The Commentariat -- October 16, 2017

Afternoon Update:

The Babysitters. Ashley Parker & Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post: "When Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) described the White House as 'an adult day-care center' on Twitter last week, he gave voice to a certain Trumpian truth: The president is often impulsive, mercurial and difficult to manage, leading those around him to find creative ways to channel his energies. Some Trump aides spend a significant part of their time devising ways to rein in and control the impetuous president, angling to avoid outbursts that might work against him, according to interviews with 18 aides, confidants and outside advisers.... Trump's penchant for Twitter feuds, name-calling and temperamental outbursts presents a unique challenge. One defining feature of managing Trump is frequent praise, which can leave his team in what seems to be a state of perpetual compliments.... H.R. McMaster, the president's national security adviser, has frequently resorted to diversionary tactics to manage Trump. In the Oval Office he will often volunteer to have his staff study Trump's more unorthodox ideas.... Perhaps no Cabinet official has proven more adept at breaking ranks with Trump without drawing his ire than Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who has disagreed with his boss on a range of issues...."

Greg Sargent: "The Trump administration is set to roll out a new analysis on Monday that supposedly demonstrates that President Trump's proposed tax plan would ultimately boost middle-class incomes ... based on the notion that corporations will pass their tax savings ... on to workers, something that other researchers doubt.... Trump allies and Republicans are so desperate to pass this tax plan that they're also doubling down on another strange argument: If Republicans don't get this plan passed, their majority in Congress is doomed -- and with it, so is the Trump agenda.... these two lines of argument, when taken together, actually illustrate just how deep the scamming around these matters really runs."

Natasha Bertrand of Business Insider: "The founders of the opposition-research firm that produced the dossier alleging ties between ... Donald Trump's campaign team and Russia [-- Fusion GPS --] will invoke constitutional privileges and decline to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, their attorney ... Josh Levy wrote in response to subpoenas issued earlier this month by the committee's chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes.... A former federal prosecutor, Renato Mariotti, said the First Amendment argument, while 'novel,' seemed 'unlikely to succeed.... That is probably why the attorneys have emphasized other arguments, like Nunes' apparent lack of authority to issue the subpoenas and the fact that Congress didn't authorize the investigation he's conducting on his own,' Mariotti said." ...

... Brian Beutler comes up with a new reason we should believe the "golden rain" incident in the Moscow Ritz actually happened -- because subsequently, peeing all over President Obama has been the way Trump has "governed."

** Ed O'Keefe, et al., of the Washington Post: "Congressional Democrats reacted sharply Monday to reports that President Trump's nominee to serve as the nation's drug czar helped steer legislation that made it harder for the government to take some enforcement actions against giant drug companies. One Democratic senator [-- Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) --] called on Trump to withdraw the nomination of Rep. Tom Marino (R-Pa.) to lead the Office of National Drug Control Policy, a position requiring Senate confirmation. Another quickly introduced legislation to undo the law that Marino championed and that passed Congress with little opposition.... In a separate letter to Trump, Manchin said that more than 700 West Virginians died of opioid overdoses last year. 'No state in the nation has been harder hit than mine,' he wrote.... Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) also said Monday that she would introduce legislation that would repeal the Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act of 2016. The law, she said, 'has significantly affected the government's ability to crack down on opioid distributors that are failing to meet their obligations and endangering our communities.'" Mrs. McC: Thank you, Washington Post & "60 Minutes."

Richard Oppel of the New York Times: "Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who walked off his base in eastern Afghanistan in 2009, setting off a huge military manhunt and a political furor, pleaded guilty on Monday to desertion and to endangering the American troops sent to search for him. The guilty pleas by Sergeant Bergdahl, a 31-year-old Idaho native now stationed at an Army base in San Antonio, Tex., were not part of any deal with prosecutors. It will now be up to an Army judge here at Fort Bragg to decide the sergeant's punishment, following testimony at a hearing that is expected to begin as soon as next week." ...

... Brian Ross, et al., of ABC News: "... Bergdahl, Trump said in several campaign speeches as a presidential candidate, was a 'traitor' who should be executed. In an on-camera interview shot last year by a British filmmaker, obtained exclusively by ABC News and airing today on 'Good Morning America,' 'World News Tonight With David Muir' and 'Nightline,' Bergdahl says the words of the man who is now his commander in chief would have made a fair trial impossible. 'We may as well go back to kangaroo courts and lynch mobs that got what they wanted,' Bergdahl says. 'The people who want to hang me -- you're never going to convince those people.'... Trump ... called Bergdahl 'garbage.'... 'You know, in the old days -- bing, bong,' Trump said as he mimicked firing a rifle. 'When we were strong.'"

Michael Wilson of the New York Times: "A federal jury convicted Ahmad Khan Rahimi, a loner from New Jersey drawn to online calls to jihad, of setting the explosives in the Chelsea neighborhood that blew out windows and sent shrapnel flying into buildings, cars and people during a two-day bombing campaign in and around New York City last year. The conviction on Monday carries a mandatory life sentence; the sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 18.... Jurors also heard from those wounded that night by shrapnel from a bomb specifically designed to hurt people. No one was killed, a remarkable stroke of good fortune when the magnitude of the explosion became clearer."

David Zucchino of the New York Times: "After weeks of threats and posturing, the Iraqi government began a military assault on Monday to blunt the independence drive by the nation's Kurdish minority, wresting oil fields and a contested city from separatists pushing to break away from Iraq. In clashes that pit two crucial American allies against each other, government troops seized the vital city of Kirkuk and surrounding oil fields, ousting the Kurdish forces who had controlled the region for three years in their effort to build an independent nation in the northern third of Iraq. The Kurds voted overwhelmingly in a referendum three weeks ago for independence from Iraq. The United States, Baghdad and most countries in the region condemned the vote, fearing it would fuel ethnic divisions across the region, lead to the break up of Iraq and hobble the fight against the Islamic State."

