The Commentariat -- July 9, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Maureen Dowd, who certainly reinforced my sense of Billary Clinton back in the day, nails them again: "... the Clintons, who are staying true to their reputation as the Tom and Daisy Buchanan of American politics. Their vast carelessness drags down everyone around them, but they persevere, and even thrive. In a mere 11 days, arrogant, selfish actions by the Clintons contaminated three of the purest brands in Washington -- Barack Obama, James Comey and Loretta Lynch -- and jeopardized the futures of Hillary's most loyal aides.... The Clintons work hard but don't play by the rules. Imagine them in the White House with the benefit of low expectations." ...

... CW: Why would they change? Back in the White House, they will again be the most powerful couple in the world. Their methods of shady dealings, parsing the truth down to the meaning of the word "is," & naked arrogance have got them where they are. And where we're not.

*****

Fred Barbash, et al., of the Washington Post: "Vigils and protests, small and large, restrained in some places, rowdy in others, swept across the nation overnight as one of the worst weeks of racially-charged violence in recent memory ticked down to a merciful end." -- CW ...

... Manny Fernandez, et al., of the New York Times: "The heavily armed sniper who gunned down police officers in downtown Dallas, leaving five of them dead, specifically set out to kill as many white officers as he could, officials said Friday. He was a military veteran who had served in Afghanistan, and he kept an arsenal in his home that included bomb-making materials.... Jeh Johnson, the Homeland Security secretary, said in New York that there was apparently just one sniper, though there were so many gunshots and so many victims that officials at first speculated about multiple shooters." -- CW ...

... Joel Achenbach, et al., of the Washington Post: "... President Obama plans to cut his trip to Europe short by one day, returning from Spain on Sunday night so he can travel to Dallas early next week.... Police said Friday that Micah Xavier Johnson, a black 25-year-old believed to be from the Dallas area, was the attacker. Dallas Mayor S. Mike Rawlings told the Associated Press Johnson used an AR-15 assault weapon in the ambush.... 'At this time, there appears to have been one gunman with no known links to or inspiration from any international terrorist organization,' Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Friday afternoon." -- CW ...

... The New York Times is liveblogging developments. ...

... Ben Collins, et al., of the Daily Beast: "Micah Johnson, 25, of Mesquite, Texas was identified by police as the sniper who shot 12 people during a Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Dallas on Thursday night. According to his Facebook profile, Johnson identified as a black nationalist. Activists at Thursday’s night Black Lives Matter march, however, said that the shooter behind the deadliest day for American law enforcement since 9/11 was not part of their protest." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Sam Thielman of the Guardian: "For what experts are calling the first time in history, US police have used a robot in a show of lethal force. Early Friday morning, Dallas police used a bomb-disposal robot with an explosive device on its manipulator arm to kill a suspect after five police officers were murdered and seven others wounded." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... CW: Some while back, in the midst of some other true American horror story, I hypothesized that pretty soon other nations would be issuing travel warnings to their citizens planning to travel in the U.S. Now, it's happened, and it isn't some stupid political trick. Aaron Davis of the Washington Post: "... following deadly police shootings this week of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota -- and an ambush of white officers in Texas -- [the government of the Bahamas, where 90 percent of the residents are black,] on Friday advised its residents to be extra careful if they choose to ... travel here. The reason: 'recent tensions in some American cities over shootings of young black males by police officers.'" -- CW ...

... David Herszenhorn of the New York Times: "... members of the Congressional Black Caucus ... demanded that Republicans allow votes to tighten the nation's gun laws." ...

... Duh. German Lewis of Vox: "In the aftermath of the mass shooting in Dallas that killed multiple police officers, there is one thing policymakers could do to prevent the number of deaths of officers on the line of duty: limit access to guns.... A study from 2015..., published in the American Journal of Public Health..., found that states with more gun ownership had more cops killed in homicides: Every 10 percent increase in firearm ownership correlated with 10 additional officers killed in homicides over the 15-year study period." -- CW ...

... Evan Osnos of the New Yorker: "It is a vision at the heart of the modern gun movement: the more that society makes the threat of violence available to us, the safer we will be. In forty-eight hours this week, the poisonous flaw in that fantasy has been exposed from multiple angles.... [The NRA's] Its official Twitter feed, which often draws attention to cases of police questioning gun owners for exercising the right to carry, said nothing, even as the silence became conspicuous.... It was an awkward exposure of what is usually left unsaid: the organization is far less active in asserting the Second Amendment rights of black Americans than of white ones.... The Dallas ambush has also exposed an uncomfortable fact for the gun-rights movement: for decades, even as it maintains its abstract tributes to law enforcement, it has embraced a strain of insurrectionist rhetoric, overtly anti-government activism that endorses the notion that civilians should have guns for use against American police and military." -- CW ...

... Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker: "By having a widely armed citizenry, we create a situation in which gun violence becomes a common occurrence, not the rarity it ought to be and is everywhere else in the civilized world.... Guns allow the fringe to occupy the center.... [Thursday] night's tragedy was also the grotesque reductio ad absurdum of the claim that it takes a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun." -- CW ...

... Patrick, in today's Comments, identifies yet another way in which "good guys with guns" hinder actual law enforcement: after an incident, numbskulls parading around strapped with weaponry immediately become "persons of interest" whom police have to nab & detain even as the "bad guys with guns" remain at large. -- CW

... Brandi Grissom of the Dallas Morning News: "Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called protesters who ran away from the hail of bullets that rained down on Downtown Dallas on Thursday night 'hypocrites' during an interview Friday on Fox News. 'All those protesters last night, they turned around and ran the other way expecting the men and women in blue to protect them. What hypocrites!' an audibly emotional Patrick said." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Confederate columnist Matt Lewis of the Daily Caller looks into the camera: "In the era of Facebook Live and smart phones, it's hard to come to any conclusion other than the fact that police brutality toward African-Americans is a pervasive problem that has been going on for generations.... It would be hard to overestimate the impact that smart phone cameras have had on forcing us to grapple with the fact that this is, in fact, a very real (and all-too-common) problem." CW: A late bloomer, to be sure, but good for Lewis. Via Paul Waldman.

