The Ledes

Thursday, September 26, 2024

The New York Times:' live updates of Hurricane Helene developments today are here. “Hurricane Helene was barreling through the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday en route to Florida, where residents were bracing for extreme rain, destructive winds and deadly storm surge ahead of the storm’s expected landfall. The storm could intensify to a Category 4, if not higher, before making landfall late Thursday, and forecasters warned Helene’s anticipated large size could make its impacts felt across an extensive area. Areas as distant as Atlanta and the Appalachians are at risk for heavy rains.... Many forecast models show the storm making landfall late Thursday near Florida’s Big Bend Coast, a sparsely populated stretch....” ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post has forecasts for some cites in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina & Tennessee that are in or near the probable path of Helene. ~~~

     ~~~ This morning, an MSNBC weatherperson said Tallahassee (which is inland) would experience wind gusts of up to 120 m.p.h. and that the National Weather Service said expected 20-foot storm surges near the coast would be “unsurvivable.”

The Wires
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The Ledes

Wednesday, September 25, 2024

The New York Times is live-updating developments in the progress of Hurricane Helene. “Helene continued to power north in the Caribbean Sea, strengthening into a hurricane Wednesday morning, on a path that forecasters expect will bring heavy amounts of rain to Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula and western Cuba before it begins to move toward Florida’s Gulf Coast.” ~~~

~~~ CNN: “Helene rapidly intensified into a hurricane Wednesday as it plows toward a Florida landfall as the strongest hurricane to hit the United States in over a year. The storm will also grow into a massive, sprawling monster as it continues to intensify, one that won’t just slam Florida, but also much of the Southeast.... Thousands of Florida residents have already been forced to evacuate and nearly the entire state is under alerts as the storm threatens to unleash flooding rainfall, damaging winds and life-threatening storm surge.... The hurricane unleashed its fury on parts of Mexico’s Yucátan Peninsula and Cuba Wednesday.“

Help!

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

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

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

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

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

Click on photo to enlarge.

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

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

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

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

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

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Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns


Tuesday
Jul312018

The Commentariat -- August 1, 2018

Afternoon Update:

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." ...

... 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." ...

     ... 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.

Rachel Weiner, et al., of the Washington Post are live-updating the Paul Manafort trial: The entry at 12:28 p.m. ET: The prosecutor told the judge it may not call Rick Gates, after all. Here's part of the 12:01 pm ET entry: "FBI Special Agent Matthew Mikuska has retaken the stand, but his testimony may not be as colorful as prosecutors may have hoped. Judge T.S. Ellis III expressed continued displeasure with the prosecution's desire to enter detailed evidence about the items Paul Manafort purchased with money routed from offshore bank accounts. Ellis deferred on ruling whether prosecutors may enter photos of luxury suits found in Manafort's condo until later in the trial, indicating he wants to better understand whether the pictures are necessary to prove they were purchased with income hidden in foreign bank accounts. But he denied prosecutor Uzo Asonye's request to show the jury pictures of the suits and their high-end labels, which means the pictures were also not shown to the public."

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 ... 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.'" ...

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

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.... 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."

*****

Breaking News! Trump Doesn't Grocery-Shop. Ashley Hoffman of Time: "... Donald Trump's latest head-scratching comment has lit up the internet. 'You know, if you go out and you want to buy groceries, you need a picture on a card, you need ID. You go out and you want to buy anything, you need ID and you need your picture,' Trump said at Tuesday night's Tampa, Fla., rally to drum up support for GOP Rep. Ron DeSantis'gubernatorial bid. He was -- in the moment -- throwing his support behind tougher ID requirements for voters. 'Only American citizens should vote in American elections. The time has come for voter ID like everything else,' Trump said." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Of course this isn't true. People under the age of 40 do need IDs to prove they're old enough to make certain age-restricted purchases in grocery stories: liquor & cigarettes, for instance. But that's it. All major grocery stores -- as far as I know -- accept credit cards that don't sport the holders' pictures. None, in my experience, ever asks to see a picture ID. Decades ago, before credit cards became nearly universal, people often paid for groceries with checks, & stores usually required some kind of ID before accepting checks. However, back then, the usual forms of ID -- drivers licenses -- didn't all have the holders' pictures on them, either. So pretty much at no time in history have major grocery chains required picture IDs to buy hamburger & Cap'n Crunch. And cash is always good, sans ID.

Stephanie Murray of Politico: "'The Fake News Media is going CRAZY! They are totally unhinged and in many ways, after witnessing first hand the damage they do to so many innocent and decent people, I enjoy watching,' [Donald] Trump said in a tweet [Tuesday morning]. 'In 7 years, when I am no longer in office, their ratings will dry up and they will be gone!'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Ken Meyer of Mediaite: Trump spent a good deal of the morning Tuesday tweeting "news" he heard on Fox "News." Mrs. McC: And cynics call Fox "state media." How unfair! (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.

Sharon LaFraniere & Emily Baumgaertner of the New York Times: "Before a packed federal courtroom, jury selection began Tuesday in the bank and tax fraud trial of Paul Manafort, President Trump' former campaign chairman.... The court began choosing 16 jurors -- 12 to be seated and four alternates. The trial is expected to last at least three weeks.... Mr. Manafort, 69, is the first American charged in the inquiry by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, to maintain his innocence and to force the prosecutors to prove their case at trial.... The trial is being carefully watched because of Mr. Manafort's role as the chairman of the Trump campaign and his longstanding ties with pro-Russia businessmen and politicians, which he developed over a decade of political consulting work in Ukraine." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... This story has been updated to include these developments: "... The bank and tax fraud trial of Paul Manafort ... got off to a quick start on Tuesday as the judge seated a jury and prosecutors and defense lawyers delivered opening statements. Uzo Asonye, an assistant United States attorney on the team of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, told the jury that Mr. Manafort had engaged in an elaborate, multi-year scheme to evade $15 million in taxes and obtain fraudulent loans. Setting out Mr. Manafort's defense for the first time, one of his lawyers ... blamed associates of Mr. Manafort for mishandling his finances, saying Mr. Manafort had placed his trust in the wrong people. He singled out Rick Gates, Mr. Manafort's former business partner. Mr. Gates has pleaded guilty in the case and is cooperating with Mr. Mueller's inquiry.... Dressed in a black suit with a silver tie, he consulted frequently with his five defense lawyers during the jury selection process, donning glasses to pore over his notes...." ...

... Katelyn Polantz, et al., of CNN: "Prosecutors accused ... Paul Manafort of being a 'shrewd' liar who orchestrated a global scheme to avoid paying taxes on millions of dollars, in opening statements that kicked off Manafort's trial on Tuesday. Manafort lived an 'extravagant lifestyle' fueled by 'secret income' that he earned from his lobbying in Ukraine, said Uzo Asonye, a prosecutor working on the case with special counsel Robert Mueller's team. Manafort became wealthy from the 'cash spigot' that came from working for his "golden goose in Ukraine," former President Viktor Yanukovych, Asonye said. The opening statement indicated that prosecutors plan to put Manafort's wealth on trial as a key element of their case, arguing he funded his lavish spending habits by breaking the law." ...

... Margaret Hartmann of New York has a good synopsis of Day 1 of the Manafort trial. ...

... Dan Friedman of Mother Jones: "Trump and some of his defenders contend that Mueller's prosecution of Manafort on charges unrelated to collaboration with Russia during the 2016 election means such evidence does not exist. But that is a flawed assumption. The special counsel has constructed cases that offer the best chance of convicting Manafort.... If Manafort is convicted, prosecutors may hope to use what could essentially amount to a life sentence to push him to cooperate with their broader investigation.... Yet as they lay out a case against Manafort, prosecutors have released tidbits that seem to hint at Manafort coordinating with Russia.... Prosecutors have alleged in court filings that Manafort's longtime business associate in Ukraine, Konstantin Kilimnik, has ties to Russian intelligence that were active in 2016.... Federal filings connected to a search of Manafort's property last year have also revealed that he may have had a major motive to help Russia: He allegedly owed millions to [Russian aluminum magnate Oleg] Deripaska." ...

... Matthew Rosenberg, et al., of the New York Times: "Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, has referred three investigations into possible illicit foreign lobbying by Washington insiders to federal prosecutors in New York who are already handling the case against [Michael Cohen]..., according to multiple people familiar with the cases. The cases cut across party lines, focusing on both powerful Democratic and Republican players in Washington.... They also tie into the special counsel investigation of Mr. Trump: All three cases are linked to Paul Manafort.... The cases involve Gregory B. Craig, who served as the White House counsel under President Barack Obama before leaving to work for the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; former Representative Vin Weber, Republican of Minnesota, who joined Mercury Public Affairs, a lobbying firm, after leaving Congress; and Tony Podesta, a high-powered Washington lobbyist whose brother, John D. Podesta, was the chairman of Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. The three men have not been charged with any crimes, those familiar with the cases said." ...

     ... The CNN story by Erica Orden, which broke the news, is here.

Nicholas Fandos & Kevin Roose of the New York Times: "Facebook announced on Tuesday that it has identified a coordinated political influence campaign, with dozens of inauthentic accounts and pages that are believed to be engaging in political activity around divisive social issues ahead of November's midterm elections. In a series of briefings on Capitol Hill this week and a public post on Tuesday, the company told lawmakers that it had detected and removed 32 pages and accounts connected to the influence campaign on Facebook and Instagram as part of its investigations into election interference. It publicly said it had been unable to tie the accounts to Russia, whose Internet Research Agency was at the center of an indictment earlier this year for interfering in the 2016 election, but company officials told Capitol Hill that Russia was possibly involved, according to two officials briefed on the matter." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Ian Bogost of the Atlantic: Facebook "found, and removed, possible election interference on its platforms. But the government, and the world, is too reliant on the company to protect democracy.... [But] Facebook's assurances [that it had caught entities engaging in 'coordinated inauthentic behavior'] also offer some reason for greater worry. Today's announcement doesn't detail everything that led the company to identify and ban these particular accounts, pages, events, and posts, but it does suggest that a few missteps by those in charge of these campaigns contributed to their unmasking.... Intelligence and security has become an arms race, a new kind of cold war made from memes instead of warheads. And yet, the U.S. government hasn't established a sufficient approach to the threat. ...

... Alex Shephard of the New Republic: "On Monday..., Virginia Senator Mark Warner’s office [released a blueprint] featuring 20 'potential policy proposals' for regulating tech companies, on issues ranging from national security to fair competition to consumer protection. It's a crucial and belated first step for Democratic lawmakers..., but it also shows just how far Congress is from taking legislative action -- and how complicated and politically fraught passing any regulation ... will be. The policy paper is, in many ways, the inverse of [Mark] Zuckerberg's appearance before the Senate Commerce and Judiciary committees in April. That hearing ... was something of a charade. When the Facebook founder wasn't being interrogated about unrelated matters..., he came across like a grandson patiently explaining the internet to his confused grandparents.... Warner's paper, by contrast..., is careful.... The proposed regulations are sensible and, for the most part, not particularly radical. But they would go a long way to simultaneously protect consumers from exploitation and protect American democracy from foreign interference. The paper considers how to hold tech companies accountable for policing their platforms and for ensuring that hostile actors are swiftly removed."

