoing in the adjustment. But the decision to grant the rental credit highlights what critics call a challenging position for GSA officials in their dealings with the Trump Organization, now run ... Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. Leasing experts said it's difficult to determine whether the government was justified in giving the Trumps a credit toward their rent...." ...

... David A. Fahrenthold & Jonathan O'Connell: "The general manager of the Trump International Hotel in Manhattan had a rare bit of good news to report to investors this spring: After two years of decline, revenue from room rentals went up 13 percent in the first three months of 2018. What caused the uptick at President Trump's flagship hotel in New York? One major factor: 'a last-minute visit to New York by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia,' wrote general manager Prince A. Sanders in a May 15 letter, which was obtained by The Washington Post.... The previously unreported letter -- describing a five-day stay in March that was enough to boost the hotel's revenue for the entire quarter -- shows how little is known about the business that the president's company does with foreign officials.... Last week, a federal judge in Maryland gave the go-ahead to a lawsuit alleging that by accepting government business at his properties, Trump is violating the Constitution's 'emoluments clauses' -- dusty 18th-century measures meant to prevent presidents from putting their private bank accounts ahead of the public interest. If it stands, the ruling could force the company to provide new details about its relationships with foreign governments, states and even federal agencies." ...

... MEANWHILE, the Kids Are All Right. Charles Bagli & Kate Kelly of the New York Times: "In a deal that eases the financial pressure on the Kushner Companies, Brookfield Asset Management said on Friday that it had taken a 99-year lease on 666 Fifth Avenue, the troubled Midtown tower owned by the family of Donald Trump's son-in-law. Jared Kushner ... paid a record-setting $1. billion for the building in 2007, and it has been a drag on his family's real estate company ever since. The deal, in which Brookfield paid the rent for the entire 99-year term upfront, helps remove the family's biggest financial headache: a $1.4 billion mortgage on the office portion of the tower that was due in February next year. The Kushners have spent more than two years on an international search for new partners or fresh financing that stretched from the Middle East to China." ...

... Alice Driver, in a CNN opinion piece: "According to Ivanka Trump in a recent interview with Axios, the issue of family separation 'was a low point' during her tenure as assistant to and daughter of the President. She discussed family separation in the past tense, as if it was over, further reinforcing her father's message that he has ended family separation. That implication does not reflect reality, because family separation continues.... Ivanka Trump waited a full month after her father declared an end to immigrant family separation to voice her disagreement with the policy and has not taken any action aside from tweeting to thank her father for ending family separation at the border.... If Ivanka Trump did care about migrant children separated from their parents, she could do more than call it a 'low point.'... Individual citizens have done far more to help migrant children separated from their parents than any member of the Trump administration." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Loved the way she called it "a low point for me," as if the important thing were how Ivanka felt about it, not the devastation to thousands of children & their loved ones. Now we're all supposed to have a sad for Ivanka & forget about the kids because This Immigration Thing is so over except in Ivanka's wounded memory. Anyhow, the whole reunion thing is going very well. ...>

... Annie Correal of the New York Times: "Eight children are expected to get on a plane in New York on Tuesday, headed to Guatemala. There, they will be reunited with their parents who were deported ahead of them, after being separated by the Trump administration at the southern border. Their flight was arranged by ... ICE, but the reunion effort for children ... has fallen to volunteers, activists and lawyers around the country who have scoured birth certificate registries in Central America, passed names to elected officials and coordinated with groups there who have run radio ads to find parents who might be in Guatemala&'s remote mountain villages.... The government was supposed to submit a plan to a federal judge in California on Thursday to reunite the families, but instead it told the A.C.L.U. to come up with its own plan, urging the group to use its 'considerable resources and their network of law firms, N.G.O.s, volunteers and others' to accomplish the task, in a court filing that a lawyer for the A.C.L.U., Lee Gelernt, called 'remarkable.' U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw held a hearing with both parties on Friday and said, 'This responsibility is 100 percent on the government.'" ...