Endless Witch Hunt. Brian Beutler: "If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results, then Republicans lost their minds chasing the Clintons down rabbit holes years ago.... What we witnessed Thursday was part of a pattern that goes back more than 20 years. A Clinton does something -- in some cases innocuous, in this case worthy of criticism -- and her political nemeses respond completely out of proportion." -- CW

Moriah Balingit of the Washington Post: "Ten additional states are suing the Obama administration to stop a directive that requires schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms aligned with their gender identity under the threat of losing federal funding, bringing the total number of states challenging the guidance to 21." -- CW

Annals of "Jurnalism," Ctd. MAG thought it was pretty funny yesterday when some piss-ant right-wing outfit couldn't spell Cincinnati in a chyron. But what if some news behemoth like New York Times couldn't spell the subject of its front-page story, even when the subject is a common word in news stories? (BTW, as of 6:30 am ET, that headline was up for at least six hours .) ...

... John Koblin of the New York Times: "Lawyers for the Fox News chairman Roger Ailes filed a motion on Friday arguing that the sexual harassment lawsuit filed against him by a former anchor, Gretchen Carlson, should be moved from a New Jersey Superior Court into federal court and submitted for arbitration. Mr. Ailes's lawyers said Ms. Carlson's suit, which they called a 'tar-and-feather campaign,' was a breach of her contract. The contract, they said, included a confidentiality agreement stipulating that any disputes should first go into arbitration." CW: So, let's see, the boss allegedly commits a series of unlawful acts against an employee, then allegedly retaliates against the employee when she complains to him about it (and other unlawful acts), then claims she breached her contract by suing him for committing the unlawful act & retaliation. Sounds reasonable.

Presidential Race

Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "Hillary Clinton on Friday rejected the F.B.I.'s assertion that she had been 'extremely careless' with classified material as secretary of state, offering her first public comments on the matter since the Justice Department closed its inquiry without bringing charges against her this week. In interviews on CNN and MSNBC..., Mrs. Clinton insisted Friday that she did not intentionally send or receive any classified information through her private account. She also appeared to be spreading the responsibility to her State Department staff." -- CW ...

... M.J. Lee of CNN: "Hillary Clinton on Friday called for the nation to come together in the aftermath of an ambush that killed five police officers in Dallas, Texas, warning that this 'absolutely horrific event' -- coupled with a series of recent shootings involving police officers -- 'should worry every single American.... We must do more to have national guidelines about the use of force by police, especially deadly force.' Clinton also called on communities across the country to show more 'respect' to the police, as she paid tribute to the officers who risked and lost their lives in Dallas.... But Clinton also warned that there was a 'terrible disconnect' between police officers and the people they are meant to protect. She explicitly stated that some African-Americans are dying as a result of 'systemic' and 'implicit bias.'" -- CW

Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "'I personally know I have work to do...; a lot of people tell pollsters they don't trust me,' [Hillary] Clinton said in a speech to the Rainbow/Push Coalition on June 27. 'It is certainly true I have made mistakes,' she said a moment later, adding, 'So I understand people having questions.'... The snippet of introspection last week from Mrs. Clinton, a candidate not known for public soul-searching, may have signaled an important shift in how she and her campaign hope to ... get skeptical voters to trust her...." -- CW

Thomas Tracy & Graham Rayman of the New York Daily News: "On Friday morning a rep from Donald Trump's Manhattan organization asked ... [NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton] to let the candidate speak to a 3 p.m. roll call at the NYPD Midtown North Precinct. The request came in the wake of the murders of five Dallas police officers Thursday during a protest over police shooting. But ... Bratton strongly rejected the idea. 'Our interest is staying out of the politics of the moment, and not to provide photo ops," he told reporters." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Traveling in Style -- on Other People's Money. Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "At a glittering 2008 gala hosted by Gucci to benefit Madonna's charity, Donald Trump bid more than $100,000 for a trip to Paris, earning him press from New York to London. But most of the money he used wasn't his. It came from his foundation, to which he had donated just $30,000 that year. The bid fits a pattern: Trump takes credit for splashy charitable acts to which he in fact gives relatively small sums." The IRS would have required the Trump Foundation to report the trip -- whether Trump took it himself or gave it to a friend or family member -- because it was "self-dealing." But it didn't. -- CW

Way Beyond the Beltway

House of Cards. Griff Witte of the Washington Post: "It has only been two weeks since the world awoke to the news that Britain had done the unthinkable, voting to exit the European Union.... With chilling efficiency, the main players in the drive for an exit have now themselves been forced to take their leave. If you haven't been following closely, here's a quick summary of what's befallen the actors in this very British drama." -- CW

News Ledes

New York Times: "Sydney H. Schanberg, a correspondent for The New York Times who won a Pulitzer Prize for covering Cambodia's fall to the Khmer Rouge in 1975 and inspired the film 'The Killing Fields' with the story of his Cambodian colleague's survival during the genocide of millions, died on Saturday in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. He was 82." -- CW

New York Times: With a win at Wimbledon today, Serena "Williams tied Steffi Graf's Open-era record for Grand Slam singles titles, gaining her 22nd with a 7-5, 6-3 victory. The win left her two short of Margaret Court's overall record of 24 Grand Slam titles from 1960 to 1973. The Open era began in 1968." -- CW

USA Today: "Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, the late famed 'American Sniper,' overstated the number of medals he was awarded for heroism, according to a Navy investigation released Friday.... Kyle had made other, unverifiable claims, including his account of shooting dozens of rioters in New Orleans in the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina.... He was killed in 2013 by a veteran he had mentored."

The Commentariat -- July 8, 2016

CW: I didn't intend to do an afternoon update today, but Dan Patrick was too much to ignore:

Brandi Grissom of the Dallas Morning News: "Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called protesters who ran away from the hail of bullets that rained down on Downtown Dallas on Thursday night 'hypocrites' during an interview Friday on Fox News. 'All those protesters last night, they turned around and ran the other way expecting the men and women in blue to protect them. What hypocrites!' an audibly emotional Patrick said."