*****

"The Low-Information President." Eric Levitz: "Here in the Fake News Media, we spend a lot of time documenting all the ways in which Donald Trump’s 'populism' is a lie. (The president isn't a self-made titan of business so much as a trust-fund kid turned con artist; his administration isn't pro-worker, only pro-boss; far from 'draining the swamp,' he's flooding it with raw sewage.) No occupant of the Oval Office has ever shared the average person's disinterest in policy, parliamentary procedure, and the rudiments of American civics to the extent that Trump does.... But if blithe ignorance about politics and mindless faith in the claims of right-wing pundits worked for Trump as a candidate, they've proven less effective for him as a president.... The fact that he gets most of his news from the GOP's propaganda network [Fox 'News'] has led him to assume that the party's talking points bear some resemblance to political reality.... Now, weeks after introducing 'his' tax-cut plan, Trump is starting to learn what it actually does -- and he's not happy." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: The underlying problem may be that Trump never expected to win the presidency, as several of his reported remarks have indicated. While he well may believe a bunch of the crapola he hears on Fox "News" & from a host of conspiracy theorists, what he believed & what he said before his election didn't matter if the whole campaign was just a massive publicity stunt. It's easy to throw flames until you find out that you've unexpectedly been tasked with putting out the fires. On January 20, Trump the Unready found himself in a profoundly bad position: he had to try to keep those preposterous campaign promises. Indeed, if you look at nearly every dangerous, dimwitty move he's made, you can find its antecedent in a dangerous, dimwitty campaign promise or assertion.

Where's Donaldo? San Francisco Chronicle Editors: "As raging wildfires devour the lives, homes and dreams of Californians in an unprecedented scale, one voice has been conspicuously mute through day after day of crisis: President Trump. This is not a man who is reticent to let Americans know what is foremost on his mind. He is also someone who should have learned by now -- after devastating hurricanes and the Las Vegas massacre -- that Americans expect their president to step forward with empathy and resolve in moments of national trauma. Yet Trump has offered no more than a few perfunctory words about the Wine Country fires that have left at least 40 dead, consumed thousands of structures and stretched the physical and mental mettle of the dedicated firefighters and medical professionals to the edge of exhaustion." Mrs. McC: There are few groups less likely to vote for Trump than the liberal, wine-sipping coastal elites of Napa. The editors suggest my reading is "cynical." I call it realistic, inasmuch as everything Trump does or says is in his self-interest, and he can't see any upside in showing sympathy for this California corps d'elite.

Fredreka Schouten & Christopher Schnaars of USA Today: "President Trump's campaign spent more than $1 million on legal fees between July 1 and Sept. 30, as special counsel Robert Mueller and congressional committees intensified their probes into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.... The Republican National Committee last month reported paying more than $230,000 to the president's lawyers assisting in the Russia probe, John Dowd and Jay Sekulow. In addition, party officials say they spent nearly $200,000 in September on lawyers to help [Trump Junior] prepare for his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee's investigators." ...

... Judd Legum of ThinkProgress: "In total, donors to the Trump campaign and the Republican party have spent over half a million dollars on Trump Jr.'s legal representation.... President Trump claims to be worth $10 billion. But his son's legal defense is being paid, with the help of people of modest means donating small amounts to the Trump campaign. Over $1.2 donated to the Trump campaign last quarter was 'unitemized,' meaning it came from individuals who have cumulatively donated $200 or less." Mrs. McC: Among these donors are surely some of the same patsies who have made televangelists rich.

... Andy Borowitz of the New Yorker: "Just minutes after the publisher Larry Flynt offered ten million dollars in exchange for information leading to Donald Trump's impeachment, Trump contacted Flynt and said that he would gladly provide the information himself in exchange for the cash.... Meanwhile, the success of Flynt's cash offer appears to have only emboldened the publisher, who announced that he is now offering twenty million dollars for information leading to the impeachment of Mike Pence." ...

... Jane Mayer of the New Yorker profiles mike pence, "who has dutifully stood by the President, mustering a devotional gaze rarely seen since the days of Nancy Reagan...."

Choe Sang-Hun of the New York Times: "The United States military said on Monday that it would practice evacuating noncombatant Americans out of South Korea in the event of war and other emergencies, as the two allies began a joint naval exercise.... It has been conducting similar noncombatant evacuation exercises for decades, along with other joint military exercises with South Korea. But when tensions escalate with North Korea, as they have recently, such drills draw outsize attention and ignite fear among South Koreans, some of whom take them as a sign that the United States might be preparing for military action against the North."

Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "The Justice Department has dispatched an experienced federal hate crimes lawyer to Iowa to help prosecute a man charged with murdering a transgender high school student last year, a highly unusual move that officials said was personally initiated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. In taking the step, Mr. Sessions, a staunch conservative, is sending a signal that he has made a priority of fighting violence against transgender people individually, even as he has rolled back legal protections for them collectively."

Scott Higham & Lenny Bernstein of the Washington Post detail Rep. Tom Marino's (R-Pa.) critical part of passing a law that severely curtailed the DEA's ability to regulate narcotics, making "it virtually impossible for the DEA to freeze suspicious narcotic shipments from the companies.... Marino ... represents a district in northeastern Pennsylvania that has been hard-hit by the opioid crisis." Marino is Trump's nominee for drug czar, an apt title for a major opioid pusher. In the main story, also linked yesterday, the authors fingered others responsible for the plot to push the legislation through an uninformed Congress (and White House). One of the secret plan's architect? Haley Barbour, now a lobbyist for the drug cartel industry. Mrs. McC: I hope the Post will profile Barbour. You can get an idea of his role in the plot by reading yesterday's lead article on this topic.

Mark Stern of Slate: "There's no guarantee ... that the courts will step in to save Obamacare. But ... potential legal challenges do have a genuine chance of succeeding -- and, in the process, thwarting Trump's most dangerous (and expensive) attempt yet to sabotage Obamacare. The ACA is clear: HHS must keep paying out stercost-sharing subsidies to insurers whether it wants to or not. Trump has no authority to destroy the ACA by rewriting it. The cost-sharing money must keep flowing. If Trump wants to cut off those funds, he cannot merely sign an executive order. He must convince Congress to change the law itself." Stern presents three legal theories supporters of the payments might pursue.

