The Commentariat -- September 1, 2020

Afternoon Update:

The Washington Post's live updates of coronavirus developments Tuesday are here: "White House testing czar Brett Giroir on Tuesday tamped down calls from many public health experts for the federal government to approve and fund more cheap antigen tests that can be taken regularly at home. But while in the past Giroir has suggested that kind of widespread coronavirus screening would be unhelpful, he now says it is simply unfeasible. 'I don't live in a utopian world. I live in the real world. And the real world had no test for this new disease when this first started,' Giroir, assistant secretary of health, told reporters on a late-morning conference call."

After Police Shot Her Dead in Her Own Home, the D.A. Tried to Frame Breonna Taylor. Marty Johnson of the Hill: "The lead attorney representing Breonna Taylor's family says Louisville prosecutors offered Jamarcus Glover -- her ex-boyfriend who is facing multiple drug-related charges -- a plea deal that listed Taylor, who was shot and killed by police in her own home in March, as a co-defendant in the case. Sam Aguiar posted a picture of the purported plea deal on Facebook Monday. '[Jefferson County] Commonwealth Attorney Tom Wine tried to give the Elliott Ave. defendants a plea deal on July 13 which would have identified Breonna Taylor as a "co-defendant" for actions related to the arrests on April 22, 2020,' Aguiar said in the post. '[W]hen was Breonna Taylor ever a co-defendant? And oh by the way, the cops killed her a month and a half before April 22 and four months to the day before the date of this effort to get a plea deal.'... In response to Aguiar's damning Facebook post, Wine released a statement later on Monday, stating that the document 'was a draft that was part of preindictment plea negotiations with Mr. Glover and his attorney.'"

(1) What Is Trump Hiding? Mrs. McCrabbie: I was just thinking reporters ought to get to the bottom of the real reason Trump rushed to Walter Reed last November, then lied about it (story linked below), when -- without prompting -- Trump himself provided a clue! ~~~

~~~ Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump on Tuesday denied that he made an emergency visit to the hospital last year after suffering 'a series of mini-strokes' after a new book claimed that Vice President Pence was on standby in the event Trump was incapacitated. The president's denial raised eyebrows, as the book from New York Times correspondent Michael Schmidt did not specifically state that Trump had suffered from a series of small strokes. 'It never ends! Now they are trying to say that your favorite President, me, went to Walter Reed Medical Center, having suffered a series of mini-strokes. Never happened to THIS candidate -- FAKE NEWS,' Trump tweeted, before insinuating that ... Joe Biden may have dealt with health issues." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I hope some pro-Biden group -- not the Biden campaign itself -- will start hounding Trump about his secretive hospital visit. It is a matter of public interest as to why a president* is rushed to the hospital & the veep is called to stand by. Voters deserve to have a full & truthful answer (not gonna happen, I know).

(2) What Is Trump Hiding? Benjamin Weiser & William Rashbaum of the New York Times: "President Trump on Tuesday won another delay in the long-running legal battle over whether he must turn over eight years of tax returns to the Manhattan district attorney's office, which subpoenaed them a year ago in a criminal investigation focused on Mr. Trump, his business and his associates. In a brief order, a federal appeals court in New York said it would temporarily block a grand jury subpoena issued by the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., a Democrat, while it considers Mr. Trump's arguments that the request was 'wildly overbroad' and politically motivated. The ruling is the latest development in the president's aggressive effort to keep his tax returns and other financial records out of the hands of prosecutors, Congress and others -- a dispute that has reached the United States Supreme Court once and is almost certain to end up there again." A Hill story is here.

Mrs. McCrabbie: Remember back in June when we thought those Western militia were idiots for believing in crazy conspiracy theories about impending Antifa invasions? Well, guess what? Donald Trump is one of the idiotic conspiracy theorists. ~~~

~~~ Ben Collins of NBC News: "The conspiracy theory that ... Donald Trump pushed Monday that a plane 'almost completely loaded with thugs' had been set to disrupt the Republican National Convention was almost identical to a rumor that went viral on Facebook three months ago.... He ... claimed the matter was 'under investigation right now.' There is no evidence of any such flight.... [A] version of the rumor picked up enough steam in Idaho Facebook groups [in June] that the Payette County Sheriff's Office had to release a statement insisting that the viral rumor was 'false information.'... One of the most viral rumors on an Antifa invasion into the suburbs was taken down after Twitter said it was created by a troll account with ties to white nationalists. Some armed Americans took to town squares in several towns to fight off fictitious busloads of Antifa in June, spurred by false rumors on Facebook pages. Seven days after the original Idaho rumor went viral on Facebook, armed men stood guard over protests in Missoula, Montana, worried about the planeloads of Antifa supporters."

Tony Romm & Eric Yoder of the Washington Post: "The U.S. government will implement an across-the-board payroll tax deferral for about 1.3 million federal employees starting in mid-September, forcing some workers to take a temporary financial boost now that they likely will have to repay next year. The policy, confirmed Monday by a senior administration official, comes in response to a widely panned policy directive issued by President Trump earlier in August. Unions have sharply criticized the government's decision, fearing federal workers may not have a choice in whether to take the deferral -- resulting in them receiving smaller paychecks in 2021 until the past-due taxes are paid off."

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Massachusetts Democratic Primary Races Today. Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "The Democratic race between Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III and Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts was perhaps the marquee Senate primary of the year, as the young scion of one of the country's most storied political families challenged a 43-year fixture of Congress. But it was not the only closely watched primary election that will unfold on Tuesday in Massachusetts.... Here's what we're watching for, from the Senate battle on down the ballot."

Presidential Race

Biden Delivers Major Speech Rebutting Trump. Matt Viser & Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: "Joe Biden excoriated President Trump on Monday as a threat to the safety of all Americans, saying he has encouraged violence in the nation's streets even as he has faltered in handling the coronavirus pandemic. For his most extensive remarks since violent protests have escalated across the country in recent days, Biden traveled to Pittsburgh and struck a centrist note, condemning both the destruction in the streets and Trump for creating a culture that he said has exacerbated it.... He called the president a danger to those suffering from the coronavirus, to anyone in search of a job or struggling to pay rent, to voters worried about Russian interference in the upcoming election and to those worried about their own safety amid unrest." (Also linked yesterday.) The New York Times report, by Katie Glueck, is here. ~~~

No candidate for president has ever attacked a sitting president* the way Joe Biden did today. -- Lawrence O'Donnell, on MSNBC Monday ~~~

~~~ Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "Former Vice President Joe Biden on Monday squarely blamed Donald Trump for the violence that has accompanied mass protests for racial justice this summer, accusing the president of 'long ago' forfeiting 'any moral leadership in this country.' In remarks in Pittsburgh..., [Biden] portrayed Trump as having lost control of a country rocked by a series of converging crises and being guilty 'for years' of fomenting racial tensions that have led to clashes and episodes of violence, which he also denounced. 'Ask yourself: Do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really?' Biden said. 'I want a safe America, safe from Covid, safe from crime and looting, safe from racially motivated violence, safe from bad cops. And let me be crystal clear: safe from four more years of Donald Trump.'" Here's a slightly condensed video: (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

See also Donald Trump's defense of the alleged Kenosha vigilante killer under Black Lives Matter, linked below.

Leo Shane III of the Military Times: "The latest Military Times poll shows a continued decline in active-duty service members' views of President Donald Trump and a slight but significant preference for former Vice President Joe Biden in the upcoming November election among troops surveyed.... In the latest results -- based on 1,018 active-duty troops surveyed in late July and early August -- nearly half of respondents (49.9 percent) had an unfavorable view of the president, compared to about 38 percent who had a favorable view.... Among all survey participants, 42 percent said they 'strongly' disapprove of Trump's time in office." --s

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Monday are here: "Americans began their Sunday with the news that the staggering pandemic death toll, seemingly beyond dispute, was being questioned by their own president, and ended it as the country reached more than six million confirmed infections. Almost 183,000 people have died in the United States from the virus -- some analyses put the true toll well past 200,000 -- but President Trump lent his embrace to fringe groups peddling claims that the number is grossly exaggerated." (Also linked yesterday.)

Yasmeen Abutaleb & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "One of President Trump's top medical advisers [-- Scott Atlas of the right-wing Hoover Institution --] is urging the White House to embrace a controversial 'herd immunity' strategy to combat the pandemic, which would entail allowing the coronavirus to spread through most of the population to quickly build resistance to the virus, while taking steps to protect those in nursing homes and other vulnerable populations, according to five people familiar with the discussions. The administration has already begun to implement some policies along these lines, according to current and former officials as well as experts, particularly with regard to testing.... [Atlas] He has advocated that the United States adopt the model Sweden has used.... Sweden ... has among the highest infection and death rates in the world. It also hasn't escaped the deep economic problems resulting from the pandemic.... [The discussion] is drawing concern from experts inside and outside the government who note that a herd immunity strategy could lead to the country suffering hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lost lives.... In the United States, with a population of 328 million, reaching a 65 percent threshold for herd immunity may require 2.13 million deaths, assuming the virus has a 1 percent fatality rate, according to an analysis by The Post." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Philip Bump of the Washington Post: After the GOP convention, CNN's Jim Acosta "asked a White House official why there was apparently no effort to implement social distancing measures for the audience at the speech. The official's response? 'Everybody is going to catch this thing eventually,' the official reportedly said. It's a staggering comment.... Everyone won't catch the novel coronavirus eventually, ideally; the point of developing a vaccine is to keep that from happening. What's more, even if there were no vaccine, there's a big difference between people catching it now and catching it in a year or two when there might be better therapeutic treatments or potentially a cure.... Trump understood the risks of letting the virus spread without containment back in April, when he was defending the administration's decision to endorse a shutdown of economic activity.... Trump said of Sweden's strategy, '... if we did follow that approach, I think we might have 2 million people dead.'" But now the tens of thousands of Covid-19 deaths are hurting him politically, so he wants to curb testing to bring the number of known cases down, at the same time greatly increasing the number of people who get sick or die from the virus. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Like, Say, Zombie Tweeter Herman Cain, a Covid Victim Who Has Returned from the Dead to Back the Trump Theory. Ed Mazza of the Huffington Post: "The Twitter account formerly used by the late Herman Cain fired off a head-scratching message on Sunday, insisting that the coronavirus 'isn't as deadly' as once thought. Cain died in July at the age of 74 after being hospitalized for more than a month with the COVID-19 infection. His Twitter account ― now run by his family and social media managers ― tweeted: 'It looks like the virus is not as deadly as the mainstream media first made it out to be.' Given Cain's own cause of death, the tweet ― which was eventually deleted ― drew a rather stunned response from critics on social media[.]" Mrs. McC: Remember that Cain contracted the virus after attending a Trump rally where he (1) didn't wear a mask and (2) sat packed in with other Trumpophiles. Maybe Trump will use Cain's tweet from the grave as a testimonial to his strategy. (Also linked yesterday.)

William Davis of the New York Times: "Forty states are now signed up to provide their residents with an extra $300 or $400 in unemployment, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The benefit was originally envisioned by President Trump as an extra $400 to unemployed workers, with the federal government providing $300 and the states providing $100. But states balked at the additional cost.... Most states won't be able to start paying the benefit until mid-September or even October. And the payments are expected to last only four or five weeks." This report is an item in the Times' business live updates. A more extensive NYT report is here.

Black Lives Matter

This. Is. Not. Normal. Matthew Choi of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Monday portrayed the gunman charged with murdering two protesters in Kenosha, Wis., as a victim, suggesting that the Illinois teenager was acting in self-defense.... The criminal complaint [against alleged killer Kyle Rittenhouse] said he killed a man, Joseph Rosenbaum, after Rosenbaum threw a plastic bag at Rittenhouse and tried to grab his gun. A group of protesters chased after Rittenhouse, yelling that he had shot someone. But speaking at a White House news conference on Monday, Trump suggested that the protesters were the instigators, out to get Rittenhouse, and that he was acting in self-defense. 'That was an interesting situation,' the president said. 'He was trying to get away from them, I guess it looks like, and he fell and then they very violently attacked him, and it was something that we are looking at right now and it's under investigation. But I guess he was in very big trouble. He probably would've been killed. It's under investigation.'... Trump's opting to give the benefit of the doubt to Rittenhouse comes in stark contrast to his condemnation of protesters against police violence who have demonstrated in cities across the country.... Addressing a CNN reporter, the president said those responsible for [the Portland, Oregon,] shooting were 'your supporters.'" ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Generally speaking, prominent public officials don't comment on active cases that have not been tried as their comments could influence a jury pool. Specifically, public officials, particularly a POTUS*, do not exonerate murder suspects. This is extraordinary. The conceit that Trump is a "law and order" president* -- which was never remotely believable -- just died in a last gasp of stunning commentary. ~~~