Thomas Tracy & Graham Rayman of the New York Daily News: "On Friday morning a rep from Donald Trump's Manhattan organization asked ... [NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton] to let the candidate speak to a 3 p.m. roll call at the NYPD Midtown North Precinct. The request came in the wake of the murders of five Dallas police officers Thursday during a protest over police shooting. But ... Bratton strongly rejected the idea. 'Our interest is staying out of the politics of the moment, and not to provide photo ops," he told reporters." -- CW

Sam Thielman of the Guardian: "For what experts are calling the first time in history, US police have used a robot in a show of lethal force. Early Friday morning, Dallas police used a bomb-disposal robot with an explosive device on its manipulator arm to kill a suspect after five police officers were murdered and seven others wounded." -- CW

Ben Collins, et al., of the Daily Beast: "Micah Johnson, 25, of Mesquite, Texas was identified by police as the sniper who shot 12 people during a Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Dallas on Thursday night. According to his Facebook profile, Johnson identified as a black nationalist. Activists at Thursday's night Black Lives Matter march, however, said that the shooter behind the deadliest day for American law enforcement since 9/11 was not part of their protest." -- CW

Jason Dearen & Curt Anderson of the Orlando Sentinel: "U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown and her chief of staff pleaded not guilty Friday to fraud and other federal offenses outlined in a grand jury indictment unsealed after an investigation into what prosecutors call a phony charity turned into a personal slush fund. Brown, a 69-year-old Democrat from Jacksonville, and Chief of Staff Elias 'Ronnie' Simmons, 50, entered pleas in Jacksonville federal court on charges of mail and wire fraud, conspiracy, obstruction and filing of false tax returns." -- CW

*****

The New York Times is liveblogging developments in Dallas, Baton Rouge & Minnesota. "A suspect in the killings of five police officers in Dallas on Thursday night was killed by a robot-controlled police bomb on Friday morning after a lengthy standoff with the police in a parking garage, Chief David O. Brown of the Dallas Police said at a news conference." ...

... Greg Jaffe & David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "President Obama, addressing the tumult, anger and confusion at home, said [in Warsaw, Poland,] Friday that he was outraged by the sniper attacks on the Dallas police that left five officers dead and seven wounded, calling the carnage 'a vicious, calculated and despicable attack on law enforcement.'" -- CW ...

... The Stupid Respond. Nick Gass of Politico: "President Barack Obama's political opponents quickly piled on after news emerged that a gunman had killed five police officers in Dallas, assailing him for his focus on gun control, his overseas trip, and his treatment of the law enforcement community." -- CW ...

... Jonah Bromwich of the New York Times: "Four Dallas police officers were killed and seven others were wounded by snipers on Thursday night during a demonstration protesting the police shootings in Minnesota and Louisiana this week, according to Chief David O. Brown of the Dallas police. Chief Brown said the shooting was carried out by two snipers who fired down on a demonstration in the city's downtown area that until then had been peaceful. 'Some were shot in the back,' the chief said. 'We believe that these suspects were positioning themselves in a way to triangulate on these officers.' A civilian was also wounded." -- CW ...

... Claire Cardona & Hannah Wise of the Dallas Morning News: "Three Dallas police officers and one DART officer have been killed and several others were injured after shots were fired in downtown Dallas during a rally and march Thursday night. Dallas police Chief David Brown said about 8:58 p.m., at least two snipers shot 11 officers and one civilian from elevated positions during the rally in downtown.... Three other DART officers were wounded but their injuries were not believed to be life-threatening, said Morgan Lyons, a spokesman for DART. About 11:30 p.m. [CT], a person of interest in a photo circulated by the city and Dallas police turned himself in, police said.... Another alleged suspect in a shootout with Dallas SWAT officers was taken into custody, police said. A suspicious package was discovered near the location of the suspect in the shootout and is being secured by the Dallas police bomb squad." -- CW ...

     ... The story has been updated to reflect developments: "A gunman who was exchanging fire with police in the El Centro College garage was reported dead shortly before 3 a.m."

... The front page of the Dallas Morning News currently has links to several related stories, but the site, at 1 am ET, has nearly crashed. -- CW ...

... Travis Andrews of the Washington Post, in an update: "Dallas police said there are at least four suspects after snipers shot at least 11 police officers, killing 4, in a downtown area of Dallas where protests had been taking place.... At a press conference at around 12:40 central time Friday, Dallas Police Chief David Brown said three of these suspects are in custody. The fourth has been in a stand-off with police on the second floor of the El Centro parking garage for 45 minutes. That suspect has fired at police.... Brown ... believes the four suspects worked together with rifles, 'triangulated at elevated positions at difference places in the downtown area' to attack police officers." -- CW ...

Guardian liveblog: "Confirmation that a fifth police officer shot in the attack has died.... [The 'person of interest' mentioned in the DMN story] is Mark Hughes, who turned himself in to police after his photo was circulated, and who has now been released." -- CW ...

... Manny Fernandez, et al., of the New York Times: "The shooting [in Dallas] occurred after President Obama, reacting with the same horror as many Americans to a grisly video of a bloody, dying man in Minnesota who was shot by the police, begged the nation to confront the racial disparities in law enforcement while acknowledging the dangers that officers face.... A few hours earlier, Gov. Mark Dayton of Minnesota, who seemed shaken by the video showing the man, Philando Castile, as he died, also pointed to the role of race. 'Would this have happened if the driver were white, if the passengers were white?' he asked. 'I don't think it would have.'... On Thursday night, demonstrators were out in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, Newark and Chicago." -- CW ...

