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.

The Commentariat -- August 3, 2018

Afternoon Update:

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."

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.

Justin Jouvenal, et al., of the Washington Post are liveblogging the Manafort trial.

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."

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.'...." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Loved the way she called it "a low point for me," as if the important thing were how Ivanka felt, not the devastation to thounds 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.

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.

*****

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Trump administration officials on Thursday vowed to defend the United States' elections against threats from Russia and other countries, describing influence campaigns by America's adversaries in blunt terms rarely used by President Trump. The heads of the nation's national security agencies said Russia was still trying to influence and disrupt the midterm elections, and they pledged to help local and state governments counter those efforts in the weeks ahead. 'Russia attempted to interfere with the last election,' Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, said, adding that Russian operatives were continuing to operate against the election system in 'malign' ways. He said the United States government must face the threat with 'fierce determination and focus.' Mr. Wray and other top national security officials, who spoke at a White House news briefing, did not describe specific threats to the coming elections, and they were vague in saying how the government was responding to what they called Russia's interference campaign." ...

... Manu Raju of CNN: "Two leading senators are asserting that ... Donald Trump has not focused on the clear threat the Kremlin poses in the 2018 elections, with one Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee contending that Russian hackers may have already targeted most -- if not all -- sitting US senators. Ratcheting up the push for a more robust US response to Russian interference in the midterms and 2020 elections, Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma and Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota are now slated to get a committee vote this month on a bipartisan bill is aimed at shoring up the nation's election system. But the two senators said their plan has run into hurdles for months -- and say the Russian threat is real headed into the midterms." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Karen Yourish & Troy Griggs of the New York Times: "On Thursday, the heads of the national security agencies said that Russia was still trying to influence and disrupt the midterm elections in the United States. Their pointed statements contradicted President Trump, who has continued to cast doubt on the role Russia played in the 2016 presidential election." The reporters contrast the remarks of agency heads & senators with those of the 400-pound man sitting on a bed in the White House.

Nick Hopkins of the Guardian: "US counter-intelligence investigators discovered a suspected Russian spy had been working undetected in the heart of the American embassy in Moscow for more than a decade, the Guardian has learned. The Russian national had been hired by the US Secret Service and is understood to have had access to the agency's intranet and email systems, which gave her a potential window into highly confidential material including the schedules of the president and vice-president. The woman had been working for the Secret Service for years before she came under suspicion in 2016 during a routine security sweep conducted by two investigators from the US Department of State's Regional Security Office (RSO). They established she was having regular and unauthorised meetings with members of the FSB, Russia's principal security agency. The Guardian has been told the RSO sounded the alarm in January 2017, but the Secret Service did not launch a full-scale inquiry of its own. Instead it decided to let her go quietly months later, possibly to contain any potential embarrassment."

Kara Swisher of the New York Times: Social media "companies began with a gauzy credo to change the world. But they have done that in ways they did not imagine -- by weaponizing pretty much everything that could be weaponized.... Which is why malevolent actors continue to game the platforms and why there's still no real solution in sight anytime soon, because they were built to work exactly this way.... At least [Mark] Zuckerberg has traveled a long way in admitting the problem and has said more than any other digital C.E.O. that he regrets that he had not taken action sooner.... Mr. Zuckerberg is now trying to fend off talk in Washington of regulating his company like the thing he once told me it was: a utility. He has also spent the last month meeting over dinners with a range of academic experts on free speech, propaganda and more to try to understand where to go from here. Call it the education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley, but on the world's dime. How much that has -- and will -- cost is probably immeasurable."

Darren Samuelsohn & Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Paul Manafort's bookkeeper testified Thursday that she was unaware of more than a dozen offshore accounts the former Trump campaign chairman allegedly controlled in Cyprus. Testifying on the third day of special counsel Robert Mueller's trial against the longtime GOP operative, who is facing bank- and tax-fraud charges, Heather Washkuhn of the Southern California-based accounting firm NKSFB said she handled Manafort’s books from 2011 to 2018.... As his work as a political consultant with the Ukraine dried up, Manafort's international lobbying company was going into the red. Washkuhn testified that the firm lost $630,000 in 2015 and $1.1. million in 2016, the same year Manafort linked up with Donald Trump's presidential campaign.... Prompted by Mueller prosecutors who walked her through dozens of financial documents and email chains, Washkuhn acknowledged that Manafort gave banks several documents without her knowledge, including financial information that did not reflect her understanding of his monetary standing.... A lawyer for Manafort sought to get Washkuhn to concede that Gates sometimes unilaterally instructed her to make transactions related to the finances of Manafort or his political consulting firm, but the bookkeeper ... insisted she never acted without Manafort's direct authorization." ...

... Rachel Weiner, et al., of the Washington Post: "Paul Manafort's longtime bookkeeper testified against him Thursday, telling a Virginia jury that his seven-figure lifestyle lasted until about 2015 when the cash ran out, the bills piled up and he and his business partner began trying to fudge numbers to secure loans. The dry but potentially damaging testimony from the bookkeeper, Heather Washkuhn, appeared to undercut Manafort's defense against bank and tax charges, which is that his business partner is responsible for any financial misdeeds. But Washkuhn testified that Manafort approved 'every penny.' Washkuhn spent hours on the witness stand, describing account balances, bills received and payments.... Washkuhn said Manafort's consulting firm, Davis Manafort Partners, took in millions of dollars a year before its revenue cratered in 2015. The firm reported only $388,542 in income in 2015 and a $1.2 million loss in 2016.... As his business was gasping, Manafort was tapped to run Trump's campaign in mid-2016. He received no pay for the job, even though his firm was losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, according to election filings and evidence presented to the jury." ...

... Rachel Weiner, et al., liveblogged Thursday's testimony in the Paul Manafort case.

Jeet Heer: "The Wall Street Journal is reporting that [Michael Cohen] ... was set to make as much as $10 million dollars from Trump donor Franklin L. Haney, contingent upon Cohen's helped ensure that a nuclear power plant Haney was promoting in Alabama got built. Cohen would also receive a monthly fee for his lobbying efforts. The deal was made shortly before federal agents raided Cohen's residences and workplaces in April. It is no longer operative.... [From the WSJ:] 'James Thurber, a professor of government at American University, said success fees are 'outside the ethical norms' among Washington lobbyists.... Century-old court rulings deemed fees contingent on lobbyists obtaining public funds or killing legislation unenforceable and counter to public policy, saying they encouraged corruption, he said. Several lobbyists contacted by the Journal said $10 million was an unheard-of sum to pay a consultant for government-related work.'"

