The Commentariat -- June 23, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Adam Liptak & Michael Shear of the New York Times: ""The Supreme Court on Thursday announced that it had deadlocked in a case challenging President Obama's immigration plan, a sharp blow to an ambitious program that Mr. Obama had hoped would become one of his central legacies. As a result, as many as five million undocumented immigrants will not be shielded from deportation or allowed to legally work in the United States. The 4-4 deadlock, which left in place an appeals court ruling blocking the plan, amplified the already contentious election-year debate over the nation's immigration policy and presidential power." ...

     ... CW: If you're a Sanders hardliner, here's your reason to vote for Clinton. You can't say you care about people, then sit out the election or vote for another candidate. ...

... Michael Shear on the consequences of the non-decision. -- CW ...

... Adam Liptak: "The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a challenge to a race-conscious admissions program at the University of Texas, Austin, handing supporters of affirmative action a major victory. The vote was 4-3.... Justice Elena Kagan had recused herself for prior work on the case as United States solicitor general.... Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., dissented. -- CW ...

... ** President Obama responds to the two Court actions:

... David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "A frustrated President Obama on Thursday decried the Supreme Court's failure to lift an injunction against his signature immigration program and blamed Republicans for standing in the way of progress, as he and other Democrats vowed to turn immigration into a election litmus test." -- CW

Karoun Demirjian, et al., of the Washington Post: "Democratic lawmakers on Thursday afternoon ended the dramatic protest they have staged on the House floor for more than 25 hours, while pledging to continue to find ways to pressure Republicans to hold votes on gun-control measures." -- CW

Justin Fenton & Kevin Rector of the Baltimore Sun: "The Baltimore Police van driver accused of giving a "rough ride" that killed Freddie Gray was acquitted of all charges Thursday by Circuit Judge Barry Williams.Officer Caesar Goodson Jr., 46, had faced the most serious charges of any of the six officers indicted in Gray's arrest and death last April, including second-degree depraved heart murder. Goodson was also acquitted of three counts of manslaughter, second-degree assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct in office. His acquittal, which comes after Williams considered the charges for three days, throws the rest of the cases into jeopardy. The other officers charged face similar, but lesser accusations. Williams said the timeline of Gray's injuries remains unclear, and the state 'failed to meet its burden' to present enough evidence to back its assertions...." -- CW

Sibylla Brodzinsky & Jonathan Watts of the Guardian: "The Colombian government and Farc guerrillas have declared the final day of one of the world's oldest wars with the signing of a ceasefire agreement to end more than 50 years of bloodshed. At a ceremony in Havana attended by the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, President Juan Manuel Santos and Farc chief Timoleón 'Timochenko' Jiménez listened on Thursday to the reading of a deal laying out how 7,000 rebel fighters will demobilize. Although a final peace deal also will require approval in a referendum, the formal cessation of hostilities between the two main combatants and the Farc's acceptance of disarmament are key steps towards resolving a low-intensity war that has caused more than 250,000 deaths and the displacement of more than 6 million people." -- CW

AND Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Correction. Jonathan Chait: "The New York Times finally stops" calling fake Trump steaks Trump Steaks. -- CW

*****

David Herszenhorn & Emmarie Huetteman of the New York Times: "A Democratic sit-in on the House floor demanding votes on gun-control legislation led to a remarkable scene of pandemonium and a late-night confrontation on Wednesday when Speaker Paul D. Ryan was shouted down after briefly regaining control. Democrats pressed against the speaker's dais, waving signs with the names of gun victims and chanting 'No bill! No break!' as Mr. Ryan repeatedly banged his gavel in an attempt to restore order. When Mr. Ryan gave up and left the speaker's chair, Democrats shouted: 'Shame! Shame! Shame!' The standoff continued through early Thursday morning, as Mr. Ryan contemplated adjourning the House until July 5, which would shut down the Democrats' protest or leave them alone in a darkened, empty chamber." ...

... Karoun Demirjian & Kelsey Snell of the Washington Post: "Republicans voted early Thursday morning to adjourn the House until after the July 4th recess in an attempt to quash a dramatic, 16-hour sit-in by their Democratic colleagues seeking a vote on gun control measures in the wake of the Orlando massacre. House Democrats, led by civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), were still giving speeches even after the adjournment vote, but activity seemed to winding down just after 3 a.m. on Thursday morning. About 25 members remained on the House floor, wrapped in blankets, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) joined them." -- CW ...

... Tom Jacobs of Pacific Standard: "A study just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association ... notes that, while [Australia] suffered 13 fatal mass shootings (with five or more victims) between 1979 and 1996, there have been none at all in the years since [1996, when the Parliament passed strict laws restricting firearm ownership]. Moreover, both homicide and suicide rates have declined over the two decades since the reforms were enacted. While it's impossible to say this decline in violence was the direct result of stricter gun regulations, the data suggests it played a significant role." Via Paul Waldman. -- CW ...

... Dahlia Lithwick: "Occasionally when Donald Trump misspeaks, he accidently points the way to a larger truth; a kind of Kinsley gaffe born ... of accidentally taking a really bad argument to its inevitable conclusion.... So too, his recent push-me-pull-you on gun rights accidentally shed some useful light upon the unbound 'guns everyplace' logic of the National Rifle Association.... In Trump's telling, if only bar patrons had all been packing heat, gunfight 'beauty' would have ensued. This one claim was, as it happens, a bridge too far for the NRA, which quickly repudiated Trump's assessment.... Trump's real sin lay in ... pointing out the inconsistency of [the NRA's] position.... Presumably if you shouldn't be carrying a weapon while drinking in a bar, you shouldn't be carrying a weapon while drinking at home, or on campus. And that's why the NRA has to dance itself in circles.... This entire approach to defending against gun violence inevitably assumes that the heroic defensive shooter is a trained marksman and that everyone else is just a prop.... It is, in short, a grand unifying theory of human narcissism, pushed out by narcissists and given its ultimate expression -- obvs -- by the greatest narcissist public life has ever known." -- CW

