The Commentariat -- September 5, 2018

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Tony Romm & Craig Timberg of the Washington Post: "Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter's Jack Dorsey told lawmakers on Wednesday that they are better prepared to combat foreign interference on their platforms, even as Democrats and Republicans alike expressed doubts that the social media giants had fully cleaned them up ahead of the midterm elections. Sandberg ... and Dorsey ... conveyed their message in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, almost a year after their companies told the same panel of lawmakers that Russia used inauthentic accounts to spread divisive political messages around the 2016 election. This time, though, lawmakers on the committee came equipped with a roster of fresh complaints -- from the proliferation of fake video online to the heightened need to protect privacy and combat hacking. As they testified, though, some of their most public adversaries sat behind them, including conservative media personalities like Alex Jones, the founder of the conspiracy-minded InfoWars. The presence of Jones, who had been banned from both platforms for violating rules against harassment, seemed all the more striking given a Wednesday afternoon hearing in the House, featuring Dorsey, focused on allegations that tech is biased against right-leaning users." Mrs. McC: The House interrogation will surely bring us some of that chamber's patented thuggery.

Donnie Has a BFF. John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who once called President Trump 'unfit for office,' emerged as one of his staunchest defenders in Congress in the 24 hours after the first reports about Trump's harrowing portrayal in Bob Woodward's new book. In a string of tweets and on television, Graham sought to minimize the impact of the book and lavished praise on Trump for a string of achievements, including his Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh.... 'President @realDonaldTrumps fate will be determined by the results he achieves for the American people, not by a book about the process,' Graham said in Wednesday morning tweets. 'By any reasonable measure we have one of the strongest economies in modern history, President Trump has rebuilt a broken military, and we are pushing back hard against America's enemies.'... The senator's defense of Trump came as other Southern lawmakers -- from both parties -- were voicing concerns about reporting in Woodward's book that the president had called Attorney General Jeff Sessions a 'dumb Southerner' and mocked his accent. Trump denied Woodward's account in a tweet Tuesday night." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Poor Lindsey! All of his amigos have gone -- McCain died, Lieberman quit his job, & Kelly Ayotte, briefly an amiga, got fired. All he has left is Donnie, whom he once called "the world's biggest jackass," a "kook," and "crazy." Trump, of course, took it in stride: he called "Graham an 'idiot' who is 'probably . . . not as bright, honestly, as Rick Perry' and [read] off Graham's cell phone number at one of his televised rallies."

New York Times reporters are liveblogging today's Kavanaugh hearing. ...

... Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "On Tuesday, [President Trump] took his attacks o free speech one step further, suggesting in an interview with a conservative news site that the act of protesting should be illegal. Trump made the remarks in an Oval Office interview with the Daily Caller hours after his Supreme Court nominee, Brett M. Kavanaugh, was greeted by protests on the first day of his confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill. 'I don't know why they don't take care of a situation like that,' Trump said. 'I think it's embarrassing for the country to allow protesters. You don't even know what side the protesters are on.' He added: 'In the old days, we used to throw them out. Today, I guess they just keep screaming.' More than 70 people were arrested after they repeatedly heckled Kavanaugh and senators at Tuesday's hearing. Trump has bristled at dissent in the past, including several instances in which he has suggested demonstrators should lose their jobs or be met with violence for speaking out."

State of De Nile. Mrs. McCrabbie: The Trumpentweeter is consumed this morning with the Woodward book. (Ole Bob must be right pleased.) You can check out Trump's feed here. AND there's this one: "Almost everyone agrees that my Administration has done more in less than two years than any other Administration in the history of our Country. I'm tough as hell on people & if I weren't, nothing would get done. Also, I question everybody & everything-which is why I got elected!" Just pathetic.

Even When Trump Is Right, It's for a Corrupt Reason. Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "When Nike announced this week that it would center an advertising campaign around Colin Kaepernick, the football player responsible for starting the protests, it seemed ... the president [could not] resist offering criticism.... Trump demurred.... In an interview with the Daily Caller on Tuesday, Trump ... [said,] 'I think it's a terrible message.... Nike is a tenant of mine. They pay a lot of rent.'... Is that business relationship the reason Trump has decided not to attack Nike directly over the company's embrace of Kaepernick?... That he linked his response as president to his relationship with Nike as a businessman necessarily draws new scrutiny to where a wall has been erected between those two roles.... Something kept Trump from attacking Nike and scoring points with his base (a base which, we'll note, was so incensed at Nike that people were burning their shoes).... Update: Shortly after this article was published, Trump weighed in on Nike's decision on Twitter. Instead of criticizing the company, he emphasized the purported fallout of their decision. 'Just like the NFL, whose ratings have gone WAY DOWN, Nike is getting absolutely killed with anger and boycotts...,' [Trump tweeted.]

Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "Former President Barack Obama is poised to plunge into the fray of the midterm campaign, returning to electoral politics with a frontal attack on Republican power in two states that are prime Democratic targets this fall: California and Ohio.... Mr. Obama's first public event of the midterm election will take place in Orange County, a traditionally conservative-leaning part of California where Republicans are at risk of losing several House seats. And Mr. Obama is expected to be joined by Democratic candidates from all seven of California's Republican-held districts that Hillary Clinton carried in 2016. Mr. Obama intends to campaign next Thursday in Cleveland for Richard Cordray, a former bank regulator in his administration who is the Democratic nominee for Ohio governor. Republicans have held total control of the state government since the 2010 election, and Mr. Obama helped encourage Mr. Cordray, also a former state attorney general, to seek the governorship."

If you're wondering if NYT columnist Bret Stephens is a jerk, check with Steve M.

*****

Massachusetts Primary Results. The New York Times is updating results. Republican Geoff Diehl will challenge Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D). Democrat Jay Gonzales will face Gov. Charlie Baker (R). NBC News is reporting that Ayanna Pressley (D) has upset 10-term Rep. Michael Capuano (D). Here's a NYT profile of Pressley (pub. Sept. 1). ...

... Katharine Seelye of the New York Times: "Ayanna Pressley upended the Massachusetts political order on Tuesday, scoring a stunning upset of 10-term Representative Michael Capuano and positioning herself to become the first African-American woman to represent the state in Congress. Ms. Pressley's triumph was in sync with a restless political climate that has fueled victories for underdogs, women and minorities elsewhere this election season, and it delivered another stark message to the Democratic establishment that newcomers on the insurgent left were unwilling to wait their turn. Ms. Pressley propelled her candidacy with urgency, arguing that in the age of Trump, 'change can't wait.'"

*****

Seung Min Kim, et al., of the Washington Post: "The confirmation hearing of Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh launched Tuesday as a bitter political brawl, with loud objections from Democratic senators, the arrests of dozens of protesters and questions even from some Republicans about how Kavanaugh would separate himself from President Trump, the man who chose him. But GOP senators mostly calmly defended Kavanaugh from what Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) called the Shakespearean nature of the hearing -- 'sound and fury, signifying nothing' -- confident that there were no defections from the solid Republican support Kavanaugh needs to become the court's 114th justice." ...

... Here's the New York Times' main story on the hearing, by Sheryl Stolberg & Adam Liptak. ...

... New York Times reporters liveblogged Tuesday's Kavanaugh hearings. "Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh's hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday began with a bang, as Democrats moved angrily to adjourn to consider newly released documents and protesters screamed in support. Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, called it 'mob rule.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) Also, you will want to read Akhilleus's rundown, at the end of yesterday thread, of Cory Booker's & Kamala Harris's remarks during the hearing. Something about a race for dogcatcher on the Kamchatka Peninsula. ...

... Lisa Ryan of New York has some highlights. ...

Ninety-six percent of his record is missing. -- Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), on Kavanaugh's hidden papers ...