... President Obama, speaking in Warsaw, Poland:

... Mitch Smith & Matt Furber of the New York Times: "Late Thursday night, the authorities said [Philando] Castile, a 32-year-old cafeteria supervisor at a St. Paul[, Minnesota,] school, had been killed by multiple gunshot wounds, and the medical examiner ruled his death a homicide. State investigators identified the officer who shot him as Jeronimo Yanez, a four-year veteran of the St. Anthony Police Department. Much remained unknown about the events leading up to the shooting, about Officer Yanez's background, and about whether the Justice Department would open a separate, federal investigation into the case." -- CW ...

     ... The Minneapolis Star Tribune story, by Pam Louwagie, is here. -- CW ...

Greg Sargent: Donald Trump issued a sensible, measured statement in response to the police assassinations in Dallas. CW: Forgive me, I do not believe for a moment he wrote it, & I would be surprised if he even read it.

... David Graham of the Atlantic: "The two shootings [in Louisiana & Minnesota] give a strong sense that the Second Amendment does not apply to black Americans in the same way it does to white Americans. Although liberals are loath to think of the right to bear arms as a civil right, it's spelled out in the Bill of Rights.... Black Americans may not enjoy the full protection of the Second Amendment, but technology [in the form of phones with videocams] has offered a sort of alternative -- one that may be less effective in preventing brutality in the moment, but has produced an outpouring of outrage." ...

     ... CW: Although the Supreme Court has never specifically defined photography or videography as a First Amendment right, some appeals courts have ruled that photographing or recording the words & actions of government officials -- which of course includes police -- is a First Amendment right. It's complicated. It seems that citizens, particularly minority citizens, are availing themselves of First Amendment rights even as law enforcement denies them the Second Amendment protections white people enjoy.

Paul Krugman: "To put it bluntly, the modern Republican Party is in essence a machine designed to deliver high after-tax incomes to the 1 percent.... But not many voters are interested in that goal. So the party has prospered politically by harnessing its fortunes to racial hostility, which it has not-so-discreetly encouraged for decades.... But ... we wouldn't have gotten to this point if so many people outside the G.O.P. -- in particular, journalists and self-proclaimed centrists -- hadn't refused to acknowledge what was happening.... The Republican establishment directly enabled the forces that led to Trump; but many influential people outside the G.O.P. in effect enabled the enablers." -- CW

WTLV Jacksonville, Florida: "Fifth District Congresswoman Corrine Brown (D-Fla.) has been indicted on charges likely related to her involvement with an unregistered charity in Virginia and appear in Jacksonville Federal Court Friday, multiple sources have confirmed to First Coast News.First Coast News has learned Brown will appear before a federal magistrate judge Friday afternoon." -- CW

John Berry, in a Washington Post op-ed: "The higher-profile the individual, the less likelihood, in most circumstances, of sanctions relating to security issues. In short, current security clearance policy factors in the importance of an individual in deciding whether to revoke a security clearance.... [Hillary] Clinton's use of a personal server for classified government email, without appropriate approvals and security, would normally be treated as a serious security violation.... Another problem is that there is no single agency that oversees the security clearance process for all individuals." -- CW

AND Reince Priebus is likely sending his resume' around to right-wing "think" tanks. CW: Why are we still calling them "think tanks" when the "thinkers" are all dimwits?

Presidential Race

Eric Lichtblau & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey Jr., defended himself Thursday against an onslaught of Republican criticism for ending the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails, but he also provided new details that could prove damaging to her just weeks before she is to be named the Democrats' presidential nominee. At a contentious hearing of the House oversight committee, Mr. Comey acknowledged under questioning that a number of key assertions that Mrs. Clinton made for months in defending her email system were contradicted by the F.B.I.'s investigation. Mr. Comey said that Mrs. Clinton had failed to return 'thousands' of work-related emails to the State Department, despite her public insistence to the contrary, and that her lawyers may have destroyed classified material that the F.B.I. was unable to recover. He also described her handling of classified material as secretary of state as 'negligent' -- a legal term he avoided using when he announced on Tuesday that 'no reasonable prosecutor' would bring a case against her." -- CW ...

... Julian Hattem of the Hill: "Hillary Clinton did not swear an oath to tell the truth before meeting with the FBI for three and a half hours last weekend, and the interview was not recorded, FBI Director James Comey told House lawmakers on Thursday. The lack of a sworn oath does not remove the possibility of criminal penalties against Clinton if she lied to the FBI, though he said he had 'no basis to conclude' that she was untruthful." -- CW ...

... Carol Morello of the Washington Post: "The State Department said late Thursday that it will reopen an internal review into any mishandling of classified information in emails between former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and her top aides now that the Justice Department has decided she will not be prosecuted. One possible outcome of such internal reviews is that employees, even if they no longer work there, could face a range of disciplinary actions, from having notes placed in their employment files to losing their security clearances." -- CW ...

... GOP House Again Snatches Defeat from Victory. Steve Benen: "On Tuesday, the story looked like Comey vs. Clinton -- the FBI director didn't think the Democratic candidate broke any laws, but ... he delivered a public rebuke. Now the story is Comey vs. Republicans -- GOP lawmakers had some baseless allegations and reckless conspiracy theories, some of which targeted Comey directly, and they asked the FBI director to give testimony knocking down each of their bad arguments.... Republicans were supposed to make Clinton the scoundrel of this narrative, but [Thurs]day, they decided instead to go after the director of the FBI...." -- CW

... Eric Fehrnstrom, Mitt Romney's 2012 communications director (Mr. Etch-a-Sketch), in a Boston Globe op-ed I'm not linking, calls Hillary Clinton "the new O.J. Simpson." Ed Kilgore: "So [Fehrnstrom] doesn't bother to explain why an alleged misuse of email technology compares to a double murder, or why federal investigators deciding that the evidence did not even justify criminal charges is anything like an apparent act of jury nullification...." -- CW

Liz Kreutz & Josh Haskell of ABC News: "Hillary Clinton was planning on delivering remarks about the police-involved deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile while campaigning alongside Vice President Joe Biden in his hometown of Scranton, Penn., Friday, but that event has been postponed following the police shootings in Dallas." -- CW