Paul Waldman in the Washington Post: "... House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) [Wednesday] released something that sort of looks like a [healthcare] 'plan'.... Ryan would eliminate the individual and employer mandates; shut down the insurance exchanges; cancel the ACA's expansion of Medicaid and then cut the program and convert it to block grants so that states could kick people off; move Medicare to a 'premium support' model, which essentially means privatizing it and cutting it back; eliminate the ACA's subsidies for low- and middle-income people...; promote health savings accounts and 'mini-med' plans that cover virtually nothing; cap the tax exclusion for employer plans...; and limit the amount victims of medical malpractice can sue for.... Despite what Ryan says, the plan doesn't actually maintain the prohibition on denials of coverage for preexisting conditions, which may be the single most popular element of the ACA.... This plan, like almost any repeal-and-replace idea Republicans have, would cause absolutely cataclysmic upheaval in Americans' health care. I cannot stress this strongly enough." -- CW ...

... ** Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "Speaker Ryan's reputation for wonkitude is not deserved. Indeed, his proposals typical follow a familiar pattern -- a pattern Ryan repeated on Wednesday with a package of health reforms Jonathan Cohn and Jeffrey Young [of the Huffington Post] described as a plan to 'replace 20 million people's health insurance with 37 pages of talking points.' Ryan offers sweeping, ambitious ideas that would radically transform the fundamentals of America's social contract. Then, when genuine policy wonks point out that Ryan's numbers don't add up, or that his ideas would have absurd consequences, Ryan often responds with a new proposal that is just like the first -- only vaguer." CW: If you don't have time to read this today, read it tomorrow; Millhiser provides a mini-history of Ryan's lamebrained plans & suggests, based on compelling evidence, that Ryan doesn't understand his own proposals.

President Obama speaks with Bloomberg editors about the growth of the economy under his watch. CW: ... Which Hillary Clinton says she'll fix; interview linked below.

Linda Greenhouse: The conservative Supreme Court's many projects for this term died with Justice Scalia. The Court, therefore, has ended the term "not with a bang but a whimper." -- CW

Another Dip into the Cornucopia of False Equvalency. Jonathan Chait responds to Jonathan Rauch's Atlantic cover story, "How American Politics Went Insane." linked here yesterday: "The ... serious problem with Rauch's argument is this: Virtually every breakdown in governing he identifies is occurring primarily or exclusively within the Republican Party.... The 20th-century party system worked because the parties of that era were qualitatively different. Rauch's proposal is merely one more in the latest of a series of well-intentioned but doomed plans to bring back a world that can never be restored." -- CW

Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "An internal investigation by the Marine Corps has concluded that for more than 70 years it wrongly identified one of the men in the iconic photograph of the flag being raised over Iwo Jima during one of the bloodiest battles of World War II. The inquiry found that a private first class named Harold Schultz was one of the six men in the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph. And it determined that a Navy hospital corpsman, John Bradley, whose son wrote a best-selling book about his father's role in the flag-raising that was made into a movie directed by Clint Eastwood, was not actually in the image.... The investigation was opened in response to questions raised last year by producers working on a documentary, 'The Unknown Flag Raiser of Iwo Jima,' which will air July 3 on the Smithsonian Channel, in what was only the latest controversy about the photograph."

The Consequences of Cops' Incompetence. Paul Wagner of Fox "News" Washington, D.C.: "A review is underway at the District's Pre-Trial Services agency after a GPS monitoring device was incorrectly placed on a man's prosthetic leg. That man, 34-year-old Quincy Green, took off his leg and committed a murder. Dana Hamilton was shot to death on Southern Avenue last month and police had no suspects for six days until someone dropped a dime on Green. He was fitted with the GPS device after he had been arrested for carrying a pistol without a license." Via New York's Daily Intelligencer, whose headline is "Short Story We Wrote in Middle School Comes True." -- CW

Presidential Race

Neil Irwin of the New York Times: "In an economic policy speech on Wednesday, Hillary Clinton gave this message: I alone am the candidate who knows how to turn those underlying frustrations into actual policies that might make things better. She offered herself as someone who would not merely vent voters&' anger, but respond to that anger by pulling the levers of the federal bureaucracy and creating legislation that can be scored by the Congressional Budget Office and just maybe pass a Senate committee.... This carefully rolled-out speech suggests she seeks to run not by boasting of what has gone right in the economy under President Obama, but as a fixer who can more successfully deal with the things that are still broken." -- CW ...

... Jim Tankersley of the Washington Post interviews Hillary Clinton, who discusses why people might want to vote for Donald Trump. CW: If you read Leon Wieseltier's essay, linked below -- or even if you don't -- you'll see that Clinton puts the cart before the horse, which I suppose is a necessary political feint. In fact, Trump didn't create all those bigots; he was the bigoted candidate they were waiting for.

Michael Biesecker & Ted Bridis of the AP: "State Department staffers wrestled for weeks in December 2010 over a serious technical problem that affected emails from then-Secretary Hillary Clinton's home email server, causing them to temporarily disable security features on the government's own systems, according to emails released Wednesday." -- CW

Katherine Krueger of TPM: "Brent Scowcroft, a national security adviser to former Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton's campaign for the White House on Wednesday." -- CW

Yamiche Alcindor of the New York Times: "Senator Bernie Sanders came one step closer to accepting defeat on Wednesday, telling C-SPAN in an hourlong interview that he most likely would not be the Democratic presidential nominee.... 'It doesn't appear that I'm going to be the nominee, so I'm not going to be determining the scope of the convention,' Mr. Sanders said, adding that he has reached no agreement to endorse Mrs. Clinton but has been negotiating with her campaign. 'What our job is now is to have her listen to what millions of people in this country who supported me want to see happen. We'll see how that evolves.'" CW: I guess this places Bernie on the cusp of the seventh, and last, stage of grief.