... Lois Beckett of the Guardian: "When the father of a school shooting victim held out his hand to Donald Trump's nominee for the supreme court on Tuesday, Judge Brett Kavanaugh looked at him, then turned without saying a word and walked out. 'I put out my hand and I said: "My name is Fred Guttenberg, father of Jaime Guttenberg, who was murdered in Parkland," and he walked away,' Guttenberg said in an interview with the Guardian. The moment was captured in dramatic photographs, as well as on video from several different angles. In a statement after the incident, a White House spokesman [Raj Shah] said that 'an unidentified individual' had approached Kavanaugh as he was preparing to leave for the confirmation hearing's lunch break and that 'before the Judge was able to shake his hand, security had intervened' 'If you watch the video, you see that's not the case,' Guttenberg said. 'What the White House said was not true.'" Includes video from several viewpoints. A man who appears to be a security person intervenes, but not until after Kavanaugh frowns at Guttenberg & turns away. ...

... Chris Geidner of BuzzFeed News: "After two days of questions about how it was decided that more than 100,000 pages of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's White House work would be withheld from the Senate Judiciary Committee's review, the Justice Department took responsibility for the decision on Monday night.... The news that the documents were being kept from the public and the committee was reported on Friday night.... Lawyers for [George W.] Bush, led by William Burck of Quinn Emanuel, reviewed the documents requested and then provided the presidential records they found to the Justice Department for review.... Both career lawyers and political appointees in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel and Office of Legal Policy reviewed those documents, electronically tagging the documents that they believed should not be turned over as 'withhold for executive privilege.' Ultimately, that decision was reached with 27,110 documents, amounting to 101,921 pages." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Michael Kranish of the Washington Post has more. "The controversy over the files has been growing for weeks, as Republicans try to seat him in time for the Supreme Court term that begins in October, and Democrats seek to push the process beyond the midterm elections when they hope to regain majorities in Congress.... Many of the documents that have been shielded from disclosure come from Kavanaugh's three years as associate White House counsel. Democrats have been particularly interested in whether documents would reveal more about whether Kavanaugh played a role in developing [George W.] Bush's policy on torture."

Trump Lit

Ashley Parker & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "Hours after The Washington Post first reported several key incidents from Woodward's book, 'Fear,' the administration mounted a vigorous string of public denials, with statements from top advisers -- White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders -- as well as from Trump's former personal attorney John Dowd. Mattis called the book 'fiction,' and Sanders denounced the tome in a statement as 'nothing more than fabricated stories, many by former disgruntled employees' without disputing any of the specifics that have been reported in excerpts. Trump tweeted the statements Tuesday evening and then, without providing evidence, suggested the book's release was timed to affect the midterm elections in November.... Despite rumors for weeks that Woodward's latest project would likely paint a damning portrait of Trump and his team, the White House found itself caught ill prepared Tuesday as scenes from the book emerged. The official pushback initially was slow ... and felt pro forma.... As of Tuesday afternoon, the White House was still scrambling to procure a copy of Woodward's book.... By early Tuesday evening, Trump was furious...." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: Tuesday afternoon, Trump was already on a Twitter tear over Bob Woodward's book: "The Woodward book has already been refuted and discredited by General (Secretary of Defense) James Mattis and General (Chief of Staff) John Kelly. Their quotes were made up frauds, a con on the public. Likewise other stories and quotes. Woodward is a Dem operative? Notice timing?" He follows with statements by Mattis, Kelly & Sarah Sanders. They're here. (Scroll down the page.) ...

... He Has the Tapes. Jonathan Swan & Mike Allen of Axios: "President Trump is livid at the betrayal and stunning allegations in Bob Woodwards forthcoming 'Fear,' but limited in his ability to fight back because most of the interviews were caught on hundreds of hours of tape, officials tell Axios.... After the Washington Post posted excerpts yesterday, administration officials did little to deny specific revelations in the book, and instead spent the day speculating about Woodward's likely sources. One reason that few passages are being disputed: Woodward based the book on hundreds of hours of tapes of his interviews with current and former West Wing aides and other top administration officials." ...

Don't testify. It's either that or an orange jumpsuit. -- Attorney John Dowd, to Donald Trump, after Trump colossally flunked a mock Mueller interview ...

... The Lunatic in the White House: A (Mostly) Nonfiction Book. Philip Rucker & Robert Costa of the Washington Post: In his new book, Bob "Woodward depicts Trump's anger and paranoia about the Russia inquiry as unrelenting, at times paralyzing the West Wing for entire days.... The 448-page book was obtained by The Washington Post.... A central theme of the book is the stealthy machinations used by those in Trump's inner sanctum to try to control his impulses and prevent disasters, both for the president personally and for the nation he was elected to lead.... The ... forthcoming book ... paints a harrowing portrait of the Trump presidency, based on in-depth interviews with administration officials and other principals. Woodward writes that his book is drawn from hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand participants and witnesses that were conducted on 'deep background,' meaning the information could be used but he would not reveal who provided it. His account is also drawn from meeting notes, personal diaries and government documents." Read on. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: provides an annotated transcript of the phone call. "Bob Woodward, an associate editor at The Washington Post, sought an interview with President Trump as he was writing 'Fear,' a book about Trump's presidency. Trump called Woodward in early August, after the manuscript had been completed, to say he wanted to participate. Over the course of 11-plus minutes, Trump repeatedly claimed his White House staff hadn't informed him of Woodward's interview request -- despite also admitting Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) had told him Woodward wanted to talk. He also started the phone call by saying Woodward had 'always been fair' to him, but by the end he said the book would be 'inaccurate.'" ...

... Unfit for Office. Mark Landler & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump so alarmed his defense secretary, Jim Mattis, during a discussion last January of the nuclear standoff with North Korea that an exasperated Mr. Mattis told colleagues that 'the president acted like -- and had the understanding -- of a "fifth or sixth grader."' At another moment, Mr. Trump's aides became so worried about his judgment that Gary D. Cohn, the chief economic adviser, took a letter from the president's desk authorizing the withdrawal of the United States from a trade agreement with South Korea. Mr. Cohn told an associate that Mr. Trump never realized it was missing. These anecdotes are in a sprawling, highly anticipated new book by Bob Woodward, which depicts the Trump White House as a byzantine, treacherous, often out-of-control operation -- 'crazytown,' in the words of the chief of staff, John F. Kelly -- hostage to the whims of an impulsive, ill-informed and undisciplined president." ...

... Gabriel Pogrund of the Washington Post: "Southern Republican senators defended Jeff Sessions after an explosive new book by Bob Woodward recounted how President Trump called his attorney general a 'dumb Southerner' and mocked his accent.... Woodward writes that the president privately called Sessions a 'traitor,' saying: 'This guy is mentally retarded. He's this dumb Southerner ... He couldn't even be a one-person country lawyer down in Alabama.' The remarks are said to have come during a conversation between Trump and his former staff secretary, Rob Porter, about Sessions's decision to recuse himself from the Russian investigation.... 'The already discredited Woodward book, so many lies and phony sources, has me calling Jeff Sessions "mentally retarded" and "a dumb southerner." I said NEITHER, never used those terms on anyone, including Jeff, and being a southerner is a GREAT thing. He made this up to divide!' the president said [in a tweet Tuesday]." Pogrund cites a number of Southern senators. Their defenses of Sessions & of Southern intelligence are pretty halfhearted. ...

... Kaitlan Collins of CNN: "... Donald Trump has become increasingly exasperated in recent weeks that he wasn't interviewed by Bob Woodward ahead of the publication of his upcoming book, three sources with knowledge of the President's concern tell CNN. Trump's irritation reflects a heightened sense of unease in the West Wing about next week's release of the veteran reporter's book 'Fear: Trump in the White House,' which details life in the Trump administration. Woodward made several attempts to interview Trump, CNN is told.... But the interview never panned out.... Multiple people close to Trump have speculated that part of the reason an interview never happened was because of a policy instituted by chief of staff John Kelly after the January publication of [Michael] Wolff's 'Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,' which portrayed Trump as an ill-equipped leader who refused to read even one-page briefing papers." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... David Graham of the Atlantic: "Woodward delivers a raft of jaw-dropping anecdotes about the administration[.]... If there's an overarching theme that emerges from the new revelations, it is the depth of the mutual disgust and disrespect between the president and his top aides, which is even more extensive than was already known.... The dysfunction at the heart of Woodward's account demonstrates the paradox at the heart of the Trump White House: Everything is irreparably and disastrously broken, and yet what comes next could be even worse." ...

