The Commentariat -- August 20, 2017

Counter-protesters in Boston, Mass., August 19. ... Julia Jacobo, et al., of ABC News: "One week after violent protests rattled Charlottesville, Virginia, a scheduled free speech rally in Boston today was met with thousands of counterprotesters, but the day went off mostly smoothly, police said, with 33 arrests but few injuries. The free speech rally was deemed 'officially over' by police ahead of its official end time, but thousands of counterprotesters continued to spread out in the city throughout the afternoon, with some protesting peacefully but others confronting officers and people. A total of 33 arrests were made today, mostly from disorderly conduct and a few assaults on police officers, the Boston Police Department announced. Police Commissioner William Evans said at a news conference this afternoon that some urine-filled bottles were thrown at officers, and police indicated on Twitter that some demonstrators were throwing rocks at police.... Evans said that '99.9 percent of the people here were for the right reasons -- that's to fight bigotry and hate.'" ...

... Tara Golshan of Vox: "The Boston Free Speech rally, which many feared would draw a violent crowd of white supremacists Saturday, was instead overshadowed by thousands of counter-protesters denouncing bigotry and racism. The dueling demonstrations on Boston Common showed a shocking disparity in size. As Vox’s Alex Ward reported from the scene, the Free Speech rally, scheduled to begin at noon, was only permitted for 100 participants.... Meanwhile, counter-demonstrators ... filled the grounds outside a security perimeter, drowning out the speeches at the Free Speech rally. More anti-racism protesters, led by the Black Lives Matter chapter, marched through Boston Saturday from the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center to join the counter demonstration at Boston Common. Police are estimating roughly 15,000 people in the march, according to ABC News." ...

... Tyler Kingkade of BuzzFeed: "A right-wing event in Boston that billed itself a 'Free Speech Rally' attracted only a few dozen supporters on Saturday, while an estimated 40,000 counter-protesters turned up to demonstrate against racism." ...

... Brandon Patterson & Jamilah King of Mother Jones: "One week after a bitterly violent protest in Charlottesville, Va., that left one woman dead and 19 injured, tens of thousands of counter-protesters marched in at least 30 cities, including New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C. to demonstrate their opposition to white nationalism. The largest protest by far was in Boston, where an estimated 30,000-40,000 counter-protesters showed up, according to the Boston Globe. Only a handful of people attended the planned 'Free Speech' protest, and they were quickly overwhelmed." ...

... The New York Times report, by Katharine Seelye & others, is here. ...

Looks like many anti-police agitators in Boston. Police are looking tough and smart! Thank you. — Donald J. Trump August 19, 2017

... Then, "an abrupt shift in tone":

Our great country has been divided for decades. Sometimes you need protest in order to heal, & we will heal, & be stronger than ever before! -- Donald Trump, August 19

I want to applaud the many protestors in Boston who are speaking out against bigotry and hate. Our country will soon come together as one! -- Donald Trump, Aug 19, 2017 ...

... Sarah Betancourt of the Guardian: "Donald Trump described anti-fascist and anti-racist demonstrators who converged on Boston as 'anti-police agitators' on Saturday, in a tweet that seemed destined to revive the still simmering controversy over his remarks equating the far right and anti-Nazis in Charlottesville last weekend.... But he later seemed to back the right to demonstrate....” ...

     ... Kevin Drum: "Nonviolence isn’t the answer to everything, but it is here. The best way to fight these creeps is to take their oxygen away and suffocate them. Fighting and bloodshed get headlines, which is what they want. So shut them down with lots of people but no violence. Eventually they’ll go back to their caves and the press will get bored. Of course, all of this depends on our president not doing anything further to support their cause. If that happens, I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks." ...