Anna Schecter, et al., of NBC News: "Special counsel Robert Mueller has requested an interview with Russian pop star Emin Agalarov, who helped set up the now infamous 2016 Trump Tower meeting, according to Agalarov's lawyer."

Ann E. Marimow & Manuel Roig-Franzia of the Washington Post: "A former aide to ... Roger Stone must testify before the special counsel's grand jury, a federal judge in Washington ruled Thursday. The judge rejected a challenge from Andrew Miller, a former assistant to Stone who tried to block subpoenas from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III in his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The redacted opinion from U.S. District Chief Judge Beryl Howell affirming the legal legitimacy of the special counsel's appointment does not identify Miller by name, but his attorney confirmed that the ruling is in response to Miller's request. Howell's ruling orders Miller to 'appear before the grand jury to provide testimony at the earliest date available' and to provide subpoenaed records.... Miller's attorneys had argued that Mueller 'wields too much power with too little accountability' and was unlawfully appointed, according to Howell's summary of Miller's filing."

Hazel Jones of the Daily Mail: "In an exclusive excerpt [of a new book] obtained by DailyMail.com, Omarosa [Manigault-Newman] ... tells of the dread she felt while watching Trump's interview with Lester Holt last May. 'While watching the interview I realized that something real and serious was going on in Donald's brain. His mental decline could not be denied,' she writes in Unhinged: An Insider's Account of the Trump White House. 'Many didn't notice it as keenly as I did because I knew him way back when. They thought Trump was being Trump, off the cuff. But I knew something wasn't right.... Donald rambled. He spoke gibberish. He contradicted himself from one sentence to the next. Hope [Hicks, then communications director] had gone over the briefing with him a dozen times hitting the key point that he had fired Comey based on the recommendation by the DOJ which the vice president and other surrogates had been reinforcing for days.' But when questioned by Holt, the president contradicted previous reports about how the senior law-enforcement officer was dispatched from his office." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Yeah, yeah, I know this belongs in Infotainment (or nowhere at all), but it is definitely about "This Russia Thing." ...

... Then Again. "... In His Own Bubble, Thinking He Controls Stuff." Alberto Nardelli of BuzzFeed News: "Shortly after leaving the G7 Summit in Canada in June..., Donald Trump tweeted to say he had instructed US officials not to endorse a statement he had agreed to just hours earlier with other world leaders. Trump was displeased with something Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said during the summit's closing press conference, which the president was following on TV from Air Force One. But almost two months on, those instructions from Trump have never been acted upon, apparently ignored, two sources who were directly involved in the G7 process told BuzzFeed News. US inaction means Trump effectively endorsed the final statement after all.... Trump had left the leaders of Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and the UK stunned and bewildered.... 'The White House and State Dept. are actively ignoring the tweets of the president,' one of the sources said. 'It's like there's a reality TV president, in his own bubble, thinking he controls stuff. It's like The Truman Show.' Trump's tweet, the source explained, wasn't sufficient to pull out of the communique itself because 'the G7 has a suite of diplomatic tools for communications, and Twitter isn't one of them.'" ...

... AND. Politico: "... Donald Trump issued one of his patented Twitter endorsements on Thursday, urging people to vote for a top political ally next week. But ... he's not on the ballot. Trump tweeted that Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio), who is leading House Republicans' efforts to keep the chamber in this fall's midterm elections, has earned his 'full [and] total endorsement.' Stivers, Trump wrote, 'has done a fantastic job' as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. 'Get out and vote for Steve on Aug 7th,' Trump wrote.... The fourth-term incumbent was unopposed in his primary, all the way back in May. He will next go before voters on Nov. 6, when he faces Democrat Rick Neal."

Susan Glasser of the New Yorker: "Trump is lying more, and he's doing it on purpose." ...

... Gabriela Galindo of Politico: "... Donald Trump told supporters that Queen Elizabeth II kept him waiting during his first official visit to the United Kingdom, blaming the media for reporting he'd been the one who was late for their meeting. Speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania on Thursday, Trump claimed he had actually arrived 15 minutes early for his meeting with the 'incredible' queen, slamming the 'fake, fake, disgusting news' media reports that noted he had been the one who was late. The president's visit to Britain was broadcast live on television, including footage of the 92-year-old queen waiting for Trump for 12 minutes and looking at her watch.... Trump then claimed he had 'a better relationship' with European leaders 'than any other [American] president has had.'" Mrs. McC: But remember, "What you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening."...

... Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "President Trump devoted the majority of his time at a rowdy rally [in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania,] on Thursday targeting the news media, deriding the reporters present as 'fake, fake disgusting news.' The rally, intended to galvanize support for Representative Lou Barletta, a Republican who is running for Senate in this fall's midterm elections, did eventually turn to what Mr. Trump called 'boring subjects,' but for much of the event, the president focused on his multiple grievances with the Washington press corps." ...

... Aaron Rupar of ThinkProgress has a rundown of some other lies & threats Trump made during the Wilkes-Barre "rally."

Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "The Trump administration on Thursday formally announced its long-awaited proposal to dramatically weaken an Obama-era regulation on planet-warming vehicle tailpipe pollution. The publication of the proposal sets up a race among opponents of the change -- an unusual mix of environmentalists, automakers, consumer groups and states -- to temper the plan before it is finalized this year. The proposal would freeze rules requiring automakers to build cleaner, more fuel-efficient cars, including hybrids and electric vehicles, and unravel one of President Barack Obama's signature policies to combat global warming. It would also challenge the right of states to set their own, more stringent tailpipe pollution standards, setting the stage for a legal clash that could ultimately split the nation's auto market in two." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: How does this make America great again? Well, for one thing, you'll be able to see the air better. ...

... Brad Plumer of the New York Times: "... the Trump administration... is now arguing [that] ... forcing automakers to build cleaner cars will lead to more highway accidents and deaths." Plumer discusses the arguments, pro and con. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Emily Atkin of the New Republic: "... the administration has concocted a tortured, flimsy argument -- that cleaner cars will cost thousands more, and kill thousands more people -- to scare Americans into believing that the government should scrap its most consequential policy for reducing emissions.... The administration can’t say it wasn't warned about the flaws in its logic. According to The Washington Post, an earlier version of this proposal was presented to the EPA's Office of Transportation and Air Quality, and officials said it contained 'a wide range of errors, use of outdated data, and unsupported assumptions.'... On Thursday morning, 20 attorneys general pledged to sue the Trump administration over the proposed rule.... To justify this regressive policy, Trump is using two familiar ingredients: fear and falsehoods."