Here's Donald Trump Being Presidential in a "Professionalized Presentation." Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "In a 41-minute speech seeking to build his case against ... [Hillary Clinton] by labeling her a 'world-class liar,' Mr. Trump moved to soothe concerns among Republicans alarmed by gaping self-inflicted wounds.... He said Mrs. Clinton would not create jobs, portraying her as a scandal-tarnished former secretary of state who 'may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency.'... His new, more sober approach was undercut by factual inaccuracies and embellishments, as well as flimsy claims -- at one point, Mr. Trump suggested that Mrs. Clinton was probably the victim of blackmail from Chinese hackers who gained access to her email account while she was the secretary of state." -- CW ...

... Michael Barbaro & other NYT reporters attempt to fact-check Trump's speech, which is hard to do since a lot of his claims are "suspicions" & promises. -- CW ...

... ** The AP's fact-check, by Bradley Klapper & Jim Drinkard, is even more devastating: "Donald Trump's fierce denunciation of Hillary Clinton on Wednesday was rife with distortion. He accused Clinton of announcing a withdrawal from Iraq that wasn't on her watch, pulled numbers out of nowhere on her plan for refugees and went beyond the established facts behind the killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya in stating starkly that she 'left him there to die.' In doing so, he assigned her far more influence in the world than she exercised as secretary of state." CW: Why, you might think a "professionalized presentation" full of crap is still a load of crap. ...

... Dana Milbank: "Trump's volume of disinformation is so heavy that even the nimblest fact-checker can't keep pace. And that's no accident: In Trump's dystopia, things are so bad -- so utterly and desperately awful -- that no allegation, no matter how sinister, seems implausible to his followers." -- CW ...

... Amy Davidson of the New Yorker: "One problem, which Clinton supporters would be best to be upfront about, is that the Clintons have given Trump some raw materials, however unsteady the structures that he builds from them may be." -- CW ...

... AND Michelle Goldberg of Slate: "Donald Trump's Wednesday morning speech about Hillary Clinton's record is probably the most unnervingly effective one he has ever given.... Like all skillful demagoguery, Trump's speech on Wednesday interwove truth and falsehood into a plausible-seeming picture meant to reinforce listeners' underlying beliefs." -- CW

CW: The Washington Post today is A Major Symphony in Trump-Bashing. Maybe Trump's banishing the Post from his road trips was not his best idea. Remember that if you aren't a Post subscriber, you can open a private window to read all the stories. The Post has a 5-click limit, so you'll have to open more than one!

GOP consultant Michael Murphy, in a Washington Post op-ed: "Forget, for a moment, all of Trump's epic character flaws. A new question has seized the campaign: Can the self-proclaimed world-class business wizard actually manage anything? His campaign's spiral into collapse proves he cannot." Murphy counts the ways. -- CW

He was a loudmouth bully. -- Steve Nachtigall, a neighbor, on little Donny Trump

When that kid was 10, even then he was a little shit. -- Charles Walker, former teacher

... Always an Asshole. Paul Schwartzman & Michael Miller in the Washington Post: "Long before he attained vast wealth and far-reaching fame, Donald J. Trump left an indelible impression in the prosperous Queens neighborhood where he evolved from a mischievous, incorrigible boy into a swaggering young man. He was Trump in miniature, an embryonic version of the bombastic, flamboyant candidate..., more than three dozen of his childhood friends, classmates and neighbors said in interviews.... In school, he misbehaved so often that his initials became his friends' shorthand for detention.... Struck with a broomstick during a fight [at the military academy to which his family banished him], he tried to push a fellow cadet out a second-floor window, only to be thwarted when two other students intervened." From the book Trump Revealed, by Post reporters Michael Kranish & Marc Fisher "in a collaboration with more than two dozen Post reporters, researchers and editors." -- CW

... Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "When Donald Trump arrives this weekend at the golf course he built on the rugged dunes of ... [Balmedie, Scotland], he will celebrate it as an example of his international business success.... He has pointed to it as a precursor to his bid for the U.S. presidency. But to many people in Scotland, his course here has been a failure. Over the past decade, Trump has battled with homeowners, elbowed his way through the planning process, shattered relationships with elected leaders and sued the Scottish government. On top of that, he has yet to fulfill the lofty promises he made. Trump has also reported to Scottish authorities that he lost millions of dollars on the project -- even as he claims on U.S. presidential disclosure forms that the course has been highly profitable." -- CW

During a dispute over property lines, workers ripped out a fence near the home of David and Moira Milne, who live in a converted coast-guard station on a hill above the golf course. The Trump workers installed their own fence -- and then sent the Milnes a bill for it.... Trump's workers also planted a row of trees that blocked the Milnes' view of the sea. When the first batch died, the workers ripped them out and planted a second. (Emphasis added.)

... Trailer for the documentary film "You've Been Trumped." YouTube has a pirated copy of the full film; you can also buy it on YouTube for $2.99:

Mary Jordan & Jose DelReal of the Washington Post: "One trademark of the most unconventional campaign in modern history is that members of Trump's family -- who have virtually no political experience -- are so deeply involved in his campaign that they often act as gatekeepers and strategists. Their influence was clear this week when Trump decided to fire his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, after his adult children and [Ivanka's husband Jared] Kushner met with him on Father's Day at a Trump golf course in New Jersey. Kushner ... and Donald Trump's three oldest children are in frequent contact with Republican National Committee officials, who have come to expect at least one of them at campaign meetings. Family members are involved in drafting speeches, messaging and policy." -- CW

Constant Weader: As a demonstration of how routinely horrible the Trump campaign is, not a single person commented yesterday on the campaign's throwing a black GOP official out of a Trump meet-and-greet. If Mitt Romney's campaign had done something like that, it would have been a "47 percent"-level story. Romney would have had to go on an apology tour of black churches & his running-mate Paul Ryan would have been forced to pretend to do dishes at a soup kitchen that hosted mostly "urban people." Look, we still remember Rick Santorum for his "blah" people remark nearly as much as for santorum.com, and Santorum wasn't even the nominee. But Trump? Nada. Not even a blip.