Jessica Garrison & Kendall Taggart of BuzzFeed: "A high-stakes legal showdown is brewing for ... Donald Trump, as a woman who said he groped her has subpoenaed all documents from his campaign pertaining to 'any woman alleging that Donald J. Trump touched her inappropriately.' The subpoena ... was issued in March but entered into the court file last month.... Summer Zervos, a former contestant on the Trump's reality TV show The Apprentice, accused Trump of kissing and grabbing her when she went to his bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2007 to discuss a possible job at the Trump Organization. After Zervos made the accusation last October, just weeks before the election, Trump denied her accusation and called it a lie. She responded by suing him for defamation. As part of that suit, her lawyers served a subpoena on his campaign, asking that it preserve all documents it had about her."

Kyle Swenson of the Washington Post: "If there was one Hollywood celebrity who perhaps should have stayed on the sidelines of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, it was Woody Allen. The Oscar-winning director's personal and professional lives intersect directly with the disgraced media mogul in messy ways. The two worked together on several films.... Allen also faced his own allegations of sexual misconduct and his estranged son, Ronan Farrow, was the journalist who wrote the New Yorker's blockbuster investigation into Weinstein s behavior. Over the weekend, the 81-year-old director told the BBC Weinstein's downfall was 'sad for everybody involved.' But Allen also warned about a 'witch hunt atmosphere, a Salem atmosphere, where every guy in an office who winks at a woman is suddenly having to call a lawyer to defend himself,' Allen told the BBC. 'That's not right either.'"

Medlar's Sports Report. Rob Goldberg of Bleacher Report: "After remaining unsigned through six weeks of the 2017 NFL season, Colin Kaepernick claims the league is participating in collusion.... The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback has filed a grievance against the owners for collusion under the latest collective bargaining agreement."

Beyond the Beltway

"Res Ipsa Loquitur." New York Times Editors: "Cyrus Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney..., has no opposition on the Nov. 7 ballot as he seeks election to a third four-year term.... In 2015, Mr. Vance chose not to pursue sexual abuse charges against Harvey Weinstein. In 2012, he dropped a case against Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., who were investigated for possible fraud in the way they pitched a SoHo hotel and condo project.... In both situations Mr. Vance had at one point or another accepted campaign contributions from those people's lawyers.... In a statement submitted to state elections officials on Wednesday, Mr. Vance reported $925,333.49 in his campaign account. The list of donors is strewn with law firms and individual lawyers.

Republicans Repeal the Public Will. Clio Chang of the New Republic: "... in the midst of last year&'s [Democratic] electoral wipeout, there was one bright spot: Citizens took the law into their own hands, introducing 71 ballot initiatives in 16 states -- the most in a decade.... But such victories have proved short-lived. Republican legislatures responded to the surge in civic participation by using their power to effectively overrule the will of the people -- and to make it harder to enact citizen-backed reforms in the future.... [Besides repealing some ballot initiatives,] following the election, according to a report by Ballotpedia, lawmakers in 33 states introduced 186 bills to adjust the ballot-initiative process -- often making it more restrictive.... Veteran political observers say that the current conservative backlash against ballot initiatives is particularly extreme.... In an age of partisan gerrymandering and voter suppression, robust forms of direct democracy are more important than ever."

Way Beyond

Hussein Mohamed & Mohamed Ibrahim of the New York Times: "The death toll from twin truck bombings in Somalia's capital rose to nearly 300 on Sunday, officials said, as emergency crews pulled more bodies from burned cars and demolished buildings after the Saturday blasts. Officials called the explosions on Saturday one of the deadliest attacks to hit the capital, Mogadishu, since an Islamist insurgency began in 2007. The blasts left at least 300 others wounded, and families scrambled to find missing relatives amid the rubble and in hospitals. The death toll -- which the information minister on Sunday said was 276 -- was expected to rise. President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed declared three days of national mourning and called for donations of blood and funds to help the victims.... There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack."

The Commentariat -- October 15, 2017

Paul Krugman: "... the selling of tax cuts under Trump has taken [lying] to a whole new level, both in terms of the brazenness of the lies and their sheer number. Both the depth and the breadth of the dishonesty make it hard even for those of us who do this for a living to keep track.... Lie #1: America is the most highly-taxed country in the world.... Lie #2: The estate tax is destroying farmers and truckers.... Lie #3: Taxation of pass-through entities is a burden on small business.... Lie #4: Cutting profits taxes really benefits workers.... Lie #5: Repatriating overseas profits will create jobs.... Lie #6: This is not a tax cut for the rich.... Lie #7: It's a big tax cut for the middle class.... Lie #8: It won't increase the deficit.... Lie #9: Cutting taxes will jump-start rapid growth.... Lie #10: Tax cuts will pay for themselves." ...

... Trump talks about his tax plan & maybe some other stuff:

The Cheese Stands Alone. Stephen Castle & Thomas Erdbrink of the New York Times: "Iran, Russia and European leaders roundly condemned President Trump's decision on Friday to disavow the Iran nuclear deal, saying that it reflected the growing isolation of the United States, threatened to destabilize the Middle East and could make it harder to resolve the growing tensions on the Korean Peninsula.... Though they avoided direct criticism of Mr. Trump, Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Emmanuel Macron of France said in a rare joint statement that they 'stand committed' to the 2015 nuclear deal and that preserving it was 'in our shared national security interest.' 'The nuclear deal was the culmination of 13 years of diplomacy and was a major step towards ensuring that Iran's nuclear program is not diverted for military purposes,' they added." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Eric Levitz has "a rundown of Trump's most absurd arguments for decertifying the nuclear agreement with Iran." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Fred Kaplan of Slate: "President Trump’s statement Friday on the Iran nuclear deal may be the most dishonest speech he has ever given from the White House -- and, depending what happens next, it could be his most damaging. It flagrantly misrepresents what the deal was meant to do, the extent of Iran's compliance, and the need for corrective measures. If he gets his way, he will blow up one of the most striking diplomatic triumphs of recent years, aggravate tensions in the Middle East, make it even harder to settle the North Korean crisis peacefully, and make it all but impossible for allies and adversaries to trust anything the United States says for as long as Trump is in office." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Eliana Johnson of Politico (story linked yesterday) puts the onus on Nikki Haley -- with a shoutout to John Bolton -- for stage-crafting Trump's speech. But I want to know, inasmuch as the Iran pact is integral to Middle East peace -- WHERE'S JARED? Here Trump is fooling with with a delicately-crafted international accord, and the Trump's Designated Middle East Peace Guru must be off enjoying the fall colors or something. ...