Ivanka Will Save Us! John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Ivanka Trump said Thursday that she does not agree with her father's characterization of the media as 'the enemy of the people' and that she was 'vehemently against' separating children from parents at the border, calling that a low point of her White House tenure. The comments from Trump, a White House adviser, came during an event hosted by Axios...." (Also linked yesterday.) And see safari's comment in yesterday's thread. Mrs. McC: I'd say safari has Ivanka's number. Plus, apparently Ivanka said in the same Q&A that she really enjoyed traveling around the country. Guess that doesn't include visiting child prisoners in Trump Summer Camps, which even Melanie, who does not have a West Wing job, did. ...

... MEANWHILE, in Other Trump Family News. Eli Watkins of CNN: "... Donald Trump's eldest son said the platform of the Democratic Party is similar to that of the Nazi Party in Germany during the early 1930s and that history classes are biased against conservatives.In a video posted Thursday by the pro-Trump One America News Network, Jack Posobiec -- a prominent right-wing voice online who supported the Pizzagate hoax -- spoke with Donald Trump Jr., who compared the present-day Democratic Party to Nazis and disparaged history taught by academics. 'I've been out hearing the left talking about all these things, fascism, Nazism on the right,' Trump Jr. said. 'And when you look at the actual history of how these things evolved, and when you actually look at that platform versus the platform of the modern left, you say wait a minute, those two are really heavily aligned and, frankly, contrary to the right.... 'You see the Nazi platform in the early 1930s and what was actually put out there ... and you look at it compared to like the DNC platform of today, and you're saying, man, those things are awfully similar, to point where it's actually scary,' Trump Jr. said.... Trump Jr. made his comments at a movie premiere for Dinesh D'Souza...." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie Viewer Warning: A self-loading video of Junior making these remarks accompanies the story. If you are prone to throw things when someone irritates the hell out of you, hit the "pause" buttom ASAP.

Mrs. McCrabbie: Also in yesterday's thread, see Akhilleus's commentary on Gamergate. It's nothing we've ever covered on Reality Chex, but it helps explain how we ended up with Trump & the Trumpbot contingent. BTW, I'd say Trump knows who these people are: "somebody sitting on their [sic.] bed that weighs 400 pounds." And, yes, as Akhilleus says, Trump has betrayed these losers (or "loosers," as they would write), but as Steve M. pointed out (see yesterday's Commentariat) in a related post, Trump is not essential to these people: "Trump is just, in their belief, the greatest fighter they've had."

Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: "During a tense White House briefing on Thursday, [CNN's Jim Acosta] challenged the press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, to disavow President Trump's description of journalists as 'the enemy of the people.' Ms. Sanders declined to do so, saying she had been personally attacked in the media and had faced threats since starting her job.... 'It would be a good thing if you were to state right here, at this briefing, that the press -- the people who are gathered in this room right now, doing their jobs every day, asking questions of officials like the ones you brought forward earlier -- are not the enemy of the people,' Mr. Acosta said.... Ms. Sanders deflected [saying the media picked on her].... Mr. Acosta tried again.... 'This democracy, this country, all the people around the world watching what you are saying, Sarah, and the White House for the United States of America -- the president of the United States should not refer to us as "the enemy of the people,"' he said. 'His own daughter acknowledges that, and all I'm asking you to do, Sarah, is to acknowledge that right now and right here.' Ms. Sanders replied: 'I appreciate your passion. I share it. I've addressed this question.' At that, Mr. Acosta promptly walked out."

Jonathan Chait: "[Wednesday], the Trump administration unveiled plans to allow insurers to skim healthy customers out of the insurance pool by offering skimpy plans that last for up to three years. The legally dubious maneuver is the crowning touch on the administration's persistent efforts to undermine the Affordable Care Act.... The Republican line maintains that all these blatant attempts to kill the law are somehow the fault of the law's designers.... This is demonstrably false.... Having spent years insisting they had an army of wonks who could design a better alternative to the Obamacare 'train wreck,' the Republican plan of attack has dissolved into a rearguard sabotage campaign with no pretense of doing anything to help the poor and sick afford medical care." ...

... Heidi Przybyla of NBC News: "After congressional Republicans repeatedly failed last year to repeal the Affordable Care Act, President Trump promised to 'let Obamacare implode' on its own. A new lawsuit being filed Thursday argues that Trump's efforts to make good on that promise violate the U.S. Constitution. Trump has 'waged a relentless effort to use executive action alone to undermine and, ultimately, eliminate the law,' the complaint charges, according to a draft obtained by NBC News. The lawsuit is being filed in Maryland federal court by the cities of Chicago, Columbus, Cincinnati and Baltimore." (Also linked yesterday.)

Chutzpah. Trump DOJ Sez ACLU Should Find the Parents Trump Deported. Ted Hesson of Politico: "The Trump administration on Thursday informed a federal judge that it isn't responsible for locating deported parents separated forcibly from their children at the southern border. DOJ said in a court filing that the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit over family separations, should instead take the lead in reunifying deported parents with their children. 'Plaintiffs' counsel [i.e., the ACLU] should use their considerable resources and their network of law firms, NGOs, volunteers, and others, together with the information that defendants have provided (or will soon provide), to establish contact with possible class members in foreign countries,' DOJ said."

Ben LeFebvre of Politico: "... the [In Interior D]epartment's inspector general will be asking whether [Secretary Ryan Zinke] colluded to have the chairman of Halliburton, one of the leading companies with business before the department, build him [a microbrewery in Whitefish, Montana]." Read on. Mrs. McC: The other day there was some discussion in the Comments about local vs. federal governance. The Zinke beermeister serial is a good reminder that those self-dealing opportunists who sit on your town council sometimes get federal jobs where they continue to self-deal, if sometimes on a grander scale.

Primary Election Results -- Tennessee

Senate Race. Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Republicans braced for a difficult, high-stakes campaign in the heart of Trump country as Tennessee Democrats nominated a popular former governor to run for the state's open Senate seat. Phil Bredesen won the Democratic nomination Thursday, giving his party its best chance of a statewide general election victory in more than a decade. He has presented himself as an affable centrist willing to work with President Trump, and his presence on the ballot forces the GOP to play defense on its home turf as the party seeks to preserve a narrow 51-to-49 Senate majority. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, who is backed by Trump and has largely championed his agenda, won the Republican nomination."