... AP: "Duke University removed a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee early Saturday, days after it was vandalized amid a national debate about monuments to the Confederacy. The university said it removed the carved limestone likeness early Saturday from Duke Chapel where it stood among 10 historical figures depicted in the entryway.... '"I took this course of action to protect Duke Chapel, to ensure the vital safety of students and community members who worship there, and above all to express the deep and abiding values of our university,' [Duke President Vincent] Price said in the letter. Durham has been a focal point in the debate over Confederate statues after protesters tore down a bronze Confederate soldier in front of a government building downtown. Eight people have been charged with tearing down the statue during a protest on Monday. Hundreds marched on Friday through downtown Durham in a largely peaceful demonstration against racism, leading to an impromptu rally at the site where the bronze statue was toppled." ...

... Nathan Fenno of the Los Angeles Times: "... during a rally earlier this week to show solidarity in the aftermath of the violence in Charlottesville, Va., a [University of Southern California] campus group linked the name [of the university's mascot Traveler] to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, whose favorite horse was Traveller.... [Richard Saukko, who owned the first Traveler -- a movie horse -- & rode it in what was to be a one-off at a 1961 USC football game, has said the horse was already named when he purchased it.] The earliest mention of a connection between Lee and USC’s Traveler appears to have come in [Richard] Saukko’s four-paragraph obituary in The Times. 'Saukko's first horse was half Arabian, half Tennessee walker and was named Traveler I, after the horse of Civil War general Robert E. Lee,' the story said."

David Nakamura, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump and first lady Melania Trump have elected not to attend the annual Kennedy Center Honors in December amid a political backlash among those who will be feted at the event. The first family will not participate 'to allow the honorees to celebrate without any political distraction,' White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement Saturday morning. The announcement comes as three of the five honorees — television producer Norman Lear, singer Lionel Richie and dancer Carmen de Lavallade — said they would boycott the traditional White House reception related to the celebration. As for the other two, rapper LL Cool J had not said whether he would attend, and Cuban American singer Gloria Estefan said she would go to try to influence the president on immigration issues.... This is the first time in the awards' history that the White House portion of the festivities has been canceled."

David Remnick of the New Yorker: "During [a campaign] speech in Charlotte[, North Carolina, in early November 2016, President] Obama warned that no one really changes in the Presidency; rather, the office 'magnifies' who you already are. So if you 'accept the support of Klan sympathizers before you’re President, or you’re kind of slow in disowning it, saying, "Well, I don’t know," then that’s how you’ll be as President.'... [Afterwards, in a private conversation, Obama said,] 'We’ve seen this coming.... Donald Trump is not an outlier; he is a culmination, a logical conclusion of the rhetoric and tactics of the Republican Party for the past ten, fifteen, twenty years. What surprised me was the degree to which those tactics and rhetoric completely jumped the rails.' For half a century, in fact, the leaders of the G.O.P. have fanned the lingering embers of racial resentment in the United States. Through shrewd political calculation and rhetoric, from Richard Nixon’s “Southern strategy” to the latest charges of voter fraud in majority-African-American districts, doing so has paid off at the ballot box.... The imperative is to find ways to counteract and diminish his malignant influence not only in the overtly political realm but also in the social and cultural one.” ...

... New York Times Editors: Donald Trump has changed the subtext of the GOP's "Southern strategy" into text. "For reasons of ineptitude and ideological complicity, the [Republican] party’s leaders did almost nothing to counter the Trump phenomenon, nor did they seek in any sustained fashion to temper his worst excesses, beginning with his false claims about President Barack Obama’s birth and proceeding onward through his demagogic Inaugural Address."

Mike Allen of Axios: "At the end, Trump was beyond fed up, viewing Bannon as a self-aggrandizer who had built a personal narrative as the grand puppetmaster. 'Who the f[uc]k does this guy think he is?' Trump has said incredulously to associates." ...

... digby: "Bannon is a self-professed chaos agent who is happy to use Trump's simple-minded vacuousness for his own purposes, one of which is obviously to 'let Trump be Trump.' But they are not on the same page, not really, and the fact that people still think that Trump is some kind of an economic populist or an isolationist in any way is frustrating. He has no philosophy, he has domination impulses. That's it." ...