~~~ Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: During his news briefing Monday, "Trump found little fault with ... [his] supporters who converged on Portland, Ore., and apparently fired paintball guns and pepper spray at protesters... '... that was a peaceful protest,' he said. 'And paint is not -- and paint as a defensive mechanism, paint is not bullets. ... These people, they protested peacefully. They went in very peacefully.' Trump then pointed to a man who identifies as an anti-fascist and who is under investigation in the killing of a right-wing demonstrator after a Trump rally in Portland. Trump said the man 'shot a young gentleman and killed him.... And I think it's disgraceful.' The president offered no such condemnation, though, when it was noted that one of his supporters, [Kyle] Rittenhouse, has been charged with killing ... in Kenosha. Trump indicated he thought Rittenhouse's actions might have been warranted.... It's evident to whom Trump gives the benefit of the doubt, from Charlottesville through today. And in the course of a couple of minutes Monday night, that benefit of the doubt applied to a supporter who has been charged with a crime -- in a way it very much didn't apply to another person who hasn't." ~~~

~~~ AND. This. Is. Not. Normal. Rather, It's Really Weird. Katie Shepherd of the Washington Post: "... President Trump on Monday night claimed in a Fox News interview that 'people that are in the dark shadows' are 'controlling the streets' and manipulating his Democratic opponent Joe Biden to sow chaos. When host Laura Ingraham suggested the claim 'sounds like conspiracy theory,' Trump doubled down, launching into a tale of a plane that allegedly flew from an unnamed city to Washington, D.C., this weekend loaded with 'thugs wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms, with gear.'... The president declined to elaborate to Ingraham, saying the case was 'under investigation,' and the White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment late on Monday.... Debunked rumors of a plane filled with black-clad rabble-rousers setting out to harass right-leaning towns and suburbs have appeared on social media in the past. This weekend, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) similarly suggested on Fox News that the protesters who surrounded and heckled him as he left the Republican National Convention last week had been paid to come to D.C. as part of alleged 'interstate criminal traffic being paid for across state lines.'" Thanks to Ken W. for the link. ~~~

~~~ AND. This. Is. Not. Normal. Trump Plays Whack-a-Black. Reed Richardson of Mediaite: "Fox News" Laura Ingraham quickly jumped in during her interview with ... Donald Trump in an attempt to head off a highly inappropriate analogy, where he compared police officers who 'choke' by shooting Jacob Blake in the back or kneeling on George Floyd's neck until he dies to missing a three-foot golf putt. During the Fox host's hour-long interview, Ingraham ... framed her question around the dangers that police face.... 'It's more dangerous to be a police officer today, do you not think than it has been a long time?' Ingraham said. 'The police are under siege,' Trump then claimed. 'They can do 10,000 great acts, which is what they do, and one bad apple or a choker -- a joker -- they choke.' 'You mean, they, they panic,' Ingraham helpfully clarified. 'Shooting the guy in the back many times. I mean, "Couldn't you have done >something different? Couldn't you have wrestled him?'" Trump then said, alluding to Blake.... 'You know, I mean, in the meantime, he might've been going for a weapon.... But they choke, just like in a golf tournament, they miss a 3-foot putt...' 'You're not comparing it to golf,' Ingraham quickly jumped in, as Trump actually did compare police shootings and killings to missing a gimme putt. 'Because of course that's what the media would say ... people make, people panic,' she then added, steering Trump away from the golf analogy while nodding her head. I'm saying people choke,' Trump insisted, without disavowing his comparison." Thanks to Akhilleus for the link. Also see his commentary below.