Gubernatorial Race. Joey Garrison of the Tennessean: "Karl Dean easily defeated Craig Fitzhugh in Thursday's Tennessee Democratic gubernatorial primary, setting up a November general election where he'll try to become the first Democrat to win a statewide race in the Volunteer State in a dozen years. In a landslide, Dean, former mayor of Nashville, won the Democratic nomination with around 75 percent of the vote, crushing the nearly 20 percent captured by Fitzhugh, the minority leader of the state House. Mezianne Vale Payne, a nurse from Gainesboro, finished with 5 percent. Dean will now face Republican nominee Bill Lee, a Franklin businessman."

Seung Min Kim of the Washington Post: "The National Archives said Thursday it will not be able to produce the full cache of documents requested by the Senate on Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh until the end of October, but Republicans indicated they would press ahead with plans to hold confirmation hearings next month.... The scope of documents requested by Republicans does not touch on an even bigger group of documents from Kavanaugh's three years as [George W.] Bush';s staff secretary. Democrats are demanding those papers, but Republicans say they are out of bounds.... Politically, a delay in document production could give red-stat Democrats a reason to wait on saying how they would vote on the Trump nominee. Among those in the spotlight are three facing tough reelections in November -- Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) and Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.). All three voted to confirm Neil M. Gorsuch to the court." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: So Chuck Grassley asked for fewer docs than Democrats want to see, and they can't get all of those, BUT they're going ahead with a vote anyway. ...

... Breaking. Orrin Hatch Loses Memory of Everything Occurring Before 2017. I really want to compliment the Democrats who have stood up and are willing to stand up for Judge Kavanaugh because they realize we can't keep going down this partisan, picky, stupid, dumbass road that has happened around here for so long.... I'm tired of the partisanship and, frankly, we didn't treat them -- their candidates for these positions the way they're treating ours. -- Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah)

I'm sure Judge Merrick Garland will send condolences. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

Linda Greenhouse looks at one year -- this past term -- in the estimable career of Clarence Thomas. If you haven't time to read the whole essay, at least read her "favorite" concurrence. Thanks to Gloria for the link. Mrs. McC: CJ Roberts should order Thomas to wear knee breeches & powdered wigs to court, because the old fart refuses to emerge from the 18th century. As Greenhouse writes, "Taken as a whole, as the work of a single justice during a single Supreme Court term, they paint an extraordinary picture of a judge at war not only with modernity but with the entire project of constitutional law."

Elisabetta Povoledo & Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times: "Pope Francis has declared the death penalty inadmissible in all cases because it is 'an attack' on the 'dignity of the person,' the Vatican announced on Thursday, in a definitive shift in Roman Catholic teaching that could put enormous pressure on lawmakers and politicians around the world. Francis, who has spoken out against capital punishment before -- including in 2015 in an address to Congress -- added the change to the Catechism, the collection of beliefs for the world's 1.2 billion Catholics." (Also linked yesterday.)

Monica Hesse of the Washington Post: "'He never harassed me,' isn't evidence. It's misdirection.... Sexual harassment seems to be one of the few misdeeds for which we accept testimonies from non-victims as evidence of innocence.... Earlier this week, following a rash of accusations against CBS chief Les Moonves, the Atlantic writer Megan Garber called this the Familiarity Fallacy.... She cited the litany of women who have come forward on Moonves's behalf, who stated that he'd been good to them and was therefore good in general. Garber pointed out how absurd this was. Serial harassers victimize some women and not others." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is different from but akin to the popular Blame the Victim Fallacy. "Her skirts are too short." "She's very flirtatious." "She shouldn't have traveled on business with him."

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Mrs. McCrabbie: In the past, I may have linked to one Red State story. So this will be my second. Unless the author of the story mocked up the tweets he's posted (and that's possible -- all of the tweets start with Sarah Jeong's "professional twiter name" -- and yeah, that's "twiter," not "twitter"), it's a disturbing story: "Yesterday, the New York Times announced that it was hiring a journalist named Sarah Jeong as a member of their editorial board.... Ms. Jeong is apparently more than a journalist, she's also a virulent racist." The post goes on to reproduce quite a few awful anti-white tweets. Other right-wing sites -- Daily Caller & National Review -- have the story, too. What do you think? (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Here's a follow-up by Brian Flood of Fox "News": "The New York Times is standing by its hiring of tech writer Sarah Jeong despite several derogatory tweets of hers aimed at white people having been recently unearthed on her Twitter account.... [Jeong issued a statement: ] 'I engaged in what I thought of at the time as counter-trolling. While it was intended as satire, I deeply regret that I mimicked the language of my harassers. These comments were not aimed at a general audience, because general audiences do not engage in harassment campaigns. I can understand how hurtful these posts are out of context, and would not do it again,' Jeong wrote." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Amanda Arnold of New York: "Today, the Times declared that it was standing by Jeong -- but also issued an apology in response to the bad-faith criticism from the right.... Right-wing trolls are notorious for taking comments and jokes out of context and drumming up disingenuous outrage to target their opponents; although the Times didn't cave to their demands, it did legitimize them with a response." Mrs. McCrabbie: I'm still not sure. One has to assume the tweets were satirical. Maybe they were.

News Lede

USA Today: "Hiring slowed in July as employers added 157,000 jobs, a possible sign that worker shortages and widening U.S. trade spats are starting to curb employment gains. The unemployment rate fell from 4 percent 3.9 percent, close to its 18-year low, the Labor Department said Friday. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expected 192,000 payroll gains."

The Commentariat -- August 2, 2018

Late Morning Update:

Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "The Trump administration on Thursday formally announced its long-awaited proposal to dramatically weaken an Obama-era regulation on planet-warming vehicle tailpipe pollution. The publication of the proposal sets up a race among opponents of the change -- an unusual mix of environmentalists, automakers, consumer groups and states -- to temper the plan before it is finalized this year. The proposal would freeze rules requiring automakers to build cleaner, more fuel-efficient cars, including hybrids and electric vehicles, and unravel one of President Barack Obama's signature policies to combat global warming. It would also challenge the right of states to set their own, more stringent tailpipe pollution standards, setting the stage for a legal clash that could ultimately split the nation's auto market in two." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: How does this make America great again? Well, for one thing, you'll be able to see the air better. ...

... Brad Plumer of the New York Times: "... the Trump administration... is now arguing [that] ... forcing automakers to build cleaner cars will lead to more highway accidents and deaths." Plumer discusses the arguments, pro and con.

Ivanka Will Save Us! John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Ivanka Trump said Thursday that she does not agree with her father's characterization of the media as 'the enemy of the people' and that she was 'vehemently against' separating children from parents at the border, calling that a low point of her White House tenure. The comments from Trump, a White House adviser, came during an event hosted by Axios...."