... Martin Longman in the Washington Monthly: "Woodward's book is further confirmation that the president is not fit to serve and that everyone who is a close witness already knows this. The Senate knows it, too, which is why I don't think they're going to be some partisan bulwark in the end. In fact, they're the most important audience for this book. They'll actually read it and discuss it, which is more than most voters will do.... If there's one bit of good news for the president in Bob Woodward's book, it's that the early publicity includes excerpts so disturbing that it will take a lot of urgently needed focus off of the confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh.... [Here's a partial excerpt:] '... When [Gary] Cohn met with Trump to deliver his resignation letter after Charlottesville, the president told him, "This is treason," and persuaded his economic adviser to stay on. [John] Kelly then confided to Cohn that he shared Cohn's horror at Trump's handling of the tragedy -- and shared Cohn's fury with Trump. 'I would have taken that resignation letter and shoved it up his ass six different times,' Kelly told Cohn, according to Woodward. Kelly himself has threatened to quit several times, but has not done so." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: I would expect Mueller's team to grab a copy of Woodward's book & check the veracity of some of these alarming stories. In the aggregate, they suggest that Donald Trump is completely unfit for office. The Mueller report should reflect that true thing. And I don't know why Mattis & Kelly, et al., haven't sat down with mike pence to have a serious talk about invoking the 25th Amendment. Maybe they have. ...

... Jeet Heer: "The willingness of Trump’s staff to subvert their commander in chief is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it's obviously useful to stop Trump most dangerous impulses from being carried out. On the other hand, not obeying the lawful order of a legitimately elected official is also a subversion of democracy. Woodward refers to it as 'an administrative coup d'etat.' If Woodward's book is accurate, the United States doesn't have a functional presidency right now." ...

... "Everyone in the White House Considers Trump an Idiot." Jonathan Chait: "... even by the high standard set by the many previous insider accounts, [Woodward's] portrait of Trump's delusional state appears to be especially harrowing.... Trump's lawyer John Dowd has likewise called his client an idiot. Somewhat more audaciously, he has argued that Trump should not have to testify to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, because the transcript would leak, and foreign leaders would see that Trump is an idiot.... Another Trump lawyer, Jay Sekulow, tried to argue to Robert Mueller that Trump could not be asked to give an interview because he is a compulsive liar. They literally explained to Mueller how they conducted a mock interview with Trump, and he was so unable to tell the truth that they considered him mentally disqualified from testifying[.]... However dumb and crazy you might think Trump is, the reality always turns out to be even worse." ...

... Tina Nguyen of Vanity Fair: "Early leaked excerpts from Bob Woodward's new book, Fear: Trump in the White House, are overflowing with the sort of new details that ought to trigger the 25th Amendment." ...

Maggie Haberman & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, will accept written answers from President Trump on questions about whether his campaign conspired with Russia's election interference, Mr. Mueller's office told Mr. Trump's lawyers in a letter, two people briefed on it said on Tuesday. But on another significant aspect of the investigation -- whether the president tried to obstruct the inquiry itself -- Mr. Mueller and his investigators understood that issues of executive privilege could complicate their pursuit of a presidential interview and did not ask for written responses on that matter, according to the letter, which was sent on Friday. Mr. Mueller did not say that he was giving up on an interview altogether, including on questions of obstruction of justice. But the tone of the letter and the fact that the special counsel did not ask for written responses on obstruction prompted some Trump allies to conclude that if an interview takes place, its scope will be more limited than Mr. Trump's legal team initially believed...."

William Saletan of Slate: "Donald Trump has a habit of incriminating himself. No one understands this better than the people who work for him. In Bob Woodward's new book..., Trump's aides reportedly describe how they've scrambled again and again to stop him from exposing the extent of his paranoia and dishonesty. But the president has thwarted them.... The author who's going to bring down Trump isn't Woodward. It's Trump.... To make [the] case [for obstruction of justice], Mueller has to show that Trump acted with 'corrupt intent.'... To prove corrupt intent definitively, you'd have to catch the president attacking the justice process specifically because it threatened him or his political allies. On Monday, Mueller received that evidence... on Twitter.... The president lambasted Sessions for allowing the Justice Department to indict two pro-Trump congressmen.... He has no plausibly innocent grounds on which to attack the indictments.... [The tweet] shows a pattern of corrupt intent that goes beyond the Russia investigation.... Legally, the tweet sheds light on a specific question: Trump's attitude toward the administration of justice. It shows that his motivation in attacking investigations is corrupt." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump's corruption was inevitable. When an irrepressible narcissist gains any degree of power, he will necessarily abuse that power. Every action under his control is made in furtherance of his self-interest. Given the great powers a POTUS has, it would have been impossible for Trump not to act corruptly. As Woodward & many others have documented, Donald Trump is not-corrupt only to the extent that others -- the courts, his staff, the Congress, the voters -- have some power over him. But he cannot emotionally accept that control, & he gets around it in every way he can. ...

... Renato Mariotti, in a New York Times op-ed: "On Monday, President Trump publicly condemned Attorney General Jeff Sessions (via Twitter, of course) for failing to quash criminal investigations of two of his political allies, both Republican representatives who are under indictment for committing serious crimes. Oddly, what is surprising is not that the president made this statement but that absolutely no one is surprised that he made it.... Mr. Trump has increasingly obstructed the special counsel's investigation in plain view, in the process politicizing both the Justice Department and F.B.I.... The stakes could not be higher. A president with the power to initiate investigations of his opponents and quash investigations of his friends could destroy the rule of law and the ability of our criminal justice system to check corruption forever. For the sake of our nation, let us hope that congressional Republicans check the president while they still can." ...

... New York Times Editors: "It long ago became clear that Mr. Trump regards federal law enforcement -- as he sees all of government -- as a political tool to advance the interests of himself and of his party (assuming those interests align, of course; if not, the party is on its own). Yet even by that debased standard, Mr. Trump's latest Twitter tantrum against Mr. Sessions, on Monday, set a new low.... 'Two long-running, Obama era, investigations of two very popular Republican Congressmen were brought to a well publicized charge, just ahead of the Mid-terms, by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department,' he wrote. 'Two easy wins now in doubt because there is not enough time. Good job Jeff.'... Mr. Trump's beef is not with Jeff Sessions or the Justice Department. He has a problem with the law -- or at least with the idea that it should apply to him and those who do his bidding. Republicans, especially Republican lawmakers, are by their silence complicit in this perversion of justice." ...

... Jonathan Chait: "Here is a threat to a specific governing norm whose value is beyond dispute. Trump objects to the indictments of two House Republicans who have been caught in blatant illegality.... A Wall Street Journal editorial earlier this year sneered, 'we're pleased to report that there hasn't been a fascist coup in Washington.' It hasn't been for lack of trying, or for lack of support from institutional Republican organs like the Journal. Indeed, despite a handful of criticisms, Republicans in Congress have largely refused to criticize Trump's demands to control the DOJ." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Actually, there has been a fascist takeover, & it emerged from the back rooms, fully-formed, on the day Antonin Scalia died. It's been playing on the teevee this week, even if only one of the leaders of the coup -- Chuck Grassley -- is performing for the cameras. As Chait points out, fascists like Putin (and I'd add McConnell) don't rush in with guns blazing to take command of the government; they pretend to be following those "norms" Chait touts, even as they undermine & eventually eliminate the norms. Don't kid yourself; getting rid of Donald Trump will not obliterate this threat to democracy. It requires a full & permanent victory over the GOP front. We are living in a fascist state right now, with all three branches of government actively participating.