... Ryan Lizza: "... in the Trump White House there is no Trump agenda. There is a mercurial, highly emotional narcissist with no policy expertise who set up — or allowed his senior staffers to set up — competing ideological fiefdoms that fight semi-public wars to define the soul of Trumpism.... The lasting legacy of Bannonism is the xenophobia and hostility to nonwhites that emanates from the White House and has remained a political fire that this Administration is constantly fanning. But, as we learned this week, Trump doesn’t need Bannon to keep those flames alive." ...

... Josh Marshall notes that Trump just fired the one guy who does not seem to have been implicated in the Russia scandal. But Marshall has a feeling Bannon knows a lot about Trump & other Friends of Vlad. 

Maureen Dowd tells a story about the time her Irish cop father quashed the local KKK. "There will be a lot of pain while this president is in office and the clock will turn back on many things. But we will come out stronger, once this last shriek of white supremacy and grievance and fear of the future is out of the system. Every day, President Trump teaches us what values we cherish — and they’re the opposite of his.... He’s no tough guy if he can’t stand up to the scum of the earth. He followed the roar of the crowd to dark, violent places, becoming ever more crazed and isolated and self-destructive, egged on by the egotist and erstwhile White House strategist Steve Bannon but really led by his own puerile and insatiable ego."

John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who faced calls from his Yale University classmates to resign in the wake of President Trump’s controversial comments about last weekend’s violence in Charlottesville, defended the president Saturday and said he intends to stay in office. 'While I find it hard to believe I should have to defend myself on this, or the president, I feel compelled to let you know that the president in no way, shape or form believes that neo-Nazi and other hate groups who endorse violence are equivalent to groups that demonstrate in peaceful and lawful ways,' Mnuchin, who is Jewish, said in a statement released by the Treasury Department."

Russ Feingold in the Guardian: "The lesson from Charlottesville is ... the unmasking of the Republican party leadership. In the wake of last weekend’s horror and tragedy, let us finally, finally rip off the veneer that Trump’s affinity for white supremacy is distinct from the Republican agenda of voter suppression, renewed mass incarceration and the expulsion of immigrants.... Words mean nothing if the Republican agenda doesn’t change.... Gerrymandering, strict voter ID laws, felon disenfranchisement are all aimed at one outcome: a voting class that is predominantly white, and in turn majority Republican.... Even if the entire Republican party rises up in self-professed outrage at white supremacists, if voter suppression and other such racist policies survive, the white supremacists are winning. And America is losing."

Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration has decided to disband the federal advisory panel for the National Climate Assessment, a group aimed at helping policymakers and private-sector officials incorporate the government’s climate analysis into long-term planning. The charter for the 15-person Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate Assessment — which includes academics as well as local officials and corporate representatives — expires Sunday. On Friday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s acting administrator, Ben Friedman, informed the committee’s chair that the agency would not renew the panel.... But NOAA communications director Julie Roberts said in an email Saturday that 'this action does not impact the completion of the Fourth National Climate Assessment, which remains a key priority.'”

Faith Karimi, et al., of CNN: "North Korea warned Sunday that the upcoming US-South Korea military exercises are 'reckless behavior driving the situation into the uncontrollable phase of a nuclear war.' Pyongyang also declared that its army can target the United States anytime, and neither Guam, Hawaii nor the US mainland can 'dodge the merciless strike.' The messages in Rodong Sinmun, the official government newspaper, come a day before the US starts the Ulchi Freedom Guardian military exercises with South Korea."

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Ten U.S. Navy sailors are missing and five have been injured after the USS John S. McCain destroyer collided with an oil tanker near Singapore early Monday morning. This is the second time in two months that a Navy destroyer based at the 7th Fleet’s home port of Yokosuka, Japan, has been involved in a collision. Seven sailors were killed when the USS Fitzgerald collided with a tanker south of Japan in June."

New York Times: "Jerry Lewis, the comedian and filmmaker who was adored by many, disdained by others, but unquestionably a defining figure of American entertainment in the 20th century, died on Sunday morning at his home in Las Vegas. He was 91."

