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Sunday

Sep062020

The Commentariat -- September 7, 2020

Presidential Race, Etc.

Alexander Burns, et al., of the New York Times: "A presidential campaign long muffled by the coronavirus pandemic will burst into a newly intense and public phase after Labor Day, as Joseph R. Biden Jr. moves aggressively to defend his polling lead against a ferocious onslaught by President Trump aimed chiefly at white voters in the Midwest. Private polls conducted for both parties during and after their August conventions found the race largely stable but tightening slightly in some states, with Mr. Trump recovering some support from conservative-leaning rural voters who had drifted away over the summer amid the worsening pandemic. Yet Mr. Biden continues to enjoy advantages with nearly every other group, especially in populous areas where the virus remains at the forefront for voters, according to people briefed on the data."

Matt Viser & Annie Linskey of the Washington Post: "In an urban church near looted downtown buildings in Kenosha, Wis., Joe Biden told the diverse group in the pews that President Trump was the accelerant for the country's burning racial divide. An hour later, in a leafy Milwaukee suburb that is 90 percent White, Biden discussed the challenges of going back to school when districts are struggling to reopen -- a problem they wouldn't have, he said, if Trump hadn't bungled the coronavirus response. The next day, Biden said in a nationally televised speech that the nation's recovery would be racing ahead if not for one man, Trump, whose coronavirus response he said cratered the economy.... Biden has settled on a through line meant to appeal to everyone: Trump is the reason for all of America's most pressing ills, no matter which one matters most to a specific audience." Mrs. McC: That works for me. Because it's true.

Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post: "Vice-presidential nominee Kamala D. Harris said she believes Russian interference could cost the Democratic ticket the White House, when paired with President Trump's attacks on the credibility of the voting system. Harris, in a CNN interview that aired Sunday, said she is certain that Russia is actively trying to interfere, as U.S. intelligence officials have said. 'I am clear that Russia interfered in the election of president of the United States in 2016,' the senator from California said. 'I serve on the Senate Intelligence Committee. We have published detailed reports about exactly what we believe happened. And I do believe that there will be foreign interference in the 2020 election, and that Russia will be at the front of the line.'"

Amazing Grace. Ann Colwell of CNN: "Anita Hill never pictured herself voting for Joe Biden. But given the political reality the nation is facing, she's not only going to vote for Biden -- she's also willing to work with him, should he become president. 'Notwithstanding all of his limitations in the past, and the mistakes that he made in the past, notwithstanding those -- at this point, between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, I think Joe Biden is the person who should be elected in November,' Hill told CNN's Gloria Borger. But it's not just because he's running against Donald Trump, she adds. 'Its more about the survivors of gender violence. That's really what it's about.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Trump & the Lying Liars Who Lie. Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: "For President Trump and his allies, it was a week spent spreading doctored and misleading videos. On Aug. 30, the president retweeted footage of a Black man violently pushing a White woman on a subway platform under the caption, 'Black Lives Matter/Antifa' -- but the man was not affiliated with either group, and the video was shot in October. White House social media director Dan Scavino shared a manipulated video that falsely showed ... Joe Biden seeming to fall asleep during a television interview, complete with a fake TV headline.And Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the second-ranking House Republican, released a video splicing together quotes from activist Ady Barkan ... to falsely make it sound as if he had persuaded Biden to defund police departments. For the president and his top supporters, it was a campaign push brimming with disinformation -- disseminating falsehoods and trafficking in obfuscation at a rapid clip, through the use of selectively edited videos, deceptive retweets and false statements.... Trump has built a political career around falsehoods...." Parker cites many, many more instances of Trump's campaign lies & deceptions. ~~~

~~~ John Harwood of CNN: "From the outset of Donald Trump's presidency, Americans have told pollsters they consider him dishonest. That makes his re-election campaign entirely on-brand. In ways large and small, in targeted advertising and public remarks, Trump has made deceit the hallmark of his bid for a second term.... Trump uses outright fabrications against Democratic rival Joe Biden.... Trump falsely describes the conditions he inherited and presides over today.... On the core 2020 campaign issues -- coronavirus, the economy, and racial justice protests -- he offers fables.... Some falsehoods have grown ... familiar.... Trump says his border wall with Mexico 'will soon be complete' (just five miles of all-new border barriers have been built), that his tariffs bring billions into the US Treasury from China (American purchasers of Chinese imports pay them) and that he 'essentially' kept his promise to kill Obamacare (seven states have expanded Medicaid under Obamacare provisions during his presidency)." And so forth.

Peter Baker of the New York Times Gets Real: "Not in generations has a sitting president so overtly declared himself the candidate of white America.... After a summer when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets protesting racial injustice against Black Americans, President Trump has made it clear over the last few days that, in his view, the country's real race problem is bias against white Americans. Just days after returning from Kenosha, Wis., where he staunchly backed law enforcement and did not mention the name of Jacob Blake, the Black man shot seven times in the back by the police, Mr. Trump issued an order on Friday to purge the federal government of racial sensitivity training that his White House called 'divisive, anti-American propaganda.' The president then spent much of the weekend tweeting about his action, presenting himself as a warrior against identity politics. 'This is a sickness that cannot be allowed to continue,' he wrote of such programs. 'Please report any sightings so we can quickly extinguish!' He reposted a tweet from a conservative outlet hailing his order: 'Sorry liberals! How to be Anti-White 101 is permanently cancelled!'" ~~~

~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Sorry, President* Racist. You can't make me fear people who don't look like they might be my first cousins.

Alayna Treene of Axios: "House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy is privately encouraging voting by mail and warned President Trump the party could be 'screwed' by his fight against mail-in voting.... McCarthy [told me] the party can't afford for Republicans to sit home, afraid of getting COVID-19, while Democrats flood the field with mail-in ballots. McCarthy is particularly worried about deterring senior citizens. McCarthy said he's spent hours telling Trump that this preoccupation will hurt the president's own re-election, as well as Republicans running for Congress."

All the Best People, Ctd. Ewan Palmer of Newsweek: "A man who received thanks from Donald Trump for organizing boat parades showing support for the president is accused of using anti-Semitic language and sending threatening messages to a Florida resident. Carlos Gavidia, 53, was charged with sending a written threat to kill or do bodily injury after surrendering himself to police on Tuesday morning.... The 53-year-old received national attention for organizing a number of Trump boat parades.... Gavidia's Instagram page also shows him attending the president's RNC nomination speech on the White House lawn last week, as well as pictures with Trump at Admirals Cove and with the president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, taking part in one of his boat parades." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Thanks to RAS for the link.Most Hilarious Weekend News Report:

Trump Skipped Cemetery Visit to Swipe Art Forgeries, Smuggle Them on AF1. Daniel Politi of Slate: "After Trump's cemetery trip was canceled, the president suddenly had a few hours to kill inside the U.S. ambassador's historic residence in Paris and it seems that during that time he took a particular liking to a few pieces of art. The next day, he ordered a Benjamin Franklin bust, a Franklin portrait and a set of figurines of Greek mythical characters be loaded on Air Force One to go back to Washington with him, reports Bloomberg.... 'The President brought these beautiful, historical pieces, which belong to the American people, back to the United States to be prominently displayed in the People's House,' White House spokesman Judd Deere said in response to questions from Bloomberg News.... But the truth is that they were fakes and replicas. The figurines that now sit in the Oval Office are from the early 20th century by an artist who was trying to claim they were from the 16th or 17 centuries. The figurines have little value and are really '20th century fakes of wannabe 17th century sculptures,' according to an art dealer.... White House officials ended up borrowing the original portrait [of Ben Franklin] from the National Portrait Gallery and hanging it up in the Oval Office rather than the replica Trump brought back from France." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump may think American soldiers fighting & dying in France were "suckers" & "losers," but when it comes to art appreciation, Trump is a sucker AND a loser. How perfect that he shirked his official duty to the American military so that he had time to pick out art forgeries to redecorate his own office. Yo, Donnie, I have the actual portrait of the Monna Lisa and it's bigger than that little fake in the Louvre. (This is 100% true, if you switch the words "actual" and "fake.") You can have my painting for $10mm, and if you want to use your campaign haul to pay for it, I'm good with that. Cash only.

Remembering Cadet Bone Spurs. Michael Kranish of the Washington Post: "Long before Trump's views of the military would emerge as a flash point in his 2020 reelection campaign ... Trump had a long track record of incendiary and disparaging remarks about veterans and military service. Many of his remarks are memorialized in television interviews and the tapes of radio conversations with shock jocks, dating to his years as a private citizen and businessman.... The roots of Trump's view of the military were formed at an early age, according to friends and family. Growing up in a mansion in Jamaica Estates in Queens, Trump heard the family criticize those who joined the military instead of going into business. Trump and his father, Fred Trump Sr., were especially harsh in criticizing the decision by Donald's older brother, Fred Jr., to join the U.S. Air National Guard, according to Fred Jr.'s daughter, Mary L. Trump."

Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "Top administration officials on Sunday said they've never heard ... Donald Trump make disparaging remarks about veterans or the military, a subtle attempt to dispute a report in The Atlantic. But the president's top defender was the president himself.... Trump's defense of himself Sunday was to go on the attack. The president accused news organizations of partnering with the Democratic Party on 'a massive Disinformation Campaign' and urged his 85 million Twitter followers to let the magazine's owner [-- Laurene Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs --] 'know how you feel!!!'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Alexis Benveniste of CNN: "Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, said his magazine's story about Trump calling Americans who died in battle 'losers' and 'suckers,' was just the tip of the iceberg. 'I would fully expect more reporting to come out about this and more confirmation and new pieces of information in the coming days and weeks,' Goldberg told CNN's Chief Media Correspondent Brian Stelter on 'Reliable Sources' Sunday.... 'We all have to use anonymous sources, especially in a climate where the president of the United States tries to actively intimidate,' Goldberg said of his editorial decision to cite nameless people. 'These are not people who are anonymous to me.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

DeJoy Gained Influence via Illegal Straw-Donor Contributions to GOP. Aaron David, et al., of the Washington Post: "Louis DeJoy's prolific campaign fundraising, which helped position him as a top Republican power broker in North Carolina and ultimately as head of the U.S. Postal Service, was bolstered for more than a decade by a practice that left many employees feeling pressured to make political contributions to GOP candidates -- money DeJoy later reimbursed through bonuses, former employees say.... Two other employees familiar with [DeJoy's company] financial and payroll systems said DeJoy would instruct that bonus payments to staffers b boosted to help defray the cost of their contributions, an arrangement that would be unlawful.... Another former employee with knowledge of the process described a similar series of events, saying DeJoy orchestrated additional compensation for employees who had made political contributions, instructing managers to award bonuses to specific individuals.... Between 2000 and 2014, 124 individuals who worked for the company together gave more than $1 million to federal and state GOP candidates." Thanks to Ken W. for the link. (Also linked yesterday.) Mother Jones has a summary report here. A Hill summary report is here. ~~~