Duncan Campbell of Computer Weekly: "A British IT manager and former hacker launched and ran an international disinformation campaign that has provided ... Donald Trump with fake evidence and false arguments to deny that Russia interfered to help him win the election. The campaign is being run from the UK by 39-year-old programmer Tim Leonard, who lives in Darlington, [England,] using the false name 'Adam Carter'. Starting after the 2016 presidential election, Leonard worked with a group of mainly American right-wing activists to spread claims on social media that Democratic 'insiders' and non-Russian agents were responsible for hacking the Democratic Party.... The claims led to Trump asking then CIA director Mike Pompeo to investigate allegations circulated from Britain that the Russian government was not responsible for the cyber attacks, and that they could be proved to be an 'inside job', in the form of leaks by a [Democratic] party employee. This was the opposite of the CIA's official intelligence findings." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Digby, in Salon, does a good job of summarizing the weird Giuliani media blitz of the past couple of days. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Follow the $. Jason Leopold & Anthony Cormier of Buzzfeed: "[B]ank transactions totaling nearly $300,000, none of which have been made public, offer the first detailed look at how an accused foreign agent [Maria Butina] and a Republican operative financed what prosecutors say was a Russian campaign to influence American politics.... Now counterintelligence officers say the duo's banking activity could provide a road map of back channels to powerful American entities such as the National Rifle Association, and information about the Kremlin's attempt to sway the 2016 US presidential election.... Bank officials found that he paid her rent, her tuition at American University, and even a monthly furniture bill...But bankers also saw that [Paul] Erickson was often in dire financial straits. His personal and business accounts were overdrawn by a total of $2,300. He was hit with 77 overdraft fees. He took out payday loans of about $3,000 and had a balance of just $9 in one of his accounts." --safari ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: See related story by Betsy Woodruff, linked below. And the following story about the Useful Idiot Junior Falwell is tangentially related to both. ...

... More Useful Idiots. Noor Al-Sabai of RawStory: "Liberty University president and televangelist spawn Jerry Falwell Jr. admitted that he asked President Donald Trump to thaw relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin -- and cited the alliance of the former Soviet Union with the Allied powers during World War II as his justification." --safari


Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare: "It isn't every day that the U.S. Department of Justice acknowledges formally that the President of the United States lied in a speech to Congress. But that's how I read a letter I received a few days ago from the department's Office of Information Policy in connection with one of my Freedom of Information Act suits against the department.... In [his] first address to Congress in February 2017..., [Trump claimed,] 'According to data provided by the Department of Justice, the vast majority of individuals convicted of terrorism and terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country.'... In April of last year, I filed two FOIA requests. I asked for any records supporting the president's claim before Congress, along with any records 'relating to the nationality or country of origin of individuals convicted of terrorism-related offenses.'" In a letter to Wittes dated July 24, 2018, the DOJ wrote, "... [N]o responsive records were located."


Matt Shuham of TPM: "White House chief of staff John Kelly announced to staff Monday that he'd agreed to stay in that position through the 2020 election, the Wall Street Journal first reported Tuesday. Citing unnamed White House officials, the Journal said Kelly was responding to Trump's request that he stay through 2020." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Julie Davis of the New York Times: "The White House is considering a second sharp reduction in the number of refugees who can be resettled in the United States, picking up where President Trump left off in 2017 in scaling back a program intended to offer protection to the world's most vulnerable people, according to two former government officials and another person familiar with the talks. This time, the effort is meeting with less resistance from inside the Trump administration because of the success that Stephen Miller, the president's senior policy adviser and an architect of his anti-immigration agenda, has had in installing allies in key positions who are ready to sign off on deep cuts. Last year, after a fierce internal battle that pitted Mr. Miller, who advocated a limit as low as 15,000, against officials at the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department and the Pentagon, Mr. Trump set the cap at 45,000, a historic low. Under one plan currently being discussed, no more than 25,000 refugees could be resettled in the United States next year, a cut of more than 40 percent from this year's limit.... The program's fate could hinge on Mike Pompeo..... His department has traditionally been a strong advocate for the refugee program, but Mr. Pompeo is now being advised by two senior aides who are close to Mr. Miller and share his hard-line approach...."

Nick Miroff & Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "Trump administration officials mounted a fierce defense Tuesday of the controversial family separation policy at the border, defending sites as 'more like a summer camp' than holding facilities, and arguing that the detention system simply was not set up to facilitate court-ordered reunions easily. 'I'm very comfortable with the level of service and protection that is being provided,' top Immigration and Customs Enforcement official Matthew Albence told the Senate Judiciary Committee about the conditions at the 'family residential centers,' which he likened to summer camps. He and other administration officials told senators that the government had mechanisms in place to return children to their parents after they were separated, but they had to improvise a new reunification system under orders from a federal judge. 'This is a novel situation,' said Cmdr. Jonathan D. White, a public health coordinating official for the reunification effort. 'The systems were not set up to have referrals include parent information.'... The defensive comments from Trump officials dumbfounded Democratic members of the committee, such as Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who charged that the Trump administration had created a situation at the border that was like a Kafka novel, suggesting that ... Chuck E. Cheese had a better system for preventing children from being separated from their parents than the U.S. government." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... No More Drugging the Kiddies at Summer Camp. Samantha Schmidt of the Washington Post: "A federal judge on Monday found that U.S. governmentofficials have been giving psychotropic medication to migrant children at a Texas facility without first seeking the consent of their parents or guardians, in violation of state child welfare laws. U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles ordered the Trump administration to obtain consent or a court order before adm inistering any psychotropic medications to migrant children, except in cases of dire emergencies. She also ordered that the government move all children out of a Texas facility, Shiloh Residential Treatment Center in Manvel, except for children deemed by a licensed professional to pose a 'risk of harm' to themselves or others. Staff members at Shiloh admitted to signing off on medications in lieu of a parent, relative or legal guardian, according to Gee's ruling.... The facility also has a history of troubling practices, including allegations of child abuse, according to the Center for Investigative Reporting." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Melanie Schmitz of ThinkProgress: "Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross pressured the Justice Department to add a controversial citizenship question to the 2020 decennial census, months prior to the department's formal request, a recent court disclosure reveals.... [E]mails contradict Ross' previous version of events, which he relayed to the House Ways and Means Committee in March. At the time, the secretary claimed the Justice Department had 'initiated the request for inclusion of the citizenship question' on its own in December 2017.... Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have leapt to condemn Ross over that inconsistency." --safari: Despite obvious inconsistencies and mounting evidence of political ratfking, the GOP will run roughshod right over the flailing Democrats. ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Michael Wines of the New York Times covered the e-mail evidence of Ross's false claim this last week. Last week Chris Hayes also found three separate hearings where Ross lied to Congress about the DOJ's supposedly initiating the citizenship question, but I was never able to find an isolated video of the segment (and I still can't). Two days ago, Salvador Rizzo of the Washington Post gave Ross 4 Pinocchios -- the max -- for his false testimony. The issue is an important one, because, as Emily Badger of the New York Times writes (July 31), "The primary effect would be to dilute the power of the most populous states and, within states, the cities where immigrants are densely clustered. Other American political institutions like the Senate and Electoral College systematically disadvantage large urban areas relative to rural ones. Political maps redefined to count only citizens, or voting-age citizens, would push that dynamic further." In the meantime, as Michael Wines wrote (July 26), "A federal judge on Thursday gave the green light to a lawsuit seeking to block the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 census, saying plaintiffs had made a plausible case that the move was a deliberate attempt by the White House to discriminate against immigrants. The ruling, by United States District Judge Jesse M. Furman in Manhattan, set the stage for a trial this fall that is expected to delve into how and why the Trump administration decided in March to add a question to the next census about citizenship status."

"Trump's Crony Capitalists Plot a New Heist." New York Times Editors: "It seems that last year's $1.5 trillion tax-cut package, despite heavily favoring affluent investors and corporate titans over workers of modest means, was insufficiently generous to the wealthy to satisfy certain members of the Trump administration. So now Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin offers an exciting plan to award an additional $100 billion tax cut to the richest Americans. Specifically, Mr. Mnuchin has directed his department to explore allowing investors to take inflation into account when calculating their capital gains tax bill.... Independent analyses say that a whopping 97 percent of the savings from Mr. Mnuchin's plan would go to the highest 10 percent of income earners. So ... the administration is looking to hand $66 billion-plus to the ultrarich like -- just to name a few -- Mr. Mnuchin..., Wilbur Ross..., Betsy DeVos..., and, of course, the extended Trump-Kushner clan.... Thus die the final vestiges of this president's pretty little narrative about being a populist hero." ...

... Franklin Foer of the Atlantic: "On the eve of the Paul Manafort trial, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin casually announced that the Trump administration was considering a fresh $100 billion tax cut for the wealthy. The two events -- the trial and the tax cut -- should be considered plot points in the very same narrative. Manafort had grown very rich by looting public monies, and Mnuchin was proposing an arguably legal version of the same.... This proposed cut would be implemented by executive fiat, without a congressional vote -- a highly unusual and highly undemocratic act of plunder that would redirect money from the state to further enrich the American elite, not to mention Mnuchin himself. The trial of Paul Manafort ... is an occasion for the United States to awaken from its collective slumber about the creeping dangers of kleptocracy.... Over the past three decades..., America has become the sanctuary of choice for laundered money, a bastion of shell companies and anonymously purchased real estate.... Manafort is one of the architects of this new world order." Read on. ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: When I read Foer's essay, I immediately thought of Henry Kissinger, even though Foer doesn't mention Kissinger & his international shenanigans. But Kissinger has long seemed to me to be a master facilitator of corrupt money schemes benefitting the world's most brutal characters. So as luck would have it, the next story I read was this one by Betsy Woodruff of the Daily Beast, ostensibly about Mariia Butina. The gist of the story is that Butina pushed creepy American financier [Maurice "Hank"] Greenberg (think AIG) to invest heavily in a particularly crooked -- and failing -- Russian bank called Investtorgbank. "Butina's efforts ... did not succeed. In April 2015.... Butina and [her mentor] Alexander Torshin ... attended a private discussion of Russia';s financial situation at the Center for the National Interest.... Greenberg ... [who] is a main source of funding for the Center -- participated in the meeting. The Center's honorary chairman -- former secretary of state and accused war criminal Henry Kissinger -- is one of Vladimir Putin's closest international confidants; the two have met 17 times over the years. Kissinger also advised Donald Trump to move closer to Russia.... People close to the Center have risen to prominence in the Trump administration.... Trump himself gave the first major foreign policy speech of his presidential campaign at an event the Center hosted, on April 27, 2016...." Here again, you have to read the whole story to get a glimpse of the corrupt entanglements Foer describes. Trump played only in the margins of this gang; thanks to his new job, he's moving closer to its center now. ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: As MAG points out in today's comments (here I'm citing a July 30 WashPo story), "'With Paul Manafort, who really is a nice man, you look at what's going on, it's like Al Capone,' the president said in a recent Fox News interview, comparing the prosecution strategy to the one used to take down the murderous gangster on tax evasion charges." Yeah but. The "murderous gangster" Capone confined most of his dirty ops to the U.S.; efforts by Manafort & his cronies extend world-wide; they aid & abet quite a few "murderous gangsters." "A nice man"?