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Ingraham is right. The media are going to call Trump out for suggesting the use of lethal force against black men is like missing a three-foot putt. In fairness to Trump, a highly-offensive golf analogy is the only way he can relate & excuse inexcusable deadly force against Americans. To Trump, Black people are objects, like golf balls you're trying to control and "putt in their place." ~~~

~~~ MEANWHILE. Courtney Subramanian & David Jackson of USA Today: "... Donald Trump is not planning to meet with the family of Jacob Blake, a Black man who was shot multiple times in the back by a police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, when he travels there Tuesday, the White House said. The president told reporters at a press conference Monday evening that he was not planning to meet with the family because they wanted to involve lawyers. 'I thought it would be better not to do anything where there are lawyers involved,' Mr Trump said. "... I thought that was inappropriate so I didn't do that.'... Blake's father and family's attorney, Benjamin Crump, confirmed to CNN that the family wanted their legal team involved in the call with the president. Crump also said he sat in on the call when the Blake family spoke to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.... [White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said,] 'We are efforting outreach, have not been able to connect yet. So tomorrow the plan is so far to go and to meet with law enforcement and to look at the damage from the riots, but we are holding his family close to our hearts.'..." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Funny how Biden & Harris aren't afraid of lawyers and the (alleged) criminal Trump is. The second-most egregious bit in this story is MacInaney's awkward attempt to turn the noun "effort" into a verb. "Efforting outreach?" Please.

Mitchell Schmidt of the Kenosha News: "Gov. Tony Evers (D) on Sunday sent a letter to ... Donald Trump asking the president to reconsider his plan to visit Kenosha on Tuesday. A spokesman for Trump said the president plans to meet with local law enforcement and survey damage from recent demonstrations.... 'It is our job as elected officials to lead by example and to be a calming presence for the people we know are hurting, mourning, and trying to cope with trauma,' Evers said in the letter. 'Now is not the time for divisiveness. Now is not the time for elected officials to ignore armed militants and out-of-state instigators who want to contribute to our anguish.' Evers also raised concern that an in-person visit from the president would require a large-scale redirection of resources to support the visit."

Peter Baker & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump has been throwing accelerant on the fire of the nation's social unrest rather than trying to put it out, seeking confrontation rather than calm at a volatile moment his advisers hope will help salvage his campaign for a second term. Other presidents in times of tumult tried to settle down communities convulsed by racial and cultural divisions, but Mr. Trump has encouraged one side against another. He has threatened to deploy federal forces, condoned freelance actions by his own armed supporters, conflated peaceful protesters with violent rioters and used the strife to undercut his political opponents.... The strategy is consistent with the president's lifetime of provocation. From his time as a celebrity real estate developer, Mr. Trump has never been a conciliator, and he has long gravitated toward conflict and sought to escalate it. As president, he often plays to and amplifies racial divisions in the country."

Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Marc Tracy of the New York Times: "A journalist resigned on Saturday from his job at The Kenosha News after objecting to the headline of an article that chronicled a rally in support of Jacob Blake, a Black man who was shot seven times in the back by a white Kenosha police officer. The journalist, Daniel J. Thompson, a digital editor who said he was the only full-time Black staff member at the paper..., said the headline did not accurately sum up the article and gave a false impression of the rally itself, which he attended. The rally for Mr. Blake ... included calls for unity from his father, Jacob Blake Sr., and Wisconsin's lieutenant governor, Mandela Barnes, the article said. The headline, which appeared on the Kenosha News website on Saturday, highlighted a remark from one rally participant: '... If you kill one of us, it's time for us to kill one of yours.' The online version of the article included a 59-second video showing the person who spoke those words, a Black man who was not identified by name. Mr. Thompson ... said he found the headline off-base. 'The story is about the entire reaction of all the speakers and people in attendance, and that quote is one outlier falling within a flood of positive ones.'..." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Apparently the Kenosha News headline writer & the story's editor follow the local teevee news dictum, "If it bleeds, it leads."

Portland, Oregon. Guardian: "Portland police declared a protest in the north-eastern part of the Oregon city an 'unlawful gathering' late on Sunday, ordering crowds to disperse or risk arrest.... Twenty-nine arrests were made, police said, adding that two of those held had handguns, others had knives and at least one had an expandable baton. Many in the group of protesters wore helmets, gas masks, goggles and armour. Police said some carried shields and reflective squares used to reflect police lights back at officers. Some threw rocks, eggs, and other items at officers and police vehicles."

"Sometimes You Have to Use Violence to Preserve Order." Will Sommer of the Daily Beast: “A Portland activist who had traveled to Washington, D.C., to protest the Republican convention says he was punched in the head by one of ... Donald Trump's most ardent evangelical Christian allies. Video of the attack appears to support his claim.... Footage ... shows anti-Trump protester Anthony Harrington biking past a group of Trump supporters [leaving the RNC convention], yelling 'Fuck Trump, fuck you!' As Harrington passed by, a man Harrington identified to The Daily Beast as [pro-Trump talk radio host Eric] Metaxas punched him in the side or back of the head.... Even his allies believe he threw the punch, supporting Metaxas by name while defending his action on grounds that Harrington 'had it coming.' 'Sometimes you have to use violence to preserve order,' Christian writer and Metaxas' friend Rod Dreher wrote in a blog post."

Keith Griffith of The Daily Mail (U.K.) (Aug. 28): "A high-ranking U.S. intelligence official who died in June killed himself in his own front yard in front of his terrified new wife, it has been revealed. Anthony Ming Schinella, 52, died on June 14 in Arlington, Virginia, but his death had not been widely reported until this week, when The Intercept revealed a medical examiner's report listed his cause of death as suicide from a gunshot wound to the head...[A] large collection of bondage and S&M gear ... had been hidden in his house.... Schinella was the highest-ranking military affairs analyst in the U.S. intelligence community, and was also a member of the powerful National Intelligence Council. He was an expert on the Taliban's military capabilities, and his death came shortly before the New York Times reported on June 26 that Russia paid bounties to the Taliban to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan. Following the report, the NIC drafted a memo, which quickly leaked, claiming that the intelligence about the bounties was inconclusive. The memo did not mention that the NIC's top analyst on military affairs and Taliban expert had killed himself days earlier." --s ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Both the Daily Mail & Intercept stories contain quite a bit of innuendo, and maybe where there's smoke, there's fire. But both stories also include elements that suggest Schinella may have killed himself for personal reasons having nothing to do with his job. From the Intercept: "His wife, who had just married him weeks earlier, told The Intercept that she was in her car in the driveway, trying to get away from Schinella when she witnessed his suicide.... After his death, Schinella's wife discovered a large collection of bondage and S&M gear that had been hidden in his house, along with 24 guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition."

Aiden Pink of the Forward: "More than half of all American states have passed laws designed to combat the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. No advocacy group was more important to this push than the Israel Allies Foundation, an American non-profit that supports a network of pro-Israel legislators across the globe.... Now the group is backing another bill ... which would change civil-rights codes to define antisemitism to include anti-Zionism. Public records obtained by The Forward show that the Israeli government approved a grant of more than $100,000 to the Israel Allies Foundation in 2019. The IAF has not disclosed this or any previous Israeli grants to the United States government.... [IAF] is one of 11 American groups that received Israeli government funds, according to the documents.... [D]ocuments ... suggest that some ... trips [to Israel] included instructions for pro-Israel advocacy back home -- in statehouses and on college campuses -- which legal experts say may expose not just the recipient groups but also anyone who went on their trips to fines and even prosecution for violating disclosure rules." --s

Mueller Investigation

Harper Neidig of the Hill: "A federal appeals court rejected Michael Flynn's effort to force a judge to immediately dismiss the charges against him, overturning an earlier decision that would have allowed the Department of Justice to drop its case against the former national security adviser. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 8-2 against Flynn's petition for it to step in and force a district judge to grant the Justice Department's motion to drop charges without holding a hearing on the issue." This is a developing story. ~~~

~~~ Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "A Federal District Court judge may go forward with his plans to scrutinize the Justice Department's request to drop the prosecution of President Trump's former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, a full appeals court ruled on Monday. A three-judge panel on the court had earlier ordered the judge to end the case immediately. Separately, a panel on that same court ruled for a second time that the House cannot sue Donald F. McGahn II, the president's former White House counsel, for defying a subpoena. The full court already reversed one such ruling by that same panel on different grounds, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House would 'immediately' ask the full body for another do-over." ~~~

~~~ Jan Wolfe of Reuters: "A U.S. appeals court on Monday ordered the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by a Democratic-led House of Representatives panel seeking to enforce a subpoena issued to former White House Counsel Donald McGahn. The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which will likely be appealed, marked a victory for the Trump administration in its effort to block congressional investigations into the president. In a 2-1 decision, a three-judge panel said the House Judiciary Committee's lawsuit had to be dismissed because Congress had never passed a law authorizing such litigation."

Suspicious White House Statement Turns Out to Be the Lie You Thought It Was. Paul LeBlanc of CNN: "Vice President Mike Pence was put on standby to temporarily assume the powers of the presidency during ... Donald Trump's unannounced visit to Walter Reed hospital in November 2019, according to a copy of New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt's forthcoming book obtained by CNN. Trump had undergone a 'quick exam and labs' as part of his annual physical out of anticipation of a 'very busy 2020,' the White House had said of the trip at the time. Schmidt writes, however, that he learned 'in the hours leading up to Trump's trip to the hospital, word went out in the West Wing for the vice president to be on standby to take over the powers of the presidency temporarily if Trump had to undergo a procedure that would have required him to be anesthetized.'... The visit did not follow the protocol of a routine presidential medical exam, a person familiar with the matter told CNN at the time." Mrs. McC: Also, the White House doctor accompanied Trump to Walter Reed. It sounds as if Trump had symptoms of some illness that could require surgery or painful probes. A normal presidential physical does not involve an unscheduled rush to the hospital nor does it feature procedures requiring anesthesia & a sudden call to the veep that he might have to be President for a Day. ~~~

~~~ Mike Allen of Axios: "One of the crazy nuggets in a deeply reported book by the N.Y. Times' Michael Schmidt -- 'Donald Trump v. the United States,' out tomorrow -- is that President Trump mulled the idea of 'settling' with special counsel Robert Mueller.... 'At one point, as the investigation seemed to be intensifying,' Schmidt writes, Trump told White House counsel Don McGahn 'that there was nothing to worry about because if it was zeroing in on him, he would simply settle with Mueller. He would settle the case, as if he were negotiating terms in a lawsuit.'" Mrs. McC: I wonder what "settlement" Trump had in mind. A $500 fine? A promise not to speak to Roger Stone for six months? (Also linked yesterday.)

Scott Stedman, et al. of Forensic News (Jan. 21): "A Russian government-controlled bank deposited at least half a billion dollars into the American subsidiary of Deutsche Bank around the time that the bank lent Trump his most scrutinized loans, according to exclusively obtained confidential bank records. As Trump received loans from the subsidiary, DBTCA, totaling over $360 million, Gazprombank sent $511 million in cash to DBTCA to be dispersed however the Russian bank directed. Additionally, DBTCA had deep liabilities to the Russian government in 2013, according to the documents acquired by Forensic News. The documents show that financial entities in Russia were owed nearly $3 billion by the subsidiary in October 2013." --safari: A reminder that this was never investigated by the FBI. Thanks, Rod.

Mrs. Betty Bowers, America's Best Christian, Picks the Fake Christian of the Week:

Way Beyond the Beltway

Australia. Anthony Galloway of The Sydney Morning Herald: "Australian security agencies are on alert for extremists who could have been inspired by the Christchurch mosque killer and other massacres overseas, as small far-right cells across the country are becoming more organised and sophisticated than ever before. The concern is being heightened by extreme right-wing groups increasingly attracting people from a military background who know how to use weapons, as well as a younger membership who aren't displaying obvious signs of their extremism - making them harder to detect.... The problem is being fuelled by online forums allowing people on the far-right to make quick and easy connections with like-minded individuals around the world, which ASIO believes has created a toxic peer environment in which acts of violence based on extreme right-wing ideologies are 'encouraged, glorified and promoted'." --s

Rwanda. Abdi Dahir of the New York Times: "Paul Rusesabagina, whose bravery in saving more than 1,200 fellow Rwandans from genocide inspired the film 'Hotel Rwanda,' has been arrested by the authorities in Rwanda who are holding him there on charges that include terrorism, arson and murder. During the Rwandan genocide in 1994, Mr. Rusesabagina, a Hutu who was working as a manager at a hotel in the capital, Kigali, helped shelter people fleeing the violence that eventually killed as many as one million ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus. But in recent years, Mr. Rusesabagina, 66, has become an opponent of the government of Rwanda's long-serving president, Paul Kagame, who has kept the country politically and economically stable but is accused by human rights groups of brutally silencing his critics. Mr. Kagame's government has alleged for years that Mr. Rusesabagina is supporting Rwandan rebels attacking the country from abroad."