~~~ The Gentleman Doth Protest Too Much, Methinks. Catie Edmondson, et al., of the New York Times: "At a hearing last month, [Louis] DeJoy angrily denied a suggestion by Representative Jim Cooper, Democrat of Tennessee, that he had reimbursed his employees' political donations. 'That's an outrageous claim, sir, and I resent it,' Mr. DeJoy responded. 'What are you accusing me of?'... 'These are very serious allegations that must be investigated immediately, independent of Donald Trump's Justice Department,' Senator Chuck Schumer of New York ... said in a statement.... Josh Stein, North Carolina's attorney general [D], said in a statement that 'it is against the law to directly or indirectly reimburse someone for a political contribution' and that 'any credible allegations of such actions merit investigation by the appropriate state and federal authorities.'"

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates for coronavirus developments Sunday are here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Sarah Watson, et al., of the New York Times: "... [at] about 100 college communities around the country ... [coronavirus] infections have spiked in recent weeks as students have returned for the fall semester. Though the rate of infection has bent downward in the Northeast, where the virus first peaked in the U.S., it continues to remain high across many states in the Midwest and South -- and evidence suggests that students returning to big campuses are a major factor. Despite the surge in cases, there has been no uptick in deaths in college communities, data shows. This suggests that most of the infections are stemming from campuses, since young people who contract the virus are far less likely to die than older people. However, leaders fear that young people who are infected will contribute to a spread of the virus throughout the community.... The result often is an exacerbation of traditional town-and-gown tensions...." (Also linked yesterday.)

Brian Dunleavy of UPI (Sept. 3): "Vitamin D deficiency increases a person's risk for catching COVID-19 by 77% compared to those with sufficient levels of the nutrient, a study published Thursday by JAMA Network Open found." Mrs. McC: I found several reputable new organizations that published this study's findings. See remarks by Victoria & Linda in yesterday's Comments. For years, I've been taking 4000 IU ((100 mcg)/daily of Vitamin D3, an inexpensive over-the-counter, supplement recommended by more than one of my doctors. I'm not a doctor, and I'm not advising anyone else to do the same, but it might be a good idea to ask your doctor what s/he advises for you on this. Taking a Vitamin D supplement seems far less wacky to me than anything Trump & the My Pillow guy have suggested.

Black Lives Matter

Jessica Wolfrom of the Washington Post: "Jacob Blake, the Black man who was shot by a police officer in Kenosha, Wis., in late August, spoke from a hospital bed, describing his physical pain and appealing to others to 'change y'all lives' in an emotional video released by his lawyer Saturday night. It was Blake's second public appearance since being shot seven times in the back in late August by Rusten Sheskey, a Kenosha police officer. The shooting left Blake paralyzed from the waist down. 'Every 24 hours, it's pain,' Blake said. 'It hurts to breathe. It hurts to sleep. It hurts to move from side to side. It hurts to eat.'" The Hill's story is here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Ben Matthis-Lilley of Slate: "When an incident of police brutality against a Black person in the United States is captured on video, the aftermath follows a pattern. Activists, members of the community, and certain writers say that American policing and police discipline are fundamentally flawed.... In response, elected officials, police chiefs, and certain other writers say that most police officers are decent people doing a tough job to the best of their ability.... Which side are the police on? Do they favor the candidate [Biden] who believes law enforcement basically means well, as long as it keeps working to 'root out the bad apples' in police departments? Or the candidate [Trump] with a record of supporting criminal behavior, extrajudicial violence, and racism -- and of celebrating the bad apples? The country's largest municipal police union (the Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York) picked ... [Trump]; its leader, Patrick Lynch, spoke at the Republican convention. On Friday, the largest national police organization, the Fraternal Order of Police, announced that it was endorsing Trump on behalf of its 355,000 members as well. The police say that they want members of minority communities to believe the officers patrolling their neighborhoods are motivated by the principle of upholding the law.... Those officers also keep choosing to endorse Donald Trump." (Also linked yesterday.)

Cindy Boren of the Washington Post: "The college football season has begun and, during an era of protests and a coronavirus pandemic, ESPN's first Saturday telecast was anything but usual. []Link fixed. The hosts were far apart, broadcasting from their homes rather than appearing before a boisterous, sign-loving crowd on a campus somewhere, and 'College GameDay' devoted time to the protests of systemic racism and police brutality that have taken place across the country. Kirk Herbstreit broke down in tears as he spoke of the need to change.... '[Benjamin Franklin] said, 'Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.' The Black community is hurting. ... How do you listen to these stories and not feel pain and not want to help?' Herbstreit asked, weeping." Mrs. McC: Herbstreit is white. It doesn't seem Trump can scare him, either.