** Leon Wieseltier, in a Washington Post op-ed: "The people who support the white working class have been voting for Bernie Sanders, but the white working class has been voting for Donald Trump. He would be nowhere, and we would not be facing a grave historical crisis, without the enthusiasm of these despairing and deluded millions.... These downtrodden demand sympathy, and they deserve sympathy, but they do not give sympathy. They kindle, in the myopia of their pain, to racism and nativism and xenophobia and misogyny and homophobia and anti-Semitism." This a long piece, in some respects self-contradictory, but still well-worth reading. Thanks to Patrick for the link. -- CW

Senate Race

Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "Senator Marco Rubio of Florida said Wednesday that he would run for re-election, abandoning plans to pursue a more lucrative career in the private sector and jolting a competitive race that is crucial to Democrats' plans to retake control of the Senate. Mr. Rubio, 45, who had told associates of his reluctance to give up the high profile and political power that a Senate seat offers, will enter the race with the formidable advantages of incumbency, national name recognition and strong ties to the Republican Party's donor base. But he faces numerous hurdles, the most difficult of which may be his history of talking down the Senate as unfulfilling and frustrating at times." -- CW ...

... OR, as New York's Daily Intelligencer put it, "After proving he was terrible at campaigning, repeatedly bashing the Senate, and talking about seemingly nothing other than how much he hated being a senator, Marco Rubio has made the obvious choice to run for his old Senate seat. Rubio had promised -- with relief so palpable we could practically hear his blood pressure drop -- that he would join the private sector, but we guess once you get a taste of life on the campaign trail it can be hard to give it up. That, and it was looking pretty likely a Democrat was going to take his seat in November." -- CW ...

... Good News for Marco, Bad News for America. Alex Leary of the Tampa Bay Times: "All seven [modern-day U.S. senators who ran for re-election to the Senate after losing their parties' presidential primaries] were able to rebound from their unsuccessful presidential runs with convincing double-digit general election wins." CW: Looks like running for president gives these guys an aura of "seriousness." If history serves, we'll have to assume that voters find Little Marco (& Li'l Randy) to be "serious."

Way Beyond the Beltway

Claire Phipps of the Guardian: "Polling stations have opened across the United Kingdom on Thursday morning after a closely-fought referendum campaign [on Brexit] that neither side is confident enough to call." The Guardian's liveblog is here. -- CW

The Commentariat -- June 22, 2016

Lauren Fox of TPM: "A new, bipartisan proposal to keep guns out of the hands of suspected terrorists got a major boost Tuesday after Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) agreed to allow it to come to a vote on the Senate floor as early as this week. Early indications are that the measure has redrawn the normal contours of the gun control debate, with some vulnerable GOP senators getting onboard with centrist Democrats. It's not clear that the the bill will have sufficient support ... to pass, but it does suggest more moderate GOP senators are feeling political pressure to act after the attack in Orlando...." -- CW

Matthew Nusbaum of Politico: "The House will not vote to block the inclusion of Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, dodging a politically charged vote for GOP lawmakers. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) had filed an amendment to a bill funding the Treasury Department to prohibit the department from redesigning any currency to showcase the abolitionist icon, but the Rules Committee denied floor consideration of the proposal Tuesday night." --safari

Carolyn Johnson of the Washington Post: "A new study predicts that the federal forecast of national health care spending under President Obama's signature health law was a big overestimate -- by $2.6 trillion over a five-year period." ...

... CW: But Who Cares? Because Guess What? Jennifer Haberkorn of Politico: "Speaker Paul Ryan on Wednesday will lay out the House's plan to repeal and replace Obamacare in a paper designed to show voters the GOP isn't just a party of no. But the paper -- which paints a conservative health policy agenda in broad strokes but doesn't get into details like dollar amounts, who would be covered or how much financial help they might get -- underscores the political and policy problems facing Republicans as they seek to unite around a plan to unravel a social safety net program that is already used by 20 million people." -- CW

Jeremy Roebuck of Philly.com: "U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.) was convicted Tuesday on federal racketeering and bribery charges, putting an ignominious stamp on the career of one of the region's longest-serving members of Congress and all but ensuring that his public life will be capped with a prison sentence.... The verdict came after four weeks of testimony in which prosecutors painted the congressman as an arrogant lawbreaker who repeatedly turned to the money of others - taxpayers, charities, wealthy fund-raisers - to cover his personal and political debts. His lawyers did not say whether they planned to appeal." Fattah, who was defeated in the primary, wouldn't say whether he would resign his Congressional seat. -- CW

Jonathan Rauch of The Atlantic: "It's 2020, four years from now. The campaign is under way to succeed the president, who is retiring after a single wretched term. Voters are angrier than ever -- at politicians, at compromisers, at the establishment...As the presidential primaries unfold, Kanye West is leading a fractured field of Democrats. The Republican front-runner is Phil Robertson, of Duck Dynasty fame...Yes, the political future I've described is unreal. But it is also a linear extrapolation of several trends on vivid display right now...Trump, however, didn't cause the chaos. The chaos caused Trump. What we are seeing is not a temporary spasm of chaos but a chaos syndrome. Chaos syndrome is a chronic decline in the political system's capacity for self-organization." --safari

Fred Kaplan of Slate: "David Petraeus is back...[D]espite this harrowing path of self-destruction, he is now, 3½ years later, a public figure once more, speaking out on the issues of the day to generally respectful audiences. And some of the things he's saying are raising eyebrows. In short, and to the disturbance of some conservatives who might have thought he was on their side, Petraeus has been sounding a lot like a Democrat." --safari

Presidential Race

Anne Gearan & Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "The Hillary Clinton campaign has begun checking into the positions, backgrounds and financial dealings of at least three potential vice presidential candidates, Democrats familiar with the process said Tuesday: Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Sen. Timothy M. Kaine of Virginia. Clinton has also begun to winnow a list of more than a dozen potential choices, another senior Democrat said." -- CW

CW: Paul Waldman is not impressed with Bernie Sanders' demands for "reforms" of the Democratic party's presidential nominating system. Me, either.