Heidi Przybyla of NBC News: "After congressional Republicans repeatedly failed last year to repeal the Affordable Care Act, President Trump promised to 'let Obamacare implode' on its own. A new lawsuit being filed Thursday argues that Trump's efforts to make good on that promise violate the U.S. Constitution. Trump has 'waged a relentless effort to use executive action alone to undermine and, ultimately, eliminate the law,' the complaint charges, according to a draft obtained by NBC News. The lawsuit is being filed in Maryland federal court by the cities of Chicago, Columbus, Cincinnati and Baltimore."

Manu Raju of CNN: "Two leading senators are asserting that ... Donald Trump has not focused on the clear threat the Kremlin poses in the 2018 elections, with one Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee contending that Russian hackers may have already targeted most -- if not all -- sitting US senators. Ratcheting up the push for a more robust US response to Russian interference in the midterms and 2020 elections, Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma and Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota are now slated to get a committee vote this month on a bipartisan bill is aimed at shoring up the nation's election system. But the two senators said their plan has run into hurdles for months -- and say the Russian threat is real headed into the midterms."

Elisabetta Povoledo & Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times: "Pope Francis has declared the death penalty inadmissible in all cases because it is 'an attack' on the 'dignity of the person,' the Vatican announced on Thursday, in a definitive shift in Roman Catholic teaching that could put enormous pressure on lawmakers and politicians around the world. Francis, who has spoken out against capital punishment before -- including in 2015 in an address to Congress -- added the change to the Catechism, the collection of beliefs for the world's 1.2 billion Catholics."

Mrs. McCrabbie: In the past, I may have linked to one Red State story. So this will be my second. Unless the author of the story mocked up the tweets he's posted (and that's possible -- all of the tweets start with Sarah Jeong's "professional twiter name" -- and yeah, that's "twiter," not "twitter"), it's a disturbing story: "Yesterday, the New York Times announced that it was hiring a journalist named Sarah Jeong as a member of their editorial board.... Ms. Jeong is apparently more than a journalist, she's also a virulent racist." The post goes on to reproduce quite a few awful anti-white tweets. Other right-wing sites -- Daily Caller & National Review -- have the story, too. What do you think? ...

... Here's a follow-up by Brian Flood of Fox "News": "The New York Times is standing by its hiring of tech writer Sarah Jeong despite several derogatory tweets of hers aimed at white people having been recently unearthed on her Twitter account.... [Jeong issued a statement: ] 'I engaged in what I thought of at the time as counter-trolling. While it was intended as satire, I deeply regret that I mimicked the language of my harassers. These comments were not aimed at a general audience, because general audiences do not engage in harassment campaigns. I can understand how hurtful these posts are out of context, and would not do it again,' Jeong wrote."

*****

... Glenn Kessler, et al., of the Washington Post: "As of day 558 [of his presidency, Trump has] made 4,229 Trumpian claims -- an increase of 978 in just two months. That's an overall average of nearly 7.6 claims a day. When we first started this project for the president-s first 100 days, he averaged 4.9 claims a day. But the average number of claims per day keeps climbing the longer Trump stays in office. In fact, in June and July, the president averaged 16 claims a day.... In his first year as president, Trump made 2,140 false or misleading claims. Now, just six months later, he has almost doubled that total.... Not surprisingly, immigration is the top single source of Trump's misleading claims, now totaling 538.... But moving up the list quickly are claims about the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether people in the Trump campaign were in any way connected to it."

Trump Gone Wild! Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday to end the special counsel investigation, an extraordinary appeal to the nation's top law enforcement official to end an inquiry directly into the president.... '..This is a terrible situation and Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now, before it continues to stain our country any further. Bob Mueller is totally conflicted, and his 17 Angry Democrats that are doing his dirty work are a disgrace to USA!'... Mr. Trump's lawyers quickly elaborated on the president's message, saying it was not an order to a member of his cabinet, but merely an opinion.... Mr. Trump gave the directive in a series of Twitter posts hitting familiar notes in his objections to the investigation and accusing an investigator of being 'out to STOP THE ELECTION OF DONALD TRUMP.' Some of his messages contained quotations the president attributed to a staunch supporter, the lawyer Alan Dershowitz. Mr. Trump also tweeted on Wednesday that Mr. Manafort did not work for his campaign long, a defense he has used repeatedly to distance himself from his former campaign chairman.... The special counsel is also looking into some of Mr. Trump's tweets about Mr. Sessions and the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey and whether the messages were intended to obstruct the inquiry." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "On Wednesday, Trump gave [Robert Mueller] more potential evidence [of obstruction of justice].... Trump is apparently calling for Sessions to un-recuse himself from a case in which he has acknowledged he cannot be seen as neutral, and then to end it.... In defending the tweet, Trump's lawyers told The Post that it wasn't an explicit command. 'He carefully used the word, "should,'" [Rudy] Giuliani noted. Trump's personal lawyer Jay Sekulow added: 'The president has issued no order or direction to the Department of Justice on this.'... Every person has the right to defend themselves publicly, but as the Starr Report showed, a president's misleading public statements can be used against him." ...

... AND Al Capone Is Back. Jeet Heer: "Trump makes bad Al Capone analogy while trying to obstruct justice. On Wednesday, the president returned to tweeting on a familiar theme that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election is a witch hunt. But Trump did so with a new urgency:... 'Looking back on history, who was treated worse, Alfonse Capone, legendary mob boss, killer and "Public Enemy Number One," or Paul Manafort, political operative & Reagan/Dole darling, now serving solitary confinement - although convicted of nothing? Where is the Russian Collusion?'... The Capone tweet is remarkable for a number of reasons. First of all, the president misspelled 'Alphonse.'... More substantially..., [the analogy] cuts against the argument Trump is making. Capone was a gangster but the government couldn't prove it, so they used the charge of income tax evasion to put him behind bars. This clearly parallels the way that Mueller is using money laundering charges to put the squeeze on Paul Manafort.... Bringing up Capone cuts against Trump's claim that Mueller is conducting a witch hunt because it reminds us that federal prosecutors often use the broad sweep of the law against offenders." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The stupidest part: even most Trumpbots don't see Capone as a sympathetic figure picked on by a bunch of overzealous G-men. There's no upside to comparing your own campaign manager to Al Capone.