Erica Werner of the Washington Post: "Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Sunday that he and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) have agreed to work on a short-term spending bill to avert a government shutdown Oct. 1, weeks before the election. 'The speaker and I have agreed we don't want to see a government shutdown,' Mnuchin said on 'Fox News Sunday.' Mnuchin said his expectation is that this so-called 'continuing resolution' would extend government funding into December -- although the date has not yet been agreed on. Without action by Congress, agency funding would expire at midnight Sept. 30, and the government would begin to shut down.... Mnuchin's comments appear to suggest that the White House is not girding for a clash over this spending deadline, though White House officials have in the past tried to negotiate deals with Democrats in Congress, only to have President Trump announce that he is opposed at the last moment.... Lawmakers will return to the Capitol on Tuesday, and leaders in both parties say they hope to reach agreement on a new coronavirus relief bill. But they remain far apart, and it's unclear whether a deal will be possible."

Owen Bowcott of the Guardian: "The WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, is due to appear at the Old Bailey in the latest stage of his legal battle against extradition to the US, where he faces a prison sentence of up to 175 years. The hearing, which is scheduled to last four weeks, will hear allegations from the US Department of Justice that Assange tried to recruit hackers to find classified government information. A US grand jury previously indicted Assange on 18 charges, 17 of which fall under the US Espionage Act. They cover conspiracy to receive, obtaining and disclosing classified diplomatic and military documents."

Beyond the Beltway

California. Neil Vigdor, et al., of the New York Times: "... about 200 people -- many of them unaware that a rapidly growing wildfire was closing in on a popular campground area in the Sierra National Forest -- found themselves suddenly trapped while trying to flee Saturday night into Sunday morning.... It took a treacherous rescue operation by military helicopters to evacuate them from the Mammoth Pool Reservoir area, the authorities said. Others posted videos on social media showing themselves escaping by driving through a labyrinth of fire and ash.... Dozens of evacuees were packed into the helicopters. Two UH-60 Black Hawks and a CH-47 Chinook transported them to Fresno Yosemite International Airport, said Brad Alexander, a spokesman for the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services. About 20 people were injured, he said, and some were taken to hospitals. Two people remained in very serious condition from burns, Daniel Lynch, the director of emergency medical services for Fresno County, said on Sunday."

Way Beyond

U.K./E.U. A Bitter Divorce, Ctd. Luke McGee of CNN: "The EU's chief [Brexit] negotiator, Michel Barnier, has warned that the UK must abide by the terms of the Brexit deal it agreed last year, after reports that the British government was planning new legislation that would undermine elements of it. The Financial Times, quoting three people familiar with the plans, reported that sections of a market bill slated for publication Wednesday, are expected to 'eliminate the legal force of parts of the withdrawal agreement' in areas including state aid and Northern Ireland customs. This 'could undermine the agreement on Northern Ireland that Boris Johnson signed last October to avoid a return to a hard border in the region,' one person with knowledge of the plans told the FT. The report has inflamed tensions between London and Brussels as post-Brexit trade negotiations enter their eighth round this week. 'The withdrawal agreement has been signed and ratified by the UK and the EU, it is in force,' one EU diplomat told CNN, speaking on condition of anonymity. 'If the UK chose not to respect it, then theoretically the EU would have to take legal measures,' the diplomat added."

News Ledes

Hill: "The National Weather Service (NWS) said Los Angeles County saw its highest temperature on official record Sunday after a high of 121 degrees Fahrenheit was recorded in the San Fernando Valley earlier in the day. The federal agency said the temperature was recorded around noon in Woodland Hills at Pierce College, which runs one of the country's oldest cooperative weather stations." ~~~

~~~ KGO San Francisco: "Records were smashed all across the Bay Area Sunday as a heat wave impacting millions of Californians intensified. More than 10 cities in the Bay Area set new records. San Francisco hit 100 degrees for the 1st time since 2017. Concord, Livermore, Gilroy, Napa and Santa Rosa had high temperatures between 110 and 112, all records for this date." Mrs. McC: San Francisco broke a same-day record set in 1904. ~~~

~~~ Washington Post: "California just witnessed one of its hottest weekends in memory, which intensified destructive wildfires that erupted. The scorching temperatures forced the National Weather Service to issue heat alerts for nearly the entire state. Many areas were also under red-flag warnings for high fire danger as the heat worsened blazes already burning and helped fuel new ones. Numerous locations in California experienced their hottest September day on record Sunday. A few spots saw their highest temperatures ever observed in any month.... San Luis Obispo, just 10 miles from the Pacific Ocean, reached a sweltering 120 degrees. This may be the highest temperature ever measured so close to the ocean in the Americas."

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Sunday

Sep062020

The Commentariat -- September 6, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Most Hilarious Weekend News Report:

DeJoy Gained Influence via Illegal Straw-Donor Contributions to GOP. Aaron David, et al., of the Washington Post: "Louis DeJoy's prolific campaign fundraising, which helped position him as a top Republican power broker in North Carolina and ultimately as head of the U.S. Postal Service, was bolstered for more than a decade by a practice that left many employees feeling pressured to make political contributions to GOP candidates -- money DeJoy later reimbursed through bonuses, former employees say.... Two other employees familiar with [DeJoy's company] financial and payroll systems said DeJoy would instruct that bonus payments to staffers be boosted to help defray the cost of their contributions, an arrangement that would be unlawful.... Another former employee with knowledge of the process described a similar series of events, saying DeJoy orchestrated additional compensation for employees who had made political contributions, instructing managers to award bonuses to specific individuals.... Between 2000 and 2014, 124 individuals who worked for the company together gave more than $1 million to federal and state GOP candidates." Thanks to Ken W. for the link.

The New York Times' live updates for coronavirus developments Sunday are here.

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race, Etc.

Caroline Kelly of CNN: "Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris said that ... Donald Trump's word alone on any potential coronavirus vaccine is not enough. Asked by CNN's Dana Bash in a clip released Saturday whether she would get a vaccine that was approved and distributed before the election, Harris replied..., 'I will say that I would not trust Donald Trump and it would have to be a credible source of information that talks about the efficacy and the reliability of whatever he's talking about,' she [said.] 'I will not take his word for it.'" ~~~

We remain on track to deliver a vaccine before the end of the year and maybe even before November 1st. We think we can probably have it some time during the month of October. -- Donald Trump, to reporters Friday

A Shot in the Arm -- to Trump's Campaign. Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump is so fixated on finding a vaccine for the novel coronavirus that in meetings about the U.S. pandemic response, little else captures his attention, according to administration officials. Trump has pressed health officials to speed up the vaccine timeline and urged them to deliver one by the end of the year. He has peppered them questions about the development status and mass-distribution plans. And, in recent days, he has told some advisers and aides that a vaccine may arrive by Nov. 1, which just happens to be two days before the presidential election. Trump's desire to deliver a vaccine -- or at least convince the public that one is very near -- by the time voters decide whether to elect him to a second term is in part a campaign gambit to improve his standing with an electorate that overwhelmingly disapproves of his management of the pandemic."

The Omen: Sunk. Colin Kalmbacher of Law & Crime: "Police in Austin, Texas say they have received several 911 calls about boats sinking into the waters of a large local lake during a boat parade being held in support of ... Donald Trump. According to local CBS affiliate KEYE-TV, the Travis County Sheriff's Office (TSCO) has received numerous distress calls from sinking boats -- apparently all along the route of the aquatic parade.... 'Several have sunk,' the TSCO reportedly told KVUE's Pattrik Perez.... According to citizen journalists who took stock of live updates from EMS response crews via the aptly-titled Citizen app, the parade participants were 'unruly' and 'not adhering to safety measures.'"(Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Bryan Pietsch & Aimee Ortiz of the New York Times: "... a spokeswoman for Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services, said no injuries had been reported.... 'We had an exceptional number of boats on the lake today,' [a spokesperson for the Travis County Sheriff's Office] said. 'When they all started moving at the same time, it generated significant waves.'... Other boat parades to display support for President Trump have taken place this summer. In Oregon, a boat sank after it was swamped by waves from a passing boat parade, The Oregonian reported."