Contributer forrest m. has been doing original research for us re: the DOJ's new so-called "religious liberty task force" (related stories linked below.) forrest "tried Googling how many Baptist churches have been attacked by the LGBTQ community and guess what---it's less than zero." Also in today's thread, Jeanne doesn't seem all that sure we need a taxpayer-funded "Christian freedom" enforcement squad: "Why do we have to have an entire subcabinet outfit to ballyhoo and whine and complain that one can't practice one's Christian religion anymore when we have that font of virtue, Sam Brownback? Wasn't he supposed to be the gatekeeper so none of the 'wrong' religions get consideration ever?" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Deanna Paul, et al., of the Washington Post: "A federal judge has blocked the public availability of blueprints that provide instructions for making guns using 3-D printers, just hours before the documents were expected to be published online. U.S. District Court Judge Robert Lasnik granted a temporary restraining order on Tuesday night barring a trove of downloadable information about creating the do-it-yourself weapons. Eight attorneys general and the District of Columbia argued that the instructions posed a national security threat. New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) on Tuesday also issued a cease-and-desist order against the man who was scheduled to post them online.... The Pennsylvania attorney general also sued Defense Distributed on Sunday, and the company agreed to temporarily block Pennsylvania users from its website. Democrats in the House and Senate also filed legislation that would in effect ban guns constructed from 3-D-printed material. But despite the efforts, some of the plans went online on Friday, according to Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro." ...

... Michael Shear & Tiffany Hsu of the New York Times: "State officials, Democratic lawmakers and gun control groups waged a frantic legal fight on Tuesday to block the online distribution of blueprints for 3-D printed 'ghost guns,' even as President Trump said he is 'looking into' his administration's decision last month to allow the posting of instructions for making the untraceable, plastic firearms. Cody Wilson, a champion of gun-rights and anarchism from Texas who has waged a yearslong legal battle for the right to post the schematics for making homemade guns, has said he will begin making the plans available following a settlement with the State Department ending the government' effort to stop him. But with just hours before an August 1 deadline when Mr. Wilson has said he will upload many more schematics -- including instructions for making AR-15-style rifles -- alarmed public officials accelerated their efforts to get courts to prevent Mr. Wilson from moving forward with his plans."

States' Rights! (Exceptions). Mark Hand of ThinkProgress: "Senate Republicans introduced legislation on Tuesday that would take regulatory power away from states in order to expedite the approval of energy infrastructure projects that are facing stiff resistance from the public. The bill, dubbed the Water Quality Certification Improvement Act of 2018, is part of an effort by the Trump administration and its allies in Congress to reduce the ability of states to use their authority under section 401 of the Clean Water Act to prevent the construction of projects such as pipelines or coal export terminals." --safari

Spectrum News: "North Carolina's largest health insurer ... Blue Cross and Blue Shield ... said Tuesday it proposed prices to state insurance regulators that could lower rates for next year's Affordable Care Act policies by 4.1 percent on average, which is the first rate decrease in more than 25 years.... About 85 percent of the savings comes from last year's federal income tax cut and Congress suspending a tax on insurers for 2019. Blue Cross says it could have lowered average rates by another 18 percent if Congress and the Trump Administration hadn't eliminated the penalty for people who don't buy health." [Emphasis added] --safari

Laura Litvan & Katherine Scott of Bloomberg: "Senator Susan Collins of Maine told reporters Tuesday that she has no objection to a decision late Friday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, to leave out of a federal document request all the paperwork and emails from [Supreme Court nominee Brett] Kavanaugh's time as staff secretary to President George W. Bush.... 'I met with Senator Grassley yesterday about the document request and, as he described it to me, it seems eminently reasonable,' Collins said. Mrs. McC: Still wondering where Collins will come down on the confirmation vote? ...

... BUT Jeff Toobin, in the New Yorker, argues that Democrats should keep on fighting anyway. "... the current Republican margin in the Senate (owing to John McCain's absence) is just a single vote, and Kavanaugh's long paper trail, both as a judge and as a Republican political appointee, gives Democrats a great deal of material to exploit. Most of all, they need to remember that fighting Supreme Court nominees, even against formidable odds, can succeed -- and produce a better Court than anyone might have expected."

"Everyone Talked." Writing a Book about the Trumpies for Fun & Profit. Annie Karni of Politico: Bob Woodward is writing a book pre-titled "Fear: Trump in the White House," which is scheduled to be released Sept. 11. "The cover is a striking red wash over an uncomfortably close close-up of Trump's face.... According to half a dozen former administration officials and people close to the administration, Woodward was never officially granted access to the White House or to the president, and the communications department did nothing to help him in researching or writing his book.... [BUT] Senior officials, acting as lone wolves concerned with preserving their own reputations, spoke to Woodward on their own -- with some granting him hours of their time out of a fear of being the last person in the room to offer his or her viewpoint. As one former administration official put it... : 'It's gonna be killer. Everyone talked with Woodward.'" In yesterday Comments thread, PD Pepe linked to a similar HuffPost story by Nick Visser.

"The Stephen King of the Horror Story We Live in":

... In another segment, Colbert goes on to discuss the #MeToo movement, and elaborates on his gutsy opening about his boss Les Moonves:

... Anna Silman of New York: "Last night on CBS's Late Show, Stephen Colbert did something that many people in the #MeToo movement have not: He took his boss to task.... Colbert's response stands out compared to others at CBS who have gone on the record about the allegations faced by their shared boss. After Farrow's report broke on Friday, many top female executives and personalities came out in support of Moonves, including Sharon Osbourne, Lynda Carter, president and chief advertising revenue officer Jo Ann Ross, and executive vice-president of daytime programs Angelica McDaniel. Moonves's wife, Julie Chen, expressed full-throated support on The Talk, the CBS show she co-hosts. The company's board said that while they would investigate the claims against him, Moonves would remain CEO."

Beyond the Beltway

** Jonathan Oosting of the Detroit News: "A proposal to create an independent redistricting commission will appear on the November ballot, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled late Tuesday in a closely watched case. The 4-3 decision is rife with political implications in Michigan, where Republicans have maintained or grown congressional and legislative advantages since last drawing the state's political boundaries in 2011.... The proposal would create a 13-member redistricting commission that would be composed of four Democrats, four Republicans and five independent members who vow they are not affiliated with any major political party. The secretary of state would select the commission members. The committee would be tasked with redrawing political boundaries every 10 years, a power currently reserved for whichever political party controls Lansing at the time.... Republicans who drew the current boundaries have publicly denied an overt bias and say existing laws already limit manipulation. But recently revealed emails between map makers that were disclosed as part of a separate federal lawsuit point to political calculus." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Especially if this ballot measure passes, it could become a blueprint for reform in other states. You can bet opponents will mount an extremely vigorous campaign against the measure.

Way Beyond

Thomas Erdbrink of the New York Times: "On Tuesday, in Tehran, Mr. Trump’s open invitation [to meet with Iran's president Hassan Rouhani] seemed to be on everybody's mind. Increasingly desperate, many [Iranian citizens] say they would >welcome any option that could ease Iran's economic quagmire.... But if anything, Iran's leaders seem paralyzed by Mr. Trump's offer. Direct talks with the United States go against their ideology. And in their minds, sitting down publicly with Mr. Trump, whom they have called particularly ignorant, capricious, arrogant and rude, would be an especially humiliating submission to imperialism and pressure. When dealing with the United States over the past decades, Iranian leaders have often preferred to do it through secret talks, far away from ordinary Iranians, who are bombarded daily with organized anti-Americanism from their schoolbooks to state television."

Simon Tisdall of the Guardian: "The suicide bombing and hostage-taking at a government building in Jalalabad is the latest in a series of attacks, attributed to Islamic State terrorists, that have killed or wounded hundreds of people in eastern Afghanistan since mid-June.... But the terrorists' lethal escalation including Tuesday's assault has also coincided, probably deliberately, with signs of progress in renewed efforts to halt the 17-year-old, US-orchestrated war between the Afghan government and the Taliban." --safari

Juan Cole: "After the passage last week of the 'nationality' law, Israel is no longer multicultural. It is a country where national sovereignty solely lies in the hands of its Jewish citizens. Among the Palestinian-Israelis with Israeli citizenship, only about 130,000 are Druze ... a medieval offshoot of the Ismaili branch of Shiite Islam.... Alone among the Palestinian-Israelis, the Druze serve in the military. And therein lies the rub.... They say they were fighting for their 'nationality' but that now it isn't theirs anymore.... They say they will do whatever they can to ensure that their grandchildren don't serve in the Israeli army. Druze elders are petrified of this sentiment ... which threatens to turn their community into ordinary Palestinians, and they have commanded the Druze rank and file to stay out of politics and do their military service.... They are not stateless the way the latter are, but they aren't full citizens either. The statelessness of the refugees and the Occupied has finally rubbed off on them." --safari

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Monday
Jul302018

The Commentariat -- July 31, 2018

Afternoon Update:

Stephanie Murray of Politico: "'The Fake News Media is going CRAZY! They are totally unhinged and in many ways, after witnessing first hand the damage they do to so many innocent and decent people, I enjoy watching,' [Donald] Trump said in a tweet [Tuesday morning]. 'In 7 years, when I am no longer in office, their ratings will dry up and they will be gone!'" ...

... Ken Meyer of Mediaite: Trump spent a good deal of the morning Tuesday tweeting "news" he heard on Fox "News." Mrs. McC: And cynics call Fox "state media." How unfair!

Sharon LaFraniere & Emily Baumgaertner of the New York Times: "Before a packed federal courtroom, jury selection began Tuesday in the bank and tax fraud trial of Paul Manafort, President Trump's former campaign chairman.... The court began choosing 16 jurors -- 12 to be seated and four alternates. The trial is expected to last at least three weeks.... Mr. Manafort, 69, is the first American charged in the inquiry by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, to maintain his innocence and to force the prosecutors to prove their case at trial.... The trial is being carefully watched because of Mr. Manafort's role as the chairman of the Trump campaign and his longstanding ties with pro-Russia businessmen and politicians, which he developed over a decade of political consulting work in Ukraine.

Nicholas Fandos & Kevin Roose of the New York Times: "Facebook announced on Tuesday that it has identified a coordinated political influence campaign, with dozens of inauthentic accounts and pages that are believed to be engaging in political activity around divisive social issues ahead of November's midterm elections. In a series of briefings on Capitol Hill this week and a public post on Tuesday, the company told lawmakers that it had detected and removed 32 pages and accounts connected to the influence campaign on Facebook and Instagram as part of its investigations into election interference. It publicly said it had been unable to tie the accounts to Russia, whose Internet Research Agency was at the center of an indictment earlier this year for interfering in the 2016 election, but company officials told Capitol Hill that Russia was possibly involved, according to two officials briefed on the matter."

Duncan Campbell of Computer Weekly: "A British IT manager and former hacker launched and ran an international disinformation campaign that has provided ... Donald Trump with fake evidence and false arguments to deny that Russia interfered to help him win the election. The campaign is being run from the UK by 39-year-old programmer Tim Leonard, who lives in Darlington, [England,] using the false name 'Adam Carter'. Starting after the 2016 presidential election, Leonard worked with a group of mainly American right-wing activists to spread claims on social media that Democratic 'insiders' and non-Russian agents were responsible for hacking the Democratic Party.... The claims led to Trump asking then CIA director Mike Pompeo to investigate allegations circulated from Britain that the Russian government was not responsible for the cyber attacks, and that they could be proved to be an 'inside job', in the form of leaks by a [Democratic] party employee. This was the opposite of the CIA's official intelligence findings."