John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Bernie Sanders is preparing to endorse Hillary Clinton for president as early as Tuesday at an event in New Hampshire, according to several Democrats familiar with the plans." -- CW

Alan Rappeport, et al., of the New York Times: "A peacemaking summit meeting between Republican lawmakers and their renegade presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, descended on Thursday into an extraordinary series of acrid exchanges.... [Trump told Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Az.)] he had been going easy on Mr. Flake so far, but that he would ensure that Mr. Flake lost his re-election bid this year if the senator did not change his tune. Dumbstruck, Mr. Flake informed Mr. Trump that he was not up for re-election this year.... Mr. Trump called [Sen. Mark Kirk (who did not attend the meeting)] 'dishonest' and a 'loser....' Despite the tense exchanges, Mr. Trump ... met and managed to reach an accommodation with [Ted] Cruz ... [and] invited Mr. Cruz to speak at the party's national convention.... The broader meeting with Republican senators followed a more upbeat session with more than 200 Republican House members at the Capitol Hill Club." -- CW ...

... Josh Rogin of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump asked House Republicans Thursday to only 'say great things' about him in an effort to project a unified front in the presidential election." Also, Trump said, in response to a Congressman's question, "I am a constitutionalist. I am going to abide by the Constitution whether it's number 1, number 2, number 12, number 9." CW: This would be impressive, especially if the Constitution contained 12 articles. Alas, it has only seven. Apparently Trump the Constitutionalist plans to write a few more, which is an excellent idea: he can overwrite the Bill of Rights with a stream of the Articles of Trump.

Jason Horowitz of the New York Times: "... as the [presidential] race has turned toward the general election and a majority of polls have shown Mr. Trump trailing Mrs. Clinton, speculation has again crept into political conversations ... that Mr. Trump will seek an exit strategy before the election to avoid a humiliating loss. Now he is refusing to rule out an even more dramatic departure, one that would let him avoid the grueling job of governing [-- after winning the election, refusing to serve as president --], return to his business and enjoy his now-permanent status as a news media celebrity." CW: Notice, in reading the story, that Trump thinks it would be pretty funny if he sent the nation reeling into a state of chaos. ...

... Jim Fallows of the Atlantic: Wednesday "evening, in Ohio, [Trump] gave what was even for him the most off-message, most (literally) deranged-seeming performance of his candidacy, and what would have been in any previous campaign a sign of very serious trouble.... This man is not well." Thanks to Haley S. for the link. -- CW

Hadas Gold of Politico: "Donald Trump has slashed his regular cable television appearances and is largely restricting himself to 'friendlier terrain' on Fox News, according to Howard Kurtz, the channel's media analyst.... According to Kurtz's report, Trump staff are not notifying him of every interview request. It's part of an effort to tamp down on the 'risk of the candidate making mistakes or fanning minor controversies.'" CW: Sticking to Fox "News"? Maybe Rogers Ailes or Steve Doocy can interview Trump about women's issues.

Jon Swaine of the Guardian: "Lawsuits accusing Donald Trump of sexually assaulting a child in the 1990s appear to have been orchestrated by an eccentric anti-Trump campaigner with a record of making outlandish claims about celebrities. Norm Lubow, a former producer on the Jerry Springer TV show, has previously been involved with disputed allegations that OJ Simpson bought illegal drugs on the day Simpson's wife was murdered, and that Kurt Cobain's widow had the Nirvana frontman killed." -- CW

Way Beyond the Beltway

Heather Stewart & Rowena Mason of the Guardian: "Andrea Leadsom, the junior energy minister who shot to prominence as a leading voice in the Vote Leave campaign, has secured second place in the Conservative party leadership race behind Home Secretary Theresa May on Thursday, ensuring Britain's next prime minister will be a woman.... The two-woman shortlist will now be presented to the party's grassroots members around the country, with the winner due to be announced on 9 September, though there are calls for it to be speeded up due to the fallout from the vote to leave the EU." -- CW

News Ledes

Washington Post: "U.S. health officials confirmed Friday that a Utah resident's death late last month was the first Zika-related death in the continental United States. The Salt Lake County health department said the elderly person had an underlying health condition." -- CW

Bloomberg: "America's job market stirred to life in June as payroll growth accelerated by the most since October after a two-month lull, assuaging fears of broader cutbacks by companies. Payrolls climbed by 287,000 last month, exceeding the highest estimate in a Bloomberg survey, after a revised 11,000 gain in May, a Labor Department report showed Friday. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey called for a 180,000 increase. The jobless rate rose to 4.9 percent as more people entered the labor force. Wages advanced less than projected." -- CW

The Commentariat -- July 7, 2016

Missy Ryan & Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "President Obama announced revised troop plans for Afghanistan on Wednesday, keeping 8,400 U.S. troops in the country when he steps down early next year, the clearest indication yet of his inability to end the long war there.... He had hoped to leave a force of 5,500 in early 2017." -- CW ...

Mike Lillis of the Hill: "Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) had hoped to move an 'anti-terror' package in response to last month's mass shooting in Orlando -- a package that included legislation designed to make it tougher for suspected terrorists to buy firearms. But Republican leadership is facing opposition from the members of the conservative Freedom Caucus, who deem the measure a violation of constitutional protections. Because Democrats are overwhelmingly opposed to the bill, judging it too lax, Ryan and GOP leaders don't have the 218 votes needed to move the bill through the lower chamber." -- CW

Linda Greenhouse: "The takeaway from the term that ended last week seems to be that by the time the Supreme Court, short-handed and stumbling in the wake of Justice Antonin Scalia's death, finally got its act together at the end of June, it had -- lo and behold -- turned liberal. Count me a skeptic.... To reject a conservative extreme doesn't make the court liberal. Rather, it puts the court -- increasingly over the dissent of the chief justice, it's worth noting -- in the zone of mainstream reasonableness." -- CW