The Commentariat -- August 31, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Matt Viser & Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: "Joe Biden excoriated President Trump on Monday as a threat to the safety of all Americans, saying he has encouraged violence in the nation's streets even as he has faltered in handling the coronavirus pandemic. For his most extensive remarks since violent protests have escalated across the country in recent days, Biden traveled to Pittsburgh and struck a centrist note, condemning both the destruction in the streets and Trump for creating a culture that he said has exacerbated it.... He called the president a danger to those suffering from the coronavirus, to anyone in search of a job or struggling to pay rent, to voters worried about Russian interference in the upcoming election and to those worried about their own safety amid unrest." ~~~

~~~ Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "Former Vice President Joe Biden on Monday squarely blamed Donald Trump for the violence that has accompanied mass protests for racial justice this summer, accusing the president of 'long ago' forfeiting 'any moral leadership in this country.' In remarks in Pittsburgh, the Democratic presidential nominee portrayed Trump as having lost control of a country rocked by a series of converging crises and being guilty 'for years' of fomenting racial tensions that have led to clashes and episodes of violence, which he also denounced. 'Ask yourself: Do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really?' Biden said. 'I want a safe America, safe from Covid, safe from crime and looting, safe from racially motivated violence, safe from bad cops. And let me be crystal clear: safe from four more years of Donald Trump.'" Here's a slightly condensed video: ~~~

Harper Neidig of the Hill: "A federal appeals court rejected Michael Flynn's effort to force a judge to immediately dismiss the charges against him, overturning an earlier decision that would have allowed the Department of Justice to drop its case against the former national security adviser. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 8-2 against Flynn's petition for it to step in and force a district judge to grant the Justice Department's motion to drop charges without holding a hearing on the issue." This is a developing story. ~~~

~~~ Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "A Federal District Court judge may go forward with his plans to scrutinize the Justice Department's request to drop the prosecution of President Trump's former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, a full appeals court ruled on Monday. A three-judge panel on the court had earlier ordered the judge to end the case immediately. Separately, a panel on that same court ruled for a second time that the House cannot sue Donald F. McGahn II, the president's former White House counsel, for defying a subpoena. The full court already reversed one such ruling by that same panel on different grounds, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House would 'immediately' ask the full body for another do-over." ~~~

~~~ Jan Wolfe of Reuters: "A U.S. appeals court on Monday ordered the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by a Democratic-led House of Representatives panel seeking to enforce a subpoena issued to former White House Counsel Donald McGahn. The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which will likely be appealed, marked a victory for the Trump administration in its effort to block congressional investigations into the president. In a 2-1 decision, a three-judge panel said the House Judiciary Committee's lawsuit had to be dismissed because Congress had never passed a law authorizing such litigation."

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Monday are here: "Americans began their Sunday with the news that the staggering pandemic death toll, seemingly beyond dispute, was being questioned by their own president, and ended it as the country reached more than six million confirmed infections. Almost 183,000 people have died in the United States from the virus -- some analyses put the true toll well past 200,000 -- but President Trump lent his embrace to fringe groups peddling claims that the number is grossly exaggerated."

Yasmeen Abutaleb & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "One of President Trump's top medical advisers [-- Scott Atlas of the right-wing Hoover Institution --] is urging the White House to embrace a controversial 'herd immunity' strategy to combat the pandemic, which would entail allowing the coronavirus to spread through most of the population to quickly build resistance to the virus, while taking steps to protect those in nursing homes and other vulnerable populations, according to five people familiar with the discussions. The administration has already begun to implement some policies along these lines, according to current and former officials as well as experts, particularly with regard to testing.... [Atlas] He has advocated that the United States adopt the model Sweden has used.... Sweden ... has among the highest infection and death rates in the world. It also hasn't escaped the deep economic problems resulting from the pandemic.... [The discussion] is drawing concern from experts inside and outside the government who note that a herd immunity strategy could lead to the country suffering hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lost lives." ~~~

~~~ Philip Bump of the Washington Post: After the GOP convention, CNN's Jim Acosta "asked a White House official why there was apparently no effort to implement social distancing measures for the audience at the speech. The official's response? 'Everybody is going to catch this thing eventually,' the official reportedly said. It's a staggering comment.... Everyone won't catch the novel coronavirus eventually, ideally; the point of developing a vaccine is to keep that from happening. What's more, even if there were no vaccine, there's a big difference between people catching it now and catching it in a year or two when there might be better therapeutic treatments or potentially a cure.... Trump understood the risks of letting the virus spread without containment back in April, when he was defending the administration's decision to endorse a shutdown of economic activity.... Trump said of Sweden's strategy, '... if we did follow that approach, I think we might have 2 million people dead.'" But now the tens of thousands of Covid-19 deaths are hurting him politically, so he wants to curb testing to bring the number of known cases down, at the same time greatly increasing the number of people who get sick or die from the virus. ~~~

~~~ Like, Say, Zombie Tweeter Herman Cain, a Covid Victim Who Has Returned from the Dead to Back the Trump Theory. Ed Mazza of the Huffington Post: "The Twitter account formerly used by the late Herman Cain fired off a head-scratching message on Sunday, insisting that the coronavirus 'isn't as deadly' as once thought. Cain died in July at the age of 74 after being hospitalized for more than a month with the COVID-19 infection. His Twitter account ― now run by his family and social media managers ― tweeted: 'It looks like the virus is not as deadly as the mainstream media first made it out to be.' Given Cain's own cause of death, the tweet ― which was eventually deleted ― drew a rather stunned response from critics on social media[.]" Mrs. McC: Remember that Cain contracted the virus after attending a Trump rally where he (1) didn't wear a mask and (2) sat packed in with other Trumpophiles. Maybe Trump will use Cain's tweet from the grave as a testimonial to his strategy.

Wisconsin. Mitchell Schmidt of the Kenosha News: "Gov. Tony Evers (D) on Sunday sent a letter to ... Donald Trump asking the president to reconsider his plan to visit Kenosha on Tuesday. A spokesman for Trump said the president plans to meet with local law enforcement and survey damage from recent demonstrations.... 'It is our job as elected officials to lead by example and to be a calming presence for the people we know are hurting, mourning, and trying to cope with trauma,' Evers said in the letter. 'Now is not the time for divisiveness. Now is not the time for elected officials to ignore armed militants and out-of-state instigators who want to contribute to our anguish.' Evers also raised concern that an in-person visit from the president would require a large-scale redirection of resources to support the visit."

Portland, Oregon. Guardian: "Portland police declared a protest in the north-eastern part of the Oregon city an 'unlawful gathering. late on Sunday, ordering crowds to disperse or risk arrest.... Twenty-nine arrests were made, police said, adding that two of those held had handguns, others had knives and at least one had an expandable baton. Many in the group of protesters wore helmets, gas masks, goggles and armour. Police said some carried shields and reflective squares used to reflect police lights back at officers. Some threw rocks, eggs, and other items at officers and police vehicles."

Mike Allen of Axios: "One of the crazy nuggets in a deeply reported book by the N.Y. Times' Michael Schmidt -- 'Donald Trump v. the United States,' out tomorrow -- is that President Trump mulled the idea of 'settling' with special counsel Robert Mueller.... 'At one point, as the investigation seemed to be intensifying,' Schmidt writes, Trump told White House counsel Don McGahn 'that there was nothing to worry about because if it was zeroing in on him, he would simply settle with Mueller. He would settle the case, as if he were negotiating terms in a lawsuit.'" Mrs. McC: I wonder what "settlement" Trump had in mind. A $500 fine? A promise not to speak to Roger Stone for six months?

~~~~~~~~~~

Black Lives Matter

Maxine Bernstein of the Oregonian: "A 48-year-old man who was accused of carrying a loaded gun at an earlier downtown Portland protest is under investigation in the fatal shooting Saturday night of a right-wing demonstrator after a pro-Trump rally. Michael Forest Reinoehl calls himself an anti-fascist and has posted videos and photos of demonstrations he attended since late June, accompanied by the hashtags #blacklivesmatter, #anewnation and #breonnataylor.... Sources familiar with the case but not authorized to speak said police are investigating Reinoehl. A family member also identified him as a man captured in photos and video seen leaving the shooting scene shortly before 9 p.m. Saturday.... On July 5 at one of the demonstrations, Reinoehl was cited at 2:10 a.m. ... on allegations of possessing a loaded gun in a public place, resisting arrest and interfering with police. He was given a date to appear in court later that month, but the allegations were dropped on July 30 with a 'no complaint,' according to court records."

Elise Viebeck of the Washington Post: "... Joe Biden condemned the violence in Portland, Ore., accusing President Trump of 'fanning the flames of hate and division in our society' and 'recklessly encouraging violence.' 'We must not become a country at war with ourselves," Biden said in a statement. 'But that is the America that President Trump wants us to be, the America he believes we are.... All of us are less safe because Donald Trump can't do the job of the American president.' His response came after Trump denounced Black Lives Matter protesters as 'agitators and thugs' on Sunday morning...."

David Nakamura, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Sunday amplified his call for federal forces to help subdue protests in American cities, denouncing local Democratic leaders and fanning partisan tensions a day after a deadly clash between his supporters and social justice protesters in Portland, Ore., underscored the threat of rising politically motivated violence. Scenes of Trump faithful firing paint and pellet guns at protesters during a 'Trump cruise rally' caravan through downtown Portland -- a liberal bastion that has been the site of weeks of street demonstrations -- raised the specter that the nation's summer of unrest had entered a new phase in which the president's backers are rallying to defend businesses and fight back against Black Lives Matter and other groups he has labeled 'anarchists' and 'terrorists.'... Trump called the participants 'GREAT PATRIOTS!' The reaction marked a sharp contrast to his silence during a large and peaceful civil rights march on Friday in Washington that drew thousands to the Mall, where some speakers denounced his leadership." ~~~

~~~ Mike Baker, et al., of the New York Times: "Mr. Trump wrote that 'the big backlash going on in Portland cannot be unexpected,' a remarkable instance of a president seeming to support confrontation rather than calming a volatile situation.... [Portland Mayor Ted] Wheeler, at an afternoon news conference at City Hall, said the shooting had left his heart heavy, and he denounced violence. But he pointed to Mr. Trump's combative and unyielding message as a generator of the nation's escalating polarization and violence, and he called on the president to work with him and others to help de-escalate tensions.... Mr. Trump responded quickly to the mayor's remarks, mocking Mr. Wheeler and calling him 'wacky' and a 'dummy.'... Mr. Trump is planning to visit Kenosha on Tuesday, though both the governor of Wisconsin, Tony Evers, a Democrat, and the mayor of Kenosha, John Antaramian, also a Democrat, urged him to reconsider." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: It is worth noting that the POTUS*, a person who holds the position once held by leaders of the free world, is not only encouraging violence in American cities, but also using the types of taunts against elected officials that you might have used in a moment of confrontation when you were in the third grade. If a teacher overheard you, you might have got detention for it. ~~~

     ~~~ Chandelis Duster & Simret Aklilu of CNN: "Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes said Sunday that ... Donald Trump should not travel to Kenosha, Wisconsin, this week and that his presence would not be helpful amid ongoing protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake.... 'You look at the incendiary remarks that the President has made, they centered an entire convention around creating more animosity and creating more division around what is going on in Kenosha,' Barnes told CNN's John King.... 'So, I don't know how given any of the previous statements that the President made that he intends to come here to be helpful. And we absolutely don't need that right now.'" ~~~