Matt Shuham of TPM: "White House chief of staff John Kelly announced to staff Monday that he'd agreed to stay in that position through the 2020 election, the Wall Street Journal first reported Tuesday. Citing unnamed White House officials, the Journal said Kelly was responding to Trump's request that he stay through 2020. The Washington Post and CNN, also citing unnamed officials, confirmed the news."

Nick Miroff & Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "Trump administration officials mounted a fierce defense Tuesday of the controversial family separation policy at the border, defending sites as 'more like a summer camp' than holding facilities, and arguing that the detention system simply was not set up to facilitate court-ordered reunions easily. 'I'm very comfortable with the level of service and protection that is being provided,' top Immigration and Customs Enforcement official Matthew Albence told the Senate Judiciary Committee about the conditions at the 'family residential centers,' which he likened to summer camps. He and other administration officials told senators that the government had mechanisms in place to return children to their parents after they were separated, but they had to improvise a new reunification system under orders from a federal judge. 'This is a novel situation,' said Cmdr. Jonathan D. White, a public health coordinating official for the reunification effort. 'The systems were not set up to have referrals include parent information.'... The defensive comments from Trump officials dumbfounded Democratic members of the committee, such as Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who charged that the Trump administration had created a situation at the border that was like a Kafka novel, suggesting that ... Chuck E. Cheese had a better system for preventing children from being separated from their parents than the U.S. government." ...

... No More Drugging the Kiddies at Summer Camp. Samantha Schmidt of the Washington Post: "A federal judge on Monday found that U.S. government officials have been giving psychotropic medication to migrant children at a Texas facility without first seeking the consent of their parents or guardians, in violation of state child welfare laws. U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles ordered the Trump administration to obtain consent or a court order before administering any psychotropic medications to migrant children, except in cases of dire emergencies. She also ordered that the government move all children out of a Texas facility, Shiloh Residential Treatment Center in Manvel, except for children deemed by a licensed professional to pose a 'risk of harm' to themselves or others. Staff members at Shiloh admitted to signing off on medications in lieu of a parent, relative or legal guardian, according to Gee's ruling.... The facility also has a history of troubling practices, including allegations of child abuse, according to the Center for Investigative Reporting."

Digby, in Salon, does a good job of summarizing the weird Giuliani media blitz of the past couple of days.

Contributer forrest m. has been doing original research for us re: the DOJ's new so-called "religious liberty task force" (related stories linked below.) forrest "tried Googling how many Baptist churches have been attacked by the LGBTQ community and guess what---it's less than zero." Also in today's thread, Jeanne doesn't seem all that sure we need a taxpayer-funded "Christian freedom" enforcement squad: "Why do we have to have an entire sucabinet outfit to ballyhoo and whine and complain that one can't practice one's Christian religion anymore when we have that font of virtue, Sam Brownback? Wasn't he supposed to be the gatekeeper so none of the 'wrong' religions get consideration ever?"

*****

Populist Prez "Mulls Unilateral Tax Cut for the Rich." Alan Rappeport & Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "The Trump administration is considering bypassing Congress to grant a $100 billion tax cut mainly to the wealthy, a legally tenuous maneuver that would cut capital gains taxation and fulfill a long-held ambition of many investors and conservatives. Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, said in an interview on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit meeting in Argentina this month that his department was studying whether it could use its regulatory powers to allow Americans to account for inflation in determining capital gains tax liabilities. The Treasury Department could change the definition of 'cost' for calculating capital gains, allowing taxpayers to adjust the initial value of an asset, such as a home or a share of stock, for inflation when it sells.... Independent analyses suggest that more than 97 percent of the benefits of indexing capital gains for inflation would go to the top 10 percent of income earners in America. Nearly two-thirds of the benefits would go to the super wealthy -- the top 0.1 percent of American income earners." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Take that, you poor, ignorant Trumpbots. What? Can't get a job that pays more than the lousy federal minimum wage? Lost your health insurance? The kids' teachers went on strike? Boo-fucking-hoo. But, hey, none of those sluts can get abortions, right? Nobody has to bake artistic wedding cakes for homo-sexuals. (See Sessions' "religious liberty task force" stories linked below.) And a few hundred scary immigrant kids lost their parents forever. #MAGA! (Made in China) ...

... Patrick Temple-West & Victoria Guida of Politico: "Some of the biggest winners from ... Donald Trump's new tax law are corporate executives who have reaped gains as their companies buy back a record amount of stock, a practice that rewards shareholders by boosting the value of existing shares. A Politico review of data disclosed in Securities and Exchange Commission filings shows the executives, who often receive most of their compensation in stock, have been profiting handsomely by selling shares since Trump signed the law on Dec. 22 and slashed corporate tax rates to 21 percent. That trend is likely to increase, as Wall Street analysts expect buyback activity to accelerate in the coming weeks. 'It is going to be a parade of eye-popping numbers,' said Pat McGurn, the head of strategic research and analysis at Institutional Shareholder Services, a shareholder advisory firm." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The big thing is, it will be a total denuclearization, which is already starting taking place. -- Donald Trump, remarks June 22

There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea. -- Donald Trump, in a tweet, June 13

Kim Jung-Un ... has really been very open and I think very honorable based on what we are seeing. -- Donald Trump, remarks April 25 ...

... Ellen Nakashima & Joby Warrick of the Washington Post: "U.S. spy agencies are seeing signs that North Korea is constructing new missiles at a factory that produced the country's first intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States, according to officials familiar with the intelligence. Newly obtained evidence, including satellite photos taken in recent weeks, indicates that work is underway on at least one and possibly two liquid-fueled ICBMs at a large research facility in Sanumdong, on the outskirts of Pyongyang, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity...."

Prima L'Italia. Jeet Heer: "Meeting with newly-elected Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte in the White House, President Trump singled out for commendation Italy's new tough line on immigration. As a nationalist and populist, Conte has more in common with Trump than most American allies.... Trump's warm words for Conte illustrate that the president's 'America First' foreign policy is in practice a policy of building closer ties with governments that share the president's own politics. As Max Fisher of The New York Times observes, this is a genuine innovation given previous American governments have tried to work with allies of varying political orientation."

Jeet Heer: "First: Threaten nuclear war on Twitter. Second: Invite Iran over for tea. At a press conference on Monday, the president said he'd be willing to meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at the drop of a hat. 'No preconditions,' Trump asserted.... This openness to diplomacy is admirable and follows the pattern set by Barack Obama, who also said preconditions are not necessary for meetings with foreign adversaries like North Korea. But it should be noted that this development strikingly resembles President Trump's pattern with North Korea: first creating a crisis, and then using meetings as a way to present himself as a necessary problem solver.... In effect, Trump is using a Good-Cop/Bad-Cop routine but one in which he is both the good and bad cop." ...

... Michael Shear & Rick Gladstone of the New York Times: "But hours before Mr. Trump spoke, Iran said that talks with the United States would be impossible under what it called the Trump administration's hostile policies, seeming to close the door on any chance of a dialogue." Mrs. McC: That's faggedaboudit, but in Farsi.

Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "President Trump on Monday a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/399533-trump-doubles-down-on-shutdown-threat" target="_blank">doubled down on his threat to shut down the government to secure enhanced border security measures. 'If we don't get border security after many, many years of talk ... 'I would have no problem doing a shutdown,' Trump said during a joint press conference with Italy's prime minister." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)


Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times: "In the days after the 2016 presidential election, Donald J. Trump's advisers had an unequivocal message about contacts between Russians and members of the campaign team: There were none. In the ensuing months, as numerous such communications were revealed, the message changed: There was no collusion with Russia's effort to disrupt the election. On Monday, President Trump's lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani consistently presented a third line of defense: Even if Mr. Trump did collude with the Russians, he committed no crime.... 'My client didn't do it. And even if he did it, it's not a crime,' he said on Fox News.... His remarks follow similar comments from several of Mr. Trump's allies during interviews over the weekend.... The evolving narrative is a sign of how much Mr. Trump and his aides have had to recalibrate their public message in the face of considerable evidence of contacts between Russia and the Trump campaign.... But some experts said the difference between 'collusion' and 'conspiracy' is semantic." ...

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "President Trump's defense in the Russia investigation has been a study in goal-post moving -- constantly watering down previous denials and raising the standard for what would constitute actual wrongdoing. But rarely has it been so concentrated in one morning.... Rudolph W. Giuliani appeared on Fox News's and CNN's morning shows.... The most notable portion of the interviews was when Giuliani rekindled the idea that collusion isn't even a crime. Trump's defenders have occasionally noted that the word doesn't appear in the criminal code -- which is true but misleading -- but Giuliani took it a step further: He basically suggested Trump would have had to pay for Russia to interfere on his behalf[:]... 'Hacking is the crime. The president didn't hack. He didn't pay for the hacking.'... Giuliani also seemed to offer a very narrow denial of what happened with the Trump Tower meeting.... Giuliani focused his defense on arguing not necessarily that Trump didn't know about it -- but that he wasn't physically at meetings at which information from Russians was discussed. And he did it on both shows." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Jonathan Chait: "I think we can all agree that Trump lacks the technical expertise to personally design and execute a spearfishing attack on John Podesta or the Democratic National Committee.... What we have seen over the last day is a sharp turn in the pro-Trump message, from denying that any collusion took place to redefining what collusion means and whether it is okay.... If Trump solicited the hacking, or was an accessory to the crime, his lawyer is prepared to paint him as innocent.... As you watch Trump's defenders retreating over the horizon, a salien fact to bear in mind is that there are probably more revelations to come with regard to collusion." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: By Giuliani's standards, most of the famous murdering dictators in history were innocent! because they weren't the ones who actually set the bomb, pulled the trigger or released the bow a million times. ...

... Kevin Drum: "So: Trump didn't pay the Russians to hack the DNC server and he wasn't physically present at the Trump Tower meeting. As far as I know, no one has ever accused him of either of these things, but now that he's denied them I suppose my working assumption is that he did pay for the hacks and he was at the Trump Tower meeting." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Oops! Rudy Let Slip Another Trump Tower Meeting. Josh Marshall: "... from the start, I've had the sense that Giuliani does know specifically what Cohen is talking about but is denying the specifics.... In a back and forth with CNN's Alisyn Carmerota, [Giuliani] appears to say that two days before the meeting with the Russian lawyer there was a planning meeting to prepare for that meeting. This prep meeting would have been on June 7th, 2016. Giuliani says that meeting included Don Jr., Jared Kushner, Manafort, Rick Gates and others.... I don't think I'd ever heard of this planning meeting.... It suggests that the Trump team took the planned encounter with the Russian government emissary much more seriously than they've suggested to date.... Gates is now a cooperating witness. Big problem for the Trump Team, if he was at such a planning meeting.... June 7th. That's the date when Trump made that primary election night victory speech where he teased his upcoming anti-Hillary speech where he'd reveal a bunch of new dirt on Hillary, a speech that ended up never happening.... It lines up perfectly with what many have long suspected: that Trump was so excited about the dirt his campaign was going to receive from Russia two days later that he couldn't help but brag about it in public that night." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

    ... Update. Matt Shuham of TPM: Giuliani called into Fox "News" Monday to clean up the clean-up revelations he made earlier on Fox & CNN. "Giuliani discussed three meetings on Fox News on Monday -- though he contends that two of them never actually happened.... Giuliani also attempted to 'pre-but' reporting on yet another 2016 campaign meeting, information about which he said had already been given to two news outlets who hadn't published it yet." Mrs. McC: I'll leave it to you to try to figure out what Giuliani is saying now & what he said then. None of it makes much sense. But "no collusion," maybe. Or else, "who cares?" ...