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Michael Grynbaum & John Koblin of the New York Times: "Gretchen Carlson, the longtime Fox News anchor, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday saying that Roger Ailes, the powerful chairman of Fox News, fired her from the network last month after she refused his sexual advances and complained to him about discriminatory treatment in the newsroom.... The lawsuit ... portrays the Fox chairman as a serial sexual harasser, charging that he ogled Ms. Carlson in his office, called her 'sexy' and frequently made sexually charged comments about her physical appearance. Ms. Carlson ... charges that during a meeting last fall to discuss her concerns about what she considered ill treatment, Mr. Ailes told her: 'I think you and I should have had a sexual relationship a long time ago and then you'd be good and better and I'd be good and better.'" Story includes copy of the complaint. -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Louis Nelson of Politico: "Fox News CEO Roger Ailes is denying allegations made in a bombshell lawsuit Wednesday that he sexually harassed a former on-air host for the network, Gretchen Carlson.... Minutes [before Ailes issued a statement -- 'defamatory ... offensive ... wholly without merit ... will be defended vigorously,' etc. --], Fox News' parent company, 21st Century Fox, issued its own statement announcing an internal review into Carlson's allegations -- an unprecedented move that also extended to her former 'Fox & Friends' co-host Steve Doocy, who was not named in the lawsuit." -- CW ...

... Brian Stelter of CNN, in an interview: "I just spoke with one of the attorneys involved in Carlson's suit. They say that ten women have called the law firm today, wanting to speak with the law firm because they say they also have stories to share about treatment by Roger Ailes. I want to be careful with that though because that doesn't mean they are alleging anything, any wrongdoing, and they are not suing, Right now it is only Carlson who is suing." -- CW

Presidential Race

Cristiano Lima of Politico: "Bernie Sanders confirmed on Wednesday night that he is in discussions with the Hillary Clinton campaign about a potential endorsement of her candidacy, adding that he anticipates a 'coming together' of the two campaigns. Appearing on MSNBC's 'All In With Chris Hayes,' Sanders was pointedly asked whether mounting reports that he is finally getting ready to endorse his longstanding Democratic primary rival had any validity. 'You're not denying the report that there are talks about a possible endorsement?' Hayes asked. Sanders replied: 'That's correct.'" -- CW ...

... James Downie of the Washington Post: "... the draft 2016 version [of the Democratic party platform] leaked Friday shifts noticeably leftward from its 2012 counterpart in both policy and language. While not yet set in stone, the change is an encouraging sign that activists' years of work are paying off and that the party is embracing an agenda that speaks to the concerns of millions of Americans who have too often been forgotten in mainstream political debate. From the opening of the 2016 draft platform, one can see the rhetorical fingerprints of progressive movements, especially Black Lives Matter and the insurgent presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)." -- CW

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "The investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server is over, Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch said on Wednesday, issuing a brief written statement that she had accepted the F.B.I.'s recommendation that no one should be charged in the case that has engulfed Mrs. Clinton's presidential ambitions for more than a year." -- CW

"Hillary Clinton's E-mail Was Probably Hacked, Experts Say." David Sanger of the New York Times: FBI Director James "Comey described, in fairly blistering terms, a set of email practices that left Mrs. Clinton's systems wide open to Russian and Chinese hackers, and an array of others.... 'Reading between the lines and following Comey's logic, it does sound as if the F.B.I. believes a compromise of Clinton's email is more likely than not,' said Adam Segal..., who studies cyberissues at the Council on Foreign Relations.... Until Mr. Comey spoke, Mrs. Clinton and her campaign have said that her server -- there were actually several, in succession -- was never hacked." -- CW ...

... C-SPAN is carrying James Comey's testimony live, beginning at 10 am ET, on the CSPAN3 channel & on CSPAN-Radio. The radio page also has links to phone apps. The Washington Post also has a livefeed on its online front page. CW: I almost never watch or listen to CSPAN, but I'll likely make an exception today, if time & circumstance allow. ...

     ... Comey & Elijah Cummings shot down the notion (promulgated by Trump & other Republicans) that Petraeus was prosecuted for "far less" than what Clinton did. I'll get up a video of this later. Uh-oh, Comey called Clinton "negligent." He's a lawyer; he knows what that means. ...

     ... The New York Times is liveblogging the hearing. -- CW ...

... David Herszenhorn & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, will testify before Congress on Thursday to explain his decision to recommend no criminal charges against Hillary Clinton.... If he makes a convincing case for his decision on Thursday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, it could make Republicans look foolish.... Democrats were quick to accuse the Republicans of refusing to accept the F.B.I.'s recommendation, despite past praise for Mr. Comey.

     "... The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky..., focused Wednesday on raising doubts about Mrs. Clinton's trustworthiness. He said Mrs. Clinton's statements to the F.B.I. should be made public to compare with her prior remarks. 'There's no particular penalty for lying to the public, unless the public gets tired of it, but there is a real penalty for lying to the F.B.I.,' Mr. McConnell said at a news conference at the Capitol. Mr. McConnell deflected a question ... about whether he believed Mr. Trump was qualified to handle classified information." -- CW ...

... David Herszenhorn: "... James B. Comey, will go before Congress on Thursday to explain his decision to recommend no criminal charges against Hillary Clinton, a House committee chairman announced Wednesday morning.... The House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, said that Mrs. Clinton should be barred from receiving classified information -- an extraordinary recommendation even if it is certain to be ignored by the Obama administration. In addition, Attorney General Loretta Lynch will appear Tuesday before the House Judiciary Committee, and that committee's chairman, Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, made it clear he would focus on Ms. Lynch's impromptu meeting with former President Bill Clinton, ahead of the F.B.I.'s announcement." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ..." ...

... Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "The White House on Wednesday brushed aside House Speaker Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) call to block Hillary Clinton from receiving classified intelligence briefings as punishment for the FBI's probe into her use of a private email server while secretary of State. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said it's a 'longstanding tradition' for major party presidential nominees to receive such briefings.... 'What the Office of the Director of National Intelligence [DNI] has indicated is that they expect those briefings to move forward after the party conventions.... We should leave those decisions in the hands of our intelligence professionals and not risk them being sullied by the political debate.'... Earnest noted that he's given a similar response to questions about presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's fitness to receive classified briefings." -- CW

Julian Hattem of the Hill: "Furious congressional Republicans are launching a multipronged attack against the FBI and Hillary Clinton. A total of five congressional committees will either hold hearings with high-profile law enforcement officials over the next week or have already begun inquiries to the FBI about its investigation of the former secretary of State." -- CW ...