~~~ Elise Viebeck of the Washington Post: "Starting before 6 a.m., Trump let loose a barrage of nearly 90 tweets and retweets touting his chances for reelection, attacking Democratic state and local officials over ongoing protests and defending aggressive actions by his supporters in Portland, who appeared to be firing paintballs and pepper spray at onlookers from pickup trucks as they drove through the city streets Saturday night.'The big backlash going on in Portland cannot be unexpected after 95 days of watching and incompetent Mayor admit that he has no idea what he is doing,' Trump tweeted in response to one such video posted by New York Times reporter Mike Baker, who wrote that the Trump supporters 'shot me too.' Trump responded to a video from Saturday that appeared to show a cavalcade of hundreds of vehicles bearing pro-Trump signs and flags driving toward downtown Portland, writing: 'GREAT PATRIOTS!'... Kate Bedingfield, deputy campaign manager for Joe Biden, said Sunday morning that Trump has incited violence as further protests against police brutality sweep the country. 'He has encouraged his supporters to go out, to be aggressive,' she said on 'Fox News Sunday.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Trump unleashed an especially intense barrage of Twitter messages overnight and Sunday morning, embracing fringe conspiracy theories claiming that the coronavirus death toll has been exaggerated and that street protests are actually an organized coup d'état against him.... In the weekend blast of Twitter messages, Mr. Trump also embraced a call to imprison Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, threatened to send federal forces against demonstrators outside the White House, attacked CNN and NPR, embraced a supporter charged with murder, mocked his challenger, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and repeatedly assailed the mayor of Portland, even posting the mayor\s office telephone number so that supporters could call demanding his resignation." ~~~ (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

~~~ Allan Smith of NBC News: "... Donald Trump praised a pro-Trump caravan of activists who moved into Portland, Oregon, on Saturday and whose presence there appeared to contribute to violent clashes in the city.... In a lengthy statement Sunday afternoon, 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden condemned violence in Portland as 'unacceptable' but called on Trump to stop 'fanning the flames of hate and division in our society and using the politics of fear to whip up his supporters.... As a country, we must condemn the incitement of hate and resentment that led to this deadly clash,' Biden said, adding, 'What does President Trump think will happen when he continues to insist on fanning the flames of hate and division in our society and using the politics of fear to whip up his supporters? He is recklessly encouraging violence[.]'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Trump's Encouragement of Violent Supporters Trips up Republicans

David Edwards of the Raw Story: "Department of Homeland acting Security Secretary Chad Wolf on Sunday declined to condemn Trump supporters who have instigated or incited violence at Black Lives Matter protests around the country.... [After some back-and-forth during an interview with CBS's Margaret Brennan, she said, '... the president has tweeted about Portland 12 times in the past 48 hours, including retweeting a video of his supporters -- people with Trump flags flying -- driving into Portland and he called them great patriots. Doesn't that heighten tensions when you say you are trying to lower it?' 'Absolutely not,' Wolf objected. 'Do you endorse this as the president appears to be doing?' Brennan queried. Wolf continued to blame 'local officials not doing their job.'" ~~~

~~~ Tom Boggioni of the Raw Story: "In a highly contentious interview on CNN Sunday morning, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) repeatedly refused to condemn Kyle Rittenhouse, the Donald Trump fan accused of shooting and killing two Black Lives Matter protestors early this week. Speaking with 'State of the Union' host Dana Bash, Johnson repeatedly spoke over her while manically spouting out prepared comments and ignoring her questions that led the CNN host to finally cut him off." No matter what Bash asked, again and again Johnson answered, "It is a tragedy." Mrs. McC: This is what happens when staff gives the dumbest U.S. senator only one line of "response," perhaps because that was all staff thought he could remember. Bash should have booked Wisconsin's other U.S. senator, Tammy Baldwin (D), who could have spoken intelligently about the "tragedy."

Washington, D.C. Clarence Williams of the Washington Post: "Police moved in on dozens of protesters in the District early Monday, deploying a chemical irritant in the crowd and tackling some demonstrators as officers moved quickly to clear Black Lives Matter Plaza. It is unclear why police moved in on the crowd. The irritant, which was deployed shortly after midnight Sunday night, sent dozens of protesters dispersing from the corner of 16th and H streets NW. Police in helmets and riot gear were deployed along H Street outside of Lafayette Square. The large sound of the deployment could be heard for blocks. Smoke from the police munitions could be seen wafting in the air.... Two units of bike officers had pedaled into Black Lives Matter Plaza to descend on demonstrators.... Officers were seen tackling fleeing demonstrators and swinging their bikes at people as they appeared to take several protesters into custody and shove others away from the plaza."

Presidential Race, Etc.

Natasha Korecki & Christopher Cadelado of Politico write that Joe Biden is being "forced to play on Trump's turf" because of events in Portland, Oregon, & Kenosha, Wisconsin. Mrs. McC: But the pretense of the story seems to be that Trump is playing fair, and that "racial unrest" is simply a current event that naturally inures to Trump's advantage because of his supposed "law & order" agenda. Even Biden's own backers, according to the report, are upset he is not going to Kenosha, as Trump is doing. However, the person they cite on the Kenosha visit is a Bernie Sanders supporter, and the person they say insists Biden must go to Arizona is a Republican. ~~~

~~~ Axios: "... Joe Biden will travel to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Monday to make an address 'on whether voters feel safe' in President Trump's America and offer his vision for a 'better future,' his campaign said in a statement.... The Biden campaign's announcement Sunday comes one day after the New York Times reported that the former vice president would be making a trip to 'condemn violence, and to note that chaos has unfolded' on Trump's watch.... Via Axios' Hans Nichols: Biden's plans to travel and directly address the violence is an indication that the campaign is worried about losing ground on the law and order issue."

Evan Semones of Politico: "Rep. Cedric Richmond, who serves as co-chairman of Joe Biden's presidential campaign, took ... Donald Trump to task on Sunday over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, race relations and a faltering economy. 'This is Trump's America. He has to own this moment,' Richmond (D-La.) said in an interview on NBC's 'Meet the Press.' 'He has to own the incompetence around coronavirus and 180,000 American deaths, almost 6 million infections, almost 38 million jobless claims. He has to own it. This is his America.'"

Trump Group Plans to Swift-Boat Biden. Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "Senior Republicans are launching a massive new super PAC this week to bolster Donald Trump's reelection in the final stretch of the campaign -- a move that comes as the president has been pummeled by Joe Biden on TV. The new organization, Preserve America, is poised to begin a $30 million advertising blitz, an amount that's likely to escalate in the weeks to come, two people familiar with the effort told Politico. The super PAC is expected to draw the support of a range of GOP megadonors, including Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus. Preserve America will be overseen by Chris LaCivita, a veteran Republican strategist who orchestrated the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth takedown of John Kerry in the 2004 presidential race."

Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "Twitter flagged a video shared by the second-ranking House Republican on Saturday as 'manipulated,' as it spliced quotes together from an activist who speaks through computer voice assistance, making it sound as though he'd convinced Joe Biden to defund police departments. 'I have lost my ability to speak, but not my agency or my thoughts,' Ady Barkan wrote to Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the House minority whip, in a Sunday tweet. 'You and your team have doctored my words for your own political gain. Please remove this video immediately. You owe the entire disability community an apology.'... [The doctored conversation] has been featured in advertising worth millions of dollars that accuses Biden of wanting to 'defund' police.... 'Though Ady would have loved Joe Biden to announce in this interview that he is in favor of defunding the police, the Vice President never said it,' Liz Jaff, the president of Barkan's Be A Hero political fund, said in a statement to CNN last month." A Hill report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: It's as if Scalise asked you two questions: (1) Do you like pumpkin pie? and (2) Do you favor genocide? You answer "Yes, absolutely," to pie, and you express horror at his second question. So Scalise attaches your pie response to the genocide question and publishes it to prove you're a homicidal maniac. But Scalise sees nothing wrong with this. According to his spokesperson, his Biden video merely had been "condensed."

Around the World, Trumpism "Is Wearing Thin." Ishan Tharoor of the Washington Post: "Last week's Republican National Convention saw a blizzard of misinformation. President Trump's acceptance speech Thursday was itself 'a tidal wave of tall tales, false claims and revisionist history,' according to The Washington Post's Fact Checker, which cited more than two dozen significant falsehoods in that address.... Trump has goaded hard-line supporters into taking violent action against protesters. All the while, the United States inches toward 200,000 coronavirus-related deaths, maintains the highest number of infection cases in the world and has seen its economy crash by a third of its GDP.... Much of the world has seen through the Trumpist mirage for quite some time.... Still, numerous commentators [around the world] hope that a Trump defeat in November may lead to a kind of restoration. A potential Biden administration would revive the United States' role in the global alliance system, meaning, for example, America's swift return to the Paris climate agreement and international efforts to transition toward a carbon-neutral economy."

Donnie Liked It! Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "On Monday night, former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle, a top fundraiser for the Trump reelection effort and girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr., delivered a booming, scenery-chewing speech at the 2020 Republican National Convention that immediately went viral.... Her critics found the speech to be over-the-top and 'strange.'... Stephen Colbert mocked the pretaped address as a series of 'very nuanced screams.'... Minutes after her speech aired on Monday evening..., Donald Trump called Guilfoyle, to effusively praise her for the address he'd just watch on TV, comparing her to Eva 'Evita' Perón, according to two people familiar with the phone conversation.... 'That was fantastic ... so amazing,' Trump said on the Monday night call. 'So much energy ... so much passion.' According to these sources, the president added that 'nobody could have done that but you,' calling her 'my Kimberly.' He told her that hers was one of the 'greatest' speeches he'd ever seen." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Evidently Guilfoyle was playing to an audience of one. Every commentator I saw on the teevee who "analyzed" the speech found it either horrifying, hilarious or both.

Chad Wolf Plays Dumb. Sanjana Karanth of the Huffington Post: "Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf claimed Sunday that he did not know the naturalization ceremony he led at the White House last week would be televised at the Republican National Convention later that day.... In an interview Sunday on ABC's 'This Week,' the DHS head argued that he believed Trump just genuinely happened to be leading a naturalization ceremony alongside him with cameras filming it at the White House during the week of the convention...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Sunday are here: "On Sunday, the United States hit yet another milestone, with six million reported cases, according to a New York Times database. ~~~