     ... "Clarification." Adam Silverman of Balloon Juice: "Anyhow, so when Rudy Giuliani went on CNN this [Monday] morning to clarify what he said on Fox News before he went on CNN, he directly contradicted what Rudy Giuliani told CNN last Thursday. Everybody still with me? Good, because Rudy Giuliani has now gone on Fox News again to clarify what Rudy Giuliani told CNN this morning to clarify what Rudy Giuliani had told Fox News even earlier this morning, but which contradicts what Rudy Giuliani told CNN last Thursday." Mrs. McC: Got that? ...

... It Was Maggie Haberman's Fault! Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "Throughout Monday..., Rudy Giuliani went on a chaotic media tour, with each subsequent interview seeming to atone or clean up for a key element laid out in a previous appearance. In an interview with The Daily Beast on Monday night, Giuliani appeared to blame the maelstrom he kicked up on inquisitive New York Times reporters who he suggested had compelled him to proactively spin a potentially damaging story that may or may not actually be real. Several veterans of the Trump campaign, like much of the viewing public, were left befuddled."

... Redcoats. David Corn of Mother Jones: "On Capitol Hill on Friday evening, I ran into Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), who has earned the moniker 'Putin's favorite congressman.'... I ... asked him about the latest Trump-Russia bombshell: the news that Michael Cohen ... was prepared to tell special counsel Robert Mueller that Trump had advance knowledge of and approved the notorious Trump Tower meeting.... 'There's not a person in this town who would not take a meeting to get material like that,' Rohrabacher shot back. He suggested he would." --safari

David Jackson of USA Today: "Rudy Giuliani ... says his team is preparing a 'counter-report' designed to rebut any accusations that special counsel Robert Mueller makes in his expected report about the Russia investigation. Giuliani told USA Today that he believed Mueller's team is 'writing the report as we speak.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Hold on a minute. If Team Trump is writing a "counter-report," then they must strongly suspect Mueller's report will show some evidence of criminal or civil liability to "counter." You don't write a "counter-report" when the original report is an extended encomium. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "... Rudy Giuliani has angrily compared >Michael Cohen to famous traitors Benedict Arnold, Brutus and Iago.... Giuliani also called Cohen a 'scumbag' and repeated a claim that investigators have seized more than 180 tapes made by Cohen, which he claimed without offering evidence Cohen had doctored, and said no one on the tapes knew they were being recorded. He said again that only one of those tapes contains Trump's voice." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)


Veronica Stracqualursi of CNN: "... Donald Trump railed Tuesday against billionaire conservative brothers Charles and David Koch, accusing them of being against key components of his populist agenda and suggesting they're irrelevant in today's Republican Party. Trump's public attack, following a weekend in which he was criticized at a Koch network summer meeting, comes amid speculation that the Koch brothers are reconsidering their typically full-throated support for Republican candidates during the midterm elections. 'The globalist Koch Brothers, who have become a total joke in real Republican circles, are against Strong Borders and Powerful Trade. I never sought their support because I don't need their money or bad ideas,' Trump tweeted Tuesday morning. 'They love my Tax & Regulation Cuts, Judicial picks & more.'"

David Remnick of the New Yorker: "On July 20th, the new publisher of the Times, A. G. Sulzberger, visited the Oval Office at the invitation of President Trump. The meeting was meant to be off the record.... The President broke the off-record agreement nine days later by tweeting that he and Sulzberger had talked about 'the vast amounts of Fake News being put out by the media & how that Fake News has morphed into phrase, "Enemy of the People." Sad!' Sulzberger fired back with a statement saying that he went to the meeting expressly to push back on the President's 'deeply troubling anti-press rhetoric,' which has proved not just divisive but increasingly dangerous.' The once-secret session provides a fascinating look at Trump's capacity to feign charm and receptiveness to criticism in private and then return to a war footing not long after." ...

... OR, maybe this is just another instance that demonstrates Trump's vulnerability to "sympathetic audience control." ...

... Robert Epstein, in a USA Today op-ed: "... Trump is highly vulnerable to what can reasonably be called 'sympathetic audience control.'... In general, when Trump is around someone whom he perceives as supportive..., his thinking is rapidly influenced by what that person is saying.... With Trump, the impact is so strong that it persists after the person is gone -- maybe even until another sympathetic individual comes along. When Trump is in front of a large group of cheering people, his thinking is fully controlled by the crowd. It might seem he's in control, but the opposite is actually the case.... Moment to moment, he either sees a foe and shoots, or he sees a friend and is influenced. In that kind of perceptual world, Trump inevitably -- and without shame or even awareness -- shifts his views frequently, sometimes multiple times a day.... The small time window and sympathetic audience control also explain why Trump always seems to be creating foreign policy on the fly, why his meetings with world leaders rarely produce tangible results, [and] why he can't get congressional deals.... Trump is capable of only a minimal level of analytical or critical thinking." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Epstein argues "Trump is not mentally ill." But if you define "mentally ill" as "unable to function normally," what Epstein describes as "sympathetic audience control" renders Trump incapable of functioning normally. A normal adult is not overly-influenced, as a number of people have put it "by the last person in the room." S/he is able to hold in mind & weigh multiple fact sets & opinions, learned over time, then incorporate (or reject) those elements into an action decision. This is a minimum requirement of any leadership position, but it's something we all do on matters significant & picayune.

We've seen nuns ordered to buy contraceptives. We've seen U.S. senators ask judicial and executive branch nominees about dogma -- even though the Constitution explicitly forbids a religious test for public office. We've all seen the ordeal faced so bravely by Jack Phillips [the anti-gay cake artiste]. -- AG Jeff Sessions, Monday ...

... OMG. Lydia Wheeler of the Hill: "Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Monday that the Department of Justice is creating a 'religious liberty task force.' Sessions said the task force, co-chaired by Associate Attorney General Jesse Panuccio* and the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy, Beth Williams, will help the department fully implement the religious liberty guidance it issued last year. The guidance was a byproduct of President Trump's executive order directing agencies to respect and protect religious liberty and political speech.... Sessions said the cultural climate in this country -- and in the West more generally -- has become less hospitable to people of faith in recent years, and as a result many Americans have felt their freedom to practice their faith has been under attack." ...

     ... * More on Panuccio below.

... ** Tim Teeman of the Daily Beast: "Sadly it is no exaggeration, no hyperbole, to say that Attorney General Jeff Sessions declared a holy war on LGBT people, LGBT equality, and LGBT rights on Monday. He declared war on anything that could be perceived to trespass on the 'religious freedom' or 'religious liberty' of Christians -- which is loosely defined enough to be construed as trespassing on pretty much anything he and his allies choose it to mean. Sessions said this was because there was a 'dangerous movement' to erode the Christian right to worship. There isn't, of course; it's an invented bogeyman for a ravenously-pursued ideological crusade. Women, religious minorities, LGBT people: Prepare to fight for your bodies, your rights to worship, your wedding cakes.... Church and State have never appeared so poisonously intertwined.... It is a charter for discrimination, now sanctioned by the president, the legislative branch, and -- if Trump and Sessions have their way -- the courts." ...

... Charlotte Clymer of the Human Rights Campaign: "Today, HRC blasted the Trump-Pence Administration's creation of a taxpayer-funded task force as part of their ongoing campaign to license discrimination against LGBTQ people in the public square. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the creation of the task force this morning at the U.S. Department of Justice alongside anti-LGBTQ extremists from Alliance Defending Freedom and the Colorado baker who refused to serve a gay couple in violation of the state's nondiscrimination law. It will be led by Jesse Panuccio, who was an attorney in 2010 for supporters of Proposition 8, California's same-sex marriage ban." ...

... Jessica Kang of Splinter: "This isn't even about protecting religious liberties anymore. It's about taking away the rights of anyone whom Sessions may disagree with, whether it be LGBTQ people or women...[.]"

Zack Ford of ThinkProgress: "During the State Department's Ministerial on International Religious Freedom last week, Mick Mulvaney -- President Trump's Director of the Office of Management and Budget -- suggested that the Trump administration would end the practice of punishing African countries for their laws that criminalize homosexuality. 'Our US taxpayer dollars are used to discourage Christian values in other democratic countries,' he said during his remarks to theconference.... Mulvaney's implication that the Trump administration would turn a blind eye to anti-gay persecution around the world is consistent with actions it has already taken." --safari

Josh Eidelson of Bloomberg: "Six years before .. Donald Trump nominated him for the Supreme Court, Judge Brett Kavanaugh sided with Trump Entertainment Resorts' successful effort to thwart a unionization drive at one of its casinos. Kavanaugh was one of three Republican-appointed judges who in 2012 voted unanimously to set aside an order by the National Labor Relations Board that would have required the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, to bargain with the United Auto Workers. The casino has since shut down. But labor advocates point to the case -- as well as ones where he backed management at Sheldon Adelson's Las Vegas Venetian hotel and at SeaWorld after an orca killed a worker -- as evidence that Kavanaugh may hobble enforcement of workplace laws and the already-embattled union movement. 'Kavanaugh, along with Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch -- and Roberts along for the ride -- will comprise the most radical, anti-labor-law Supreme Court in my lifetime," said University of Wyoming law professor Michael Duff, a former attorney for the NLRB...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

Paul Krugman: "... we should be seeing more attention devoted to the way Trump&'s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court [betrays his white working-class voters].... Kavanaugh is, to put it bluntly, an anti-worker radical, opposed to every effort to protect working families from fraud and mistreatment. The most spectacular example is his opinion that Sea World owed no liability for a killer whale attack that killed one of its workers, because she should have known the risks. He has declared the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ... unconstitutional. He's taken an extremely expansive view of the rights of business to suppress union organizing. This is all, by the way, the opposite of populism. The public strongly supports worker protections." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Gorsuch, if possible, is even worse. Unlike the other judges on his own Appeals Court panel & the lower-court judges & arbitrators who came before him (because they apparently are all human beings), he ruled that a truck driver should have opted to freeze to death in sub-zero temperatures rather than abandon his broken-down truck. Democrats need to own these nominees in ad after ad. There's no a worker in America (and that truck driver was an employee, not an owner-operator) who thinks a truck driver ought to go down with his rig.

... Elana Schor of Politico: "Sen. Rand Paul announced his support for Brett Kavanaugh on Monday, cutting short speculation over whether the Kentucky Republican might actually oppose ... Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee over his record on privacy." Mrs. McC: Two people who weren't speculating all that much were Akhilleus & Jeanne (see yesterday's thread). (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) 

Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: "The personnel chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency -- who resigned just weeks ago -- is under investigation after being accused of creating an atmosphere of widespread sexual harassment over years in which women were hired as possible sexual partners for male employees, the agency's leader said Monday. The alleged harassment and other misconduct, revealed through a preliminary seven-month internal investigation, was a 'systemic problem going on for years,' said FEMA Administrator William 'Brock' Long. Some of the behavior could rise to the level of criminal activity, he said. Some of the claims about the agency's former personnel chief are detailed in a written executive summary of the investigation provided to The Washington Post. FEMA officials gave other details and confirmed that the individual under investigation, whose name was redacted from the report, is Corey Coleman, who led the personnel department from 2011 until his resignation in June.... Many of the men and women Coleman hired were unqualified yet are still at the agency, officials said." Mrs. McC: The details are horrifying.