Michael Schmidt & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump pushed his lawyers in recent days to try once again to reach an agreement with the special counsel's office about him sitting for an interview, flouting their advice that he should not answer investigators' questions, three people briefed on the matter said on Wednesday. Mr. Trump has told advisers he is eager to meet with investigators to clear himself of wrongdoing, the people said. In effect, he believes he can convince the investigators for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, of his belief that their own inquiry is a 'witch hunt.'" The reporters provide some details about the substance of the negotiations. ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: It's hard for me to believe that Trump is stupid enough to believe his own hype. This sounds like posturing on his part to me. If my lawyers told me not to testify, I wouldn't testify. ...

... Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: "... Robert S. Mueller III indicated this week that he is willing to reduce the number of questions his investigators would pose to President Trump in an interview, renewing negotiations with Trump's lawyers about a presidential sit-down after an extended standoff, according to two people briefed on the negotiations. The latest proposal by the special counsel comes as Trump has stepped up his attacks on his investigation and Mueller personally. In a letter sent Monday, Mueller's team suggested that investigators would reduce by nearly half the number of questions they would ask about potential obstruction of justice, the two people said. It's unclear which topic or topics would be left out." ...

... John Santucci of ABC News: "Special counsel Robert Mueller's office wants to ask ... Donald Trump about obstruction of justice, sources close to the White House tell ABC News.... According to sources familiar with the President's reaction Wednesday morning, that was the genesis for his early morning tweet storm." ...

... President Bizarro. Margaret Hartmann: "On Wednesday President Trump's day started, as it often does, with a bizarre tirade attacking Special Counsel Robert Mueller.... Once again, Trump seemed to be undermining his own case, providing Mueller with fresh evidence of obstruction of justice as he lashed out.... There's no good explanation for Trump's tweet -- so instead, his team made one nonsensical claim after another.... A few hours later, several stories emerged [that suggested Trump was willing & eager to sit down for a Mueller interview.]" Ergo, shut down the investigation I want to participate in. Mrs. McC: If Trump thinks he can end the "witch hunt" by sweet-talking the hunters, these two threads are not contradictory.

Josh Gerstein & Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "Special counsel Robert Mueller's team is hurtling through its tax- and bank-fraud case against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, with prosecutors predicting their case could wrap up as soon as next week. Under constant pressure from U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis to keep their questioning brief and to the point, prosecutors whipped through eight witnesses Wednesday -- all vendors who sold Manafort items like luxury suits or services like home remodeling. All indicated that payment for the bills Manafort ran up came from obscure companies in offshore banking havens like Cyprus or the Grenadines.... [Prosecutor Greg] Andres said prosecutors said they plan to present two more vendors Thursday -- a home theater installer and a landscaper -- before moving on to a slew of bookkeepers and accountants who dealt with the veteran lobbyist and political consultant. Many of those witnesses demanded immunity in exchange for their testimony." ...

... Rachel Weiner, et al., of the Washington Post live-updated Day 2 of the Paul Manafort trial. "Witnesses described how Manafort paid for a life of luxury -- spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on suits and home renovations -- via wire transfers from foreign bank accounts. The judge repeatedly warned prosecutors not to dwell on the extravagance of the purchases Manafort made. Prosecutors suggested they might not call Manafort's former business partner, Richard Gates, as a witness. They also revealed they are ahead of schedule and could rest their case next week." (Same story linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Tierney Snead of TPM posts a bunch of photos of Manafort's expensive wardrobe which the prosecution wished to enter into evidence. Judge Ellis so far has not allowed the prosecution to do so. Mrs. McC: It probably doesn't matter. My reaction to, for instance, to the photo of the ostrich jacket: "You paid $15K for that?" ...

... Mark Mazzetti & Katie Benner of the New York Times: "At the trial of Paul Manafort, an unflattering picture has emerged of lawyers, lobbyists and consultants from both political parties winning big paydays for work on behalf of a Kremlin-aligned former Ukrainian strongman. Some spent the money on cars and homes, prosecutors said, and a jacket made of ostrich for Mr. Manafort. The vigor with which Mr. Mueller has investigated the flows of foreign money from Ukraine, Turkey and other countries into Washington could be as much a part of his legacy as special counsel as whatever he discovers about possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign or presidential obstruction of justice.... Over the past year, Mr. Mueller and the Justice Department have pursued numerous cases both under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, and related to foreign influence operations more broadly. FARA prosecutions were once almost unheard-of.... Whereas the public once thought of the Justice Department's counterintelligence mission as primarily trying to catch foreign spies seeking to obtain government secrets, the department has made clear in a recent cybercrimes report and congressional testimony that influence has become as great a threat." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The Times story fits into the narrative both Franklin Foer of the Atlantic & Betsy Woodruff of the Daily Beast told in pieces I linked yesterday. If you missed those stories, I recommend you take a peek now. Even as the players may change, the game will never get old.

Andrew Desiderio of the Daily Beast: "The Senate on Wednesday rejected a bid by Democrats to appropriate an additional $250 million in grants to individual states to bolster the security of their voting systems. The rejection of new funding comes ... as ... Donald Trump's intelligence chiefs are sounding the alarm about the continued threat of election interference emanating from Russia.... All Republicans, except for Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), voted against the measure. Sens. Richard Burr (R-NC), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), and John McCain (R-AZ) were not present for the vote. The amendment, offered by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), received 50 votes. It needed 60 to pass. Earlier this year, the Senate set aside $380 million for similar protective measures to guard against election interference and cyberattacks launched by foreign governments."

Aaron Blake: "... Sarah Huckabee Sanders just accused the media of hindering the American government's pursuit of Osama bin Laden just a few years before 9/11.... While defending Trump supporters' vulgar treatment of a CNN reporter..., [Sanders claimed,] 'The media routinely reports on classified information and government secrets that put lives in danger and risk valuable national security tools...,' clearly reading a prepared bit of gaslighting. 'One of the worst cases was the reporting on the U.S. ability to listen to Osama bin Laden's satellite phone in the late '90s. Because of that reporting, he stopped using that phone, and the country lost valuable intelligence.' Except this has been pretty well debunked -- and Sanders's version of it is particularly flawed." ...

... Greg Sargent: "On Tuesday, CNN's Jim Acosta -- one of President Trump's favorite human targets -- and other members of the media were abused and heckled by Trump supporters at a rally in Florida. Videos of the event -- see here or here -- show the crowd at one point loudly chanting 'CNN sucks,' with many angrily brandishing middle fingers in the direction of the living, breathing members of the press corps.... Eric Trump tweeted out video of the 'CNN sucks' chant, with the hashtag #Truth, while directly singling out Acosta. And the president himself retweeted his son. The president's son is actively encouraging Trump supporters to direct rage and abuse toward working journalists, and the president is joining in, helping to spread the word.... Jay Rosen calls all of this a 'hate movement against journalists' that is essential to Trump’s political style, and urges them to recognize it as such.... The deliberate goal, as [Steve] Bannon has put it, is 'to throw gasoline on the resistance.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I'm with Sargent & Rosen. Time for the Southern Poverty Law Center to add "Trump administration" to its list of hate groups. ...