... Brad Reed of the Raw Story: "The hosts of 'Fox & Friends' on Tuesday appeared visibly deflated after legal analyst Andrew Napolitano told them that ... Donald Trump's latest tweets attacking Attorney General Jeff Sessions would provide 'fodder' for special counsel Robert Mueller's probe. In particular, Napolitano turned a critical eye to Trump's tweet attacking Sessions for letting the Department of Justice file charges against Reps. Chris Collins (R-NY) and Duncan Hunter (R-CA), who were respectively indicted on charges related to inside trading and campaign finance fraud.... '... there can't be two standards: One for members of Congress -- Republican members of Congress -- and one for others. It is the duty of the Justice Department to prosecute crimes when they find them and to bring indictments when a grand jury has decided there's enough evidence there,' [Napolitano said]." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Carol Lee, et al., of NBC News: "In recent conversations with confidants..., Donald Trump has added FBI Director Christopher Wray to his list of key members of his administration whom he complains about, three people familiar with the discussions tell NBC News. Trump has criticized Wray as another figure in the Justice Department who is not protecting his interests -- and is possibly out to undermine his presidency, these people said. Trump is 'in the worst mood of his presidency and calling friends and allies to vent about his selection of (Attorney General Jeff) Sessions and Wray," said one person familiar with the president's thinking. This person said the president was particularly focused on both men over the Labor Day weekend.... ow he's increasingly grouping Wray with Sessions, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and the special counsel's Russia investigation, all subjects of relentless criticism from the president."

Nancy Scola & Ashley Gold of Politico: "Twitter said Tuesday that not even ... Donald Trump is immune from being kicked off the platform if his tweets cross a line with abusive behavior. The social media company's rules against vitriolic tweets offer leeway for world leaders whose statements are newsworthy, but that 'is not a blanket exception for the president or anyone else,' Twitter legal and policy chief Vijaya Gadde told Politico in an interview alongside CEO Jack Dorsey. Trump regularly uses Twitter to ... at times raise the specter of violence, such as when he tweeted last year that if North Korean leaders continued with their rhetoric at the time, 'they won't be around much longer!'"

Gone But Not Forgotten. Stephanie Ebbs of ABC News: "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency did not justify increased spending on former Administrator Scott Pruitt's 24-hour security detail, which grew by almost $2 million in less than a year, the EPA's watchdog said. 'Failure to properly justify the level of protective services provided to the Administrator has allowed costs to increase from $1.6 million to $3.5 million in just 11 months,' the agency's inspector general said in a long-awaited report on Pruitt's 24-hour protective detail released Tuesday." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Yvonne Sanchez & Maria Polletta of the Arizona Republic: "Gov. Doug Ducey on Tuesday publicly chose Jon Kyl, once one of the most powerful Republicans in the U.S. Senate, to succeed the late Sen. John McCain.... Kyl could be sworn in as early as Tuesday night, though Wednesday is more likely, according to a governor's aide. He has agreed to serve at least through the end of the year.... If Kyl opts to step down after the end of the session, the governor would be required to appoint another replacement." Mrs. McC: It goes without saying that Kyl will vote to confirm Kavanaugh. I think that's his main job.

Congressional Races. Brian Murphy of the Raleigh News & Observer: "North Carolina's 13 congressional districts will remain in place and so will the Nov. 6, 2018 election, a federal three-judge panel ruled Tuesday. The panel ruled last week that the districts are unconstitutional due to 'partisan gerrymandering' designed to produce 10 Republican seats. But, with the election only two months away, the plaintiffs in the case -- the North Carolina chapters of Common Cause and The League of Women Voters -- argued that it was too late to change the maps despite their victory. On Tuesday, the court agreed."

Senate Race. Texas. Todd Gillman of the Dallas Morning News: "Sen. Ted Cruz's latest effort to inflame conservatives -- a video in which Rep. Beto O'Rourke appears to express enthusiasm for flag burning -- hinges on heavy splicing and a creative interpretation of a long-winded comment. O'Rourke did not say he's 'grateful' for flag burning. Nor did he say that flag burning is 'inherently American.' But that's how the Cruz campaign portrays O'Rourke's remarks from an El Paso town hall on Friday, in a 25-second video posted on the senator's campaign page and shared through social media. The challenger's camp called it a sign that Cruz is so worried about his re-election prospects, he is willing to twist facts. The Cruz side disputes that. This was one of several attacks launched against O'Rourke on Tuesday, as Cruz backers rush to his rescue."

Gubertorial Race. Kansas. Hunter Woodall of the Kansas City Star: "Republicans in Kansas further splintered Tuesday as the last moderate member of the party to hold the governor's office in Kansas endorsed a Democrat for governor over Kris Kobach, the GOP nominee. In a statement, former Kansas governor Bill Graves said he planned to support [state] Sen. Laura Kelly in the November election. Kelly is running against Kobach and independent Greg Orman. 'Laura Kelly is the only Democrat I have ever endorsed for public office,' Graves said in the statement." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Beyond the Beltway

Bill Ruthhart of the Chicago Tribune: Chicago "Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced Tuesday morning that he will no longer seek a third term in office, signaling the end to what has been a tumultuous -- and at times transformative -- eight years in office. With First Lady Amy Rule by his side, an emotional Emanuel said the time simply had come to write a new chapter in their lives together.... Emanuel's decision marks a dramatic political reversal, as for the better part of the last year he had said he would run for a third term. The mayor, long a prolific fundraiser, had already reeled in more than $10 million toward a bid for a third term.... Emanuel weighed the decision as the murder trial of Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke is scheduled to begin this week, a high-profile case that is sure to bring about fresh scrutiny of his handling of the Laquan McDonald police shooting, in which Van Dyke shot the teen 16 times in October 2014 as he walked down a Southwest Side street holding a small folding knife."

CBS-TV Miami: "Two Chicago-area [Roman Catholic] priests were charged Monday with Lewd and Lascivious behavior and Indecent Exposure after being caught performing a sexual act inside a car parked on a Miami Beach street. According to Miami Beach Police, 39-year-old Diego Berrio and 30-year-old Edwin GiraldoCortez were in the front seat of a car performing oral sex.... When officers arrived, the police report states, the two were performing sex acts on each other 'in full view of the public passing by on Ocean Drive and the sidewalk.' It was 3:20 in the afternoon." The Chicago Archdiocese removed the priests from their pastoral positions. Mrs. McC: Not sure why these guys couldn't have sex in a hotel room, but the real crime here is that they resorted to car sex because their church doesn't allow them to have sex at home.

Way Beyond

Vikram Dodd of the Guardian: "Two Russian nationals have been named and charged over the novichok poisoning of Sergei and Julia Skripal in March in Salisbury, Wiltshire. British police and prosecutors made the announcement on Wednesday. Police said they were travelling on authentic Russian passports under the names of Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov and arrived in the UK on an Aeroflot flight days before the attack. The Crown Prosecution Service said there was enough evidence to charge them.... The two Russian suspects ... have not been charged with the later poisoning that killed Dawn Sturgess and left Charlie Rowley seriously ill, after they became unwell on 30 June at a home in Amesbury, Wiltshire." The suspects apparently have returned to Russia, which does not extradite its own nationals.

The Commentariat -- September 4, 2018

Senate confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh are scheduled to begin at 9:30 am ET today.

Massachusetts is holding primary elections today.

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Yvonne Sanchez & Maria Polletta of the Arizona Republic: "Gov. Doug Ducey on Tuesday publicly chose Jon Kyl, once one of the most powerful Republicans in the U.S. Senate, to succeed the late Sen. John McCain.... Kyl could be sworn in as early as Tuesday night, though Wednesday is more likely, according to a governor's aide. He has agreed to serve at least through the end of the year.... If Kyl opts to step down after the end of the session, the governor would be required to appoint another replacement." Mrs. McC: It goes without saying that Kyl will vote to confirm Kavanaugh.