... Gail Collins: "In his big press appearance Tuesday, F.B.I. Director James Comey took the now-familiar prosecutorial path of smearing the target he couldn't nail. But the bottom line was that Clinton had used less-than-secure private email servers rather than the State Department system, which was the proper procedure, albeit possibly even less less-than-secure. Worse, she did not tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth when she was cornered. It's a problem for campaign strategists, but not much of a surprise for voters." -- CW

Abby Phillip & Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "Hillary Clinton came [to Atlantic City, New Jersey,] Wednesday in an attempt to turn the spotlight away from her handling of classified emails and back on rival Donald Trump's controversial business practices.... [Clinton] focused intently on everything but the email issue, with a speech bashing Trump and a major policy shift toward the free-college pledge promised by her primary rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Here in this resort town where Trump built casinos that went bankrupt, Clinton pointed to one of the shuttered locations as an example of what she portrayed as a record of selfish and unethical business practices." -- CW ...

... Matt Flegenheimer of the New York Times: "Hillary Clinton's campaign announced plans on Wednesday to eliminate college tuition at in-state public colleges and universities for families with annual incomes under $125,000 -- a significant nod to a core position of Senator Bernie Sanders, who had pledged to make tuition at public institutions free for all students." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Scott Wong of the Hill: "Donald Trump will meet with Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill Thursday morning in a last-ditch effort to unify a fractured GOP two weeks before the party's national convention in Cleveland. Trump's back-to-back meetings -- first with House Republicans at the Capitol Hill Club, then with Senate Republicans at their campaign headquarters -- will take place amid growing anxiety among the GOP elite over whether the brash New York billionaire will be a drag on vulnerable down-ballot candidates this fall." -- CW

... Matthew Nussbaum of Politico: "Donald Trump blasted Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server in a speech in Ohio Wednesday night but spent almost as much time re-visiting the controversies that have dogged his campaign and distracted from his opponent's legal woes.... He said he regretted removing a tweet that was widely criticized as anti-Semitic.... Appearing with possible vice-presidential pick Newt Gingrich, Trump blamed the media for the uproar. 'When they told me the Star of David I said, "You've got to be kidding, how sick are they?" They're the ones with the bad tendencies when they think that way,' Trump said. 'These people are sick, folks. I'm telling you, they're sick.'" -- CW ...

     ... Update. A "Rambling and Somewhat Manic-Sounding Address." Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: "Often shouting..., Donald J. Trump on Wednesday offered a defiant defense of his campaign's decision to publish an image widely viewed as anti-Semitic -- saying he regretted deleting it -- and vigorously reaffirmed his praise of Saddam Hussein, the murderous Iraqi dictator.... It was a striking display of self-sabotage from a presumptive presidential nominee and underscored the limitations of Mr. Trump's scattershot approach during the Republican primaries -- not to mention how difficult he often makes it for his campaign team to control him." -- CW

We shouldn't have destabilized -- Saddam Hussein was a bad guy. Right? He was a bad guy. Really bad guy. But you know what, he did well. He killed terrorists. He did that so good. -- Donald Trump, speech in North Carolina, July 5

Hussein was no opponent of terrorists, certainly in the eyes of the West. Perhaps Trump is referring to Hussein's fight against internal religious extremist movements that he viewed as a threat to his regime -- a part of his overall suppression of dissent. But Trump's description -- that Hussein 'killed terrorists,' and did it 'so well' or was 'so good' at it -- is just not credible, especially given the overwhelming evidence of Hussein's long-standing record of supporting (financially and operationally) international terrorist groups. -- Michelle Lee of the Washington Post

Margaret Hartmann of New York: "It's time to reconsider the possibility that Donald Trump is a secret Hillary Clinton supporter, as opposed to merely a man whose campaign is a garbage fire." On a day when the story should have been Clinton's 'extremely careless' handling of secret correspondence, Trump took time out to praise Saddam Hussein. Trump's "admiration of Hussein is no secret. He's made the same point many times, dating back to at least 2004, when he told the Dallas Morning News, 'No matter how much you hate Saddam Hussein, and obviously he was a horror show, he kept terrorists out of Iraq.'... Now suddenly Saddam Hussein was trending on Twitter, and replacing headlines about Clinton's email scandal." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... CW: For fun, read the tweeted reactions to Trump's Saddam remarks which Hartmann embedded. AND this:

Paul Ryan's face as Megyn Kelly tells him about Donald Trump's remark about Saddam Hussein. h/t @Aaron_RS pic.twitter.com/WWxWnUL6E2

-- Caleb Howe (@CalebHowe) July 6, 2016

Jonathan Chait: "To watch Donald Trump rant and rave uncontrollably on the stump and on Twitter -- praising Saddam Hussein for his disregard for civil liberties, insisting the anti-Semitic propaganda he inadvertently borrowed from neo-Nazis is as innocent as a Disney poster -- is to ponder the psychology of a party that would entrust supreme executive authority to a racist, nationalistic, power-worshiping demagogue.... [Trump & Adolf Hitler] have certain traits in common relative to the political environments they inhabit.... Whatever norms or bounds that we think limit the damage a president could inflict are likely to be exceeded if that president is Trump." -- CW

Matea Gold of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump raisedmore than $26 million through online and mail solicitations in June and another $25 million at events with the Republican National Committee, his campaign announced Wednesday.... The combined $51 million falls short of the $68.5 million that presumptive Democratic contender Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party collected in June, which included $40.5 million she raised directly for her campaign." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "Eric Trump, the son of ... Donald Trump, said in an interview Wednesday that his father gives 'millions and millions and millions' of his own money to charity -- including hundreds of thousands to Eric Trump's own charitable foundation. He did not, however, immediately provide new details to help confirm those donations.... [Eric Trump] denounced its reporting -- often in forceful, profane terms. 'I'm just saying, Jesus Christ, why is this guy trying to f[uck]ing kill us?' Eric Trump said at one point." CW: So that settles that. (Also linked yesterday.)

Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee who has recently emerged as a finalist in the search for Donald Trump's running mate, told The Washington Post in an interview Wednesday that he has taken himself out of consideration for the position. Corker said that he informed the presumptive Republican presidential nominee of his decision during their day together on Tuesday...." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Burgess Everett of Politico: "Joni Ernst all but removed herself from Donald Trump's vice presidential search, telling Politico in an interview that she wants to help Trump become president but that she's focused on Iowa and the Senate, where the freshman senator said she's 'just getting started.' The GOP senator met with Trump on Monday and received effusive praise afterward, with Trump predicting he will 'see her again.'" -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Jonathan Chait: "Trump's intent use of the period leading up to his convention as a reality-television-style audition where he appears with a series of potential running mates and selects the most desirable is giving way to a reality in which the field is considering, and then rejecting, Trump, until he is left with no other decent options." -- CW

... Steve M.: "Well, I'm relieved.... I don't think I could have endured a Trump-Corker ticket -- if only because the media narrative would be: Bob Corker? Wow, what a serious, respectable choice! Trump really is pivoting! He's so presidential now, just because he's chosen this person we like so much! Trump will never change, but a Corker pick would have allowed Beltway journalists to continuing fooling themselves into thinking that he might. (Of course, some of them will anyway.)" -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

How to Put a Positive Light on a Selfish, Greedy, Narcissistic Bastard:

Mr. Trump believes in putting your oxygen mask on first before helping others. -- Katrina Pierson, spokesperson for Donald Trump

Senate Race

Another Rat Leaves Ship. Burgess Everett & Seung Min Kim of Politico: "First he reversed his decision to leave the Senate. Now, Marco Rubio has changed his mind about attending the Republican convention. The Florida senator will stay home to campaign for reelection in one of the country's hottest Senate races, a Rubio official confirmed Wednesday." -- CW

Beyond the Beltway

Michael Miller & Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post: "A Minnesota traffic stop turned deadly Wednesday evening as a police officer opened fire on a driver.... The bloody aftermath of the confrontation was broadcast live on Facebook by a female passenger in the car.... In the video, she says [Philando] Castile was legally licensed to carry a firearm and was reaching for his identification when the officer opened fire. 'He let the officer know that he had a firearm and he was reaching for his wallet and the officer just shot him in his arm,' [Lavish] Reynolds says in the video." -- CW

... CW: Here's the rule: In many states and municipalities it is legal to carry a firearm. Unless you are a minority. Especially black. In which case, it's a capital offense. With no appeal.

AP: "A Louisiana police officer shot and killed a man following a confrontation outside a Baton Rouge convenience store, authorities said. An autopsy shows Alton Sterling, 37, of Baton Rouge, died Tuesday of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back, said East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner Dr. William Clark.... The owner [of the store] said Sterling did not have a gun in his hand at the time but he saw officers remove a gun from Sterling's pocket after the shooting." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Radley Balko of the Washington Post: "The witness to the shooting -- the owner of the convenience store -- said the cops seemed aggressive from the start. The witness also said that Sterling was complying with the officers, and that he wasn't holding the gun, nor did he have a hand near the gun when he was shot.... From what we know right now, this appears to be another case of police officers deploying lethal force that was likely legal, but was also unnecessary.... Was it legal? is the question we ask when deciding whether or not to prosecute. Was it preventable? is the question we need to ask to save lives." -- CW ...

... Jarvis DeBerry of the New Orleans Times-Picayune: "The Baton Rouge Police Department -- like so many other departments across the country -- is notorious for its brutal treatment of black people." -- CW ...

... Brandon Patterson of Mother Jones: "Louisiana Governor John Bel-Edwards announced Wednesday morning that the Department of Justice's civil rights division will open an investigation into the police shooting death of Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man shot multiple times by a Baton Rouge police officer early Tuesday morning. The FBI and the U.S. attorney's office for the Middle District of Louisiana will assist the investigation, Bel-Edwards said." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Update. Zack Kopplin & Justin Miller of the Daily Beast embed a second video, provided by Abdullah Muflahti, the owner of the convenience store in front of which he police shot & killed Alton Sterling: "Muflahi's video does not appear to support the officer's claim that Sterling's gun represented an active threat: it appears to have been in a pocket and never reached his hand. Instead, the video shows Sterling pinned down, shot twice in the chest, and then shot four more times. After mortally wounding him, one of the officers removes an object from Sterling's right pants pocket. (Police during a Wednesday press conference refused to comment on whether Sterling had a gun.)" -- CW

Emma Ockerman of Time: "A 37-year-old man who had previously been charged with providing support to Al-Qaeda was handed a three-count indictment in Toledo, Ohio on Wednesday for soliciting the murder of the federal judge presiding over his case. Yahya Farooq Mohammad was charged with attempted first-degree murder of a federal officer, solicitation to commit a crime of violence and use of interstate commerce facilities in commission of murder for hire, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice. He was accused of soliciting someone to kidnap and murder U.S. District Court Judge Jack Zouhary after he told an inmate at a county jail in April that he was willing to pay $15,000 to carry out the act, the Toledo Blade reports." -- CW

Way Beyond

Luke Harding of the Guardian: "A defiant Tony Blair [-- the former British PM --] defended his decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003 following the publication of a devastating report by Sir John Chilcot, which mauled the ex-prime minister's reputation and said that at the time of the 2003 invasion Saddam Hussein 'posed no imminent threat'. Looking tired, his voice sometimes croaking with emotion, Blair described his decision to join the US attack as 'the hardest, most momentous, most agonising decision I took in 10 years as British prime minister'." CW: The Guardian is updating developments & analyses here.