Just a sample of the sad scene we faced at the Trump rally in Tampa. I’m very worried that the hostility whipped up by Trump and some in conservative media will result in somebody getting hurt. We should not treat our fellow Americans this way. The press is not the enemy. pic.twitter.com/IhSRw5Ui3R

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) August 1, 2018

... Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: "In Tampa..., several journalists described an atmosphere of hostility that felt particularly hard-edge. And far from condemning these attacks on the press, the president and his team have endorsed them." ...

... Charles Blow: "It is simply not healthy for the country to have a president stuck perpetually in attack mode, fighting enemies real and imagined, pushing a toxic agenda that mixes the exaltation of grievance and the grinding of axes. The president's recent rallies have come to resemble orgies for Donald Trump's ego, spaces in which he can receive endless, unmeasured adulation and in which the crowds can gather for a revival of an anger that registers as near-religious. They can experience a communal affirmation that they are not alone in their intolerance, outrage and regression.... Such was the case again this week at a Trump rally in Florida, at which his supporters aggressively heckled and harassed the free press that Trump incessantly brands with the false descriptor of 'fake news.'... Trump doesn't want a free press; he wants free propaganda."

... Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Making matters worse was a dark novelty: The emergence at the [Trump] rally [in Tampa] of a cultish group called QAnon. These are the deranged devotees of a supposed government agent who they believe is waging war against the 'deep state' that threatens the Trump presidency.... As the Washington Post reported, 'As the president spoke, a sign rose from the audience. "We are Q,' it read. Another poster displayed text arranged in a "Q" pattern: "Where we go one we go all."' The group, born on Internet message boards such as Reddit and 8Chan, is a close cousin to the Pizzagate conspiracy theory that led a gunman to open fire in a D.C. restaurant last year. The Huffington Post's Andy Campbell described it as a mishmash: 'It's every conspiracy, all at once, an orchestra tune-up of theories.' And although the group has staged public events in recent months, Tuesday night's Trump rally was its real coming-out party." ...

... Jeet Heer of the New Republic: "The QAnon theories are elaborate and contradictory but at their heart is the idea that Donald Trump is waging a secret war against a cabal of pedophiles who hold positions of power in the government and the media.... The curious thing about the QAnon conspiracy theory is that Trump will have a hard time either embracing it or denouncing it." ...

... Steve M. "I don't think QAnon-style thinking is just a sideshow. I think it's the point of conservatism now. Not every pro-Trump conservative believes the specific QAnon theories, but they all believe that their enemies -- who now include not just all Democrats but every Republican who won't genuflect to Trump -- are unspeakably evil.... So I'm not sure that Trumpism requires Trump at all. Trump is the center of a personality cult because he's the first politician at his level who seems to regard us as the unholy monsters that rank-and-file conservatives believe we are.... Trump isn't the point -- the fight against us is the point. Trump is just, in their belief, the greatest fighter they've had." Steve posts a QAnon video "so you know how far around the bend your right-wing neighbors have become."

Eric Levitz of New York: "The Trump administration is doing (virtually) everything in its power to make the Affordable Care Act more costly for the federal government; Obamacare's plans more generous for the poor; and 'market-based' approaches to universal health care more toxic within the Democratic Party." --safari

Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "The Treasury Department on Wednesday announced it had imposed sanctions on two top Turkish government officials whom the United States accused of playing a leading role in the detention of an American pastor being held on espionage charges. The move was an unusual use of financial sanctions against the government of a vital NATO ally, and is sure to inflame tensions that were already simmering over Washington's refusal to extradite a cleric suspected of leading a failed 2016 coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. The sanctions target Abdulhamit Gul, Turkey's justice minister, and Suleyman Soylu, the interior minister. They were issued just days after President Trump warned the Turkish government to immediately release the pastor, Andrew Brunson -- a demand he made directly last week in a telephone call with Mr. Erdogan." ...

... Constantine Courcoulas & Tugce Ozsoy of Bloomberg: "Turkish markets are plunging deeper into the wild. Unprecedented sanctions imposed by the U.S., its NATO ally, have added to the cross-currents buffeting investors.... The U.S. 'move will likely only incense Erdogan and a commensurate response is already promised,' Timothy Ash, a strategist at BlueBay Asset Management in London, said in emailed comments." --safari

Min Joo Kim and Simon Denyer of the Washington Post: "More than 60 years after the last shot was fired in the Korean War, the U.S. military prepared Wednesday to fly home what are believed to be the remains of more than 50 service members after the first such handover by North Korea in more than a decade. North Korea transferred the remains last week, the first tangible moves from agreements reached between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at their meeting in Singapore on June 12. After a solemn ceremony at the U.S. military’s Osan Air Base in South Korea, 55 boxes of remains draped in the United Nations flag were taken to a pair of U.S. military planes, which flew them to a military laboratory in Hawaii for analysis and identification.... Vice President Pence, who was on hand at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii to receive the remains in an honorable carry ceremony.... The Pentagon estimates that nearly 7,700 U.S. troops are unaccounted for from the war.... Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said last week it was possible that some of the remains could belong to soldiers from those nations [which fought alongside the U.S.], and if so, they would be repatriated once they have been identified."

Alex Emmons of The Intercept: "The Intercept has learned of a previously unreported episode that stoked the UAE and Saudi Arabia's anger at [then-Sec. of State Rex] Tillerson and that may have played a key role in his removal. In the summer of 2017, several months before the Gulf allies started pushing for his ouster, Tillerson intervened to stop a secret Saudi-led, UAE-backed plan to invade and essentially conquer Qatar, according to one current member of the U.S. intelligence community and two former State Department officials, all of whom declined to be named.... Some Gulf watchers speculate that the incentive for the planned invasion may have been partly financial.... Since the current king [Mohammed bin Salman] came to power in 2015, the country has spent more than a third of its $737 billion in reserves, and last year, the Saudi economy entered a painful recession." --safari

Rebekah Entralago of ThinkProgress: "An employee atan Arizona facility that houses immigrant children separated from their families at the border has been arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl, according to Phoenix police.... One of the victim's roommates informed police on July 25 that she had witnessed the suspect kiss the girl multiple times and touch her breasts and crotch over her clothes in the bedroom she shared with two other minors.... According to the Phoenix Police Department, the suspect admitted to his involvement and was booked into jail on one count each of molestation, aggravated assault, and sexual abuse." --safari