New York Times: "... a team led by Paul G. Allen, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, announced that it had found unmistakable wreckage of the Indianapolis [-- a U.S. Navy cruiser sunk by the Japanese during World War II --] 18,000 feet deep in the Philippine Sea, rekindling memories of the Navy’s worst disaster at sea."

The Commentariat -- August 19, 2017

Afternoon Update:

boston.com has live updates on competing rallies scheduled in Boston, Mass., this afternoon.

David Nakamura, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump and first lady Melania Trump have elected not to attend the annual Kennedy Center Honors in December amid a political backlash among those who will be feted at the event. The first family will not participate 'to allow the honorees to celebrate without any political distraction,' White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement Saturday morning. The announcement comes as three of the five honorees -- television producer Norman Lear, singer Lionel Richie and dancer Carmen de Lavallade -- said they would boycott the traditional White House reception related to the celebration. As for the other two, rapper LL Cool J had not said whether he would attend, and Cuban American singer Gloria Estefan said she would go to try to influence the president on immigration issues.... This is the first time in the awards' history that the White House portion of the festivities has been canceled."

*****

Nahal Toosi & Eliana Johnson of Politico: "Top administration officials in favor of sending more troops to Afghanistan teamed up ahead of a high-level meeting on Friday to persuade ... Donald Trump to step up American military involvement in the 16-year-old war, two sources told Politico. Vice President Mike Pence and national security adviser H.R. McMaster rehearsed their pitch heading into the Camp David strategy session.... But as of Friday evening, the president had not announced a decision on his plans for Afghanistan.... And no announcement appeared imminent. The two sources -- an administration official and a senior White House aide -- also confirmed that Erik Prince, founder of the former Blackwater private security firm, had been scheduled to attend the session but that ... McMaster ... blocked Prince... at the last minute.... Prince has been urging the administration publicly and privately to outsource much of the war effort -- which primarily involves training and advising Afghan security forces. Prince had the backing of Steve Bannon, who was ousted Friday from his role as the chief White House strategist."

... Larry Buchanan, et al., of the New York Times name "the top White House officials who resigned, or were fired, dismissed or reassigned. Mr. Trump also fired James B. Comey as director of the F.B.I. and Sally Q. Yates, a holdover from the Obama administration who was serving as his acting attorney general." ...

... Andrew Prokop of Vox: "... it’s remarkable that Trump has burned through so many of his choices for senior jobs in less than seven months in office. For instance, his predecessor Barack Obama went through four official chiefs of staff and one interim one over his eight years in office -- something Trump mocked at the time: '3 Chief of Staffs in less than 3 years of being President: Part of the reason why @BarackObama can't manage to pass his agenda. -- Donald J. Trump January 10, 2012' Trump is far exceeding that pace -- not just for his own chief of staff (who had the shortest stint of anyone since the position was created) but for a whole swath of top-level White House jobs." ...

... Julia Wong of the Guardian: "In his first post-White House interviews, Steve Bannon ... made clear that he had no intention of going quietly. 'I've got my hands back on my weapons,' the former White House chief strategist, who returned as executive chairman of Breitbart News late Friday afternoon, told the Weekly Standard. 'I built a f[uck]ing machine at Breitbart. And now I'm about to go back, knowing what I know, and we're about to rev that machine up. And rev it up we will do.'" ...

The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over. We still have a huge movement, and we will make something of this Trump presidency. But that presidency is over. It'll be something else. And there'll be all kinds of fights, and there'll be good days and bad days, but that presidency is over. -- Steve Bannon, to the Weekly Standard, Friday afternoon

If there's any confusion out there, let me clear it up: I'm leaving the White House and going to war for Trump against his opponents -- on Capitol Hill, in the media, and in corporate America. -- Steve Bannon, to Bloomberg News, Friday afternoon ...