The Biggest Grifter. Eric Lipton of the New York Times: "President Trump was proudly litigious before his victory in 2016 and has remained so in the White House. But one big factor has changed: He has drawn on campaign donations as a piggy bank for his legal expenses to a degree far greater than any of his predecessors.... The spending on behalf of Mr. Trump covers not only legal work that would be relatively routine for any president or candidate and some of the costs related to the Russia inquiry and his impeachment, but also cases in which he has a personal stake, including attempts to enforce nondisclosure agreements and protect his business interests.... [For instance,] Mr. Trump and his campaign affiliates hired lawyers to assist members of his staff and family -- including a onetime bodyguard, his oldest son and his son-in-law -- as they were pulled into investigations related to Russia and Ukraine.... Mr. Trump's tendency to turn to the courts -- and the legal issues that have stemmed from norm-breaking characteristics of his presidency -- helps explain how he and his affiliated political entities have spent at least $58.4 million in donations on legal and compliance work since 2015.... By comparison, President Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee spent $10.7 million on legal and compliance expenses during the equivalent period starting in 2007.

Trump Again Urges North Carolina Republicans to Commit Felony Voter Fraud. Dianne Gallagher, et al., of CNN: "... Donald Trump suggested to his supporters on Friday night that if they vote by mail they should also attempt to vote in person as a way to check that their vote is counted, which risks causing chaos at the polls and undermining confidence in the election. In a North Carolina 'telerally' Friday night, which was later posted on Facebook, Trump spent the first few minutes of the call explaining in detail how he wanted his voters to vote. If they vote by mail, they should go to their polling place anyway to 'see whether or not your mail-in vote has been tabulated or counted,' Trump said, noting that if it's been counted, they won't be able to vote. It's a federal crime to vote twice in the same election, and it's also a felony in almost every state, including North Carolina. Trump also addressed the possibility that a voter's mail-in ballot would be tabulated after they had voted in person." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Mark Niquette & Kartikay Mehrotra of Bloomberg, republished on MSN: "If the outcome of this November's election comes down to fights over counting mail-in ballots and claims of fraud by ... Donald Trump, Democrat Joe Biden may have a quiet advantage: The top election officials in many of the key states that could decide the election are Democrats." Thanks to PD Pepe for the link.

Jim Acosta of CNN: "... Donald Trump referred to fallen US service members at the Aisne-Marne cemetery in crude and derogatory terms during a November 2018 trip to France to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, a former senior administration official confirmed to CNN.... The former official, who declined to be named, largely confirmed reporting from Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic magazine, which cited sources who said Trump rejected the idea of a cemetery visit and proceeded to refer to the fallen soldiers as 'losers' and 'suckers.'... Trump said [Thursday] he ... 'called home, I spoke to my wife and I said, "I hate this. I came here to go to that ceremony." And to the one that was the following day, which I did go to. I said I feel terribly. And that was the end of it.'... First lady Melania Trump was on the same trip and was scheduled to visit the cemetery with the President. She was not in the US....Fox News, the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Associated Press have also corroborated parts of The Atlantic's reporting." ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Notice how Trump embellishes his lie about going to the Aisne-Marne cemetery with another lie: an anecdote that cannot possibly be true; it puts Melania on the wrong continent. ~~~

... Jennifer Griffin should be fired for this kind of reporting. Never even called us for comment. Fox News is gone! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet late Friday ~~~

~~~ Kill the Messenger. Daniel Politi of Slate: "... Donald Trump is calling for a Fox News reporter to be fired after she confirmed some details of a bombshell story that said he disparaged veterans.... Jennifer Griffin [of Fox 'News'] wrote a Twitter thread and also went on the network to lay out how she had confirmed several claims in the [Atlantic] piece." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Jeremy Barr of the Washington Post: "... the fact that [Jennifer] Griffin works for Fox, whose opinion hosts and corporate owners are seen as reliable supporters and defenders of the president, turned her revelations into a watershed development. It led to Trump's call for her firing late Friday on Twitter -- and an impassioned pushback from Fox News colleagues defending her journalistic honor.... Before the president took aim at her reporting, Griffin took veiled shots from some of her colleagues, most notably contributor Mollie Hemingway, a senior editor for the Federalist.... 'The Five' co-host Greg Gutfeld ... called the Atlantic's story 'a hoax' and 'a scam' that was 'created in a lab.' But Trump's attack on Griffin was a bridge too far for her colleagues, seven of whom took to Twitter over the weekend to defend her. 'Jennifer @JenGriffinFNC is a great reporter and a total class act,' wrote [Bret] Baier, the network's chief political anchor."

"You're All Losers." David Ignatius of the Washington Post: "... the fabric [of Trump's relationship with the military] began to fray by mid-2017. Trump increasingly treated the military as props in the reality-TV show of his presidency. He wanted them for parades and victory celebrations, not the anguish of combat. He seemed to take his strategic guidance from Fox News more than his commanders.... The bad marriage exploded this week, when former senior staff members told Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic of their shock at Trump's crude comments about combat and loss -- and his reported characterization of fallen warriors as 'suckers' and 'losers.'... It has been an open secret in Washington that many prominent retired four-stars have regarded Trump with growing horror.... The more [defense secretary & retired Gen. Jim] Mattis tried to educate Trump, as in his ... July 2017 seminar in the 'tank' at Pentagon, the more Trump became resentful. Trump berated his generals at that gathering -- with language that's eerily similar to what was reported in the Atlantic this week. According to Philip Rucker and Carol D. Leonnig in their book, 'A Very Stable Genius,' Trump said: 'You're all losers. You don't know how to win anymore.'"

Steve Benen of MSNBC: "Asked if he supports the military, Trump is quick to point to symbols and gestures: he has military flags in the Oval Office, for example, and his interest in military parades is borderline creepy. But there's no depth of thought or seriousness of purpose. It's what leads Trump to celebrate those accused of war crimes, while ridiculing those who serve honorably." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The Special Relationship. Ben Riley-Smith of The Telegraph (UK): "[A]ccording to a cache of official notes taken during high-level UK-US meetings whose details have leaked to The Telegraph. The Prime Minister [Boris Johnson] is quoted telling the US ambassador to Britain in August 2017, when he was foreign secretary, that Mr Trump was doing 'fantastic stuff' on foreign policy issues like China, Syria and North Korea.... Mr Trump pushed back hard on Theresa May's pleas to expel Russian diplomats after the Skripal poisoning, saying 'I would rather follow than lead'.... The US president wondered why there was so much 'hatred' in Northern Ireland and asked Mrs May during a lunch why Mr Johnson was not prime minister.... The president was at times 'hectoring' towards Mrs May in 'nightmare' phone calls and would ask other world leaders what they thought of her.... Mr Trump cancelled his planned first visit to Britain as president at the last minute over the schedule and scrapped a call with Mrs May due to a foreign policy clash." --s

Your Tax Dollars at Work Lying about Latinos. Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "A fictionalized video produced by the Border Patrol and posted this week to its YouTube channel shows a Spanish-speaking attacker stabbing and killing a man in a dark alley after escaping from U.S. agents, a clip apparently created to dramatize President Trump's depiction of migrants as fearsome criminals. The three-minute video, titled 'The Gotaway,' is produced in the visual style of a television show..., with aerial drone footage, actors and fake blood.... The video ends with the lurid image of the stabbing victim bleeding and dying on the ground. 'Every apprehension matters,' a message on screen reads. 'Do you know who got away?' The message fades to a Fox News headline about the 2015 killing of Kate Steinle in San Francisco, followed by a rapid-fire cascade of other news clips and headlines about killings linked to immigrants illegally present in the United States. The Border Patrol's logo appears in the final scene, metallic and glinting. 'Protecting America Everyday,' it says. 'Honor First.'" ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: It's no secret that the Border Patrol is out of control. I expect the majority of them should be fired.

Kentucky. AP: "An airplane circled above Churchill Downs on Saturday, flying a banner behind it: 'Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor,' it said. The 146th Kentucky Derby became a surreal distillation of the crises facing the country in 2020, in the hometown of Taylor, a 26-year-old Black emergency medical technician shot dead in her home in March when police burst in to serve a search warrant in the middle of the night. Inside the racetrack, the stands were mostly empty and wagering windows closed as fans were banned because of the coronavirus pandemic. Outside, thousands of protesters leaned into the gates, chanting Taylor's name. Armored police vehicles in the parking lot replaced the normal throngs of Derby-goers in seersucker and showy hats.... The protests were peaceful. The demonstrators marched 2 miles from a city park and circled the track. They chanted 'No justice, no derby!' and carried signs imploring people to say Taylor's name. Inside the gate, police stood guard in riot gear with clubs, some on horses and some with armored military vehicles."

New York. Laura Ly & Nicole Chavez of CNN: "New York Attorney General Letitia James announced Saturday that she's forming a grand jury to investigate the death of Daniel Prude, who was pinned on the ground with a spit sock on his head.... Prude died in Rochester, New York, in March following an encounter with police, but protests began earlier this week after police dash and bodycam videos of the incident were made public by attorneys representing Prude's family." ~~~