... Heather Hurlburt of New York: "If the theatrics of [Friday's] speech reminds you more of a reality-show season premiere than high diplomacy, it's not accidental. Trump and his team are stage-managing Iran policy as if it were an episode of The Apprentice. He intentionally built drama for weeks -- from his September taunt to the United Kingdom, our closest ally, that he'd made a decision but wasn't willing to share it, to a steady drip of leaks and time changes in the lead-up to today's announcement. European ambassadors were called to the State Department days ahead of time, then told the State Department had nothing to tell them. Tune in for the season opener, right? But international diplomacy doesn't thrive on 'reveals' -- in fact, it tends to fall apart over them." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Evan Osnos of the New Yorker: "If hawks in Congress push through a law demanding further concessions, it could provoke Iran to abandon the deal, eject the inspectors, and accelerate its nuclear program. That might result in calls for Iran's facilities to be destroyed before they can produce enough weapons-grade material for a bomb. Such a chain of events could lead to a particularly perilous consequence: returning to the possibility of military conflict with Iran, at a time when the United States is already facing a nuclear standoff with North Korea, would court the prospect of a two-front war -- an act of self-sabotage more immediately damaging to American security than reviving the xenophobic slogan 'America First,' withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, or antagonizing our allies (Mexico, Australia, South Korea, and counting).... Indeed, in the past two weeks there have been a number of indicators of the President's growing political instability."

Steven Feldstein in Informed Comment: "At campaign rallies [Trump] pledged to 'bomb the hell' out of the Islamic State. He openly mused about killing the families of terrorists, a blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions, which prohibits violence against noncombatants. Ten months into his presidency, a clearer picture is emerging. The data indicate several alarming trends. According to research from the nonprofit monitoring group Airwars, the first seven months of the Trump administration have already resulted in more civilian deaths than under the entirety of the Obama administration.... Researchers also point to another stunning trend -- the 'frequent killing of entire families in likely coalition airstrikes.'... The vast increase in civilian deaths is not limited to the anti-IS campaign. In Afghanistan, the U.N. reports a 67 percent increase in civilian deaths from U.S. airstrikes in the first six months of 2017 compared to the first half of 2016." Feldstein lays out possible reasons for the increases. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Amy Wang of the Washington Post: Larry Flynt, "best known as the publisher of the pornographic magazine Hustler," took out a full-page ad in today's Washington Post offering $10 million to "anyone who could provide a 'smoking gun' -- perhaps buried in Trump's tax returns or in some other investment records -- that would lead to his impeachment."

Chris Riotta of Newsweek: "Jared Kushner 'enriched himself' by not revealing his ownership of a real estate tech business that raised millions of dollars while he served in the government, said a member of the House Judiciary Committee, calling it part of a pattern of unethical behavior that he believes should cause the White House Senior Adviser to be stripped of his security clearance. Congressman Ted Lieu told Newsweek that Kushner's failure to list a company called Cadre on his initial financial disclosure forms -- man oversight that could mean millions for the president's son-in-law -- is an ethical lapse that should have severe ramifications." You'll have to read on to understand how the stunt worked in Jared's favor. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Natasha Brand of Business Insider: "An intern at the data mining and analysis firm Cambridge Analytica left online for nearly a year what appears to be programming instructions for the voter targeting tools the company used around the time of the election, raising questions about who could have accessed the tools and to what end. Social media analyst and data scientist Jonathan Albright discovered the election data processing scripts -- or programming instructions -- on what he said was the intern's personal GitHub account. GitHub, a 'Facebook for programmers,' is an internet hosting service mostly used for code." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This looks like a "get out of jail free" card for Trump, the Trump campaign, & the Mercers: "The intern did it!"

Michael Wines of the New York Times: "State election officials, worried about the integrity of their voting systems, are pressing to make them more secure ahead of next year's midterm elections. Reacting in large part to Russian efforts to hack the presidential election last year, a growing number of states are upgrading electoral databases and voting machines, and even adding cybersecurity experts to their election teams. The efforts -- from both Democrats and Republicans -- amount to the largest overhaul of the nation's voting infrastructure since the contested presidential election in 2000 spelled an end to punch-card ballots and voting machines with mechanical levers.... The effort to make the vote more secure is notably bipartisan and relatively rancor-free."

Oracle for Hire -- Will Say Whatever the Hell You Want to Hear. Josh Delk of the Hill: "Former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon said Saturday .... during a speech at the Values Voter Summit ... that President Trump will 'win with 400 electoral votes in 2020,' following reports that he had lost faith in the president's ability to complete his current term.... [That's funny because] Bannon reportedly said several months ago that Trump only has a 30 percent chance of finishing his current term, a source told Vanity Fair, who said the president also did not know the function of the 25th Amendment, which allows a majority of the Cabinet to vote for the president to be removed from office." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: So to "Values Voters," Trump's in like Flynn (no, not that Flynn); to Vanity Fair, Trump will be deposed. Apparently Bannon has reason to believe that "know thy audience" can be monetized. ...

... Andrew Restuccia of Politico: "Steve Bannon taunted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Saturday and vowed to challenge any Senate Republican who doesn't publicly condemn attacks on ... Donald Trump.... Bannon, now the executive chairman of Breitbart News, bashed Senate Republicans by name for not publicly distancing themselves from Sen. Bob Corker's criticism of Trump, reserving particular animus for Sens. John Barrasso (Wyo.), Dean Heller (Nev.) and Deb Fischer (Neb.).... 'There's time for a mea culpa,' Bannon declared. 'You can come to a stick and condemn Sen. Corker and you can come to a stick, a microphone, and say I'm not going to vote for Mitch McConnell as majority leader.'"