... Peter Boyer of the Weekly Standard: "'On August 7th , I talked to [Chief of Staff John] Kelly and to the President, and I told them that my resignation would be effective the following Monday, on the 14th,' [Steve Bannon] said. 'I'd always planned on spending one year. General Kelly has brought in a great new system, but I said it would be best. I want to get back to Breitbart.' Bannon says that with the tumult in Charlottesville last weekend, and the political fallout since, Trump, Kelly, and he agreed to delay Bannon's departure, but that he and Kelly agreed late this week that now was the time for Bannon to leave. Bannon may have resigned, but it was clear from the time that Kelly became chief of staff that Bannon's remaining time in the West Wing was going to be short.... It is plainly Bannon's view that his departure is not a defeat for him personally, but for the ideology he'd urged upon the president...." ...

... Joshua Green, et al., of Bloomberg News: "According to a person close to Bannon, he met Wednesday with conservative billionaire Robert Mercer, co-chief executive of Renaissance Technologies and a major financial supporter of both Trump and Bannon's efforts. The two mapped out a path ahead for Bannon's post-White House career and discussed how Trump could get his agenda back on track. The following evening, Mercer and several other major Republican donors had dinner with Trump to share their thinking, and Mercer also had a private meeting with Trump to pledge to redouble his efforts to support Bannon and advance Trump's agenda.... Moving Bannon outside the White House raises new risks. Even if he continues to support the president, he may become aggressive in attacking the administration's more traditional Republican players and policies. He has ample access to funding through his close relationships with Mercer and other major Republican donors.... Sebastian Gorka, a Bannon ally who previously worked with him at Breitbart News, also may face removal from his post as a counter-terrorism aide to the president, said two people with knowledge of the situation.... House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California called Bannon's ouster 'welcome news, but it doesn't disguise where President Trump himself stands on white supremacists and the bigoted beliefs they advance.'" ...

... Michael Grynbaum & Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "Stephen K. Bannon, who left his post on Friday as President Trump's chief strategist, has resumed his role as chairman of Breitbart News, the provocative right-wing website that propelled him to national fame. Hours after his departure from the White House was announced, Mr. Bannon led the evening editorial meeting of his former publication, Breitbart said on its website. 'The populist-nationalist movement got a lot stronger today,' the editor in chief of Breitbart, Alex Marlow, said in a statement." ...

... Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump has told senior aides that he has decided to remove Stephen K. Bannon..., according to two administration officials briefed on the discussion. The president and senior White House officials were debating when and how to dismiss Mr. Bannon." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... New Lede: "Stephen K. Bannon, the embattled chief strategist who helped President Trump win the 2016 election but clashed for months with other senior West Wing advisers, is leaving his post, a White House spokeswoman announced Friday. 'White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be Steve's last day,'..., Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said in a statement. 'We are grateful for his service and wish him the best.'" ...

... Ashley Parker, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump has decided to dismiss ... Stephen K. Bannon, an architect of his 2016 general election victory, in a major White House shake-up that follows a week of racial unrest, according to two people familiar with the move. Trump had been under mounting pressure to dispatch with Bannon...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... New Lede: "President Trump on Friday dismissed his embattled chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, an architect of his 2016 general election victory, in a major White House shake-up that follows a week of racial unrest, according to multiple administration officials." ...

... Jeremy Diamond, et al., of CNN: "Bannon was supposed to be fired two weeks ago, a White House official told CNN's Jeff Zeleny, but it was put off. CNN reports the President equivocated after an initial plan was to fire Bannon and then-Chief of Staff Reince Priebus at same time, the official says, because Rep. Mark Meadows, the influential chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, and others urged Trump to keep him on board. The interview [with Robert Kuttner of the American Prospect] this week was enough for Meadows to change his view, a person close to him says." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Madison Kircher of New York: "Over on 4chan, users are discussing whether or not they'll continue to support Trump now that Bannon is gone. While there's some support for a Bannon-free Trump administration, the bulk of comments mourn the senior strategist in some, uh, colorful language.... There's a similar conversation happening over on Reddit, too. Though it's slightly -- thank you, moderators -- more tame.... Meanwhile, Twitter reaction has been everybody making the same joke about Trump taking down a pro-Confederacy statue at the White House."