Gone Phishin'. Andrew Desiderio & Kevin Poulsen of The Daily Beast: Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) "known for her outspoken criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was hit with a bizarre impersonation attempt by someone hoping to get inside information on American sanctions targeting Russia, according to emails and an audio recording obtained by The Daily Beast.... [A]n individual who said he worked for the foreign ministry of Latvia ... said he was trying to set up a phone call between the senator and Edgars Rinkevičs, the Latvian foreign minister. The purpose of the meeting ... was to discuss 'prolongation of anti-Russian sanctions' and 'general security with Kaspersky laboratorycase.'... Shaheen authored the law mandating a government-wide purge of software made by Moscow-based cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab, and is a key backer of sanctions intended to isolate Russia.... Shaheen's office contacted the Latvian embassy.... The embassy responded that the outreach attempt was fake.... [T]here's no evidence so far that the Russian government was involved in the attempted Latvian fake-out against Shaheen." --safari

Oops! Jordan Weissmann of Slate: "A prominent conservative think-tanker appears to have published a white paper showing that Bernie Sanders' plan for a national single-payer health care system could, in theory, reduce American health care spending by as much as $1.4 trillion. Take that, Medicare for all. The study was published by Charles Blahous of the libertarian Mercatus Center at George Mason University, who is known, among other things, for arguing that Social Security retirement benefits need to be cut.... He calculates that if Sanders' bill delivered on all of its promises, it would increase federal spending on health care by $32.6 trillion between 2022 and 2031 -- which is, of course, quite a bit of money, and the number that conservatives are choosing to focus on. But as economist Ernie Tedeschi noted on Twitter this morning, Blahous' report also shows that total U.S. health care spending would fall by about $2.05 trillion during that time period, even as all Americans would finally have insurance, because the plan would reduce payments to doctors and hospitals to Medicare rates (which are lower than what private insurance pays) while saving on prescription drug costs and administrative expenses."

Edmund Lee of the New York Times: "On Monday, three days after the publication of an article detailing allegations of sexual harassment against [Les] Moonves [CEO of CBS], the company went through with a regularly scheduled meeting of its board of directors.... The company had announced [a] planned investigation on Friday, hours after The New Yorker published a report that included six women who said Mr. Moonves had asked them for sexual favors and retaliated when they declined. The CBS statement on Monday added, 'No other action was taken on this matter at today's board meeting.' And so ended the speculation that Mr. Moonves would face immediate consequences for his alleged behavior."

>Gaia Pianigiani of the New York Times: "For the second time in three days, Pope Francis on Monday accepted the resignation of a powerful prelate -- this time, an Australian archbishop -- in a sexual abuse scandal, as the pontiff tries to send the message that high officials no longer enjoy near-immunity from consequences within the church when it comes to sexual misconduct. The archbishop, Philip Edward Wilson of Adelaide, had resisted intense pressure in Australia to resign, despite his criminal conviction for covering up for sexual abuse by a priest. Two months after being found guilty, he submitted his resignation on July 20, though it was not made public until the pope accepted it on Monday."

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Sunday
Jul292018

The Commentariat -- July 30, 2018

Afternoon Update:

Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "President Trump on Monday doubled down on his threat to shut down the government to secure enhanced border security measures. 'If we don't get border security after many, many years of talk ... 'I would have no problem doing a shutdown,' Trump said during a joint press conference with Italy's prime minister."

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "President Trump's defense in the Russia investigation has been a study in goal-post moving -- constantly watering down previous denials and raising the standard for what would constitute actual wrongdoing. But rarely has it been so concentrated in one morning.... Rudolph W. Giuliani appeared on Fox News's and CNN's morning shows.... The most notable portion of the interviews was when Giuliani rekindled the idea that collusion isn't even a crime. Trump's defenders have occasionally noted that the word doesn't appear in the criminal code -- which is true but misleading -- but Giuliani took it a step further: He basically suggested Trump would have had to pay for Russia to interfere on his behalf[:]... 'Hacking is the crime. The president didn't hack. He didn't pay for the hacking.'... Giuliani also seemed to offer a very narrow denial of what happened with the Trump Tower meeting.... Giuliani focused his defense on arguing not necessarily that Trump didn't know about it -- but that he wasn't physically at meetings at which information from Russians was discussed. And he did it on both shows." ...

... Jonathan Chait: "I think we can all agree that Trump lacks the technical expertise to personally design and execute a spearfishing attack on John Podesta or the Democratic National Committee.... What we have seen over the last day is a sharp turn in the pro-Trump message, from denying that any collusion took place to redefining what collusion means and whether it is okay.... If Trump solicited the hacking, or was an accessory to the crime, his lawyer is prepared to paint him as innocent.... As you watch Trump's defenders retreating over the horizon, a salient fact to bear in mind is that there are probably more revelations to come with regard to collusion." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: By Giuliani's standards, most of the famous murdering dictators in history were innocent! because they weren't the ones who actually set the bomb, pulled the trigger or released the bow a million times. ...

... Kevin Drum: "So: Trump didn't pay the Russians to hack the DNC server and he wasn't physically present at the Trump Tower meeting. As far as I know, no one has ever accused him of either of these things, but now that he's denied them I suppose my working assumption is that he did pay for the hacks and he was at the Trump Tower meeting." ...

... Oops! Rudy Let Slip Another Trump Tower Meeting. Josh Marshall: "... from the start, I've had the sense that Giuliani does know specifically what Cohen is talking about but is denying the specifics.... In a back and forth with CNN's Alisyn Carmerota, [Giuliani] appears to say that two days before the meeting with the Russian lawyer there was a planning meeting to prepare for that meeting. This prep meeting would have been on June 7th, 2016. Giuliani says that meeting included Don Jr., Jared Kushner, Manafort, Rick Gates and others.... I don't think I'd ever heard of this planning meeting.... It suggests that the Trump team took the planned encounter with the Russian government emissary much more seriously than they've suggested to date.... Gates is now a cooperating witness. Big problem for the Trump Team, if he was at such a planning meeting.... June 7th. That's the date when Trump made that primary election night victory speech where he teased his upcoming anti-Hillary speech where he'd reveal a bunch of new dirt on Hillary, a speech that ended up never happening.... It lines up perfectly with what many have long suspected: that Trump was so excited about the dirt his campaign was going to receive from Russia two days later that he couldn't help but brag about it in public that night." ...

... David Jackson of USA Today: "Rudy Giuliani ... says his team is preparing a 'counter-report' designed to rebut any accusations that special counsel Robert Mueller makes in his expected report about the Russia investigation. Giuliani told USA Today that he believed Mueller's team is 'writing the report as we speak.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Hold on a minute. If Team Trump is writing a "counter-report," then they must strongly suspect Mueller's report will show some evidence of criminal or civil liability to "counter." You don't write a "counter-report" when the original report is an extended encomium. ...

... Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "... Rudy Giuliani has angrily compared Michael Cohen to famous traitors Benedict Arnold, Brutus and Iago.... Giuliani also called Cohen a 'scumbag' and repeated a claim that investigators have seized more than 180 tapes made by Cohen, which he claimed without offering evidence Cohen had doctored, and said no one on the tapes knew they were being recorded. He said again that only one of those tapes contains Trump's voice."

Patrick Temple-West & Victoria Guida of Politico: "Some of the biggest winners from ... Donald Trump's new tax law are corporate executives who have reaped gains as their companies buy back a record amount of stock, a practice that rewards shareholders by boosting the value of existing shares. A Politico review of data disclosed in Securities and Exchange Commission filings shows the executives, who often receive most of their compensation in stock, have been profiting handsomely by selling shares since Trump signed the law on Dec. 22 and slashed corporate tax rates to 21 percent. That trend is likely to increase, as Wall Street analysts expect buyback activity to accelerate in the coming weeks. 'It is going to be a parade of eye-popping numbers,' said Pat McGurn, the head of strategic research and analysis at Institutional Shareholder Services, a shareholder advisory firm."

Josh Eidelson of Bloomberg: "Six years before .. Donald Trump nominated him for the Supreme Court, Judge Brett Kavanaugh sided with Trump Entertainment Resorts' successful effort to thwart a unionization drive at one of its casinos. Kavanaugh was one of three Republican-appointed judges who in 2012 voted unanimously to set aside an order by the National Labor Relations Board that would have required the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, to bargain with the United Auto Workers. The casino has since shut down. But labor advocates point to the case -- as well as ones where he backed management at Sheldon Adelson's Las Vegas Venetian hotel and at SeaWorld after an orca killed a worker -- as evidence that Kavanaugh may hobble enforcement of workplace laws and the already-embattled union movement. 'Kavanaugh, along with Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch -- and Roberts along for the ride -- will comprise the most radical, anti-labor-law Supreme Court in my lifetime," said University of Wyoming law professor Michael Duff, a former attorney for the NLRB...." ...

... Elana Schor of Politico: "Sen. Rand Paul announced his support for Brett Kavanaugh on Monday, cutting short speculation over whether the Kentucky Republican might actually oppose ... Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee over his record on privacy." Mrs. McC: Two people who weren't speculating all that much were Akhilleus & Jeanne (see today's thread).

*****

** Mark Landler of the New York Times: "President Trump and the publisher of The New York Times, A. G. Sulzberger, engaged in a fierce public clash on Sunday over Mr. Trump's threats against journalism, after Mr. Sulzberger said the president misrepresented a private meeting and Mr. Trump accused The Times and other papers of putting lives at risk wit irresponsible reporting. Mr. Trump said on Twitter that he and Mr. Sulzberger had discussed 'the vast amounts of Fake News being put out by the media & how that Fake News has morphed into phrase, "Enemy of the People." Sad!' In a five-paragraph statement issued two hours after the tweet, Mr. Sulzberger said he had accepted Mr. Trump's invitation for the July 20 meeting mainly to raise his concerns about the president's 'deeply troubling anti-press rhetoric.' 'I told the president directly that I thought that his language was not just divisive but increasingly dangerous,' said Mr. Sulzberger, who became publisher of The Times on Jan. 1. 'I told him that although the phrase "fake news" is untrue and harmful, I am far more concerned about his labeling journalists "the enemy of the people,"' Mr. Sulzberger continued. 'I warned that this inflammatory language is contributing to a rise in threats against journalists and will lead to violence.'" Read on. ...

... Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "President Trump escalated his feud with the news media on Sunday, accusing journalists of being unpatriotic and endangering lives after the publisher of the New York Times disclosed that he had warned Trump recently that his inflammatory rhetoric about the media could lead to violence. Trump ... fired off a Twitter tirade Sunday afternoon from his New Jersey golf estate.... 'When the media -- driven insane by their Trump Derangement Syndrome -- reveals internal deliberations of our government, it truly puts the lives of many, not just journalists, at risk! Very unpatriotic!' Trump wrote." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I missed this WashPo story (July 25) by Isaac Stanley-Becker: "During his speech [to the VFW] in Kansas City, Mo., Trump lashed out at the news media, which prompted some in the audience to boo and heckle members of the press. Within hours, the VFW rebuked its members for taunting the press and distanced itself from the president's words. 'We were disappointed to hear some of our members boo the press during President Trump's remarks,' the organization said in a statement. 'We rely on the media to spread the VFW message, and CNN, NBC News, ABC News, Fox News, CBS News, and others on site today, were our invited guests. We were happy to have them there.' It was an awkward moment for an organization that has hosted presidents of both parties going back years without having to weigh in afterward to clarify its values." Rucker mentions the VFW's rebuking in the story linked above. ...

... David Boddinger of Splinter: "To the surprise of no one, Donald Trump proved once again his word is meaningless. On July 20, Trump privately met at the White House with New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger and Editorial Page Editor James Bennet, in what the Times described as a traditional meeting between a president and a newspaper publisher. The president's aides requested the meeting to be off the record. But the impulsive president couldn't keep his manic Twitter fingers at bay and broke the agreement on Sunday...." ...

... ** AND Across the Pond. Guardian: Editors: "The weekend report by the Commons digital, culture, media and sport committee on disinformation and 'fake news' is a report that deserves to be described as essential reading.... The government's reaction to it will be a defining statement of its own moral seriousness and worthiness to govern. The issues raised in the report are existential for parliamentary democracy and for rational public policy-making.... What is at stake is the threat from unregulated social media monopolies and from bold and well-funded activist conspiracies.... Yet what is ultimately at stake here concerns the future even more than the past. The report is a wake-up call about the failures of traditional governance.... But it can be tackled by absolute clarity about the threat and its impact in every future electoral contest...." --safari

Matt Shuham of TPM: "... Donald Trump capped a day of rambling tweets -- about the New York Times, 'consequences' for people who cross the border illegally and his bizarre and false claim that he has the 'highest Poll Numbers in the history of the Republican Party' -- with a string of provable falsehoods and unspecified accusations about special counsel Robert Mueller[:] 'There is No Collusion! The Robert Mueller Rigged Witch Hunt, headed now by 17 (increased from 13, including an Obama White House lawyer) Angry Democrats, was started by a fraudulent Dossier, paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC. Therefore, the Witch Hunt is an illegal Scam!' 'Is Robert Mueller ever going to release his conflicts of interest with respect to President Trump, including the fact that we had a very nasty & contentious business relationship, I turned him down to head the FBI (one day before appointment as S.C.) & Comey is his close friend..' '....Also, why is Mueller only appointing Angry Dems, some of whom have worked for Crooked Hillary, others, including himself, have worked for Obama....And why isn't Mueller looking at all of the criminal activity & real Russian Collusion on the Democrats side - Podesta, Dossier?'" Shuham debunks some of this nonsense.

Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump threatened Sunday to shut down the federal government this fall if Congress does not pass sweeping changes to immigration laws, including appropriating more public money to build his long-promised border wall. 'I would be willing to "shut down" government if the Democrats do not give us the votes for Border Security, which includes the Wall!' Trump tweeted. 'Must get rid of Lottery, Catch & Release etc. and finally go to system of Immigration based on MERIT! We need great people coming into our Country!' Trump's shutdown warning -- which he has made before -- escalates the stakes ahead of a Sept. 30 government funding deadline, raising the possibility of a political showdown before the Nov. 6 midterm elections that Republican congressional leaders had hoped to avoid. A funding fight also could prove a distraction from Republican efforts in the Senate to confirm Trump Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh by Oct. 1. Trump faced immediate words of caution from top Republicans...." (An earlier version of this report was linked yesterday.)

Margaret Hartmann: "As if he didn't have enough on his plate between renovating Air Force One and pondering how to add a ballroom to the White House (and whatever presidential duties he squeezes in after 'executive time'), Axios reports that President Trump has been 'obsessed with the FBI building' for months. The J. Edgar Hoover Building has been added to his list of frequent rant topics, and Axios says he thinks micromanaging the project is a good way for his sidelined chief of staff to occupy his time.... But why is Trump so interested in providing his foes in the FBI with cushier headquarters? Theory 1: Trump Is an Architecture Snob.... Theory 2: Trump Has a Passion for Construction That Won't Be Denied.... Theory 3: FBI Headquarters Is Literally Falling Apart.... Theory 4: The FBI Building Mars the View From the Trump International Hotel[.]" Mrs. McC: I'm with Trump, et al., on the "aesthetics" of the Hoover building. They ain't none.


Sharon LaFraniere & Emily Baumgaertner of the New York Times: "Paul Manafort ... is scheduled to go to trial on financial fraud charges starting on Tuesday in United States District Court in Alexandria, Va. The main points to be aware of: It is the first trial stemming from charges brought by Robert S. Mueller III.... Prosecutors have said they do not intend to delve into questions about collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign in this case, which focuses on how Mr. Manafort handled the money he earned working as a consultant in Ukraine. The trial is expected to last at least three weeks, and a second trial is scheduled to follow starting in September. In that case, Mr. Manafort will face related charges in United States District Court in the District of Columbia." The reporters run down FAQs about the cases against Manafort.

Obstruction of Justice, Congressional-Style. Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post: "... much of what President Trump's House Republican allies have been doing cannot be called oversight; it is political skullduggery intended to protect the president and undermine the investigation into Russian interference with our democracy.... The constitutional provision protects members of Congress from being sued or prosecuted for carrying out their official duties. However, there is nothing official in sneaking over to the White House to review classified materials and then publicly misrepresenting them [as Devin Nunes did]. There is nothing official in outing a confidential source.... Congressmen, Trump lawyers and White House aides conferring with intent to mislead investigators and the public, to disable the inquiry and/or to discredit law enforcement sounds an awful lot like obstruction of justice. Conversations or documents relating to that sort of conspiracy are in no way privileged. An investigation into Republican House members' antics is critical if we want to hold them responsible for actions injurious to our criminal justice system. It is also necessary in order to uncover who if anyone they were colluding with on the White House side of the operation."

Rudy Is Confused. Mitchell Alva of ABC News: "... Donald Trump's legal team [to-wit, Rudy Giuliani] is on the attack against ... Michael Cohen, saying he violated attorney-client privilege by releasing a taped conversation of him and Trump about payments to a former Playboy model. But Cohen attorney Lanny Davis called the attack baseless, and ABC News' chief legal analyst also said Trump's lawyers may have difficulty backing up their claim.... 'Mr. Giuliani seems to be confused,' Davis said. 'He expressly waived attorney-client privilege last week and repeatedly and inaccurately - as proven by the tape - talked and talked about the recording, forfeiting all confidentiality.' On 'This Week' Sunday, ABC Chief Legal Analyst Dan Abrams told Co-Anchor Martha Raddatz that Giuliani has 'waived attorney-client privilege' in regard to the tape." ...

... CBS News: "President Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani says that federal investigators have 183 'unique conversations' recorded by Michael Cohen, the president's former attorney and fixer. Mr. Trump is heard on one of those recordings, which has already been made public, Giuliani said on 'Face the Nation' Sunday. 'We know of something like 183 unique conversations on tape. One of those is with the president of the United States. That's the three-minute one involving the McDougal payment, AMI-McDougal payment,' Giuliani said, referring to Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who claimed she had an affair with the president. 'There are 12 others, maybe 11 or 12 others out of the 183, in which the president is discussed at any length by Cohen, mostly with reporters.' Giuliani said he doesn't know the contents of the recordings that don't include or mention Mr. Trump, but said federal prosecutors would have turned them over to him if they related to the president."

** E.J. Dionne: "... Putin's Russia is creating a new Reactionary International built around nationalism, a critique of modernity and a disdain for liberal democracy. Its central mission includes wrecking the Western alliance and the European Union by undermining a shared commitment to democratic values.... The dominant thrust of Putinism is toward the far right, because a nationalism rooted in Russian traditionalism cements his hold on power.... In a prescient March 2017 article in Time magazine, Alex Altman and Elizabeth Dias detailed Russia's 'new alliances with leading U.S. evangelicals, lawmakers and powerful interest groups like the NRA.' Evangelical Christians, they noted, found common ground with Putin, a strong foe of LGBTQ rights, on the basis of 'Moscow's nationalist and ultraconservative push -- led by the Russian Orthodox Church -- to make the post-Soviet nation a bulwark of Christianity amid the increasing secularization of the West.' Altman and Dias highlighted the role of Maria Butina, a Russian national who was in court last week following her indictment for conspiring to act as a foreign agent.... Republicans should bear in mind that disrupting Robert S. Mueller III's probe serves Putin's interests, not just Trump's." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: I missed Susan Glasser's commentary last week (New Yorker -- July 27) on Mike Pompeo's Helsinki-cleanup testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but it's still worth reading.


Frank Bruni of the New York Times: "There are problems with impeaching Donald Trump. A big one is the holy terror waiting in the wings. That would be Mike Pence, who mirrors the boss more than you realize. He's also self-infatuated. Also a bigot. Also a liar. Also cruel. To that brimming potpourri he adds two ingredients that Trump doesn't genuinely possess: the conviction that he's on a mission from God and a determination to mold the entire nation in the shape of his own faith, a regressive, repressive version of Christianity. Trade Trump for Pence and you go from kleptocracy to theocracy."

Politico staff run down a list of 52 "train wrecks" since the arrival of hapless Gen. John Kelly. --safari ...

... Eliana Johnson of Politico: "A year into the job, [John] Kelly's attempts to implement traditional processes in an untraditional White House have failed.... Many of Trump's friends and advisers have concluded the president doesn't really want a chief of staff -- and he has several confidants urging him to operate without one. But for this president, keeping Kelly around offers the best of both worlds: somebody to blame when things go awry but nobody fettering his freedom of action. Kelly, people around him say, no longer works to keep his mercurial boss on task or on message, with a Republican close to the White House referring to him as a 'chief of staff in name only.'" --safari

Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: "In one of his first acts as President Trump's Veterans Affairs secretary, Robert Wilkie intends to reassign several high-ranking political appointees at the center of the agency's ongoing morale crisis and staffing exodus.... Wilkie, who will be sworn in Monday, wants to form his own leadership team..., and to ease lawmakers' continued concern that VA, historically a nonpartisan corner of the government, has become highly politicized. He discussed the proposed personnel moves with Trump in recent days aboard Air Force One, while en route to a veterans convention in Kansas City, Mo.... Announcements could come as soon as this week, pending approval from the White House Personnel Office." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Say what? A Trump cabinet member who wants to do a good job & actually drain Trump's swamp? This guy is not fitting in. Howevah, he has previously worked for Sens. Jesse Helms & Trent Lott, so I'm guessing he is not all bipartisany.

Jacob Soboroff & Julia Ainsley of NBC News: "The federal judge overseeing the court-ordered reunification of 2,551 migrant children separated from their parents ordered the Trump administration to provide detailed information in order to locate hundreds of what he called 'missing parents' the government had deemed ineligible for reunification. Judge Dana Sabraw of the Southern District of California on Friday mandated that the Trump administration turn over a list by Wednesday of all parents deemed 'ineligible' for reunification by the government, including those who have been deported, those who have been released into the United States and those who were not reunited because of criminal history." ...