~~~ "Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, who has been under pressure from the White House to speed coronavirus treatments, said in a newspaper interview that his agency would be willing to approve a coronavirus vaccine before Phase 3 clinical trials were complete if the agency found it 'appropriate' to do so. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Juan Cole: "The US reported its sixth million coronavirus case, and deaths are headed toward 200,000. It is hard to explain just how bad the US death rate under Trump from the novel coronavirus is.... As of Sunday, Johns Hopkins reported US deaths as 183,057.... Americans under Trump are dropping dead at 88 times the rate of South Korea.... Out of 194 countries in the world, only 10 have had a worst per capita death rate than the United States. Some are also in thrall to right wing business classes, like the United Kingdom. Others are populist/fascist and also lack a proper national health system, like Brazil. Others just don't have strong governance systems, like Italy and Spain.... What explains it is that Trump is bad at his job." Emphasis original.

Laurie McGinley, et al., of the Washington Post take a deep dive into how Trump pressured the FDA into turning an emergency authorization for a convalescent plasma Covid-19 treatment into a false political claim that the treatment amounted to a "very historic breakthrough." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Rebecca Falconer of Axios: "A new Centers for Disease Control report shows 94% of people who died from COVID-19 in the U.S. had contributing health conditions.... Australian epidemiologist Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz noted in a blog post on Monday that the CDC estimates COVID-19 was the underlying cause of 95% of all deaths related to the virus. Only in 5% of deaths has it been listed as a contributing cause.... This report doesn't mean that COVID isn't as bad as we thought. It's clear from the CDC's statistics on excess deaths that more people are dying than usual, because of COVID. The fact that common pre-existing medical conditions often coincide with deadly coronavirus infections is part of what makes it scary -- not a reason to write it off." The CDC report is here. ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Sorry, Rebecca; that's way too much explaining for Donald Trump & his QAnon buddies to follow: ~~~

~~~ Daniel Dale & Jamie Gumbrecht of CNN: "Twitter on Sunday took down a tweet containing a false claim about coronavirus death statistics that was made by a supporter of the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory -- a post that ... Donald Trump had retweeted earlier in the day. The tweet -- which has been replaced with a message saying, 'This Tweet is no longer available because it violated the Twitter Rules['] -- from 'Mel Q,' copied from someone else's Facebook post, claimed that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had 'quietly' updated its numbers 'to admit that only 6%' of people listed as coronavirus deaths 'actually died from Covid,' since 'the other 94% had 2-3 other serious illnesses.' That's not what the CDC said. As of Sunday at 4 p.m. ET, Twitter had not removed a second tweet, also retweeted by the President on Sunday, that spread the same false claim.... The CDC's latest regular update to a public statistics page on the pandemic -- there was nothing especially 'quiet' about it -- said that for 6% of the deaths included in its statistics, 'Covid-19 was the only cause mentioned' on the deceased person's death certificate."

Today's Realty Chex Report. Matthew Haag of the New York Times: "Over three days in late July, a three-bedroom house in East Orange, N.J., was listed for sale for $285,000, had 97 showings, received 24 offers and went under contract for 21 percent over that price.... In the Hudson Valley, a nearly three-acre property with a pool listed for $985,000 received four all-cash bids within a day of having 14 showings. Since the pandemic began, the suburbs around New York City, from New Jersey to Westchester County to Connecticut to Long Island, have been experiencing enormous demand for homes of all prices, a surge that is unlike any in recent memory, according to officials, real estate agents and residents. In July, there was a 44 percent increase in home sales for the suburban counties surrounding the city when compared with the previous year.... At the same time, the number of properties sold in Manhattan plummeted 56 percent.... It is an exodus that analysts say is reminiscent of the one that fueled the suburbanization of America in the second half of the 20th century."

** Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "The Justice Department secretly took steps in 2017 to narrow the investigation into Russian election interference and any links to the Trump campaign, according to former law enforcement officials, keeping investigators from completing an examination of President Trump's decades-long personal and business ties to Russia. The special counsel who finished the investigation, Robert S. Mueller III, secured three dozen indictments and convictions of some top Trump advisers, and he produced a report that outlined Russia's wide-ranging operations to help get Mr. Trump elected and the president's efforts to impede the inquiry. But law enforcement officials never fully investigated Mr. Trump's own relationship with Russia, even though some career F.B.I. counterintelligence investigators thought his ties posed such a national security threat that they took the extraordinary step of opening an inquiry into them. Within days, the former deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein curtailed the investigation without telling the bureau, all but ensuring it would go nowhere." Read on. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I know some of you don't like incendiary terms, but Schmidt's report is a bombshell. I mean, "Ka-Boom." It turns out the Mueller probe was indeed a hoax but for a reason opposite to what Trump claims. The article is adapted from a book that will be published Tuesday. Edwin Rios of Mother Jones has a summary report here. ~~~

~~~ ** Jonathan Swan of Axios: "The day after President Trump fired FBI boss James Comey, the president phoned John Kelly, who was then secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, and offered him Comey's job, the New York Times' Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Michael Schmidt reports in his forthcoming book, 'Donald Trump v. The United States.'... 'But the president added something else -- if he became FBI director, Trump told him, Kelly needed to be loyal to him, and only him.... Kelly immediately realized the problem with Trump's request for loyalty, and he pushed back on the president's demand,' Schmidt writes. 'Kelly said that he would be loyal to the Constitution and the rule of law, but he refused to pledge his loyalty to Trump.'... This previously unreported conversation sheds additional light on the president's mindset when he fired Comey. Special counsel Robert Mueller never learned of this information because the president's lawyers limited the scope of his team's two-hour interview with Kelly.... In a summary of the reporting, Schmidt tells me, '... Mueller's team wanted to know whether Trump had a role in the firing of the acting FBI director Andrew McCabe and whether Trump was saying anything about prosecuting Comey....Trump was indeed discussing prosecuting [Hillary] Clinton and Comey, and [White House Counsel Don] McGahn had written a memo to Trump detailing why he should not be pressing the Justice Department for such a prosecution.'" ~~~

~~~ Jonathan Swan: "On Feb. 23, 2018, White House counsel Don McGahn sent a two-page memo to Chief of Staff John Kelly arguing that Jared Kushner's security clearance needed to be downgraded, the New York Times' Michael Schmidt reports in his forthcoming book, 'Donald Trump v. The United States.'... Schmidt reports directly from the confidential McGahn memo for the first time, describing how Kelly had serious concerns about granting Kushner a top-secret clearance in response to a briefing he had received related to the routine FBI investigation into Kushner's background.... President Trump ultimately intervened to ensure Kushner got his top-secret security clearance."

Way Beyond the Beltway

Belarus. Anton Troianovski of the New York Times: "Tens of thousands of people marched on the palace of President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus on Sunday, demanding he resign, as large-scale protests against the longtime, authoritarian leader entered their fourth week. The crowd appeared to be at least as large as those of the previous two Sundays, when estimates put the protesters' numbers at more than 100,000. The demonstrators deployed an angry, acerbic wit but virtually no violence, and for the third weekend in a row, the authorities refrained from widespread use of force or mass detentions.... Mr. Lukashenko did not come out, but his press secretary released a photograph of him in a white T-shirt and black bulletproof vest in front of the palace, clutching a rifle.... A path to unseating Mr. Lukashenko, who insists the West is fomenting the demonstrations, remains far from clear."

News Lede

Washington Post: "strong>John Thompson, the Washington native who elevated Georgetown University basketball to national prominence, earned Hall of Fame honors and carved a place in history as the first African American coach to lead his team to the NCAA championship, has died at 78."

The Commentariat -- August 30, 2020

Afternoon Update:

Elise Viebeck of the Washington Post: "Starting before 6 a.m., Trump let loose a barrage of nearly 90 tweets and retweets touting his chances for reelection, attacking Democratic state and local officials over ongoing protests and defending aggressive actions by his supporters in Portland, who appeared to be firing paintballs and pepper spray at onlookers from pickup trucks as they drove through the city streets Saturday night.'The big backlash going on in Portland cannot be unexpected after 95 days of watching and incompetent Mayor admit that he has no idea what he is doing,' Trump tweeted in response to one such video posted by New York Times reporter Mike Baker, who wrote that the Trump supporters 'shot me too.' Trump responded to a video from Saturday that appeared to show a cavalcade of hundreds of vehicles bearing pro-Trump signs and flags driving toward downtown Portland, writing: 'GREAT PATRIOTS!'... Kate Bedingfield, deputy campaign manager for Biden, said Sunday morning that Trump has incited violence as further protests against police brutality sweep the country. 'He has encouraged his supporters to go out, to be aggressive,' she said on 'Fox News Sunday.'" ~~~