~~~ Rochester Democrat & Chronicle: "A fourth night of protests over the death of Daniel Prude was the largest yet, and again ended with pepper balls, tear gas and fireworks. Rochester police said they arrested nine people, including two on felony charges. Three officers were 'treated at local hospitals for injuries sustained as a result of projectiles and incendiary devices which were launched against them,' said Lt. Greg Bello in a news release.... Social media showed images of protesters hit by projectiles, including Monroe County legislator and former journalist Rachel Barnhart."

Zoë Richards of TPM: "White supremacists pose the most serious terror threat to the United States, according to a draft report from the Department of Homeland Security. Three different drafts of the report obtained by Politico characterize the threat from white supremacists as the deadliest domestic terror threat in the United States. All three documents also report that 2019 was the deadliest year for domestic violent extremists since the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995.... Later drafts of the report refer to 'Domestic Violent Extremists' -- shifting away from the terminology 'white supremacist extremists' -- as 'the most persistent and lethal threat.'" --s

Literary Corner, Ha Ha

Ashley Parker & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "President Trump's longtime lawyer and personal fixer, Michael Cohen, alleges in a new book that Trump made 'overt and covert attempts to get Russia to interfere in the 2016 election' and that the future commander in chief was also well aware of Cohen's hush-money payoff to adult-film star Stormy Daniels during that campaign. In the book, 'Disloyal: A Memoir,' which was obtained by The Washington Post ahead of its Tuesday publication date, Cohen lays out an alarming portrait of the constellation of characters orbiting around Trump, likening the arrangement to the mafia and calling himself 'one of Trump's bad guys.' He describes the president, meanwhile, as 'a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man.' The memoir also describes episodes of Trump's alleged racism and his 'hatred and contempt' of his predecessor, Barack Obama, the nation's only African American president.... 'The whole idea of patriotism and treason became irrelevant in his mind,' Cohen writes. 'Trump was using the [2016] campaign to make money for himself....'" ~~~

~~~ Erica Orden of CNN: Donald "Trump's model of a man in power, according to [Michael] Cohen, is Vladimir Putin, and Trump is described as enamored of Putin's wealth and unilateral influence, and awestruck by what he sees as the Russian president's ability to control everything from the country's press to its financial institutions.... In the wake of Trump's presidential kickoff announcement in 2015, in which he called Mexicans criminals and rapists, he dismissed concerns that he had alienated Latinos. 'Plus, I will never get the Hispanic vote,' Trump allegedly told Cohen. 'Like the blacks, they're too stupid to vote for Trump. They're not my people.' (Trump won 28% of the Latino vote in 2016.) Trump's contempt, in Cohen's telling, extends broadly. Cohen characterizes Trump bluntly as racist, and says that while he never heard Trump use the 'N-word,' Trump used other offensive language. Ranting about [Barack] Obama after he won office in 2008, Trump said, 'Tell me one country run by a black person that isn't a sh*thole...They are all complete f*cking toilets,'..."

Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "Former FBI agent Peter Strzok alleges in a new book that investigators came to believe it was 'conceivable, if unlikely' that Russia was secretly controlling President Trump after he took office -- a full-fledged 'Manchurian candidate' installed as America's commander in chief. In the book, 'Compromised,' Strzok describes how the FBI had to consider 'whether the man about to be inaugurated was willing to place his or Russia's interests above those of American citizens,' and if and how agents could investigate that. Strzok opened the FBI's 2016 investigation into whether Trump's campaign had coordinated with the Kremlin to help his election and later was involved in investigating Trump personally. He was ultimately removed from the case over private text messages disparaging of the president.... [Even now, Strzok says,] '... I do think the president is compromised, that he is unable to put the interests of our nation first, that he acts from hidden motives, because there is leverage over him, held specifically by the Russians but potentially others as well.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Natasha Bertrand of Politico: "[Peter] Strzok's team had uncovered so many suspicious contacts and communications between the campaign and Russians that they began debating whether to open a case on Trump himself.... Four months into Trump's presidency ... the discussion at the bureau had shifted from whether a case on Trump should be opened at all to whether there were any compelling arguments against it. In Strzok's telling, by May 16, 2017, there weren't. So Strzok's team, with permission from then-deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe, opened a counterintelligence case on the president that proved far more complicated than many at the FBI had anticipated. 'When you step back and look at it, it[']s fucking huge, Strzok said in an interview this week. At the time the FBI opened the case, Trump's financial disclosure forms detailed his ownership of more than 500 limited liability companies (LLCs).... Investigators would need to root through those records to identify areas where Russia might have financial leverage over him, not only now but 30 and 40 years ago. And despite his belief that tracing money was the most critical investigative trail the probe could follow -- 'even more than proving contacts with Russia,' he writes -- Strzok is fairly confident that that thread was never tugged at, let alone unraveled, after he was removed from the investigation in August 2017.... [Strozk] emphasized how suspicious he and other senior FBI leaders were of [Rob] Rosenstein's motivations...." --s ~~~

~~~ Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "A former senior F.B.I. agent [Peter Strzok] at the center of the investigations into Hillary Clinton's email server and the Trump campaign's ties to Russia, defends the handling of the inquiries and declares President Trump a national security threat in a new memoir, while admitting that the bureau made mistakes that upended the 2016 presidential election.... In a scathing appraisal, Mr. Strzok concludes that Mr. Trump is hopelessly corrupt and a national security threat. The investigations that Mr. Strzok oversaw showed the president's 'willingness to accept political assistance from an opponent like Russia -- and, it follows, his willingness to subvert everything America stands for.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

The Trumpidemic, Etc.