KKK Steven Miller Runs TrumpenMerika. Dara Lind of Vox: "A lawyer claims that several fathers have been separated from their children by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for a second time.... The fathers say that shortly after being reunited with their teenage children, they were presented with forms that gave them three 'options' ... -- with the option for deporting the child along with the parent already selected.... Parents who attempted to cross that out and choose the second option -- being deported while allowing their children to pursue their case and stay in the US -- were yelled at by the ICE agents or told they simply were not allowed to select another option.... When, ultimately, the four fathers whose accounts are represented ... succeeded in selecting the option of getting deported on their own, they were prevented from saying goodbye to their children." --safari

... Addy Baird of ThinkProgress: "The Republican National Committee railed against the 'mainstream media' on Twitter Saturday afternoon, hitting the media for its 'negative' coverage of President Trump's immigration policies. 'New study from the Media Research Center finds that 92% of news coverage related to @realDonaldTrump';s immigration policy is negative,' the GOP tweeted.... It's hard to put a positive spin on stories about children telling their loved ones they're being abused by government officials in jail-like conditions." --safari

TMZ: "Donald Trump's [Hollywood] Walk of Fame star has been a lightning rod for violence, but it's going to ... stay put because cops and the group that manages the Walk of Fame don't want it 86'd.... As we reported, violence erupted Thursday night where protesters punched, kicked and otherwise abused their opponents. And, the star has been destroyed twice ... most recently this week when a Trump foe went at it with a pickax." (Also linked yesterday.)

William Saletan of Slate: "[Jim] Jordan -- one of the most sanctimonious ideologues in Congress -- is wading ever deeper into a cover-up of his own.... But now Jordan is going further. He's denying not just that he knew about abuse, but also that other coaches or administrators did.... But by escalating his denials, Jordan is exposing himself to ever greater legal and political jeopardy.... The OSU scandal is likely to get worse.... On July 20, OSU said its own investigators had already interviewed 'more than 100 former students who report firsthand accounts of sexual misconduct committed by Strauss.'... OSU's investigators interviewed Jordan on July 16..., and attorneys for plaintiffs in at least one of the lawsuits expect to call him as a witness." --safari

Congressional Races

George Packer of the New Yorker: "... three months from now, American democracy will be on the line. The midterm elections in November are the last remaining obstacle to President Trump's consolidation of power.... [Despite Republican advantages in every corner of government & social media,] public opinion still plays a central role in safeguarding democracy, and it becomes decisive through voting. Demonstrations can capture attention and build solidarity, books can provide arguments, social media can organize resistance. But if the Republicans don't suffer a serious defeat in November, Trump will go into 2020 with every structural advantage."

Meet Your GOP. Kelly Weill of The Daily Beast: "Corey Stewart, the Republican candidate for Senate in Virginia, has been shunned by his own party over his ties with neo-Confederate groups and his refusal to condemn white supremacist violence. That hasn't stopped several activists who express similarly extreme views from working for Stewart. One of Stewart's spokespersons, Rick Shaftan, tweeted that three majority-black U.S. cities were 'shitholes' and repeatedly warned against opening businesses in black neighborhoods.... Shaftan has also worked for a political action committee that supported Paul Nehlen, a far-right candidate running for a House seat from Wisconsin. Nehlen has long expressed anti-Muslim views, and beginning late 2017 started posting explicitly anti-Semitic content, including an image of Jews' heads on pikes in the Oval Office." --safari


Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "Now that President Trump has nominated Judge [Brett] Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the opacity of his testimony about [George W.] Bush's signing statements, including about the torture ban, is becoming a case study for Democrats' vehement arguments that the Senate must see his staff secretary files before any confirmation hearing.... Senate Republicans are pushing to move forward on the nomination without asking the National Archives to provide those documents.... Emails disclosed last year during the confirmation of Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, another Bush administration veteran, revealed that there had been a high-level internal fight about what the signing statement on the torture ban should say. But those emails did not show how Judge Kavanaugh eventually presented the matter to Mr. Bush."

Dan Berman of CNN: "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she hopes to stay on the Supreme Court until the age of 90. 'I'm now 85,' Ginsburg said on Sunday. 'My senior colleague, Justice John Paul Stevens, he stepped down when he was 90, so think I have about at least five more years.' She has already hired law clerks for at least two more terms."

Deanna Paul of the Washington Post: "The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit scolded a veteran judge for making sexist comments in his Houston courtroom, calling his remarks 'demeaning, inappropriate, and beneath the dignity' of his profession. U.S. District Judge Lynn N. Hughes had been presiding over a criminal case against Simone Swenson, an adoption agency owner charged with fraud." Hughes dismissed the Swenson indictment because a female federal prosecutor turned over discovery documents at the last minute, although federal rules permit such late submissions. "Then he said, 'It was a lot simpler when you guys wore dark suits, white shirts and navy ties,' ... according to the 5th Circuit. 'We didn't let girls do it in the old days.'... In reinstating the Swenson case, the appellate court also took an unusual action: It ordered Hughes, now 76, to be replaced with a different judge." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Hughes is a Reagan appointee. Apparently he doesn't care much for women. Here's one of his rulings that shows up on his Wikipage: "In the case of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Houston Funding II, Ltd. et al...., Donnicia Venters, a mother represented by the EEOC, claimed that she was fired from Houston Funding due to her request to be allowed to pump breastmilk upon her return to work after giving birth.... Venters sued Houston Funding, alleging that the company had discriminated against her based on her sex.... Judge Hughes explained that breastfeeding is not covered by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.... '... lactation is not pregnancy, childbirth or a related medical condition. She gave birth on Dec. 11, 2009. After that day, she was no longer pregnant and her pregnancy-related conditions ended. Firing someone because of lactation or breast-pumping is not sex discrimination." Hughes was overruled by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals...." Trump will probably give the old codger a presidential medal. He thinks pumping breastmilk is "disgusting."

Rebecca Berg of CNN: "The influential conservative Koch network opened up their summer meeting with an emphasis on bipartisanship while also delivering sharp critiques of ... Donald Trump and his administration. 'The divisiveness of this White House is causing long-term damage,' said network co-chair Brian Hooks, who also chided elected officials who are 'following' his lead.The Koch network's influence, even among Republicans, has come into question in the conventional-wisdom-shredding era of Trump. The network has during the past year and a half fruitlessly pushed for comprehensive health care and immigration reform; and like other leading conservative groups, the network has been powerless to persuade the President to rethink his strategy on trade generally and tariffs specifically.... The network, led by billionaire Charles Koch, [is gearing] up to spend millions to protect Republican majorities in Washington." ...

... Michelle Lee of the Washington Post: "Top officials with the donor network affiliated with billionaire industrialist Charles Koch this weekend sought to distance the network from the Republican Party and President Trump, citing tariff and immigration policies and 'divisive' rhetoric out of Washington. At a gathering of hundreds of donors [in Colorado Springs]..., officials reiterated their plans to spend as much as $400 million on policy issues and political campaigns during the 2018 cycle. Earlier this year, they announced heavy spending aimed at helping Republicans to hold the Senate. But in a warning shot at Trump and the GOP, network co-chair Brian Hooks lamented 'tremendous lack of leadership' in Trump's Washington and the 'deterioration of the core institutions of society.'" ...

... Mercers 1 Kochs 0. Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon tore into the powerful Koch political network Sunday, accusing it of undermining President Donald Trump ahead of a midterm election that threatens to derail his presidency. 'What they have to do is shut up and get with the program, OK?' Bannon said in an interview with Politico. 'And here's the program: Ground game to support Trump's presidency and program, [and] victory on Nov. 6.'...'They were the first people to put the knife in his back,' he said. A Koch network spokesman, James Davis, shrugged off the criticism." --safari

Robert Booth of the Guardian: "A senior MP [Damian Collins] has called for a 'proper independent investigation' into claims Qatar launched a secret campaign to discredit its rivals to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup.... [Qatar allegedly] hired a PR agency and former CIA operatives to disseminate fake propaganda about its main competitors, the USA and Australia..., included paying a professor $9,000 (£6,900) to write a damning report on the economic cost of a US World Cup, recruiting journalists and bloggers to promote negative stories in the US, Australian and international media, and organising grassroots protests at rugby matches in Australia.... A group of American PE teachers had been recruited to ask congressmen to oppose a US World Cup on the grounds the money would be better spent on high school sports.... Qatar's organising committee said it rejected the allegations." --safari

** Macroeconomics 101. Robert Reich in the Guardian: "The official rate of unemployment in America has plunged to a remarkably low 3.8%.... But the official rate hides more troubling realities: legions of college grads overqualified for their jobs, a growing number of contract workers with no job security, and an army of part-time workers desperate for full-time jobs. Almost 80% of Americans say they live from paycheck to paycheck.... Although the US economy continues to grow, most of the gains have been going to a relatively few top [earners]. America doesn't have a jobs crisis. It has a good jobs crisis. When Republicans delivered their $1.5tn tax cut last December they predicted a big wage boost for American workers. Forget it. Wages actually dropped in the second quarter of this year. Not even the current low rate of unemployment is forcing employers to raise wages." Read on.

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: If Democrats could distill Reich's longish essay into a campaign slogan, no one except those top earners & some blinded Trumpbots would vote Republican again.

Beyond the Beltway

Health Alert. E. A. Crunden of ThinkProgress: "Michigan is once again grappling with water issues following a warning issued to two communities over dangerously high levels of industrial chemicals found in their drinking source. Residents of two Kalamazoo counties will receive bottled water on Friday morning after 'high amounts' of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, were detected.... A PFAS test yielded 1,410 parts per trillion in their drinking water, 20 times higher than the lifetime health advisory given by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).... In a news release circulated Thursday, the 3,000 residents of Parchment and Cooper Township were warned to 'immediately stop using their water for drinking, cooking, making baby formula and food, or rinsing fruits and vegetables.'" --safari

Way Beyond

Amrit Dhillon of the Guardian: "About 4 million people who live in the Indian border state of Assam have been excluded from a draft list of citizens, as Bengali-speaking Muslims fear that they will be sent to detention centres or deported.... Hundreds of thousands of people fled to India during Bangladesh's war of independence from Pakistan in the early 1970s. Most of them settled in Assam.... The list aims to identify every resident who can demonstrate roots in the state before March 1971. [This has been a] mammoth three-year-long exercise to prove the identities of 33 million people.... There have been longstanding social and communal tensions in the state, with locals campaigning against illegal immigrants -- a fight championed by the Hindu nationalist-led government of the prime minister, Narendra Modi. In 1983, scores of people were killed by machete-armed mobs intent on hounding out Muslim immigrants." --safari

"Arab Nato." Juan Cole: "The Trump White House is again hoping for a summit of Gulf Arab leaders this fall, after the last one collapsed. The idea is to establish a Middle East Strategic Alliance against Iran.... That the 'America first' guy who alienates even allies can craft a new alliance in the fractious Arab world seems a little far-fetched. So here are the problems with this Arab NATO.... The anti-Iran bloc of the old Gulf Cooperation Council ... is just Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE.... [They are] offset by Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, which are all pro-Iranian.... The UAE citizen population is about 1 million, and Bahrain is less than half that. Saudi Arabia probably actually only has 20 million citizens. The core of the Arab NATO is only about 22 million people. Iran's population is 80 million." --safari

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