Mrs. McCrabbie: If you don't read the article linked next, at least read the entire summary. There's a punch line. ...

** Scott Higham & Lenny Bernstein of the Washington Post: "In April 2016, at the height of the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history, Congress effectively stripped the Drug Enforcement Administration of its most potent weapon against large drug companies suspected of spilling prescription narcotics onto the nation's streets.... The new law makes it virtually impossible for the DEA to freeze suspicious narcotic shipments.... A handful of members of Congress, allied with the nation's major drug distributors, prevailed upon the DEA and the Justice Department to agree to a more industry-friendly law, undermining efforts to stanch the flow of pain pills, according to an investigation by The Washington Post and '60 Minutes.' The industry worked behind the scenes with lobbyists and key members of Congress, pouring more than a million dollars into their election campaigns. The chief advocate of the law that hobbled the DEA was Rep. Tom Marino, a Pennsylvania Republican who is now President Trump's nominee to become the nation's next drug czar.... It passed after Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) negotiated a final version with the DEA." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Let's see if Trump withdraws Marino's nomination, now that the WashPo & "60 Minutes" have exposed the plot. For some reason, I'm not betting on this to happen.

The Fake, Failing New York Times Foils Trump. Haeyoun Park answers questions about getting health insurance converage under ObamaCare. Mrs. McC: I hope all news media & some popular shows & television sites act accordingly. And health insurance companies, who run zillions of ads for supplemental Medicare insurance, should have the sense to do the same for Healthcare.gov ...

... The number of state attorneys generals who are suing the Trump administration for stopping payments of the healthcare subsidies has grown to 18 plus the District of Columbia, according to a press release by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. The states are California, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Oregon, North Carolina, Illinois, New York, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Minnesota, New Mexico, Washington, Iowa, and the District of Columbia."

Kendall Taggart & Jessica Garrison of BuzzFeed: "For all the women who have cheered as accusations against the producer Harvey Weinstein force a public conversation about sexual misconduct, one small group of women has watched with frustration. They are some of the dozen women who publicly accused Donald Trump of groping or kissing them -- accusations that Trump has denied. In a sharp contrast to the women who accused Weinstein, Trump's accusers did not see the public turn against him, the board of his company fire him, or the police launch an investigation. Instead, these women watched the man they say humiliated and abused them get elected president of the United States." ...

... Gregg Kilday of the Hollywood Reporter: "The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has expelled disgraced mogul Harvey Weinstein from its ranks. The Academy's 54-member board of governors -- which includes such Hollywood luminaries as Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Whoopi Goldberg and Kathleen Kennedy -- held an emergency meeting at the organization's Beverly Hills headquarters today and voted to strip away Weinstein's lifetime membership. Following the meeting, the Academy issued a statement saying the board had voted 'to immediately expel him from the Academy. We do so not simply to separate ourselves from someone who does not merit the respect of his colleagues but also to send a message that the era of willful ignorance and shameful complicity in sexually predatory behavior and workplace harassment in our industry is over.'"

The Commentariat -- October 14, 2017

Afternoon Update:

The Cheese Stands Alone. Stephen Castle & Thomas Erdbrink of the New York Times: "Iran, Russia and European leaders roundly condemned President Trump's decision on Friday to disavow the Iran nuclear deal, saying that it reflected the growing isolation of the United States, threatened to destabilize the Middle East and could make it harder to resolve the growing tensions on the Korean Peninsula.... Though they avoided direct criticism of Mr. Trump, Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Emmanuel Macron of France said in a rare joint statement that they 'stand committed' to the 2015 nuclear deal and that preserving it was 'in our shared national security interest.' 'The nuclear deal was the culmination of 13 years of diplomacy and was a major step towards ensuring that Iran's nuclear program is not diverted for military purposes,' they added." ...

... Eric Levitz has "a rundown of Trump's most absurd arguments for decertifying the nuclear agreement with Iran." ...

... Fred Kaplan of Slate: "President Trump's statement Friday on the Iran nuclear deal may be the most dishonest speech he has ever given from the White House -- and, depending what happens next, it could be his most damaging. It flagrantly misrepresents what the deal was meant to do, the extent of Iran's compliance, and the need for corrective measures. If he gets his way, he will blow up one of the most striking diplomatic triumphs of recent years, aggravate tensions in the Middle East, make it even harder to settle the North Korean crisis peacefully, and make it all but impossible for allies and adversaries to trust anything the United States says for as long as Trump is in office." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Eliana Johnson of Politico (story linked below) puts the onus on Nikki Haley -- with a shoutout to John Bolton -- for stage-crafting Trump's speech. But I want to know, inasmuch as the Iran pact is integral to Middle East peace -- WHERE'S JARED? Here Trump is fooling with with a delicately-crafted international accord, and the Trump's Designated Middle East Peace Guru must be off enjoying the fall colors or something.

... Heather Hurlburt of New York: "If the theatrics of [Friday's] speech reminds you more of a reality-show season premiere than high diplomacy, it's not accidental. Trump and his team are stage-managing Iran policy as if it were an episode of The Apprentice. He intentionally built drama for weeks -- from his September taunt to the United Kingdom, our closest ally, that he'd made a decision but wasn't willing to share it, to a steady drip of leaks and time changes in the lead-up to today's announcement. European ambassadors were called to the State Department days ahead of time, then told the State Department had nothing to tell them. Tune in for the season opener, right? But international diplomacy doesn't thrive on 'reveals'--in fact, it tends to fall apart over them."