... Jacob Soboroff & Julia Ainsley of NBC News: "The federal judge overseeing the court-ordered reunification of the 2,551 migrant children separated from their parents at the border blasted the Trump administration Friday for lacking a plan to reunify the remaining 572 children in its custody with their parents and the slow pace of progress. In a Thursday night status report filing, the Trump administration said only 13 of the parents had been located by the American Civil Liberties Union, which U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw of the Southern District of California called 'unacceptable at this point.'" ...

... Matthew Haag of the New York Times: "Two youth care workers at Arizona shelters for migrant children have been charged with sexually assaulting immigrant teenagers, according to court records. They are the latest claims of abuse at government-contracted shelters that have a key role in the Trump administration's hard-line immigration crackdown. On Tuesday, the police in Phoenix arrested Fernando Magaz Negrete, 32, on charges of sexual abuse and child molestation after he was seen kissing and fondling a 14-year-old girl in June, the authorities said. That arrest came a day after federal prosecutors detailed their case against another youth worker, Levian D. Pacheco, 25, who is H.I.V. positive and is accused of groping six teenage boys and performing oral sex on two others at a detention center from late August 2016 through July 2017."

Miriam Jordan of the New York Times: "A federal judge on Friday upheld his previous order to revive an Obama-era program that shields some 700,000 young immigrants from deportation, saying that the Trump administration had failed to justify eliminating it. Judge John D. Bates of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia gave the government 20 days to appeal his decision. But his ruling could conflict with another decision on the program that a federal judge in Texas is expected to issue as early as next week.... [Trump's] decision to end the program has faced numerous legal challenges. Currently, the government must continue accepting applications to renew DACA status, if not new applications from those who meet the criteria to qualify. DACA recipients -- often called 'Dreamers' -- typically were brought to the United States illegally as children through no choice of their own." Bates is a Bush II appointee.

Trade Wars Are Easy to Win, Ctd. Keith Bradsher & Cao Li of the New York Times: "China threatened on Friday to tax an additional $60 billion a year worth of imports from the United States if the Trump administration imposes its own new levies on Chinese goods. The threat comes just two days after President Trump ordered his administration to consider increasing the rate of tariffs it has already proposed on $200 billion a year of Chinese goods -- everything from chemicals to handbags -- to 25 percent from 10 percent." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Mindy Finn, in a USA Today op-ed: "Even after warnings that tariffs would wreak havoc on the economy, Donald Trump has staked his presidency on a series of trade wars that are now coming home to roost. With economic ruin looming over American farmers -- a key constituency -- he refuses to change course. Instead, he's mulling a policy of clientelism, a $12 billion cash handout to the victims of his own bad ideas.... [Trump] expects that the allure of taxpayer-funded kickbacks will be enough to keep farmers from holding him accountable for his own corruption and failures.... Far from draining the swamp, Trump and his coterie of grifters, fraudsters and co-conspirators have filled it in entirely, dividing the land into personal fiefdoms to exploit.... Trump has built a clearly organized machine for largesse and corruption. It's a pyramid scheme of public fraud, and the president gleefully sits at its top, reaping the rewards and doling out the shares."

Eli Rosenberg of the Washington Post: "Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap, one of the 11 members of the commission formed by President Trump to investigate supposed voter fraud, issued a scathing rebuke of the disbanded panel on Friday, accusing Vice Chair Kris Kobach and the White House of making false statements and saying that he had concluded that the panel had been set up to try to validate the president's baseless claims about fraudulent votes in the 2016 election. Dunlap, one of four Democrats on the panel, made the statements in a report he sent to the commission's two leaders -- Vice President Pence and Kobach, who is Kansas's secretary of state -- after reviewing more than 8,000 documents from the group's work, which he acquired only after a legal fight despite his participation on the panel. Before it was disbanded by Trump in January, the panel had never presented any findings or evidence of widespread voter fraud. But the White House claimed at the time that it had shut down the commission despite 'substantial evidence of voter fraud,' due to the mounting legal challenges it faced from states. Kobach, too, spoke around that time about how 'some people on the left were getting uncomfortable about how much we were finding out.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: More on that nice Kris Kobach linked under Beyond the Beltway.