Maggie Haberman & Ken Vogel of the New York Times: "President Trump dined on Thursday night at his Bedminster golf club with a handful of the right's most generous donors, as he tried to build support for his hobbled legislative agenda amid mounting criticism from within his own party, three people briefed on the dinner said. The dinner was scheduled weeks ago as part of a donor-outreach initiative by the Trump administration as it prepares an overhaul of the tax code, according to several people involved in the planning. But it came as the White House is struggling to move past the racially charged controversy that Mr. Trump fueled in the wake of the deadly white supremacist rally last weekend in Charlottesville, Va." ...

Bryan Bender & Negassi Tesfamichael of Politico: "Military leaders have hastened to denounce racism amid the furor over ... Donald Trump's defense of white supremacists who violently rallied last week around a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia. But they are also presiding over their own controversial symbols of the Confederacy -- including 10 Army bases named for generals who commanded armies of the slave-holding South during the Civil War, such as Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Hood in Texas and Fort Rucker in Alabama. On Friday, a group of mostly African-American Democrats in the House proposed legislation that would require the defense secretary to rename any military property 'that is currently named after any individual who took up arms against the United States during the American Civil War or any individual or entity that supported such efforts.' They argued that the names undermine the military's commitment to American values of 'freedom, equality, and democratic governance.' The office of the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state, told Politico that he too he supports renaming bases named for Confederates." ...

... Gail Collins wants to put a remove-by date on publicly-situated statues. ...

... Jonah Bromwich of the New York Times: "The mother of the woman who was run down by a car during violent clashes in Charlottesville, Va., said Friday that after seeing President Trump's comments equating white supremacist protesters with those demonstrating against them, she does not wish to speak with him. 'I'm not talking to the president now; I'm sorry,' Susan Bro said. 'After what he said about my child.' In an interview on ABC's 'Good Morning America,' Ms. Bro said that she had initially missed several calls from the White House, the first of which came during the funeral of her daughter, Heather D. Heyer, who was killed when a man drove a car into a crowd of counterprotesters on Saturday. She said that she had been too busy with the funeral and working to set up a foundation in her daughter's name to watch the news until Thursday night. That was when she saw footage of Mr. Trump's explosive Tuesday news conference, in which he said that there was 'blame on both sides' for the violence in Charlottesville.'" ...

... Paul Waldman. It doesn't matter whether or not Donald Trump is a racist. He "is the most racially divisive president in our lifetimes -- and it's not even close. From literally the moment he began his presidential campaign in 2015, he has spread racist ideas, made racist arguments, appealed to racist sentiments, enacted racist policies, and encouraged the most repugnant racists in American society to become more vocal and visible.... .... So Steve Bannon may be gone, but we shouldn't let that fool us into thinking that the Trump administration has undergone some kind of transformation. We'll know that something has truly changed if the Justice Department displays a genuine commitment to upholding civil rights, or if the administration dials back on its vote suppression efforts, or if the president himself stops making statements that bring so much joy to the most detestable hatemongers in American society.... I don't know about you, but I'm not expecting much." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Adam Kelsey of ABC News: "Businessman Carl Icahn announced on Friday that he will step away from his role as a special advisor to ... Donald Trump on regulatory reform issues -- a decision he claims was made to avoid the suggestion of conflicts of interest by critics of the administration.... The announcement from Icahn, the founder and majority shareholder of conglomerate Icahn Enterprises, comes days after a number of business leaders resigned from the White House's American Manufacturing Council in the aftermath of Trump's response to last weekend's violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. The American Manufacturing Council disbanded on Wednesday, as did a second, separate panel of CEOs, dubbed the Strategic and Policy Forum. Icahn's letter made no mention of Charlottesville." ...

... Max Greenwood of the Hill: "The pastor of a New York megachurch said Friday that he has resigned from President Trump's Evangelical Advisory Board, citing 'a deepening conflict in values' with the administration. Rev. A.R. Bernard, who leads the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, said in a statement that he had 'quietly stepped away' from the panel several months ago, but submitted his formal resignation on Tuesday.... It was not immediately clear if Bernard had formally resigned from the panel because of the president's comments on Tuesday, in which he equated white nationalists to the counter-demonstrators who had gathered in Charlottesville to oppose them. The pastor signed onto a Monday letter from the Commission of Religious Leaders fiercely condemning hate groups in the wake of the violence in Charlottesville." ...