Steven Feldstein in Informed Comment: "At campaign rallies [Trump] pledged to 'bomb the hell' out of the Islamic State. He openly mused about killing the families of terrorists, a blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions, which prohibits violence against noncombatants. Ten months into his presidency, a clearer picture is emerging. The data indicate several alarming trends. According to research from the nonprofit monitoring group Airwars, the first seven months of the Trump administration have already resulted in more civilian deaths than under the entirety of the Obama administration.... Researchers also point to another stunning trend -- the 'frequent killing of entire families in likely coalition airstrikes.'... The vast increase in civilian deaths is not limited to the anti-IS campaign. In Afghanistan, the U.N. reports a 67 percent increase in civilian deaths from U.S. airstrikes in the first six months of 2017 compared to the first half of 2016." Feldstein lays out possible reasons for the increases.

Chris Riotta of Newsweek: "Jared Kushner 'enriched himself' by not revealing his ownership of a real estate tech business that raised millions of dollars while he served in the government, said a member of the House Judiciary Committee, calling it part of a pattern of unethical behavior that he believes should cause the White House Senior Adviser to be stripped of his security clearance. Congressman Ted Lieu told Newsweek that Kushner's failure to list a company called Cadre on his initial financial disclosure forms -- man oversight that could mean millions for the president's son-in-law -- is an ethical lapse that should have severe ramifications." You'll have to read on to understand how the stunt worked in Jared's favor.

Oracle for Hire -- Will Say Whatever the Hell You Want to Hear. Josh Delk of the Hill: "Former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon said Saturday ... during a speech at the Values Voter Summit ... that President Trump will 'win with 400 electoral votes in 2020,' following reports that he had lost faith in the president's ability to complete his current term.... [That's funny because] Bannon reportedly said several months ago that Trump only has a 30 percent chance of finishing his current term, a source told Vanity Fair, who said the president also did not know the function of the 25th Amendment, which allows a majority of the Cabinet to vote for the president to be removed from office." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: So to "Values Voters," Trump's in like Flynn (no, not that Flynn); to Vanity Fair, Trump will be deposed. Apparently Bannon has reason to believe that "know thy audience" can be monetized.

*****

Gail Collins: "Policy-wise, this has been a particularly dreadful week in Washington. The president trashed the health care act and washed his hands of the nuclear agreement with Iran. Attention must be paid. But there has also been a bumper crop of Ridiculous Events. And it seems only fair to mention a few of them, given that the president himself doesn't have enough stable thoughts for a serious policy debate." And mention them she does, in a column titled "Stupid Trump Tricks."

Health Insurance Is Just a Game of Oneupmanship. Burgess Everett, et al., of Politico: "... Donald Trump will oppose any congressional attempts to reinstate funding for Obamacare subsidies -- unless he gets something in return, his budget director Mick Mulvaney said in an interview Friday morning. The comments by the Office of Management and Budget chief delivered a severe blow to efforts by Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) to strike a bipartisan deal on funding the subsidies.... Mulvaney panned those efforts, calling the so-called cost-sharing reduction payments 'corporate welfare and bailouts for the insurance companies.'... The administration, however, opened the door to negotiations on the now-canceled payments. After speaking to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Saturday, Trump said that a temporary deal could be struck on shoring up the insurance markets. Mulvaney suggested the insurance payments could be a bargaining chip in a broader negotiation with Congress to either repeal President Barack Obama's signature health care law — or fund Trump's long-stalled border wall with Mexico." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I was wondering who-all was running Trump's anti-health-insurance push now that Tom Price is spending more time with his family; Mulvaney may not be the one, but he's certainly one of the "brains" behind the draconian schemes. ...

... Mike DeBonis & Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "President Trump's decision late Thursday to cut off crucial health-care subsidies has once again torn open the long-festering debate over the Affordable Care Act, increasing the potential for a government shutdown in December and ensuring that the issue will be central in next year's midterm elections. The move to end insurer subsidies for low-income patients could spike premiums by as much as 20 percent for those who purchase insurance on the individual market. While Trump and Republican allies argued that former president Barack Obama's signature health-care reform law is fundamentally flawed, Democrats called the move an act of sabotage against the ACA and pledged to fight it.... 'Republicans in the House and Senate now own the health-care system in this country from top to bottom, and their destructive actions, and the actions of the president, are going to fall on their backs,' [Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer] said. 'The American people will know exactly where to place the blame when their premiums shoot up and when millions lose coverage.'" ...

... James Hohmann of the Washington Post runs down some of the consequences of Trump's moves to sabotage ObamaCare. ...

... An Unintended Consequence of Malice Aforethought (but not so well "thought.") Eric Levitz of New York: "In an early-morning tweet [Friday], Trump confirmed that this was an act of malice. Months ago, the president predicted that canceling the so-called 'cost-sharing reductions' would break Obamacare -- and thus, force Chuck Schumer to negotiate with him over a replacement. On Friday, in a missive fit for a cartoon supervillain, Trump announced that the deed was done, and the Democrats' precious Obamacare was no more. 'The Democrats ObamaCare is imploding. Massive subsidy payments to their pet insurance companies has stopped. Dems should call me to fix!'... And yet..., according to the Congressional Budget Office, in this particular case, canceling Obamacare subsidies will only make them stronger. If CBO's analysis is correct, Trump's latest act of Obamacare sabotage will do the opposite of what every Republican health-care plan had intended.... Trump might have just made Obamacare a better deal for low-income Americans; provided 1 million more people with insurance (after 2020); and increased federal spending on health care by nearly $200 billion over the next decade." Levitz builds on health-care economist Nicholas Bagley's explanation, linked yesterday. ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Maybe about now you're thinking Mick Mulvaney isn't such an evil genius. Just evil. One problem: since the Trumpies are making it harder for enrollees to sign up, the new & degraded Healthcare.gov may make it more difficult for individuals to figure out which plan would be best for them. According to Levitz & others, it may turn out that -- thanks to Trump -- a gold plan will become most advantageous, but many people would probably just assume that a bronze plan -- the cheapest -- would be most affordable. I think I'm pretty smart, but it took me about a year (I'm not exaggerating) to figure out which Medicare supplement plan would give me the most bang for my buck, and I can tell you insurers dished out a lot of disinformation (and outright lies) to confuse me. I will say that the person who gave me the final, deciding clue was a helpful Medicare staffer. ...