** Eric Draitser in Counterpunch: "Trump is not the fascist threat, Trumpism is. Donald Trump, as both a president and human being, is concerned primarily with Donald Trump. To the extent that he has an ideology, it is one of individual success and narcissistic delusions. Loathsome though this human nematode may be, he as an individual does not represent a threat beyond the wide-ranging ramifications of his policies (climate denialism, racist application of immigration laws, etc.).... What Trump has done is cobble together an array of far right, reactionary political forces that are angry and beginning to get organized.... [When Trump is gone,] they'll be looking for their next leader, the next demagogue who, unlike Trump, will be a slick, photogenic, well-tailored and well-spoken ideologue. Not just a fascist, but a true believer.... What separates a typical political supporter and a cultist is faith; the cultist believes without question that truth is only that which bolsters, supports, or flatters the venerated and dear leader." Thanks to Whyte O. for the link.

Colbert Reviews the Week that Was:

Tim Dickinson of Rolling Stone: "The National Rifle Association warns that it is in grave financial jeopardy, according to a recent court filing obtained by Rolling Stone, and that it could soon 'be unable to exist... or pursue its advocacy mission.'... The gun group has been suing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state's financial regulators since May, claiming the NRA has been subject to a state-led 'blacklisting campaign' that has inflicted 'tens of millions of dollars in damages.' In the new document -- an amended complaint filed in U.S. District Court in late July -- the NRA says it cannot access financial services essential to its operations and is facing 'irrecoverable loss and irreparable harm.' Specifically, the NRA warns that it has lost insurance coverage -- endangering day-to-day operations.... Without general liability coverage, it adds, the 'NRA cannot maintain its physical premises, convene off-site meetings and events, operate educational programs ... or hold rallies, conventions and assemblies.' The complaint says the NRA's video streaming service and magazines may soon shut down." Mrs. McC: Boo-fucking-hoo. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. The debate about Sarah Jeong rages on. Aja Romano of Vox, who comes down on Jeong & the NYT's side, has a pretty good recap. But if Jeong "probably has an IQ of a million or so," as Kevin Drum asserts, wouldn't that make her smart enough to know that #CancelWhite People is not that humorous?

Beyond the Beltway

Kansas Gubernatorial Race. Sherman Smith of the Topeka Capital-Journal: "Kris Kobach's gubernatorial campaign employs three men identified as members of a white nationalist group by two political consultants who have worked with Republicans in Kansas. Kobach spokeswoman Danedri Herbert rejects the accusation as a baseless distraction from real news in the closing days of a contested GOP primary race. The consultants in early July independently named the three men, all in their early 20s, as members of American Heritage Initiative, a splinter of Identity Evropa, which the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as as a campus-based white supremacy group that builds community from shared racial identity. Kurtis Engel, Collin Gustin and Michael Pyles received $1,250 to $3,100 in payments from Kobach's campaign between June 8 and July 26, according to expense reports made public this week. Herbert said their role with the campaign is to walk in parades, deliver yard signs and knock on doors." Mrs. McC: I'm sure they're very good at walking in parades -- like the one in Charlottesville, Va." And of course this isn't "real news," because white nationalists are common in Kobach's milieu.

Meet Your Republican Party. Kate Riga of TPM: "Todd Kincannon, former executive director of the South Carolina Republican Party, has reportedly killed his dog due to his belief that he is Jesus Christ and needed to perform a sacrifice." Mrs. McC: The bulk of the story is a police report. I sure hope Jeff Sessions gets down there & defends Kincannon's religious freeeedom against those repressive local cops. I mean, you just can't get more Christian than Jesus Christ. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Way Beyond

James Meek & Ali Dukakis of ABC News: "WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's health is suffering, one of his lawyers says, in conditions she compared to 'solitary confinement' in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.... Even though she expressed fears about Assange's living conditions in the embassy, [attorney Jennifer] Robinson also said she's concerned about her client losing his protection from Ecuador, and possible extradition to the United States.... The Australian-born Assange, 47, has lived in Ecuador's Embassy since seeking refuge and asylum in 2012. But he ran afoul of his hosts when he publicly questioned the British government's assessment that the Kremlin was behind the nerve agent attack on a former Russian intelligence officer...." Mrs. McC: "Extradition to the United States" could be the best thing that's happened to Assange. Surely Trump will grant him a pardon & give him a presidential medal for his extraordinary contributions to the United Estates of Donald Trump.