Sam Fulwood III of ThinkProgress: "Black Lives Matter activists in Memphis, Tennessee learned last week that they'd made some new friends on Facebook: Local law enforcement.... In response to a lawsuit brought by the ACLU in Tennessee..., Memphis city officials released a cache of previously sealed documents.... The materials ... painted a detailed, if reluctant, portrait of how the Memphis police -- under the direction of its Office of Homeland Security, a special team created after the September 11, 2001 attacks -- used social media platforms to spy on BLM activists." --safari

March of the Lemmings. Doug Sosnik in Politico Magazine: "There's an underappreciated reason for Congress' inability to stand up for itself: the mass departures of leading members who were more committed to the institutions of the House and Senate than they were to their political tribe.... [A] dramatic turnover in the composition of Congress has occurred at the same time as the emergence of a newly rigid partisanship. The convergence of these two forces -- an inexperienced Congress and political tribalism — has hastened the decline of institutional politics.... Loyalty to party is now the most important thing.... Not long ago..., congressional leaders defined themselves as stewards of the bodies they served, and they were rewarded by their ability to bridge differences and build coalitions of diverse interests. Now, our politics rewards politicians who ... draw sharp lines to emphasize their cultural identity and to convey the shared preferences and -- just as important -- the resentments and grievances of their supporters.... Contrary to popular opinion, this state of affairs is not all Donald Trump's fault."

Corky Siemaszko of NBC News: "Retired Ohio State wrestling coach Russ Hellickson reached out to two ex-team members and asked them to support their former assistant coach, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a day after they accused the powerful congressman of turning a blind eye to alleged sexual abuse by the team doctor, according to the wrestlers and text messages they shared with NBC News. The former wrestlers said their ex-coach made it clear to them he was under pressure from Jordan to get statements of support from members of the team.... Complicating things further for Hellickson is the fact that he was videotaped ... this year [by Michael DiSabato, whose whose whistleblowing spurred the university's investigation], before the accusations against Jordan were reported, talking about some of the lewd behavior he had witnessed at the wrestling team's headquarters in Larkins Hall.... Asked if Jordan got Hellickson to contact the wrestlers...," Jordan's spokesman wouldn't say. ...

... Marc Tracy of the New York Times: "Ohio State announced Wednesday evening that the head coach of its storied football team, Urban Meyer, was being put on paid administrative leave while the university investigates allegations that Meyer knew a longtime former assistant coach had been accused of domestic abuse in 2015. Meyer, one of the most successful coaches of the past two decades, said last week that he had not heard of the domestic abuse accusations until they came to light in recent days, but a report has accused Meyer of having known about the accusations for far longer.... The escalation to paid administrative leave for Meyer came after Brett McMurphy, an independent journalist who formerly covered college football for ESPN, published a report on Facebook in which Courtney Smith, the ex-wife of the former assistant coach Zach Smith, said Meyer's wife had extensive knowledge of the abuse allegations. Courtney Smith's story was backed up by text messages, according to the report."

2018 Elections

Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "Former President Barack Obama took a public step back into the electoral arena on Wednesday, issuing a slate of 81 endorsements for Democrats running in the 2018 elections and giving his stamp of approval to more than a dozen veterans of his administration and election campaigns who are seeking office in their own right. Among the most prominent candidates to earn his backing were Richard Cordray, the former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, who is running for governor of Ohio; J.B. Pritzker, the private equity executive and Hyatt Hotels heir who is the party's nominee for governor in Illinois; and Stacey Abrams, the former Georgia House minority leader who is vying to become the first African-American woman elected governor of a state. But Mr. Obama also extended his political blessing to Democrats running far down the ballot, backing legislative candidates in states such as North Carolina and Texas, as well as Democrats running for relatively low-profile offices...." ...

Kavanaugh Double-Speak. Manu Raju of CNN: "Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has privately told senators he views the appointment of a special counsel by the Justice Department as appropriate, a comment that could shed new light about his views of Robert Mueller's investigation into Donald Trump's presidential campaign, according to sources familiar with the meetings. But Kavanaugh has also stood by his stated views that question whether a sitting US president can be indicted on criminal charges, instead saying Congress should play the lead role in impeaching and removing a president -- and also enact a law ensuring a president can be indicted after leaving office." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Eriq Gardner of the Hollywood Reporter: TVEyes, a service that stores TV content for researchers, is taking Fox "News" to the Supreme Court in a challenge to case it lost to Fox in appellate court over the fair-use doctrine.

"Capitalism is Awesome, Ctd". Ryan Gallagher of The Intercept: "Google is planning to launch a censored version of its search engine in China that will blacklist websites and search terms about human rights, democracy, religion, and peaceful protest, The Intercept can reveal. The project -- code-named Dragonfly -- has been underway since spring of last year, and accelerated following a December 2017 meeting between Google's CEO Sundar Pichai and a top Chinese government official.... The app Google is building for China will comply with the country's strict censorship laws, restricting access to content that Xi Jinping's Communist Party regime deems unfavorable." --safari

Beyond the Beltway

Josh Marshall of TPM: "2018 has been a year with constant new innovations in the field of politician revenge porn.... Meet rising star State Rep. Nick Sauer from Illinois.... Two years ago ... Sauer began a relationship with a California woman [Kate Kelly] who he met on the dating app Tinder.... [Long story short] Kelly shares nude photos of herself with Sauer as part of their long-distance relationship. Sauer takes those photos and posts them to an Instagram account which is based on her identity but which she doesn't know about. Sauer then sexts with the men who express sexual interest in 'Kelly' under the guise that Sauer is his then-girlfriend. Sauer is sexting wit other men while impersonating his girlfriend.... The crap hit the fan earlier this month." --safari...

     ... UPDATE: Sauer has since resigned from the legislature. Sad.

Way Beyond

Andrew Roth of the Guardian: "Three Russian journalists killed in the Central African Republic this week were investigating a Russian private military company with links to the Kremlin, their editors said. The Investigations Management Centre (IMC) said on its website on Tuesday that the team of reporters, led by the veteran war correspondent Orkhan Djemal, had been researching the actions of the Russian military firm Wagner, which has also been active in Syria and Ukraine.... Media reports said that the men may have been ambushed and killed Monday evening near the village of Sibut, about 185 miles (300km) north of the CAR's capital, Bangui.... The three Russians were accomplished journalists who had worked with independent or opposition media organisations." --safari