... Sarah Kliff of Vox: "Fewer people will have insurance -- and the government will spend more.... There is no question that this new policy is lose-lose-lose for key stakeholders with no upside. It will raise Obamacare premiums by an estimated 20 percent in 2018.... Pulling the plug actually increases the national deficit. As those insurance plans make double-digit rate increases, the government will have to spend billions more on the other subsidies that 10 million Americans receive to purchase that coverage. The number of uninsured Americans would rise by one million people in 2018, in the CBO's estimate. Insurance companies ... now stand to face significant financial loses on the Obamacare marketplaces." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I doubt Trump has any idea of the fiscal consequences, but it wouldn't matter if he accidentally found out. His objective is to ruin ObamaCare, and if it costs billions to do so, so what? Meanwhile, all the dimwitted "values voters" are cheering him on. ...

... Megan Messerly & Riley Snyder of the Nevada Independent: Nevada "Governor Brian Sandoval [R] called the president's decision to end critical payments from the federal government that help health insurance companies offer affordable coverage to lower-income Americans 'devastating,' though officials with the state's insurance exchange say Nevadans won't feel any immediate impact in the coming plan year. Dealing yet another blow to the Affordable Care Act, the White House said in a statement late Thursday night that the government cannot 'lawfully' continue making the so-called cost-sharing reduction payments, which the president has repeatedly referred to as a 'bailout' for insurance companies. But halting those payments would be 'very destructive' for the state of Nevada, Sandoval said, echoing concerns expressed by exchange officials and health-care policy experts that injecting additional volatility into the individual insurance market could eventually lead to its collapse in the long term." ...

... Rachel Roubein of the Hill: "A new multistate lawsuit has been announced to stop President Trump from halting key ObamaCare payments to insurers. Fifteen states and Washington, D.C., are signing onto the new lawsuit, which will be filed Friday, according to Sarah Lovenheim, a spokeswoman for California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. On Thursday night, Trump announced he would stop making the payments, which led to an outcry from critics saying he was sabotaging the health care law. The complaint will seek a temporary restraining order, preliminary injunction and permanent injunction requiring the cost-sharing reduction payments be made."

Trump Whisperer. Eliana Johnson of Politico: "While many of the president's cabinet members, aides, and advisers work to restrain his impulses, when it came to Iran deal [U.N. Ambassador Nikki] Haley did the opposite -- channeling what many Democrats and even some Republicans consider the president's destructive instincts into policy.... The fingerprints of former U.N. ambassador John Bolton, whose access to Trump was recently limited by chief of staff John Kelly, were also on Trump's Friday address.... Bolton urged Trump to include a line in his remarks noting that he reserved the right to scrap the agreement entirely...."

Antony Blinken in a New York Times op-ed: "Now that Mr. Trump has decertified Iran's compliance with the nuclear agreement, Congress has 60 days to decide whether to reimpose sanctions. Mr. Trump called on Congress and America's allies to use the time 'to address the deal's many serious flaws.' If not, he said, 'the agreement will be terminated.' By 'fix' Mr. Trump means legislation to impose new conditions on Iran beyond the purview of the agreement and to extend its constraints indefinitely. That would put the United States, not Iran, in violation of the agreement and isolate Washington, not Tehran, around the world." Blinken lays out the numerous lies Trump told to "justify" his supposed decertification of Iran's compliance. The headline on Blinken's piece: "Trump Alienates America's Allies and Hands Iran a Victory." ...

... Asawin Suebsaeng, et al., of the Daily Beast unearth the plot to hide the Iran nuclear agreement from Trump. H. R. McMaster has tried to lure Congressional Democrats into joining the conspiracy, even as he had to speak to them in code. Mrs. McC: To save the nation from Trump, the members of the Cabinet & Congress are already banding together. This could be the start of something big.

Storm-Ravaged Islands in the Big Ocean Are Other Countries. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "During a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing Thursday, Energy Secretary Rick Perry mistakenly referred to Puerto Rico as a country while talking about how to repair its energy grid.... And now President Trump has talked about another U.S. territory struck by hurricanes as if it's a foreign country. He said in a speech at the Values Voters Summit on Friday morning that he met with the 'president' of the U.S. Virgin Islands. The Virgin Islands don't have a president; they have a governor, Kenneth Mapp, with whom Trump met 10 days ago. In fact, their president is none other than Trump himself, since they are Americans." ...

... Paul Krugman: "... the Trump administration seems increasingly to see this tragedy [in Puerto Rico] as a public relations issue, something to be spun -- partly by blaming the victims -- rather than as an urgent problem to be solved.... And it took almost three weeks after Maria struck before Trump asked Congress to provide financial aid -- and his request was for loans, not grants, which is mind-boggling when you bear in mind that the territory is effectively bankrupt.... Puerto Ricans would doubtless be getting better treatment if they were all of, say, Norwegian descent.... Whatever the precise mix of motives, what's happening in Puerto Rico is utterly shameful. And everyone who enables the regime perpetuating this shame shares part of the guilt."

Dan Friedman of Mother Jones: "The White House has blown by an October 1 deadline for beginning to implement new sanctions targeting Russia, drawing concern in Congress that President Donald Trump is planning to ignore parts of a bill he grudgingly signed in August.... The aide said that members of the White House's National Security Council have assured senators that they are 'getting to' the sanctions and 'it's gonna happen.' But lawmakers are wary." --safari

NEW. Josh Meyer of Politico: "Twitter has deleted tweets and other user data of potentially irreplaceable value to investigators probing Russia's suspected manipulation of the social media platform during the 2016 election, according to current and former government cybersecurity officials. Federal investigators now believe Twitter was one of Russia's most potent weapons in its efforts to promote Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, the officials say...."

Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "Reince Priebus, the former chief of staff to President Trump, was interviewed for a full day Friday by members of special counsel Robert S. Mueller's team, Priebus's lawyer said.... The interview, which took place at the special counsel's office in Washington, is a sign that Mueller's investigation is now reaching into the highest levels of Trump's aides and former aides." ...