Rory Carroll of the Guardian: "He was a one-man media hurricane dominating the news with insults and provocations, promises and policy pronouncements. He would tweet at all hours, phone TV chat shows, stage rollicking rallies. He could be funny and coarse and buffoonish and broke all the rules about presidential conduct...This may sound familiar as Donald Trump marches towards the Republican presidential nomination. But actually it describes Venezuela from 1999 to 2013 under the reign of Hugo Chávez...having reported on both ... I am struck by the similarities in character and style." --safari

Matt Flegenheimer & Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "Hillary Clinton pounded away on Tuesday at Donald J. Trump's business record and economic proposals.... Though she leveled predictable blows against various Trump-branded products, noting that many items ... were made outside the United States, Mrs. Clinton's most pointed refrains sought to depict Mr. Trump ... as an enemy to the very people he had claimed to champion in the primary. She checked off the stumbles of his casino business in Atlantic City; disparaged his companies' bankruptcies (Mr. Trump's many books about business 'all seem to end at Chapter 11,' she joked); and insisted that his 'one move' in business and politics was to make 'over-the-top promises' and then let people down." -- CW ...

... Anne Gearan: "... Donald Trump has swindled investors while stiffing and stepping on employees, contractors and others throughout a business career that should disqualify him as president..., Hillary Clinton charged Tuesday. Exactly the thing that Trump claims is his main qualification -- his business background -- is proof of values and practices that should trouble voters, Clinton said. Her speech blended criticism of Trump's stated positions on the economy with warnings that the mogul is a big talker who has always been out for only himself." -- CW

Alexander Burns & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "The situation has grown so dire for Mr. Trump that on Tuesday, he suggested that he might tap his personal fortune to keep the campaign afloat.... In a defiant statement, Mr. Trump said that he was just getting started as a competitor against Mrs. Clinton, and that there had been a 'tremendous outpouring of support' from donors since the beginning of June. But he has mused publicly in recent days about funding the race himself, and on Tuesday opened the door wider to that possibility." -- CW ...

... Dana Milbank: "... Trump is doing to the Republican Party what he did to Atlantic City.... Once he gained full ownership of the Taj, he quickly failed in his vow to secure prime lending, just as he quickly abandoned his fundraising goals after locking down the nomination. Then, as now, he made sure the Taj generated money for other Trump businesses. Then, as now, he alienated many who had supported him, and regulators suspected deception -- but they continued to support his ownership of the floundering casino (much as GOP leaders support his nomination) because they were already in too deep." -- CW

Jonathan Easley of the Hill: "Speaking to a group of top social conservative evangelical Christian leaders at a gathering in New York City, Trump said, 'We don't know anything about Hillary in terms of religion. Now, she's been in the public eye for years and years, and yet there's no -- there's nothing out there,' Trump said. 'There's like nothing out there. It's going to be an extension of Obama but it's going to be worse, because with Obama you had your guard up. With Hillary you don't, and it's going to be worse.'" ...

     ... CW: Really? Hillary Clinton is a believing Methodist, & has said so time & again. She even went so far as to join a right-wing Bible study group. And exactly how did Obama cause us to "have our guards up"? He has long expressed a belief in a Niebuhresque Christian faith, and he seems to have a strong grasp of it, so -- unlike Trump -- he is unlikely to cite either of the Two Corinthians. ...

     ... Ed Kilgore is appalled by Trump's ignorant remark about Clinton & by his view of Christianity. -- CW ...

... Michelle Boorstein & Julie Zauzmer of the Washington Post: "In his comments [to Christian conservatives in New York City, Donald Trump] said he would end the decades-old ban on tax-exempt groups' -- including churches -- politicking, called religious liberty 'the No. 1 question,' and promised to appoint antiabortion Supreme Court justices. 'I think maybe that will be my greatest contribution to Christianity -- and other religions -- is to allow you, when you talk religious liberty, to go and speak openly, and if you like somebody or want somebody to represent you, you should have the right to do it,' Trump said. A ban was put in place by President Lyndon Johnson on tax-exempt groups making explicit political endorsements." ...

... CW: In case you're thinking Trump's "greatest contribution to Christianity -- and other religions" is a sign of his deep religious faith, then you missed the report by Tim Mak & Andrew Desiderio, linked here a few days ago. As usual, Donald Trump's sudden interest in championing "religious liberty" is another scheme to benefit Donald Trump:

 The Trump Foundation, Donald Trump's nonprofit organization, is under fire for allegedly operating as more of a political slush fund than a charity. The foundation is accused of violating rules prohibiting it from engaging in politics -- prompting ethics watchdogs to call for public investigations.

     ... The WashPo reporters should have made the connection. ...

... Nick Gass of Politico: "... Michele Bachmann leads an alphabetical list of names announced by Donald Trump's campaign on Tuesday as the presumptive Republican nominee's evangelical executive advisory board. Along with Bachmann, the campaign announced the additions radio host and Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr, Faith and Freedom Coalition founder Ralph Reed, among more than two dozen names." -- CW

Dara Lind of Vox: "On Monday, the Republican-led Senate didn't just hand a defeat to gun control supporters. It handed a defeat to its own party's presumptive presidential nominee. Donald Trump supports prohibiting suspected terrorists from buying guns. He even tried to flex some muscle last week to get the National Rifle Association on board. (After all, Trump pointed out, the NRA has endorsed him -- and if his treatment of Chris Christie is any indication, he sees endorsement as something like indentured servitude.)... There's every indication Trump overplayed his hand here. He thought that as his party's standard-bearer he'd have more clout than the NRA, and he was wrong." ...

     ... CW: The senators' motives are obvious. Donald Trump is broke; he isn't going to contribute to their campaigns. The NRA, on the other hand....