Bad News for the My Pillow Huckster. Jen Christensen & Jamie Gumbrecht of CNN: "The US Food and Drug Administration has rejected a submission from Phoenix Biotechnology Inc. to market oleandrin as a dietary supplement ingredient, citing 'significant concerns' about the safety evidence the company presented. Last month, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who recently joined the board of Phoenix Biotechnology and has a financial stake in the company, said he had participated in a July meeting at the White House with ... Donald Trump regarding the use of oleandrin as a potential therapeutic for the coronavirus. The extract comes from the Nerium oleander plant; the raw oleander plant is highly toxic and consuming it can be fatal. There are no peer-reviewed, published studies on the impact of oleandrin on Covid-19, and there's no public evidence it has been studied in patients with Covid-19.... Lindell ... has no scientific background or medical training...." Mrs. McC: So it's potentially fatal and completely untested. Otherwise, it's a great snake oil! Worth remembering: after Trump had kicked most of the scientists & doctors off his made-for-TV fake coronavirus briefings, he let the My Pillow guy lead off one of the briefings. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Way Beyond the Beltway

Jason Burke of the Guardian: "The terrorist [Carlos the Jackal], whose real name was Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, had gained global notoriety with a series of attacks carried out on behalf of Palestinian extremists between 1973 and 1975. In the west, the polyglot Venezuelan radical was frequently portrayed as an agent of the KGB, trained and armed on behalf of Moscow';s security service by counterparts in the Soviet satellite states of central and eastern Europe. Now, classified documents discovered in archives in eastern Europe reveal a different picture: not of a master terrorist working hand in glove with ruthlessly efficient regimes to launch attacks in the west, but of an arrogant, demanding, and unreliable terrorist entrepreneur who manipulated the anxieties of insecure decision-makers and the ignorance of security officials from the Baltic to the Black Sea until they finally ran out of patience." --s

News Lede

New York Times: "Lou Brock, the St. Louis Cardinals' Hall of Fame outfielder who became the greatest base-stealer the major leagues had ever known when he eclipsed the single-season and career records for steals in a career spanning two decades, died on Sunday. He was 81.... Louis Clark Brock was born on June 18, 1939, in El Dorado, Ark., and grew up in Collinston, La., in a family of sharecroppers who picked cotton.... As a boy, Brock never played organized baseball. Instead of a ball and bat, he swatted rocks with tree branches. But he received an academic scholarship to Southern University in Baton Rouge, La., and played baseball there...."

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Saturday

Sep052020

The Commentariat -- September 5, 2020

Afternoon Update:

The Omen. Colin Kalmbacher of Law & Crime: "Police in Austin, Texas say they have received several 911 calls about boats sinking into the waters of a large local lake during a boat parade being held in support of ... Donald Trump. According to local CBS affiliate KEYE-TV, the Travis County Sheriff's Office (TSCO) has received numerous distress calls from sinking boats -- apparently all along the route of the aquatic parade.... 'Several have sunk,' the TSCO reportedly told KVUE's Pattrik Perez.... According to citizen journalists who took stock of live updates from EMS response crews via the aptly-titled Citizen app, the parade participants were 'unruly' and 'not adhering to safety measures.'"

... Jennifer Griffin should be fired for this kind of reporting. Never even called us for comment. Fox News is gone! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet late Friday ~~~

Bad News for the My Pillow Huckster. Jen Christensen & Jamie Gumbrecht of CNN: "The US Food and Drug Administration has rejected a submission from Phoenix Biotechnology Inc. to market oleandrin as a dietary supplement ingredient, citing 'significant concerns' about the safety evidence the company presented. Last month, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who recently joined the board of Phoenix Biotechnology and has a financial stake in the company, said he had participated in a July meeting at the White House with ... Donald Trump regarding the use of oleandrin as a potential therapeutic for the coronavirus. The extract comes from the Nerium oleander plant; the raw oleander plant is highly toxic and consuming it can be fatal. There are no peer-reviewed, published studies on the impact of oleandrin on Covid-19, and there's no public evidence it has been studied in patients with Covid-19.... Lindell ... has no scientific background or medical training...." Mrs. McC: So it's potentially fatal and completely untested. Otherwise, it's a great snake oil! Worth remembering: after Trump had kicked most of the scientists & doctors off his made-for-TV fake coronavirus briefings, he let the My Pillow guy lead off one of the briefings.

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race, Etc.

~~~ Thomas Kaplan & Katie Glueck of the New York Times: "Joseph R. Biden Jr. strained to contain his disgust with President Trump on Friday over a report that Mr. Trump had made extraordinarily disrespectful remarks about fallen soldiers. Then he turned to the coronavirus pandemic and the financial pain it had inflicted on millions of Americans. Mr. Trump, he said, 'just doesn't care.' And a day earlier, in Kenosha, Wis., Mr. Biden presented himself as a unifying force determined to confront racial injustice -- a very different message from the one Mr. Trump sent during his visit to the city two days earlier.... Over two days, in a key battleground state and in his own backyard, Mr. Biden drew unmistakably sharp contrasts with Mr. Trump -- not just about policy ideas or management competence, but also about showing respect and understanding Americans' struggles. On Friday, in a fiery speech and a subsequent news conference, Mr. Biden expressed outrage over a report by The Atlantic that Mr. Trump had referred to American soldiers killed in combat during World War I as 'losers' and 'suckers' and had repeatedly shown disdain for military service at other points in his presidency.... Ticking through a list of other well-documented instances in which Mr. Trump has dismissed the sacrifices of military veterans..., Mr. Biden continued, 'President Trump has demonstrated he has no sense of service, no loyalty to any cause other than himself.'" More on Biden's remarks in Baker & Haberman's NYT report, linked below.

Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "Long before The Atlantic published an article on Thursday night depicting President Trump disparaging America's war dead, liberal veterans groups had been feverishly working in battleground states to appeal to veterans and military family members, a cornerstone of President Trump's base.... By Friday morning, Democrats, especially those with a military background, were reacting with both outrage and a sense of opportunity denouncing Mr. Trump in news conferences and press releases and assuring veterans and military families that they had their backs.... On Friday, less than 12 hours after The Atlantic published its article, the largest liberal veteran organization, VoteVets, released an online ad featuring the parents of troops slain in Iraq and Afghanistan.... In the first five hours after it went up, the group said it raised $100,000 from 2,500 donors. The Democratic Party is also leaning heavily on its most popular veterans, like Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., and a former Democratic presidential candidate, to attack the president on his treatment of veterans and the military -- something that would traditionally be a strength for an incumbent Republican president but which is increasingly becoming a weak spot for Mr. Trump." ~~~

~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: You may recall that during the Obama presidency, Jill Biden & Michelle Obama made helping military families their No. 1 priority.

He cannot understand selflessness because he is selfish. He cannot conceive of courage because he is a coward. He cannot feel duty because he is disloyal.... We owe it not only to those who have served and sacrificed for our nation, but to ourselves and to succeeding generations to vote him out. -- Sully Sullenberger, in a series of tweets about Donald Trump ~~~

~~~ Reed Richardson of Mediaite: "Capt. Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger III unleashed a blistering tweetstorm on ... Donald Trump on Friday night, condemning him -- without ever naming him -- for the 'utter and vulgar contempt' he has reportedly shown to the military and urging Americans to 'vote him out.' Sullenberger, a former Air Force fighter pilot and captain, became a worldwide celebrity for his 'Miracle on the Hudson' emergency landing of US Airways Flight 1549 on January 15, 2009. He retired in 2010 after 30 years as a commercial pilot. Earlier this year, Sullenberger joined ... Joe Biden at a Nevada caucus rally, endorsing his 2020 run."

Ursula Perano of Axios: "Over 190 law enforcement officials on Friday endorsed Joe Biden for president, per a campaign statement.... The endorsements rebut a theme of the Trump re-election campaign, which has falsely claimed that Biden wants to defund the police.... It's a blow to Trump, who's sought to brand himself as the law-and-order candidate.... 'Joe Biden has always stood on the right side of the law and is offering a much needed vision for our Nation. When asked the question, would you feel safe in Joe Biden's America? The answer is yes,' said Tom Manger, Retired Chief and former President of the Major Cities Chiefs Association." (Also linked yesterday.)