... Following the Money. Manafort & the Oligarch. Aggelos Petropoulos & Richard Engel of NBC News: "Paul Manafort, a former campaign manager for ... Donald Trump, has much stronger financial ties to a Russian oligarch than have been previously reported. An NBC News investigation reveals that $26 million changed hands in the form of a loan between a company linked to Manafort and the oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, a billionaire with close ties to the Kremlin. The loan brings the total of their known business dealings to around $60 million over the past decade, according to financial documents filed in Cyprus and the Cayman Islands.... According to company documents obtained by NBC News in Cyprus, funds were sent from a company owned by Deripaska to entities linked to Manafort, registered in Cyprus."

Choir Boy. Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post: “'You cannot publicly castrate your own secretary of state without giving yourself that binary choice,' [Sen. Bob] Corker told me in a phone interview Friday. 'The tweets -- yes, you raise tension in the region [and] it's very irresponsible. But it's the first part' -- the 'castration' of [Rex] Tillerson -- 'that I am most exercised about.'... The problem, he suggested, is Trump's tweets and other statements implying that there is no deal to be made with North Korea and that Tillerson 'is wasting his time,' as one tweet put it. Such comments are causing the Chinese to back away from what has been an incipient willingness to bring serious pressure to bear on Pyongyang.'"

King Zinke. Sarah Burris of RawStory: "Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has come under fire for spending nearly as much as former Secretary Tom Price on private airline flights, but now it appears he also has special mandates for the buildings he's in. The Washington Post reported Thursday that Zinke unearthed a military ritual hoisting special secretarial flags on whatever buildings he happens to be in. Each time Zinke is scheduled to enter a building, a security staffer takes an elevator to the top floor and climbs to the roof where his special flag is raised. When he is not in the building, the security staffer must, once again, climb the steps to the top and take the flag down." --safari ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Burris has mangled the WashPo story, linked above: The flag-raising & -lowering hoo-hah happens only at the Interior Department building in Washington, D.C. (or, as Zinke's press secretary hilariously puts it, "in garrison.") Lisa Rein of the Post describes the flag as a "blue banner emblazoned with the agency's bison seal flanked by seven white stars representing the Interior bureaus," & Burris posts a representation of it. "In Zinke's absence," Rein writes, "the ritual is repeated to raise an equally obscure flag for Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt." Bernhardt's flag, pictured in Rein's story is white with blue stars. "Zinke," Rein reminds us, "upset some of the 70,000 employees at the agency that manages public lands by stating that 30 percent of the workers are 'not loyal to the flag' in a speech to oil and gas executives." I guess now we know what flag he had in mind. "Zinke rode to work on horseback on his first day in office and displays animal heads on his wood-paneled office walls. For a while, he kept a glass-case display of hunting knives but was asked to remove them because of security risks.... He has commissioned commemorative coins with his name on them to give to staff and visitors, but the cost to taxpayers is unclear. Zinke's predecessors and some other Cabinet secretaries have coins bearing agency seals, but not personalized ones.... The agency's inspector general opened an investigation after [Zinke] ran up bills for travel on chartered jets and mixed business with political appearances, sometimes accompanied by his wife, Lola." In any event, Zinke is a preposterous, self-aggrandizing laughingstock, a character type who is the butt of jokes in many a situation comedy.

Ryan Deveraux & Spencer Woodman of The Intercept: "An internal handbook obtained by The Intercept provides a rare view into the extensive asset seizure operations of ICE's Homeland Security Investigations, an office that trains its agents to meticulously appraise the value of property before taking it.... The handbook acknowledges that civil forfeiture can be used to take property from a person even when there's not enough evidence for a criminal indictment." --safari

Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Sen. Susan Collins of Maine announced Friday that she will not run for governor in 2018, renewing her commitment to serve in a sharply polarized Senate where her centrist Republican positions have made her a key bulwark against much of President Trump's agenda. Ending months of speculation about her political future, Collins, who does not face reelection until 2020, opted to stick with the job she has held for the last two decades, even as other moderate GOP lawmakers including Rep. Charlie Dent (Pa.) and Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.) are heading for the exits."

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "A federal judge on Friday turned down the Justice Department's request to dramatically scale back the reach of an injunction he'd issued against the Trump administration's targeting of so-called sanctuary cities. Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Harry Leinenweber granted the City of Chicago's request for a nationwide block on the Justice Department's plan to insist that cities and counties receiving public-safety grants allow immigration agents access to local jails and give local authorities advance notice when suspected illegal immigrants are about to be released from custody. Justice Department lawyers asked Leinenweber to stay his order so that it would benefit only Chicago...."

Al Baker & Stephen Castle of the New York Times: "The police in London and New York said Thursday that they were looking into complaints involving the disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein, the latest turn in a scandal that has consumed Hollywood over allegations of sexual abuse and harassment." ...

... TMZ: Harvey Weinstein will challenge his firing by The Weinstein Company at this month's Board of Directors meeting."

Medlar's Sports Report:

** Karen Attiah of the Washington Post: "With Pence's stunt, Trump's tweets, [ Cowboys owner Jerry] Jones's edict and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's statement saying players should stand, the debate about players standing for the national anthem is no longer about the flag. This is not about the anthem. This is not about supporting the troops. This is about putting outspoken black people back in their place in America -- subordinate, and silent about the racism, police brutality and white supremacy that affect our lives everyday."

Marc Tracy of the New York Times: "The N.C.A.A. did not dispute that the University of North Carolina was guilty of running one of the worst academic fraud schemes in college sports history, involving fake classes that enabled dozens of athletes to gain and maintain their eligibility. But there will be no penalties, the organization said, because no rules were broken. In a ruling that caused head-scratching everywhere except Chapel Hill, the N.C.A.A. announced on Friday that it could not punish the university or its athletics program because the 'paper' classes were not available exclusively to athletes. Other students at North Carolina had access to the fraudulent classes, too."