Eli Stokols of Politico: "... many Republicans, both supporters and skeptics of Trump's campaign, note that the consolidation of power by [Paul] Manafort and the [Trump] children does not guarantee any change in the candidate himself, whose undisciplined past few weeks -- from his racially tinged criticism of a federal judge to his off-key, self-congratulatory response to the Orlando terrorist attack -- have discouraged donors and leery Republicans who'd still been trying to give him the benefit of the doubt." -- CW

Darren Sands of BuzzFeed: "A Georgia Republican Party official was thrown out of a Donald Trump event last week, according to two sources. Michael McNeely, the first vice chair of the Georgia Republicans, was escorted out of Atlanta's Fox Theatre by Secret Service after being told there was 'no more room for you' by Trump campaign state director Brandon Phillips, according to a party official briefed on the incident.... Reached by phone regarding the incident, McNeely told BuzzFeed News, 'I'll have to get back to you' before hanging up." ...

Michael McNeely.... CW: I just can't figure out why that happened. According to Sands, McNeely is a Trump supporter. McNeely looks like an upstanding fellow to me.

Beyond the Beltway

Jack Jenkins of ThinkProgress: "An Oklahoma lawmaker [Pat Ownbey R-duh] personally propagated an article over the weekend calling for a 'final solution' regarding 'radical Islam,' arguing that the 1,400-year-old faith is not a religion and should not be protected under the first amendment of the Constitution. On Sunday..., Ownbey re-published an article to his Facebook page entitled 'Radical Islam -- The Final Solution.' The article was originally published on the personal blog of Paul R. Hollrah, an Oklahoman who touts himself as a 'retired government relations executive,' but Ownbey appears to have copy-pasted the piece and reposted it in its entirety, citing Hollrah." --safari

Brad Reed of RawStory: "Baptist pastor Roger Jimenezof the California-based Verity Baptist Church drew widespread condemnation when he praised Omar Mateen's terror attack on a gay Orlando nightclub -- and now he's getting some much-deserved comeuppance.... Harsch Investment Properties, the company that owns the building where Jimenez's church now resides, says that it will not renew the church's lease and is even asking Jimenez to consider moving immediately." --safari

Way Beyond the Beltway

Loveday Morris of the Washington Post: "Families fleeing the combat in the Iraqi city of Fallujah have been forced to sleep in the open desert for almost a week, with aid agencies warning that people are at risk of dying as supplies of tents and water run dangerously low. More than 85,000 people have escaped the city and its surroundings in recent weeks as Iraqi security forces battle to recapture the city from the Islamic State. About 4.4 million people in the country are now internally displaced, one of the highest totals of any country." -- CW

The Commentariat -- June 21, 2016

Afternoon Update:

As I Was Saying.... Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump regularly boasts that he is self-funding his presidential bid, but new campaign finance filings show that he is also shifting plenty of money back to himself in the process. According to documents submitted to the Federal Election Commission, Mr. Trump, whose campaign has just $1.3 million cash on hand, paid at least $1.1 million to his businesses and family members in May for expenses associated with events and travel costs." CW: So the campaign has just enough money to pay the Trump family this month. How conveeenient. See my comment, below, on Josh Marshall's post. ...

... Paul Waldman: "... when the entire rationale for your campaign rests on your ability to obtain and manage money, stories like the ones we're now seeing about Trump are likely to stick in people's minds." -- CW

*****

Feminist in Chief. Ann Friedman of New York: "'I may be a little grayer than I was eight years ago,' President Obama told a room of 5,000 at the White House's United State of Women summit last week, 'but this is what a feminist looks like.'... I couldn't help but notice, though, that the 'here's what we still need to do' portion of his speech bore a striking resemblance to the promises he made to women on the campaign trail in 2008.... Obama has spent the past eight years doing his best to push for big, necessary cultural and economic shifts in the face of entrenched institutions and hostile opponents. And he mostly failed.... For the kind of progress we want, we need politicians at every level who look like feminists. We need business leaders who look like feminists. And we need activists." --safari

Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "The Senate on Monday failed to advance four separate measures aimed at curbing gun sales, the latest display of congressional inaction after a mass shooting.... Eight days after a gunman claiming allegiance to the Islamic State killed 49 people in an Orlando, Fla., nightclub, the Senate deadlocked, largely along party lines, on amendments to block people on the federal terrorism watch list from buying guns and to close loopholes in background check laws. Families of gun violence victims looked on from the Senate chamber as the votes were held." -- CW ...

... Dana Milbank: "Lawmakers have known for a long time that those suspected of terrorist activities can legally buy guns, but the Republican majority, putting Second Amendment absolutism above modest national-security considerations, is refusing to fix the problem.... And Monday night..., Republicans responded [to Democrats' 'no-fly/no-buy' legislation] as if President Obama himself were going door-to-door, confiscating every American's guns.... Monday night was the best chance yet to block would-be terrorists from getting guns, and, as before, the Republican majority chose not to act." -- CW ...

... Matt Zapotosky & Mark Berman of the Washington Post: "The FBI on Monday released a partial transcript of the conversations Orlando gunman Omar Mateen had with hostage negotiators and police dispatchers, and their dialogue reinforces that the 29-year-old was at least partly inspired by the Islamic State and intent on inflicting stunning destruction.... Initially, the department redacted references to the Islamic State and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The decision to do that drew intense criticism from Republicans.... The FBI and the Justice Department later released details of one exchange that included explicit mention of the Islamic State." The transcript, some of it translated from Arabic, is here. -- CW

Michelle Cottle of The Atlantic: "[Paul] Ryan's beloved agenda -- the one his wonkish heart has been dreaming of and laboring over and counting on to define his speakership -- has been something of a PR bust, yet another sad casualty of this election cycle's Trumpsanity.... At this rate, Ryan should consider not even bothering to prepare remarks for the rollouts of the final two agenda pieces (health care and taxes). He might as well just wait and see what kind of verbal atrocities Trump commits during those news cycles." --safari