... Nancy Scola of Politico: "More business executives are departing en masse from Trump administration advisory positions, with a new set of resignations from a Commerce Department advisory board following an exodus from two business groups advising the White House, which then disbanded both of them. More than half of the members of the 15-person Digital Economy Board of Advisors, an expert board set up last year by the Obama administration to help the federal government navigate the digital economy, are known to have resigned this week in the wake of ... Donald Trump's controversial comments about the violence last week in Charlottesville, Va., that left one person dead." ...

... Drew Harwell & David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "The Salvation Army, the American Red Cross and Susan G. Komen on Friday joined a growing exodus of organizations canceling plans to hold fundraising events at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, deepening the financial impact to President Trump's private business amid furor over his comments on Charlottesville. The major exits now mean seven of the club's biggest event customers have abandoned it in a matter of hours, likely costing the Trump business hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue or more" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Maggie Haberman: "James Murdoch, the chief executive of 21st Century Fox and the son of a frequent ally of President Trump's, condemned the president's performance after the violence in Charlottesville, Va., and pledged to donate $1 million to the Anti-Defamation League. In an email on Thursday, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times and confirmed as authentic by a spokesman for Mr. Murdoch's company, the Fox scion gave an extraordinarily candid statement against the white supremacist sentiment that swept through Virginia last weekend. It was also the most outspoken that a member of the Murdoch family has been in response to the week's events.... '... I can't even believe I have to write this: standing up to Nazis is essential; there are no good Nazis. Or Klansmen, or terrorists....'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Edward-Isaac Dovere of Politico: "Another advisory group is walking away from ... Donald Trump after his equivocation on neo-Nazis and white supremacists, with the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities resigning en masse Friday morning. 'We cannot sit idly by, the way that your West Wing advisors have, without speaking out against your words and actions,' members write in a joint letter to Trump obtained by Politico, which ends by calling on the president to resign if he does not see a problem with what's happened this week. The first letter of each paragraph of the letter spells out 'Resist.'... The 17-member committee was appointed by President Barack Obama and hasn't met under Trump, but it has continued work on some of its programs." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Avi Selk of the Washington Post: "... none of the [Charlottesville] marchers soared so high or crashed so hard as Chris Cantwell, who became the ivory-skinned, gun-toting star of a documentary about Charlottesville that aired Monday on HBO -- and a week later is better known as the 'weepy white supremacist' or 'weeping Nazi' who got banned from OkCupid." ...

Aram Roston of BuzzFeed: "Federal prosecutors working for special counsel Robert Mueller are focusing keenly on the president's son Donald Trump Jr. and are trying to determine his intent when he attended a controversial June 9, 2016, meeting with a Russian lawyer, according to a source familiar with the investigation. Trump Jr. has acknowledged that he was looking for negative information about Hillary Clinton when he, as well as Jared Kushner and then-campaign manager Paul Manafort, met with the lawyer. But he claimed he did not receive any useful opposition research. The source familiar with the investigation said that prosecutors have been trying to determine exactly what information was provided and are scrutinizing Trump Jr.'s statements about the meeting. Requesting or accepting anything of value for a presidential campaign from a foreign national violates federal election law, legal experts told BuzzFeed News."