New York Times reporters are liveblogging the Kavanaugh hearings. "Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh's hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday began with a bang, as Democrats moved angrily to adjourn to consider newly released documents and protesters screamed in support. Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, called it 'mob rule.'" ...

... Chris Geidner of BuzzFeed News: "After two days of questions about how it was decided that more than 100,000 pages of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's White House work would be withheld from the Senate Judiciary Committee's review, the Justice Department took responsibility for the decision on Monday night.... The news that the documents were being kept from the public and the committee was reported on Friday night.... Lawyers for [George W.] Bush, led by William Burck of Quinn Emanuel, reviewed the documents requested and then provided the presidential records they found to the Justice Department for review.... Both career lawyers and political appointees in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel and Office of Legal Policy reviewed those documents, electronically tagging the documents that they believed should not be turned over as 'withhold for executive privilege.' Ultimately, that decision was reached with 27,110 documents, amounting to 101,921 pages."

The Lunatic in the White House: A (Mostly) Nonfiction Book. Philip Rucker & Robert Costa of the Washington Post: In his new book, Bob "Woodward depicts Trump's anger and paranoia about the Russia inquiry as unrelenting, at times paralyzing the West Wing for entire days.... The 448-page book was obtained by The Washington Post.... A central theme of the book is the stealthy machinations used by those in Trump's inner sanctum to try to control his impulses and prevent disasters, both for the president personally and for the nation he was elected to lead.... The ... forthcoming book ... paints a harrowing portrait of the Trump presidency, based on in-depth interviews with administration officials and other principals. Woodward writes that his book is drawn from hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand participants and witnesses that were conducted on 'deep background,' meaning the information could be used but he would not reveal who provided it. His account is also drawn from meeting notes, personal diaries and government documents." Read on. ...

... Kaitlan Collins of CNN: "... Donald Trump has become increasingly exasperated in recent weeks that he wasn't interviewed by Bob Woodward ahead of the publication of his upcoming book, three sources with knowledge of the President's concern tell CNN. Trump's irritation reflects a heightened sense of unease in the West Wing about next week's release of the veteran reporter's book 'Fear: Trump in the White House,' which details life in the Trump administration.Woodward made several attempts to interview Trump, CNN is told.... But the interview never panned out.... Multiple people close to Trump have speculated that part of the reason an interview never happened was because of a policy instituted by chief of staff John Kelly after the January publication of [Michael] Wolff's 'Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,' which portrayed Trump as an ill-equipped leader who refused to read even one-page briefing papers."

Brad Reed of the Raw Story: "The hosts of 'Fox & Friends' on Tuesday appeared visibly deflated after legal analyst Andrew Napolitano told them that ... Donald Trump's latest tweets attacking Attorney General Jeff Sessions would provide 'fodder' for special counsel Robert Mueller's probe. In particular, Napolitano turned a critical eye to Trump's tweet attacking Sessions for letting the Department of Justice file charges against Reps. Chris Collins (R-NY) and Duncan Hunter (R-CA), who were respectively indicted on charges related to insider trading and campaign finance fraud.... '... there can't be two standards: One for members of Congress -- Republican members of Congress -- and one for others. It is the duty of the Justice Department to prosecute crimes when they find them and to bring indictments when a grand jury has decided there's enough evidence there,' [Napolitano said]."

Gone But Not Forgotten. Stephanie Ebbs of ABC News: "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency did not justify increased spending on former Administrator Scott Pruitt's 24-hour security detail, which grew by almost $2 million in less than a year, the EPA's watchdog said. 'Failure to properly justify the level of protective services provided to the Administrator has allowed costs to increase from $1.6 million to $3.5 million in just 11 months,' the agency's inspector general said in a long-awaited report ... released Tuesday."

Gubernatorial Race. Kansas. Hunter Woodall of the Kansas City Star: "Republicans in Kansas further splintered Tuesday as the last moderate member of the party to hold the governor's office in Kansas endorsed a Democrat for governor over Kris Kobach, the GOP nominee. In a statement, former Kansas governor Bill Graves said he planned to support [state] Sen. Laura Kelly in the November election. Kelly is running against Kobach and independent Greg Orman. 'Laura Kelly is the only Democrat I have ever endorsed for public office,' Graves said in the statement."

*****

Catherine Lucey of the AP: "... Donald Trump escalated his attacks on Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday, suggesting the Department of Justice put Republicans in midterm jeopardy with recent indictments of two GOP congressmen. In his latest broadside against the Justice Department's traditional independence, Trump tweeted that 'Obama era investigations, of two very popular Republican Congressmen were brought to a well publicized charge, just ahead of the Mid-Terms, by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department.' He added: 'Two easy wins now in doubt because there is not enough time. Good job Jeff......' The first two Republicans to endorse Trump in the Republican presidential primaries were indicted on separate charges last month: Rep. Duncan Hunter of California on charges that included spending campaign funds for personal expenses and Rep. Chris Collins of New York on insider trading. Both have proclaimed their innocence. Another blow in Trump's long-running feud with Sessions, the president's complaint fits with his pattern of viewing the Department of Justice less as a law enforcement agency and more as a department that is supposed to do his political bidding." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

The United States is not some banana republic with a two-tiered system of justice -- one for the majority and one for the minority party. These two men have been charged with crimes because of evidence, not because of who the president was when the investigations began. -- Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) ...

... Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "The tweet indicated that his attorney general should base law enforcement actions on how it could affect the president and the Republican Party's electoral success. It also seemed to indicate that electoral popularity should influence charges. A few minutes after the tweet on Sessions, Trump added a second tweet attacking former FBI director James B. Comey.... 'The Democrats, none of whom voted for Jeff Sessions, must love him now. Same thing with Lyin' James Comey. The Dems all hated him, wanted him out, thought he was disgusting - UNTIL I FIRED HIM! Immediately he became a wonderful man, a saint like figure in fact. Really sick!'" ...

... Ben Dreyfuss of Mother Jones: "With Monday's tweets, Trump united the two big political dramas -- the midterm elections and the Mueller investigation -- and made clear that he views any actions by the Justice Department through the prism of how it pertains to him, his party, and their shared fortune." ...

... Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "... Donald Trump has a proven track record of paying extremely close attention to his favorite TV shows, to the point that a Fox guest or host's televised advice can trigger him to dramatically upend his own party and team's calculated strategy and stance. These are television shows that often have more direct influence and impact on Trump than many of his senior staffers or top officials. And now, many of the president's all-time favorite hosts and media personalities are telling him, over and over again, to get rid of Attorney General Jeff Sessions as quickly as humanly possible.... For her Labor Day weekend episode of Justice With Judge Jeanine, Fox News host Jeanine Pirro dedicated her opening monologue to personally and professionally trashing Trump's attorney general as a witless 'shill' and as a pathetic enabler of supposed 'corruption by the Democrats.'" And so forth. ...

... Jonathan Swan of Axios: "With a tweet complaining that indictments of two congressmen 'by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department' put GOP seats at risk, President Trump guaranteed a confirmation minefield for any future attorney general.... A senior Justice Department official said: 'It was a very concerning tweet. It shows how POTUS thinks DOJ should be used: As a weapon against enemies and a tool to win elections.' Referring to the two congressional indictments, the official said: 'Both cases are not even close, the facts are very bad.' One of Washington's most respected Republican lawyers said: 'Like everything else, he shoots first and then asks questions later. So in his ... mind he thinks he can find someone to take the job who will be confirmable and rein in Mueller. So he'll force out Sessions and then find there's no one who will take the job who the Senate Republicans can support.'" Emphasis original. Mrs. McC: Swan is more a breathless headline peddler than an analyst, but he might be right about this.