Shane Harris & Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "Russia is seeking 'to undermine public trust in the electoral process' by spreading false claims that mail-in-ballots are riddled with fraud and susceptible to manipulation, according to a new intelligence bulletin by the Department of Homeland Security. Many of the claims made by Russian sources are identical to repeated, unsupported public statements aired by President Trump and Attorney General William P. Barr, who have said that mailed ballots aren't trustworthy while warning of the potential for rampant fraud in November's elections.... The bulletin doesn't cite any particular statements by Trump, Barr or other U.S. officials, but it states that Russia is 'amplifying' claims that mail-in voting is prone to fraud." An ABC News report on the same topic is linked below. The Post story notes that ABC was first to report on the bulletin. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ AND Count Pompeo In. Laura Kelly of the Hill: "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday said there is a 'real risk' to the U.S. elections if states mail ballots to registered voters, echoing President Trump's criticism of efforts by states to ramp up mail voting amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Pompeo, speaking on Fox News' 'Fox and Friends,' was responding to a question about whether he shared Trump's worries about mail-in voting. The president has attacked the idea of mail-in voting as ripe for fraud despite little to no evidence of such risks. 'It's a little out of my lane as secretary of State, but it's a matter of logic,' Pompeo, a former Republican congressman from Kansas, told the program." (Also linked yesterday.)

Providing Aid & Comfort to the Enemy. Reuters in the Guardian: "China has taken the most active role among countries seeking to interfere in the US election and has the biggest program to influence domestic politics, the US national security adviser, Robert O'Brien, said on Friday, without providing any details. 'We know the Chinese have taken the most active role,' O'Brien told reporters at a briefing. He said China had 'the most massive program to influence the United States politically' followed by Iran and then Russia.... Attorney general, William Barr said on Wednesday he believed China was more of a threat than Russia when it came to election interference, also without offering details." --s ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: O'Brien & Barr have proved before that they are trained seals, and they bark when Trump orders then to. The unsupported assertions about China sound like (1) B.S. and (2) dangerous B.S. We should be able to count on the national security advisor & the attorney general to remain about the fray and give us the unbiased truth. We can't.

Georgia Congressional Race. QAnon Candidate Threatens Lives of Liberal Congresswomen. Rachel Bade & John Wagner of the Washington Post: "A House candidate whom President Trump recently called 'a future Republican Star' posted an image of herself holding a rifle with photos of three liberal congresswomen of color and the vow to 'go on the offense' against members of the 'Squad,' an unprecedented threat against lawmakers from a probable future colleague. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the GOP candidate for a Georgia congressional seat in a heavily Republican district and a professed QAnon conspiracy believer, posted the photoshopped image Thursday on Facebook. The image includes Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.). On Friday, the post had been taken down. Before it was removed, the caption under the gun-toting Greene read: 'Squad's worst nightmare.'... House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called on Republicans to 'immediately condemn this dangerous threat of violence against Democratic Congresswomen.'"

Peter Baker & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump >confronted a political crisis on Friday that could undercut badly needed support in the military community for his re-election campaign as he sought to dispute a report that he privately referred to American soldiers killed in combat as 'losers' and 'suckers.' Mr. Trump, who has long portrayed himself as a champion of the armed forces and has boasted of rebuilding a military depleted after years of overseas wars, came under intense fire from Democrats and other opponents who said a report in The Atlantic demonstrated his actual contempt for those who serve their country in uniform.... While Mr. Trump demanded that allies knock down the article, aides recognized that few senior military officers were willing to openly defend the president....

"The president's foes organized conference calls, blasted out statements, flocked to television studios and quickly posted advertising online calling attention to the reported comments. At a news conference, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. ... grew emotional as he said that his son Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer in 2015, 'wasn't a sucker' for serving in the Army in Iraq.... Mr. Biden called the reported comments 'disgusting,' 'sick, 'deplorable,' 'un-American' and 'absolutely damnable,' adding that he was closer to losing his temper than at any point during the campaign. 'I've just never been as disappointed in my whole career with a leader that I've worked with, president or otherwise.'"

Lara Seligman of Politico: "Trump and other administration officials moved quickly on Thursday and into Friday to blast a report from The Atlantic, which cited anonymous sources saying the president disparaged wounded and fallen U.S. service members on multiple occasions and that he asked that disabled veterans be excluded from military parades. 'It's a fake story and it's a disgrace that they're allowed to do it,' Trump said Friday, although reporters from The Associated Press, The Washington Post and Fox News confirmed elements of the story independently."

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Here's Trump once again complaining that the pesky First Amendment is a "disgrace." If we suspend disbelief for a moment & pretend that Trump's denials are true while Goldberg's sources are lying, it's still almost certainly true that the sources said what they said to Goldberg. He didn't just make up citations out of whole cloth. So unless Goldberg believes his sources are unreliable, he has a right to cite them. That is not a "disgrace." It's journalism. And it's journalism that was quickly confirmed, at least in part, by other journalists.

~~~ Bob Brigham of the Raw Story reposts a string of tweets by Fox "News" national correspondent Jennifer Griffin confirming much of the Atlantic's reporting. Also, Melania Trump is upset about the Atlantic report, charging that it's "activism," not journalism. ~~~

~~~ Paul Campos in LG&$: "This is the kind of thing that could matter at the margin, given Fox's considerable influence all across Wingnuttia."

Annie Karni of the New York Times: "John F. Kelly left the White House barely on speaking terms with President Trump. In the months since, Mr. Kelly, a retired four-star general and former White House chief of staff, has stayed mostly silent as other senior military figures have publicly and harshly criticized the president. Much to the consternation of friends and associates who have been pushing him to speak out, Mr. Kelly continued his silence on Friday about a report in The Atlantic that the president had privately referred to American troops killed in combat as 'losers' and 'suckers.' Mr. Kelly refused on-the-record interview requests about his of comments Mr. Trump had reportedly made when Mr. Kelly was with him on a 2018 trip to France. According to the report, the president said that he had decided against visiting a cemetery for American soldiers killed in World War I because 'it's filled with losers,' and that Marines slain in combat at Belleau Wood were 'suckers' for getting killed.... Mr. Kelly's silence did not save him from the president's wrath. 'This man was totally exhausted,' Mr. Trump said of Mr. Kelly at a news conference on Friday. 'He wasn't even able to function in the last number of months.'"

Fred Kaplan of Slate: "A new article by the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg could sink President Donald Trump's prospects for reelection -- but only if one more thing happens.... [A]ll of Goldberg's sources -- some of them generals, including at least one four-star general -- spoke to him on background (meaning they could be quoted but not identified by name). And so, it becomes a matter of Goldberg's word versus Trump's -- or, in the eyes of Trump supporters, a 'fake-news reporter' versus 'mypresident.' As a result, the story, which would otherwise be political dynamite so close to an election, might shift few, if any, votes.... If these stories are true, Goldberg's sources -- especially the generals, the more highly decorated, the better -- must go on the record.... One or more of these generals should weigh the competing values: their loyalty to the president versus their loyalty and lifelong dedication to the security of the nation and the lives of their fellow service members. It shouldn't be a tough choice." --s ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: If Kaplan had read Karni, he would have better understood these top officers' reluctance to speak on the record: they don't want to be seen as directly interfering in a political campaign. However, plenty of retired top guys have got involved in political campaigns -- like, say, Dwight Eisenhower -- so I don't think the excuse holds for, say, Kelly & Mattis.

David Mack of BuzzFeed News: "In a Twitter thread late Thursday night, [Donald Trump] denied that he had ever called McCain a loser.... 'I never called John a loser,' Trump wrote on Twitter.... But Trump, of course, famously did call McCain a loser. 'He lost [the 2008 election], so I never liked him as much after that because I don't like losers,' Trump said in 2015 as he ran for president in Iowa. 'He's not a war hero. He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured.' At the time, Trump even reshared his comments on Twitter." (Also linked yesterday.)