~~~ Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Trump unleashed an especially intense barrage of Twitter messages overnight and Sunday morning, embracing fringe conspiracy theories claiming that the coronavirus death toll has been exaggerated and that street protests are actually an organized coup d'état against him.... In the weekend blast of Twitter messages, Mr. Trump also embraced a call to imprison Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, threatened to send federal forces against demonstrators outside the White House, attacked CNN and NPR, embraced a supporter charged with murder, mocked his challenger, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and repeatedly assailed the mayor of Portland, even posting the mayor's office telephone number so that supporters could call demanding his resignation."

~~~ Allan Smith of NBC News: "... Donald Trump praised a pro-Trump caravan of activists who moved into Portland, Oregon, on Saturday and whose presence there appeared to contribute to violent clashes in the city.... In a lengthy statement Sunday afternoon, 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden condemned violence in Portland as 'unacceptable' but called on Trump to stop 'fanning the flames of hate and division in our society and using the politics of fear to whip up his supporters.... As a country, we must condemn the incitement of hate and resentment that led to this deadly clash,' Biden said, adding, 'What does President Trump think will happen when he continues to insist on fanning the flames of hate and division in our society and using the politics of fear to whip up his supporters? He is recklessly encouraging violence[.]'"

Chad Wolf Plays Dumb. Sanjana Karanth of the Huffington Post: "Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf claimed Sunday that he did not know the naturalization ceremony he led at the White House last week would be televised at the Republican National Convention later that day.... In an interview Sunday on ABC's 'This Week,' the DHS head argued that he believed Trump just genuinely happened to be leading a naturalization ceremony alongside him with cameras filming it at the White House during the week of the convention...."

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Sunday are here: "Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, who has been under pressure from the White House to speed coronavirus treatments, said in a newspaper interview that his agency would be willing to approve a coronavirus vaccine before Phase 3 clinical trials were complete if the agency found it 'appropriate' to do so."

Laurie McGinley, et al., of the Washington Post take a deep dive into how Trump pressured the FDA into turning an emergency authorization for a convalescent plasma Covid-19 treatment into a false political claim that the treatment amounted to a "very historic breakthrough."

** Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "The Justice Department secretly took steps in 2017 to narrow the investigation into Russian election interference and any links to the Trump campaign, according to former law enforcement officials, keeping investigators from completing an examination of President Trump's decades-long personal and business ties to Russia. The special counsel who finished the investigation, Robert S. Mueller III, secured three dozen indictments and convictions of some top Trump advisers, and he produced a report that outlined Russia's wide-ranging operations to help get Mr. Trump elected and the president's efforts to impede the inquiry. But law enforcement officials never fully investigated Mr. Trump's own relationship with Russia, even though some career F.B.I. counterintelligence investigators thought his ties posed such a national security threat that they took the extraordinary step of opening an inquiry into them. Within days, the former deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein curtailed the investigation without telling the bureau, all but ensuring it would go nowhere." Read on. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I know some of you don't like incendiary terms, but Schmidt's report is a bombshell. I mean, "Ka-Boom." It turns out the Mueller probe was indeed a hoax but for a reason opposite to what Trump claims. The article is adapted from a book that will be published Tuesday. Edwin Rios of Mother Jones has a summary report here.

~~~~~~~~~~

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Saturday are here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Carl Zimmer of the New York Times: "On Feb. 26, 175 executives at the biotech company Biogen gathered at a Boston hotel for the first night of a conference. At the time, the coronavirus seemed a faraway problem, limited mostly to China. But the virus was right there at the conference, spreading from person to person. A new study suggests that the meeting turned into a superspreading event, seeding infections that would affect tens of thousands of people across the United States and in countries as far as Singapore and Australia. The study, which the authors posted online on Tuesday and has not yet been published in a scientific journal, gives an unprecedented look at how far the coronavirus can spread given the right opportunities."

Black Lives Matter

Oregon. Trump Supporters Bring Deadly Violence to Portland. Mike Baker of the New York Times: "A man was shot and killed Saturday as a large group of supporters of President Trump traveled in a caravan through downtown Portland, Ore., which has seen nightly protests for three consecutive months. The pro-Trump rally drew hundreds of trucks full of supporters into the city. At times, Trump supporters and counterprotesters clashed on the streets, with people shooting paintball guns from the beds of pickup trucks and protesters throwing objects back at them. A video that purports to be of the shooting, taken from the far side of the street, showed a small group of people in the road outside what appears to be a parking garage. Gunfire erupts, and a man collapses in the street. The man who was shot and killed was wearing a hat with the insignia of Patriot Prayer, a far-right group based in Portland that has clashed with protesters in the past." ~~~

~~~ Faiz Siddiqui of the Washington Post: "Earlier in the evening, skirmishes between pro-Trump rallygoers and BLM supporters in downtown Portland left multiple people injured. The sparring groups threw punches at one another and hurled debris between vehicles, and some groups broke into open fighting in the street. Trump supporters in trucks were at one point blocked in by the Black Lives Matter activists, and began exiting their vehicles, precipitating the violence. Blood was streaming down the face of one Trump supporter who had challenged an activist to a fight." An Oregonian story is here. ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Although one might think the shooter was part of the anti-Trump crowd since the victim was a Trump supporter, none of the reports hints of that. It's quite possible that the shooter was among the Trump supporters. But there's no way to know right now.

Wisconsin. Jill Colvin of the AP: "... Donald Trump will travel to Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Tuesday, amid fury over the police shooting of Jacob Blake in the back, which left the 29-year-old Black man paralyzed. White House spokesman Judd Deere told reporters aboard Air Force One on Saturday that Trump will be meeting with law enforcement officers and 'surveying' some of the damage from recent protests that turned destructive. The visit is certain to exacerbate tensions in the city, where a crowd of about 1,000 demonstrators gathered outside a courthouse Saturday to denounce police violence. Trump has been running his reelection campaign on a law-and-order mantle, denouncing protesters as 'thugs' while voicing his support for police." ~~~

     ~~~ "100% Real." Mrs. McCrabbie: By contrast, here's one thing Joe Biden did last week in response to the killing of Jacob Blake. Clare Proctor of the Chicago Sun-Times (Aug. 26): "Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and running mate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., talked to Jacob Blake's parents and one of his sisters for about an hour Wednesday, his father told the Sun-Times. Biden brought nothing but 'love, admiration, caring' and empathy to the phone call, Jacob Blake's father said. He added that Biden told them he understands what it's like to undergo family tragedies -- Biden's first wife and daughter died in a car crash in 1972, and Biden's son Beau died of brain cancer in 2015. 'All he did was offer his support,' the elder Jacob Blake said. 'He was 100% real.'" Donald Trump has not contacted the family.

** Bill Conroy in Medium: "The Trump administration's deployment of federal law enforcers in Portland, Oregon ... has resulted in abuses of authority and the unnecessary use of violence against peaceful protesters, journalists and observers. What has not been reported widely in the media, however, is the fact that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) unit that is coordinating the 'crowd control' effort -- an agency called the Federal Protective Service (FPS) -- is composed largely of contract security personnel. Those contractors are being furnished to FPS by major private-sector security companies like [Erik Prince's] Blackwater corporate descendant Triple Canopy as well as dozens of other private security firms. In fact, FPS spends more than $1 billion a year on these contract security guards who are authorized to conduct crowd control at federal properties, such as those in Portland. And, based on available photographic and document evidence, it appears those private contractors are now part of the federal force[.]" --s ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: So, many of those "federal law enforcement officials" aren't really federal officials after all, assuming Conroy's reporting is accurate. No wonder they were keeping their identities secret when protesters asked who they were. They're mercenaries given the power to attack Americans. As someone less delicate than I might say, "This is some scary shit." Because it is.

Arkansas. Nicole Acevedo of NBC News: "An Arkansas sheriff resigned Friday after coming under fire over a leaked racist recording. Sheriff Todd Wright of Arkansas County, about 85 miles southeast of Little Rock, resigned effective immediately on Friday during a public meeting on the incident at the county's Quorum Court, which is its governing legislative body. The meeting, which was recorded live and posted on Facebook, was held after a local news outlet, the Pine Bluff Commercial, identified Wright as the man heard in a five-minute audio recording delivering a racist rant. According to the local outlet, Wright is heard on the recording, which has been widely shared on social media, becoming upset that a woman he was with spoke to a Black person in a store. Throughout the recording, the woman refers to the man as 'Todd.' The man in the recording uses a racial slur against Black people about nine times. Wright apologized at the court meeting for any offense his recorded remarks may have caused...." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: "... any offense his remarks may have caused." Because Wright is not sure anyone would be offended by a racist rant, but you know, just in case. After all, the "woman he was with spoke to a Black person," so apparently he figured a racist diatribe was reasonable.

Presidential Race, Etc.

Katie Glueck & Sydney Ember of the New York Times: Joe Biden :took implicit aim at [GOP mis]characterization [of his positions] in his own remarks on Saturday as he swiped at Mr. Trump's calls for 'law and order' and ripped the president's record as commander in chief. Mr. Biden's comments came at a virtual gathering of the National Guard Association of the United States, a group he addressed while speaking against a backdrop of American flags, with a flag pin affixed to his suit lapel. Civil and military relations have been 'tested lately,' Mr. Biden argued, alluding to Mr. Trump's efforts earlier this summer to use federal law enforcement to 'dominate' demonstrators protesting police brutality.... Republicans in recent days have seized on renewed unrest in American cities to argue falsely that Mr. Biden wants to defund the police, an approach he opposes. 'I promise you, as president, I'll never put you in the middle of politics, or personal vendettas,' Mr. Biden said. 'I'll never use the military as a prop or as a private militia to violate rights of fellow citizens. That's not law and order....' ... On Saturday, [Biden] also got some cover on the left from Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who at once praised Mr. Biden's candidacy and policy positions and stressed the ways he and Mr. Biden 'disagree on a number of issues.'... Mr. Sanders ... went out of his way to present Mr. Biden as a moderate."

Trump & the Trumpies Lie Again & Again -- Because It Works. Eli Yokley of the Morning Consult: "... Donald Trump needed a convention bounce -- and he got one, emerging from the Republican National Convention with an improved standing against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, fueled by gains among white voters and those in the suburbs, though he still trails the former vice president nationwide. A new Morning Consult poll conducted Friday that asked 4,035 likely voters which candidate they would pick found Biden leading Trump by 6 percentage points, 50 percent to 44 percent. It marked a 4-point improvement from his standing heading into the convention on Aug. 23, when Biden led 52 percent to 42 percent. Friday's poll had a 2-point margin of error, compared with a 1-point margin of error for responses gathered among 4,810 likely voters on Aug. 23. The movement stands in contrast to voters' reaction to the Democratic National Convention held the previous week, when Biden's lead over Trump went statistically unchanged....

** Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times: Donald Trump claims he will restore "law & order," but even as he accepted the Republican nomination, he did so in front of a bunch of lawless men & women -- his acolytes who were violating the Hatch Act. ";'If you want a vision of your life under a Biden presidency, think of the smoldering ruins of Minneapolis, the violent anarchy of Portland, the bloodstained sidewalks of Chicago,' Trump warned earlier.... Of course ... [this was] Trump's America.... It's true that there has been violence and looting in some American cities.... But by any objective measure the bigger risk comes from right-wing extremists.... The anti-fascist protesters known as antifa have committed violent acts but aren't known to have ever killed anyone, while right-wing extremists have killed hundreds."

Vote as If Democracy Depends on It. Roger Cohen of the New York Times: "Increasingly, Europeans speak of the need for 'containment' of the United States if Trump is re-elected, the term coined by the U.S. diplomat George Kennan to define America's Cold War policy toward the Communist Soviet Union. That would be a shocking development, except that nothing is shocking any longer.... Europeans know how this goes. Viktor Orban, the rightist Hungarian prime minister, has established a template for the authoritarian system Trump would pursue if re-elected: neutralize an independent judiciary, demonize immigrants, claim the 'people's will' overrides constitutional checks and balances, curtail a free media, exalt a mythologized national heroism, and ultimately, like Orban or Vladimir Putin or Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan, secure a form of autocratic rule that retains a veneer of democracy while skewing the contest sufficiently to ensure it can yield only one result. In fact, of course, Trump has long since started down this road."

Dynastic Dreams. Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: "With her blond mane rippling, [Ivanka Trump] was full-on MAGA [at Thursday night's fantasy convention], shoving the amped-up Don Jr. and fortissimo Kimberly Guilfoyle out of the way and positioning herself as the heir to her father's political dynasty. The night was so Borgia, it made sense to end it with opera.... The old joke that if Trump became president, he'd slap his name on the White House almost came true during the egomania jubilee, when fireworks spelled out the name 'Trump.'... In New Hampshire on Friday night, the president considered his dynastic possibilities. 'I want to see the first woman president also,' he said, but called Kamala Harris 'not competent.' 'They're all saying, "We want Ivanka,"' he said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Jack Tapper & Zachary Cohen of CNN: "The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has informed the House and Senate Select Committees on Intelligence that it'll no longer be briefing on election security issues, a senior administration official told CNN. It'll provide written updates, the official said. The official added that other agencies supporting election security, including the Department of Justice, Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security, intend to continue briefing Congress.... The abrupt announcement is a change of course that runs counter to the pledge of transparency and regular briefings on election threats by the intelligence community. Last month, the top intelligence official for election security, Bill Evanina, reiterated a commitment to providing 'robust intelligence-based briefings on election security' to key stakeholders that include Congress, along with the political parties and presidential campaigns." Mrs. McC: There's a reason for this, and I doubt it's an innocent one. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Nicholas Fandos & Julian Barnes of the New York Times: "... the change drew complaints from lawmakers in both parties who worried the move would block their ability to question and test intelligence assessments from the executive branch at a time when they are crucial to ensuring that foreign powers do not undermine the results.... Democrats, who fear Mr. Trump's appointees have moved to color intelligence assessments for his political benefit, were particularly furious.... 'This is a shocking abdication of its lawful responsibility to keep the Congress currently informed, and a betrayal of the public's right to know how foreign powers are trying to subvert our democracy,' [Speaker Nancy Pelosi & Rep. Adam Schiff] wrote.... Senator Angus King of Maine, an independent member of the Senate Intelligence Committee who votes with the Democrats, said dry written briefings never had the breadth of information that a full question-and-answer session had. 'It is an outrage,' Mr. King said in an interview. 'It smacks of a cover-up of information about foreign interference in our elections....'" A Politico story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Edward Moreno of the Hill: "Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), acting chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said congressional oversight is facing a 'historic crisis' after the Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, notified Congress on Saturday that the intelligence community will be scaling back in-person congressional briefings on election security."

Blake Ellis & Melanie Hicken of CNN: "Jones 1 Inc. was approved for a loan of between $150,000 and $350,000 at the end of April through the federal government's Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which was set up to help struggling small businesses save jobs during the pandemic. The company, which owns a small Shell gas station and travel center in Needles, California, went on to lease 'six beautiful Trump billboards' near the border of California and Arizona.... Lamar Advertising, which leased the space to Jones 1 Inc. ... declined to provide the pricing of the specific billboards. But if they stay up through the election, which the local Republican group that inspired the billboards said is the plan, the costs could range from around $30,000 to around $120,000[.]" --s

Peter Jamison & Laura Vozzella of the Washington Post: "Kanye West's campaign is facing allegations that voters were deceived by signature gatherers circulating paperwork to qualify the rapper-entrepreneur for the Virginia ballot, the latest setback for a stumbling presidential bid that also is facing problems in other states. Two signed affidavits were submitted Friday to the State Board of Elections from registered voters who said they were duped into signing up to serve as electors for West in Virginia. In a separate account, an Alexandria woman said Saturday that a man tried to obtain her signature on one of West's petitions under false pretenses. It is unclear how the accusations ... could affect his status." ~~~