... Gene Robinson: "President Trump's incoherence grows to keep pace with his desperation. These days, he makes less sense than ever -- a sign that this malignant presidency has entered a new, more dangerous phase.... Trump is taking a page from the playbook of totalitarian dictators: Believe only me. Reality is what I say it is. Anyone who claims otherwise is an Enemy of the People. Trump desperately wants an attorney general who will shut Mueller down. The incumbent, Jeff Sessions, cannot do so because he is recused from the matter. Republican senators who once warned Trump not to dare fire Sessions now seem resigned to the fact that Trump will do just that. It makes sense for Trump to make his move after the election. If Republicans still control Congress, he'll get away with it. If Democrats take charge, he won't. If anyone asks you what's at stake in November, tell them democracy and justice."

Trump Is Killing His Own Voters (and They Don't Live on Fifth Avenue). Ellen Knickmeyer & John Raby of the AP: "... Donald Trump picked [West Virginia] to announce his plan rolling back Obama-era pollution controls on coal-fired power plants. Trump left one thing out of his remarks, though: northern West Virginia coal country will be ground zero for increased deaths and illnesses from the rollback on regulation of harmful emission from the nation's coal power plants. An analysis done by his own Environmental Protection Agency concludes that the plan would lead to a greater number of people here dying prematurely, and suffering health problems that they otherwise would not have, than elsewhere in the country, when compared to health impacts of the Obama plan.... Nationally, the EPA says, 350 to 1,500 more people would die each year under Trump's plan. But it's the northern two-thirds of West Virginia and the neighboring part of Pennsylvania that would be hit hardest, by far, according to Trump's EPA." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Post-truth Trump/Putin convergence --safari

     ... "They're asserting that they are not constrained by reality." Mrs. McC: Watch the video. It's really good.

POtuS Trashes Labor Leader on Labor Day. Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "President Trump criticized the leader of the nation's largest union federation on Monday, escalating the feud between the administration and organized labor amid crucial negotiations for both sides over the North American Free Trade Agreement. Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, had on Sunday disputed the White House's strategy for renegotiating the NAFTA trade pact and argued that Trump had 'done more to hurt workers than to help' them since taking office. Those comments elicited a sharp counterattack from Trump, who blasted Trumka as an ineffectual leader just as union members across the country prepared for Labor Day celebrations. 'Trumka, the head of the AFL-CIO, represented his union poorly on television this weekend,' Trump said in a tweet. 'Some of the things he said were so again[s]t the working men and women of our country, and the success of the U.S. itself, that it is easy to see why unions are doing so poorly.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Justin Wise of the Hill: "'Happy Labor Day!' Trump tweeted [this morning]. 'Our country is doing better than ever before with unemployment setting record lows. The U.S. has tremendous upside potential as we go about fixing some of the worst Trade Deals ever made by any country in the world. Big progress being made!" he added." Emphasis added. Mrs. McC: But we're so poor we can't afford to give federal workers a measly COL increase because of, um, a "national emergency or serious economic conditions." (See Vox report, linked below.) (Also linked yesterday.)

Jessica Tyler of Business Insider: "Of his 590 days in office, Trump has gone to Trump properties on 196 days and Trump golf properties on 153 days, according to NBC's tracker. That adds up to 25% of his 590 days in office spent at least in part.... Trump once said that, as president, he was 'not going to have time to go play golf.' He also spent years attacking former President Barack Obama for golfing and taking vacations while in office. But during his first 100 days in office, Trump found more time for golf than than each of his last three predecessors, totaling 90 days in his first year alone, compared to Obama's one day golfing during his first year in office."

Campbell Robertson & Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "Mr. Trump rode to office in part by promising economic revival to sputtering towns across America. Economic growth has accelerated since he took office, from the final year of President Barack Obama's administration, and Mr. Trump frequently claims credit for it. But the growth under Mr. Trump has not helped everywhere. It has lifted wealthy areas ... which were already growing before he took office. And it has left the most economically troubled swaths of the country, the ones that Mr. Trump promised to revitalize, waiting for their share of the good times. The divide is pronounced between the high- and low-income counties that helped deliver Mr. Trump the White House."

AND Justice for All Some. Katie Benner of the New York Times: "Since its founding six decades ago, the Justice Department's civil rights division has used the Constitution and federal law to expand protections of African-Americans, gays, lesbians and transgender people, immigrants and other minorities -- efforts that have extended the government's reach from polling stations to police stations. But under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the focus has shifted to people of faith, police officers and local government officials who maintain they have been trampled by the federal government. The department has supported state voting laws that could wind up removing thousands of people from voter rolls. And it has pulled back on robust oversight of police departments found to have violated the rights of citizens in their jurisdictions."

David Leonhardt of the New York Times: "They sat in seats of honor, near the front of Washington National Cathedral.... By all appearances, they were honoring their departed colleague, Senator John Sidney McCain III, during a majestic ceremony on Saturday. And by doing so they were showing America that leaders of both parties reject the hateful, petty, law-defying politics of President Trump. They were showing America what a better nation could look like. But it was all an act -- a cynical, hypocritical act that McCain, who had a keen eye for hypocrisy, would have seen right through. It was an act for Mitch McConnell..., for Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House. It was an act, most jarringly, for Lindsey Graham, McCain's dear friend and the senior senator from South Carolina. It was an act for Orrin Hatch, Rob Portman and nearly all of the other Republican members of Congress who attended the service.... They have not kept faith with the principles that McCain held dear -- and that he himself organized his memorial service to celebrate, as a clear rebuke to Trump and Trumpism. McConnell, Ryan, Graham and the others have instead ... made possible Trump's hateful, petty, law-defying politics." ...

... Jonathan Chait: "After John McCain's death..., Chuck Schumer proposed another kind of tribute to the iconic senator and war hero: that the Russell Senate Office Building, currently named for a segregationist southern Democrat, be renamed for McCain. His Republican colleagues, however, demurred. They could not admit that their real reason for opposing the honor was that McCain had crossed Trump. Nor could they defend Senator Richard Russell's ardent white supremacy, which extended to denouncing laws to ban lynching. Instead, they flailed about, inventing pretexts on the fly.... Senate Republicans demonstrated their willingness to turn on a colleague out of fealty to Trump, and all the better for him that they did so out of transparent fear rather than conviction.... As Republicans' scant interest in inhibiting Trump has waned, his authoritarianism has grown more uninhibited.... As Trump plunges deeper into his war against the rule of law, the Republican Congress marches along beside him, unindicted co-conspirators all."

Paul Krugman: "... now McCain is gone, and with him, as far as we can tell, the only Republican in Congress with anything resembling a spine. As a result, if Republicans hold Congress in November, they will indeed repeal Obamacare. That's not a guess: It's an explicit promise, made by Vice President Mike Pence last week.... Republicans haven't rethought their ideas on health care (or, actually, anything else). Partly that's because the modern G.O.P. doesn't do policy analysis.... In the case of health care, however, there's an even deeper problem: The G.O.P. can't come up with an alternative to the Affordable Care Act because no such alternative exists.... Obamacare is the most conservative option for covering pre-existing conditions, and if Republicans really cared about the scores of millions of Americans with such conditions, they would support and indeed try to strengthen the A.C.A.... Do they imagine that voters are stupid? Well, yes. In recent rallies Donald Trump has been declaring that Democrats want to 'raid Medicare to pay for socialism.'"

Fred Barbash & Seung Min Kim of the Washington Post: "Hours before the start of hearings on Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court, the lawyer for former president George W. Bush turned over 42,000 pages of documents from the nominee's service in the Bush White House, angering Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, who issued what is certain to be a futile call to delay the proceedings. 'Not a single senator will be able to review these records before tomorrow,' Schumer (D-N.Y.) tweeted Monday evening.... A few hours later, a tweet from the committee said that the 'Majority staff has now completed its review of each and every one of these pages.'... The hearings are scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, with opening statements by committee members. No information was released on the subject matter of the documents, and Bush's lawyer asked that they be kept from the public...."