We must not pretend that the countless people who are routinely targeted by police are 'isolated.' They are the canaries in the coal mine whose deaths, civil and literal, warn us that no one can breathe in this atmosphere.... They are the ones who recognize that unlawful police stops corrode all our civil liberties and threaten all our lives. Until their voices matter too, our justice system will continue to be anything but. -- Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Utah V. Strieff, dissent

... Aviva Shen of Think Progress:"The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that police can still arrest someone for an outstanding warrant even if they had no right to stop the person in the first place. The opinion, authored by Justice Clarence Thomas, reverses a Utah Supreme Court order to suppress evidence discovered by a police officer during an illegal stop...The ruling, according to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, is essentially giving the green light to police to continue stopping and arresting black and brown people for little to no reason beyond their race and class. In a searing dissent joined in part by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sotomayor describes a police state that regards black and brown Americans in particular as 'second-class citizens.' She issues a direct warning to those Americans whose profiling the court has sanctioned." --safari ...

     ... CW: When Clarence Thomas looks in the mirror in the morning, he must see a Southern white police chief.

... "A Wise Latina" Dissents. The Washington Post report, by Robert Barnes, is here. Barnes focuses on Sotomayor's dissent: "Her 12-page opinion explained 'the talk' that black and brown parents have with their children about police interactions, invoked Ferguson, Mo., and, without direct acknowledgment, referenced the sentiments of the Black Lives Matter movement." You can read the dissent in full in the opinion, linked in Aviva Shen's post. ...

... ** Fruit of the Poisoned Tree. Mark Stern of Slate has a good explanation of the Court's 5-3 decision (Breyer joined the conservojustices) & cites portions of Sotomayor's dissent. "Sotomayor's dissent is not just an effective rebuttal to the Strieff majority (though it surely is that). It is also a brutal and necessary indictment of an increasingly conservative court's repudiation of the Constitution's most important safeguards against police misconduct -- and a reminder that this weakening of Fourth Amendment freedoms has especially dire consequences for America's minority and low-income communities." -- CW

Ian Milhiser of Think Progress: "Barring extraordinary events, the eight justices of the Supreme Court will begin a three month summer vacation next week. Before they go, however, they need to resolve a little over a dozen cases, including an attack on the Obama administration's immigration policies, a major challenge to affirmative action, and the most significant abortion case to reach the Supreme Court since the right to choose's near death experience in 1992.... Fortunately for abortion providers, the possibility that Texas will win outright in Whole Woman's Health appears to have died with the late Justice Antonin Scalia. " --safari

Jessica Lenza of the Guardian: "An experimental vaccine for the Zika virus is due to begin human testing in coming weeks, after getting the green light from US health officials.... There are currently no licensed drugs or vaccines for Zika." --safari

Oliver Holmes of the Guardian: "At least 185 environmental activists were killed last year, the highest annual death toll on record and close to a 60% increase on the previous year, according to a UK-based watchdog. Global Witness documented lethal attacks across 16 countries.... The most deadly industry to protest against was mining, with 42 deaths in 2015 related to anti-mining activities. Agribusiness, hydroelectric dams and logging were also key drivers of violence, Global Witness found, and many of the murders occurred in remote villages deep within rainforests." --safari

Presidential Race

Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "Hillary Clinton plans a one-two punch this week to first paint Donald Trump as reckless and misguided in his approach to the economy and then present what her campaign is calling a thematic argument about why her ideas and programs are better. Clinton will attempt to pick apart Trump's economic policies in an address [in Columbus, Ohio,] Tuesday that is roughly patterned on the point-by-point attack she launched on Trump's national security ideas earlier this month." -- CW

Wherein Trump Posits that His Supporters Are Ashamed to Admit They'll Vote for Him. Steve Benen: "Over the weekend, Trump [said] that the latest polling shows he's 'essentially even' with Clinton, which is true if you define 'even' as 'not particularly close.'... We shouldn't necessarily believe the polling, he's arguing, because Americans who intend to vote for Trump are too embarrassed to admit it when asked for their preference in surveys." -- CW ...

... On the Other Hand. Gabriel Sanchez & Alan Abramowitz in the Washington Post: "In 2012, many polls underestimated how many minorities would vote and how many would vote for [President] Obama.... Unfortunately, some pollsters may be making the same mistakes in 2016 -- and thereby underestimating Hillary Clinton's lead in the polls.... Several polls suffer from flaws in how they sample Latinos." -- CW ...

Gabriel Debenedetti & Daniel Lippman of Politico: "The abrupt ouster of Lewandowski, less than one month prior to the Republican National Convention, suggested that Trump's recent slide in the polls -- and the growing evidence that his campaign has fallen far behind in executing general-election fundamentals -- has finally sparked a rethinking of the campaign's approach, beginning at the top. 'If it signals that Donald Trump is taking his responsibility to pivot to a general election posture seriously, then it is good news,' said Michael Steel, a former adviser to Jeb Bush and John Boehner. 'If not, it's continuing the narrative of chaos and division that has marked his candidacy so far.'" -- CW ...

... Josh Marshall of TPM: "The real news is that Trump is broke.... Reports suggest that Trump has been unwilling to undergo the ego effacement of calling high dollar Republican donors and asking for money. His campaign has virtually no money in the bank ($2.4m at last count*).... The Trump fundraising apparatus appears to be working at the Ginsu knives level of marketing." ...

     * CW: The latest FEC report has the Trump campaign's cash-on-hand at a mere $1.3MM, compared to Clinton's $42.5 MM. See the Times report linked below & also this Politico report.

... CW: Marshall argues that Trump must not be the multi-billionaire he claims to be if he can't come up with even a few million bucks at this critical time. But I don't think that's it. He hasn't come up with the money because his modus operandi is to get other people to provide the capital for his businesses schemes; he invests nothing but skims cash off the top as the businesses themselves fail. Earlier reports are that he's been doing something similar in this presidential campaign: charging the campaign for use of facilities he owns, like his aircraft. Long ago, Trump said he was probably the only candidate in history who could make money off a presidential run. Trump's model of "success" is far less dependent upon the project's viability than on his personal profit. ...