~~~ Tal Axelrod of the Hill: "Rapper Kanye West is suing the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) to get his name on the presidential ballot in the state this fall. West's lawsuit, filed in Brown County, is asking the local court there to rule that his nominating papers were submitted on time and to ensure that he and his running mate, Michelle Tidwell, appear on the ballot in November. The WEC voted by a 5-1 margin last week to turn away the rapper's petition after he missed the deadline to file his papers to appear on Wisconsin's presidential ballot by mere minutes." ~~~

~~~ AP (Aug. 27): "Rapper Kanye West sued Ohio's election chief Wednesday in an effort to be placed on the November presidential ballot after the Secretary of State deemed him unqualified as an independent candidate. West's emergency filing against Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose comes days after the election's chief rejected the nearly 15,000 signatures and other paperwork the rapper submitted earlier this month in an attempt to run for president, citing mismatched information on the signature-gathering documents."

Massachusetts Congressional Race. Edward Moreno of the Hill: "The University of Massachusetts - Amherst College Democrats apologized to Democratic Congressional candidate Alex Morse for the 'distress' and 'homophobic attacks' triggered by the letter they released earlier this month alleging inappropriate behavior. In a letter published by the school's student newspaper from UMass Amherst's College Democrats chapter, Morse, a progressive running against House Ways and Means Chair >Richard Neal (D-Mass.), was accused of using his status as Mayor of Holyoke, Mass., and a lecturer at the institution to seek relationships with students. However, The Intercept reported that the Massachusetts Democratic Party had discussed with the College Democrats ways to damage Morse's campaigns as early as October, 2019."

David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "President Trump traveled to the storm-ravaged Gulf Coast on Saturday to assess the damage from Hurricane Laura and to promise federal support for the region while also using the trip to try to show empathy toward those dealing with a disaster.... Trump toured damage in Louisiana alongside local officials, including Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) and Republicans from the state's congressional delegation, before heading to Orange, Tex., just across the border, where he was greeted by Gov. Greg Abbott (R).... Trump mostly kept to listening to and interacting with local leaders, while avoiding the type of overt political attacks he often makes during public appearances...."

Daniel Politi of Slate: "... Donald Trump on Saturday stepped up his attacks on his niece, as well as others who wrote tell-all books about him, shortly after she revealed new recordings of his sister, this time criticizing his children. 'About the only way a person is able to write a book on me is if they agree that it will contain as much bad "stuff" as possible, much of which is lies,' the president wrote aboard Air Force One. 'Even whether it's ... an unstable niece, who was now rightfully shunned, scorned and mocked her entire life, and never even liked by her own very kind & caring grandfather!'... In his tweets Saturday against those who have written books that criticize him, Trump also named his former national security adviser John Bolton and journalist Bob Woodward. Trump referred to Bolton as 'a dumb warmonger' and Woodward as 'a social pretender.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: That's funny, Donald, because a week ago, in response to an earlier release of taped recordings of conversations between Mary Trump & Maryanne Trump Barry, you said, "Every day it's something else, who cares." Who cares? You do. BTW, if you think the difference is that this time Auntie Maryanne was criticizing Trump's children, well, no. Trump does not defend Eric & Ivanka.

Elisabeth Egan of the New York Times: "Here's a look at what readers will learn on [Stephanie Winston] Wolkoff's [book Melania and Me. The first lady really doesn't care. Wolkoff quotes one of Mrs. Trump's oft-repeated lines: 'Pleasing anyone else is not my priority.'... Mrs. Trump launched Operation Block Ivanka to make sure the president's older daughter didn't steal the spotlight at the inauguration.... Mrs. Trump demanded renovations to the White House, but didn't always get her way.... The president won't eat off a plate that has been touched by a friend.... Wolkoff cites two instances when Mrs. Trump broke ranks with the president: first, on the issue of bathrooms for transgender people.... Later, she chides Mr. Trump for lifting the ban on the import of big-game trophies from Africa -- a move he made in response to pressure from his sons.... Mrs. Trump enjoys 'her game of hide-and-seek with the American public.'" ~~~

~~~ Daniel Lippman of Politico also lists some takeaways from the Winston Wolkoff book, many of which are different from Egan's.