Counting Their Chickens. Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "House Democrats, increasingly optimistic they will win back control in November, are mining a mountain of stymied oversight requests in preparation for an onslaught of hearings, subpoenas and investigations into nearly every corner of the Trump administration. While they continue to distance themselves from the most extreme recourse -- impeaching President Trump -- senior Democrats who stand to control key House panels could soon oversee inquiries into some of the most precarious threats to Mr. Trump's presidency. Those include whether his campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the 2016 election, if the president obstructed a federal investigation into the matter and what role Mr. Trump played in paying to silence two women in the closing weeks of the campaign.... Their scrutiny could also extend beyond Mr. Trump's legal troubles to include his administration's remaking of federal regulations and other policies that the party has disagreed with."

Journalists Looking Silly

What Were They Thinking? Sopan Deb of the New York Times: "Stephen K. Bannon ... will no longer appear as a headliner at this year's New Yorker Festival, David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, announced in an email to the magazine's staff on Monday evening. The announcement followed several scathing rebukes and high-profile dropouts after the festival's lineup, with Mr. Bannon featured, was announced. Within 30 minutes of one another, John Mulaney, Judd Apatow, Jack Antonoff and Jim Carrey announced on social media that they would be pulling out of scheduled events at the festival. Right around the time when Mr. Remnick announced the cancellation..., Patton Oswalt did the same.... The backlash was not limited to would-be festival attendees. The writer Roxane Gay announced that she would no longer be writing an in-progress essay that had been commissioned by the magazine." ...

... Brian Stelter of CNN in Medium, publishes David Remnick's memo to staff. Mrs. McC: It may add to public discourse to speak with someone who holds different views from yours, but only if that person offers honest arguments. Bannon -- besides being a racist nationalist -- is a malevolent shape-shifter, & there's no benefit to anyone in hearing his propaganda. ...

... Update. Steve M. "... Bannon ... bamboozles listeners ... with a firehose spew of words that sound reasonably intelligent but mostly serve as a delivery system for (a) white nationalism and (b) self-promotion. The former is reason enough not to invite him, but so is the latter. Here's a guy who lost his powerful government job, who lost his Mercer family financing, and who is now going from interviewer to interviewer looking for a way to shoehorn himself back into the public consciousness. If his racism isn't enough reason to give him a wide berth, then his current irrelevance ought to be the deciding factor. He was a noxious presence in our political life, but now he's out of the picture -- except that he's desperate to be a noxious presence again. Why help him?... I don't want to help him fulfill either of these needs. I don't know why the hell David Remnick wanted to."

John Koblin of the New York Times: "The discord between NBC News and Ronan Farrow went public on Monday night. At 7 p.m., Andrew Lack, the chairman of NBC News, sent an email to network staff members arguing that Mr. Farrow's reporting last year on the film mogul Harvey Weinstein was not 'fit for broadcast.' Hours later, Mr. Farrow fired back at his ex-boss with a pointed statement that took issue with Mr. Lack's version of events. Mr. Farrow, while working on contract for NBC, spent eight months reporting on the alleged transgressions of Mr. Weinstein -- only to end up publishing an award-winning series centered on the film executive and his many accusers in The New Yorker magazine. Since then, people in media and entertainment have wondered why the network allowed the reporter to go out the door with the makings of such a big story." Mrs. McC: Looks like a war without winners, except to the extent it raises Farrow's profile.

Medlar's Sports Report. Darren Rovell of ESPN: "Colin Kaepernick ... the former NFL quarterback, who is suing NFL owners for allegedly colluding to keep him out of the league, is one of the faces of a new Nike campaign meant to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the brand's iconic 'Just Do It' motto.... The new ad, which Kaepernick shared on social media Monday afternoon, features the message: 'Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.'"

Way Beyond the Beltway

Thomas Maresca in USA Today: "Two Reuters journalists were sentenced to seven years in prison on Monday in Myanmar, convicted of possessing state secrets in a case that many supporters believe was retribution for their reporting on a massacre of 10 Rohingya men by security forces in 2017. The reporters, Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were investigating a September 2017 attack at Inn Din village in Myanmar's violence-plagued Rakhine State. They were arrested on December 12 and accused of obtaining classified documents under the Colonial-era 1923 Official Secrets Act. The pair, both Myanmar nationals, pleaded not guilty to the charges, which carried a maximum penalty of 14 years. Both claimed they had been set up, telling the court they had been given documents by police relating to their investigation and then were arrested by plainclothes policeman. During the trial, a police captain testified that he had witnessed the plot to entrap the reporters by planting the documents on them. The defense is able to appeal the decision to regional court and Myanmar's supreme court."

The Commentariat -- September 3, 2018

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Catherine Lucey of the AP: "... Donald Trump escalated his attacks on Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday, suggesting the Department of Justice put Republicans in midterm jeopardy with recent indictments of two GOP congressmen. In his latest broadside against the Justice Department's traditional independence, Trump tweeted that 'Obama era investigations, of two very popular Republican Congressmen were brought to a well publicized charge, just ahead of the Mid-Terms, by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department.' He added: 'Two easy wins now in doubt because there is not enough time. Good job Jeff......' The first two Republicans to endorse Trump in the Republican presidential primaries were indicted on separate charges last month: Rep. Duncan Hunter of California on charges that included spending campaign funds for personal expenses and Rep. Chris Collins of New York on insider trading. Both have proclaimed their innocence. Another blow in Trump's long-running feud with Sessions, the president's complaint fits with his pattern of viewing the Department of Justice less as a law enforcement agency and more as a department that is supposed to do his political bidding."

Trump Is Killing His Own Voters (and They Don't Live on Fifth Avenue). Ellen Knickmeyer & John Raby of the AP: "... Donald Trump picked [West Virginia] to announce his plan rolling back Obama-era pollution controls on coal-fired power plants. Trump left one thing out of his remarks, though: northern West Virginia coal country will be ground zero for increased deaths and illnesses from the rollback on regulation of harmful emission from the nation's coal power plants. An analysis done by his own Environmental Protection Agency concludes that the plan would lead to a greater number of people here dying prematurely, and suffering health problems that they otherwise would not have, than elsewhere in the country, when compared to health impacts of the Obama plan.... Nationally, the EPA says, 350 to 1,500 more people would die each year under Trump's plan. But it's the northern two-thirds of West Virginia and the neighboring part of Pennsylvania that would be hit hardest, by far, according to Trump's EPA."

POtuS Trashes Labor Leader on Labor Day. Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "President Trump criticized the leader of the nation's largest union federation on Monday, escalating the feud between the administration and organized labor amid crucial negotiations for both sides over the North American Free Trade Agreement. Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, had on Sunday disputed the White House's strategy for renegotiating the NAFTA trade pact and argued that Trump had 'done more to hurt workers than to help' them since taking office. Those comments elicited a sharp counterattack from Trump, who blasted Trumka as an ineffectual leader just as union members across the country prepared for Labor Day celebrations. 'Trumka, the head of the AFL-CIO, represented his union poorly on television this weekend,' Trump said in a tweet. 'Some of the things he said were so again[s]t the working men and women of our country, and the success of the U.S. itself, that it is easy to see why unions are doing so poorly.'" ...

... Justin Wise of the Hill: "'Happy Labor Day!' Trump tweeted [this morning]. 'Our country is doing better than ever before with unemployment setting record lows. The U.S. has tremendous upside potential as we go about fixing some of the worst Trade Deals ever made by any country in the world. Big progress being made!" he added." Emphasis added. Mrs. McC: But we're so poor we can't afford to give federal workers a measly COL increase because of, um, a "national emergency or serious economic conditions." (See Vox report, linked below.)

Post-truth Trump/Putin convergence --safari

*****

** Steven Greenhouse in a New York Times op-ed: "Donald Trump promotes himself as a friend of 'forgotten' workers, but in ways large and small his administration has undermined what has traditionally been the biggest champion of workers: labor unions." Greenhouse counts a few of the ways. Thanks to PD Pepe for the link.