It's Because Trump Is an Inarticulate Pacifist! Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "In The Daily Beast's interviews with eleven senior administration officials, Trump aides, Republican operatives, and former and current friends of the president, several of them mounted a curious defense of Trump. Yes, they admitted, the commander in chief at times makes callous, tone-deaf comments about American military personnel behind closed doors. But it's because he hates the wars they're forced to fight, not the service members themselves. 'The president means no disrespect to our troops; it's just that the way he speaks, he can sound like an asshole sometimes,' one of these sources, a current senior administration official, told The Daily Beast. 'That's how he is [when the cameras are off] ... It's his style.'... Three people with direct knowledge of the president’s private remarks in the past three years about Robert Kelly, [John Kelly's son,] as well as other Americans who've died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, said that Trump had made similar-sounding comments to them, too.... For all of Trump's talk about putting an end to these 'endless wars,' he has yet to actually end any of them...."

** Kathy Kiely in USA Today: "In a heretofore unpublicized recent memo, the Pentagon delivered an order to shutter Stars and Stripes, a newspaper that has been a lifeline and a voice for American troops since the Civil War. The memo orders the publisher of the news organization (which now publishes online as well as in print) to present a plan that 'dissolves the Stars and Stripes' by Sept. 15 including 'specific timeline for vacating government owned/leased space worldwide.' 'The last newspaper publication (in all forms) will be September 30, 2020,' writes Col. Paul Haverstick Jr., the memo's author.... The memo ordering the publication's dissolution claims the administration has the authority to make this move under the president's fiscal year 2021 defense department budget request. It zeroed out the $15.5 million annual subsidy for Stars and Stripes.... [The budget] the House approved earlier this summer explicitly overruled the decision to pull the plug on Stars and Stripes, restoring funding for the paper.... So far, the Senate hasn't acted." --s (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: As Kiely points out, normally funding for Stars & Stripes -- which is a tiny portion of the Pentagon's $700-billion budget -- would be folded into a continuing resolution. But instead of following SOP, the Trump administration has gone out of its way to shut down a publication that "is not answerable to the brass." But, gee, I'll bet Trump doesn't like the paper's top headline today: "More than 3,000 VA patients have now died from the coronavirus." And he likes the most popular headline even less: "Trump denies reports that he disparaged U.S. war dead as 'losers,' 'sucker.'" ~~~

~~~ UPDATE. Saved by Political Expediency. Oliver Darcy of CNN: "President Trump overrode his defense secretary and vowed to continue funding Stars and Stripes, the military's editorially independent newspaper that covers issues relevant to members of the armed forces, after news the administration ordered the organization to shutter leaked to the public. Trump tweeted Friday afternoon that the US 'will NOT be cutting funding' to the outlet. The President's tweet came as he faces significant uproar over a report in The Atlantic that said he disparaged military members." A New York Times story is here.

Black Lives Matter

~~~ But Not to Donald Trump. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump has directed administration officials to make significant changes to sensitivity training sessions across the government, calling such efforts that often focus on promoting awareness of racism 'divisive' and 'un-American propaganda.' The directive was laid out on Friday afternoon in a memo from the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell T. Vought, to executive branch agency heads. The brief memo -- which repeatedly referred to 'press reports,' not government documents -- tells the agencies to 'begin to identify all contracts or other agency spending related to any training on 'critical race theory,' 'white privilege,' or any other training or propaganda effort that teaches or suggests either (1) that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country or (2) that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil.'... 'It has come to the president's attention that executive branch agencies have spent millions of taxpayer dollars to date "training" government workers to believe divisive, anti-American propaganda,' Mr. Vought wrote.... The memo comes at a time of a national discussion about race, in which Mr. Trump has been firmly against systemic changes in policing and government." An AP story is here.

Thugs on a Plane. Julia Ainsley of NBC News: "In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, Customs and Border Protection chief Mark Morgan said that 'groups like Antifa' are sending organized protestors by plane to cities around the country to incite violence.... But when asked by NBC News to provide examples of groups sending protestors by plane to cause violence, a CBP spokesman said there was no information to support Acting Commissioner Morgan's claim. Instead, the spokesman said Morgan was referring generally to the fact that many protestors at protests around the country are from out of state.... On Wednesday, Fox News host John Roberts asked Morgan about Trump's claim [about a plane 'almost completely loaded with thugs wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms with gear'], and Morgan ... [said], 'So I don't have any information with respect to that specific incident.'" ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Antifa is not an organization like, say, the NRA, with a treasury & a budget for paying airfare for thugs on a plane.

New York. Gwynne Hogan of WNYC & Jake Offenhartz of the Gothamist: "The vehicle used by a driver to plow through a crowd of Black Lives Matter marchers in Times Square on Thursday was carrying a group of Trump-supporting counterprotesters who had just received an NYPD escort, according to police and videos of the incident. A spokesperson for the NYPD said the black Ford Taurus was filled with several counterprotesters, who had been told to leave the area shortly after 8 p.m. They were being ushered by police officers through the parking lot of a nearby hotel, but 'missed the turn,' the spokesperson said, and instead drove straight toward the crowd of protesters.... Video taken at the scene shows an NYPD officer helping the counter-demonstrators into the vehicle.... NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said on Friday morning that police were still investigating whether a crime was committed. The vehicle has not been located and no arrests have been made, the department confirmed.... The vehicle's license plate matches that of another car frequently shared on social media by Hakim Gibson, a pro-NYPD activist who currently runs a 'law enforcement support page.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: "Missed the turn"? I'll bet. Sorta like I "missed the turn" when I accidentally drove into a Dunkin' Donuts drive-thru while I was on a diet. Oh, my mistake. Make that a Boston cream-filled, please. And a hazelnut latte.

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Friday are here: "On Friday, a team of Russian scientists published the first report on their controversial Covid-19 vaccine. Writing in the Lancet, they reported that volunteers produced a relatively modest amount of antibodies to the coronavirus. In August, President Vladimir V. Putin announced with great fanfare that the vaccine -- called Sputnik V -- 'works effectively enough' to be approved. He declared to be a 'very important step for our country, and generally for the whole world.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Friday are here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Katie Thomas, et al., of the New York Times: "A group of drug companies competing with one another to be among the first to develop coronavirus vaccines are planning to pledge early next week that they will not release any vaccines that do not follow rigorous efficacy and safety standards, according to representatives of three of the companies. The statement, which has not yet been finalized, is meant to reassure the public that the companies will not seek a premature approval of vaccines under political pressure from the Trump administration. President Trump has pushed for a vaccine to be available by October -- just before the presidential election -- and a growing number of scientists, regulators and public health experts have expressed concern over what they see as a pattern of political arm-twisting by the Trump administration in its efforts to combat the virus."

Joel Achenbach & William Wan of the Washington Post: "The global death toll from the coronavirus> pandemic could triple by year's end, with an additional 1.9 million deaths, while a fall wave of infections could drive fatalities in the United States to 410,000, according to a new forecast from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.... The institute's forecasts were influential earlier in the pandemic in guiding policies developed by the White House coronavirus task force, but they have been criticized by some experts as projecting further into the future than can be done reliably."

Eduardo Porter of the New York Times: "As companies reconsider their long-term need to have employees on site, low-wage workers depending on office-based businesses stand to lose the most.... If white-collar America doesn't return to the office, service workers will be left with nobody to serve. The worry is particularly acute in cities, which for decades have sustained tens of millions of jobs for workers without a college education.... And having discovered Zoom, what company will fly a manager across the country for a day's worth of meetings? A lasting reduction in business travel will endanger the ecosystem of hotel and restaurant workers serving corporate travelers."

Drusilla Moorhouse & Emerson Malone of BuzzFeed News explain why BuzzFeed will begin calling QAnon a "collective delusion" rather than a "conspiracy theory." Their post helpfully explains QAnon.

News Lede

CNN: "Labor Day may be the unofficial end of summer, but it won't feel like it in the West, where hundreds of heat records are likely to be broken....Heat warnings include nearly all of California and stretch from Arizona to Oregon. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency ahead of the heat, with the goal of alleviating heat-induced demands on the power grid. An alert has been issued to California residents to conserve power between 3 p.m. and 10 p.m., when demand is highest."

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