... Nicholas Confessore & Rachel Shorey of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump enters the general election campaign laboring under the worst financial and organizational disadvantage of any major party nominee in recent history, placing both his candidacy and his party in political peril.... The Trump campaign has not aired a television advertisement since he effectively secured the nomination in May and has not booked any advertising for the summer or fall. Mrs. Clinton and her allies spent nearly $26 million on advertising in June alone.... The shortfall is leaving Mr. Trump extraordinarily dependent on the Republican National Committee, which has seen record fund-raising this campaign cycle...." -- CW ...

... Matea Gold of the Washington Post: "Koch-backed groups are training their resources on boosting vulnerable Republican Senate candidates.... But ... it was clear that even if the Koch network stays out of the presidential race, it could still end up being one of Trump's best assets. The Koch operation's field teams are gathering reams of information on voters in key battleground states, intelligence that filters back to the Republican National Committee and GOP candidates through a data-sharing agreement. Even more valuable is the early organizing push by the network's robust ground force, which far outstrips Trump's meager field operation...." -- CW

The Children's Hour. Gabriel Sherman of New York: Donald Trump's adult children set up Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski for a fall in a Monday morning campaign strategy meeting. "... the children peppered Lewandowski with questions, asking him to explain the campaign's lack of infrastructure.... Their father grew visibly upset as he heard the list of failures. Finally, he turned to Lewandowski and said, 'What's your plan here?' Lewandowski responded that he wanted to leak Trump's vice-president pick. And with that, Lewandowski was out.... Shortly after the meeting, Lewandowski was escorted out of the building by Trump security.... As one adviser put it to me: 'The real lesson here is everyone is expendable except for the kids. It's tribal.'" -- CW ...

... Steve M.: One of Ivanka Trump's reasons for disliking Lewandowski is that he supposedly dished some dirt to the press about her husband, Jared Kushner. "A threat to Kushner is also a threat to Donald Trump's next ego gratification scheme": a "mini-media conglomerate" which Kushner -- who already owns the New York Observer -- would run. -- CW ...

... Inae Oh of Mother Jones: "Just hours after being fired and escorted out of Donald Trump's headquarters in New York, Corey Lewandowski appeared on CNN on Monday to continue praising [Trump] ..., and defend [him] ... amid sinking poll numbers and reports of chaos within the campaign.... Many times he appeared to discuss losing his job as if he were still employed with the campaign." -- CW ...

... Daniel Strauss of Politico: "Donald Trump adviser Michael Caputo is no longer part of the presumptive Republican presidential candidate's campaign after writing a celebratory tweet that former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski was fired. In response to news of Lewandowski's departure from the campaign Caputo, who runs communications for Trump's caucus team, sent out a tweet saying 'Ding Dong the witch is dead.'" --safari

Gene Robinson: "Donald Trump apparently wants to institute something akin to Jim Crow discrimination against Muslims, including those who are citizens of the United States.... He seems to believe intent can be infallibly discerned from appearance.... Trump wants to put Islamic houses of worship under special surveillance.... The Republican Party is about to nominate for president a man who manifestly does not believe in freedom of religion. Shame on the GOP officials who meekly fall in line." -- CW

Ben Schreckinger of Politico: "If Donald Trump's claims that certain of his commercial ventures benefit charity are untrue, he could be held liable under Section 349 of New York's General Business Law, which forbids deceptive business acts and practices, as well as under charitable solicitation laws, according to legal experts. In promoting products as varied as Trump University, Trump Vodka, a Trump board game and his latest book, 'Crippled America,' the businessman has declared that the proceeds would go to charity. None of Trump's proceeds from Trump University have gone to charity, and only a few hundred dollars of charitable giving related to Trump Vodka has been accounted for." --safari

Jonathan Chait & Ed Kilgore discuss whether the GOP should Dump Trump, cross their fingers and pray. -- safari

Michelle Rindels & Adam Causey of the AP: "A British man arrested at a weekend Donald Trump rally in Las Vegas tried to grab a police officer's gun so he could kill the presidential candidate after planning an assassination for about a year, according to authorities.... A complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Nevada charges [Michael] Sandford, 20, with an act of violence on restricted grounds. He was denied bail during a court appearance later in the day. His court-appointed attorney said he was living out of his car and in the country illegally after overstaying a visa." ...

     ... CW: Obviously, a person who attempts to assassinate the presumptive presidential nominee of a major American political party is a terrorist. In light of this incident, I propose a ban on U.S. visits by all Brits -- or, what the hell, all Europeans. Also, U.S. law enforcement must profile anyone who "looks European."

Way Beyond the Beltway

George Soros, in a Guardian op-ed, warns Britons that Brexit will make them all poorer. -- CW

Oliver Milman of the Guardian: "The Chinese government has outlined a plan to reduce its citizens' meat consumption by 50%, in a move that climate campaigners hope will provide major heft in the effort to avoid runaway global warming.... Should the new guidelines be followed, carbon dioxide equivalent emissions from China's livestock industry would be reduced by 1bn tonnes by 2030, from a projected 1.8bn tonnes in that year. Globally, 14.5% of planet-warming emissions emanate from the keeping and eating of cows, chickens, pigs and other animals -- more than the emissions from the entire transport sector." --safari

David Axe of The Daily Beast: "U.S. and Russian fighter jets bloodlessly tangled in the air over Syria on June 16 as the American pilots tried and failed to stop the Russians from bombing U.S.-backed rebels in southern Syria near the border with Jordan. The aerial close encounter underscores just how chaotic Syria's skies have become as Russia and the U.S.-led coalition work at cross-purposes, each dropping bombs in support of separate factions in the five-year-old civil war. The near-clash also highlights the escalating risk of American and Russian forces actually coming to blows over Syria, potentially sparking a much wider conflict between the world's leading nuclear powers." --safari