Tracy Jan of the Washington Post: "The person President Trump tapped this summer to oversee one of the largest regions under the Department of Housing & Urban Development is a longtime Trump family employee with no experience in housing, according to the one-page résumé Lynne Patton submitted as part of the transition. Patton began working for Trump's son Eric in 2009 as the vice president of his foundation and as his primary aide. She oversaw all aspects of his business, charity and personal obligations. That included his home and spousal responsibilities as well as coordinating events. She was promoted in 2012 to be the Trump family's senior aide and chief of staff, serving as the principal contact between the family members and all corporate partners, heads of state and high-end donors. Specifically, she worked for the Trump children, Donald Jr., Tiffany, Ivanka and Eric and his wife, Lara. During Donald Trump's presidential campaign, Patton worked as his senior adviser and family liaison.... In June, HUD Secretary Ben Carson, an acclaimed neurosurgeon with no expertise in housing policy either, charged Patton with running the agency's regional office overseeing New York and New Jersey. Her appointment stirred controversy because of her lack of experience and the fact that Trump has a 4 percent stake in a Brooklyn development, Starrett City, that is the nation's largest subsidized housing complex.... Patton has officially recused herself from any decisions involving the Starrett City housing development, signing a 'conflict of interest disqualification' memorandum on July 12."

Way Beyond the Beltway

James McAuley, et al., of the Washington Post: "Spain was seized Friday with the realization that it had incubated a large-scale terrorist plot, as authorities across Europe mounted a manhunt following the deadliest attacks to strike the country in more than a decade: two vehicle assaults in Barcelona and a Catalan coastal town. Investigators say they believe that at least eight people plotted the attacks, putting them at a level of sophistication comparable to major strikes in Paris and Brussels in recent years. Other more recent attacks in London, Berlin and the southern French city of Nice were perpetrated by individuals operating largely on their own. Spanish counterterrorism officers were scrambling to untangle the terrorist network, which involved at least four Moroccan citizens under age 25, according to intelligence officials. In addition to those four, authorities have detained three Moroccan men and a Spaniard."

Circle of Evil

By Akhilleus

As President Brownshirt continues his very public kissyfacing with Nazis, and more white supremacy marches of hate and violence are planned across the country, it might be instructive to see where the Nazis got some of their most heinous ideas about race in the first place.

Surprise! They got them from America. I guess this is another example of American Exceptionalism. Nazis thought we were exceptionally good at fucking over non-Aryan races. After all, we had our own ethnic cleansing period (Indian Wars) that lasted over 200 years, and had enslaved a completely different race, all at the same time. Whew. That is some serious white supremacy going on there. Where else on earth were there better examples of how to use laws and public policy to screw other human beings of different races?

According to history.com, "'America in the early 20th century was the leading racist jurisdiction in the world,' says [James Q.]Whitman, who is a professor at Yale Law School. 'Nazi lawyers, as a result, were interested in, looked very closely at, [and] were ultimately influenced by American race law.'

In particular, Nazis admired the Jim Crow-era laws that discriminated against black Americans and segregated them from white Americans, and they debated whether to introduce similar segregation in Germany."

The Jim Crow era, you may recall, was a time when most of the now revered monuments to white people stepping black people were erected. Those monuments for which Trump demonstrates such sentiment.

But there was a problem. American laws didn't go far enough. Here's why. Blacks were already poor and oppressed. Jews in Weimar Germany were in much better shape, socially and economically. So, what to do? Who had the answer to this thorny problem?

Again...We did.

"Nazis were more interested in how the U.S. had designated Native Americans, Filipinos and other groups as non-citizens even though they lived in the U.S. or its territories. These models influenced the citizenship portion of the Nuremberg Laws, which stripped Jewish Germans of their citizenship and classified them as 'nationals.'"

And another big plus for Hitler were American miscegenation laws.

"'America had, by a wide margin, the harshest law of this kind,' Whitman says. 'In particular, some of the state laws threatened severe criminal punishment for interracial marriage. That was something radical Nazis were very eager to do in Germany as well.'"

This was that state's rights thing that Confederates are still up in arms about. The right to screw others (and to put the kibosh on other kinds of screwing). And we're still seeing it in the way wingers have set about destroying voting rights for Americans who might not vote for their approved candidates.

Ohhhh....Nazis loved them some American ideas about race. And we have returned the favor by loving the updating of those ideas as they've been filtered back to the US and which now find approval from the American President.

Everything old (and evil) is new again. And the ideas and concepts about racism that influenced one of the most deadly regimes in world history are being revived and held up the president as models of social engagement.

That's how we roll in Trump's Amerika.