Emily Stewart of Vox: "Just ahead of Labor Day weekend..., Donald Trump announced he would freeze the salaries of some 2 million federal workers next year. After outcry, Trump said he'd use the long weekend to 'study' the matter. Thus far, he's spent much of the long weekend on the golf course and rage tweeting about Canada, the Department of Justice, the Russia investigation, his approval ratings, and Tiger Woods.... Trump in remarks in Charlotte, North Carolina on Friday seemed aware of the backlash.... 'People don't want to give them an increase. They haven't had one in a long time,' he said. 'I said, "I'm going to study that over the weekend. It's a good time to study it -- Labor Day."'... Trump's decision to freeze pay, especially when you look at his explanation that it's tied to 'national emergency or serious economic conditions' compared to his usual rhetoric celebrating the strength of the US economy, doesn't seem to add up.... New government data this week showed the economy grew by 4.2 percent in the second quarter -- something Trump's bragged about a lot. Republicans just passed a huge tax cut, insisting that it would translate to an economic boom. The administration said the tax bill would deliver an average $4,000 pay boost to American household annually. It hasn't yet materialized for workers.... If Trump does reverse course, it will be to address an immediate problem of his own making.” Thanks to Akhilleus for the lead. ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Actually, his "study" is a political expediency. Even white nationalist Senate candidate Corey Stewart (R-Va.) "trusts" Trump will fix "Obama'" pay freezes. (Tweet embedded in Stewart's story."

Trump's Harsh Immigration Policies Are Good for ... Canada. Nelson Schwartz & Steve Lohr of the New York Times: "The Trump administration is using the country's vast and nearly opaque immigration bureaucracy to constrict the flow of foreign workers into the United States by throwing up new roadblocks to limit legal arrivals. The government is denying more work visas, asking applicants to provide additional information and delaying approvals more frequently than just a year earlier. Hospitals, hotels, technology companies and other businesses say they are now struggling to fill jobs with the foreign workers they need.... Seasonal industries like hotels and landscaping are having to turn down customers or provide fewer services. Corporate executives worry about the long-term impact of losing talented engineers and programmers to countries like Canada that are laying out the welcome mat for skilled foreigners."

Jeff Toobin, in the New Yorker, profiles Rudy Giuliani, concentrating on his role as Trump's lawyer, or as the headline writer (and the illustrator Barry Blitt) puts it, "Trump's clown": "He has, in effect, become the legal auxiliary to Trump's Twitter feed, peddling the same chaotic mixture of non sequiturs, exaggerations, half-truths, and falsehoods. Giuliani, like the President, is not seeking converts but comforting the converted.... At times, Giuliani's arguments have verged on thuggish irrationality." A pleasant read if you can stomach reading about Rudy.

Matthew Rosenberg, et al., of the New York Times: Accused Russian operative Maria Butina -- who "had no experience in the oil business" -- tried to put together a huge deal for the sale of Russian jet fuel in the U.S. "Ms. Butina's efforts to deal in Russian jet fuel, detailed in hundreds of pages of previously unreported emails, were notable ... for who they involved: David Keene, a former president of the National Rifle Association and a prominent leader of the conservative movement, who has advised Republican candidates from Ronald Reagan to Mitt Romney. They also involved Mr. Keene's wife, Donna, a well-connected Washington lobbyist, and Ms. Butina's boyfriend, Paul Erickson, who ran Patrick J. Buchanan's 1992 presidential campaign and who moved in rarefied conservative circles despite allegations of fraud in three states." There were others involved in the odd scheme, as well. "All of them seemed out of their depth, each projecting confidence and deep knowledge of the jet fuel business while seeming not to grasp the basics." Butina apparently tried using her feminine wiles to secure Russian backers. Mrs. McC: These are not very bright people.

Avery Anapol of the Hill: "Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort]s daughter has filed paperwork to officially change her last name, a move that would distance herself from her father, a convicted felon. Jessica Manafort filed name-change paperwork in the Manhattan Supreme Court on Friday, according to multiple reports. She is seeking to take her mother's maiden name, Bond.... 'I am a passionate liberal and a registered Democrat and this has been difficult for me,' she told the [Los Angeles Times]."

John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "As his legal troubles have deepened in recent weeks, the President's anti-media rhetoric has become even more inflammatory and personal.... Some of Trump's associates are open about the fact that his effort to discredit the media, which in recent days has expanded to attacking tech companies like Google, is now central to his survival strategy. But political expediency provides no excuse whatsoever for demonizing journalists and describing them as the public enemy. That is the language of dictators and despots." Cassidy reprises some of Trump's recent remarks & details some murderous threats Americans have made against members of the press.

Diplomacy in the Age of a POtuS* Who Is a Crude, Racist Bigot. Gardiner Harris of the New York Times: "... few [irritants] have been as perplexing to New Delhi, or left as bitter a taste, as President Trump's tendency to mock Prime Minister Narendra Modi's accent in English. A video of Mr. Trump imitating Mr. Modi has gone viral in New Delhi. So have reports that Mr. Trump often mimics his Indian counterpart in internal discussions. 'There's a general understanding here that Modi is not sure he can do business with Trump,' said Suhasini Haidar, foreign affairs editor of The Hindu. 'India is just now coming to terms with the idea that Trump will not treat India with the same kind of benevolence that previous presidents have.' This is the diplomatic headache that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will confront when he arrives in the Indian capital on Wednesday with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. Tiptoeing around the president's indiscretions is one in a suddenly long list of challenges to a relationship that, according to senior State Department officials, Mr. Pompeo would very much like to preserve -- and even improve."

"Bloody Battle in Affghanistan" -- Herman Melville, Moby Dick. Mujib Mashal of the New York Times: General John W. Nicholson Jr., the commander of the American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said, "'It is time for this war in Afghanistan to end.'... The general called on the Taliban to 'stop killing your fellow Afghans,' but he also referred indirectly to regional players -- particularly Pakistan, where the militants enjoy sanctuary -- who have complicated the fight.... His departure [from Afghanistan] comes as the war seems to spiral deadlier even as it recedes from American attention -- General Nicholson did not meet once with President Trump in the 20 months since he moved into the White House.... Like his predecessor, John F. Campbell, General Nicholson is likely to retire immediately, a diplomat with ties to the general said, a sign that the posting is no longer a springboard to more senior roles...."

Thomas Gibbons-Neff & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "The Pentagon is considering withdrawing nearly all American commandos from Niger in the wake of a deadly October ambush against a Green Beret team that killed four United States soldiers. Three Defense Department officials said the plans, if approved by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis would also close military outposts in Tunisia, Cameroon, Libya and Kenya, as well as seven of the eight American elite counterterrorism units operating in Africa. The shift in forces is part of the Pentagon's defense strategy to focus on threats from China and Russia. But they represent a more severe cut of Special Operations forces in Africa than initially expected, leaving a lasting, robust military presence primarily in Somalia and Nigeria."

Alayna Treene of Axios: "Omarosa taped nearly every conversation she had while working in the White House, including ones with 'all of the Trumps,' a source who watched her make many of the tapes tells Axios. Omarosa did this with a personal phone, almost always on record mode."

Emily Birnbaum of the Hill: "After a week of emotional and bipartisan celebrations commemorating the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the Senate giant has been laid to rest at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. McCain ... was buried in a plot of land next to his Naval Academy classmate and lifelong friend Adm. Chuck Larson, who died of leukemia in 2014, the Associated Press reported. Mourners and the senator's family walked behind a horse-drawn caisson carrying his casket from the Naval Academy chapel to the cemetery after the ceremony, the AP reported. Students from McCain's 1958 graduating class also joined. McCain's son Jack McCain, Gen. David Petraeus and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) delivered remarks at the private ceremony."

Senate Race. Texas. Avery Anapol: "Activists in Texas have raised thousands of dollars to place an anti-Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) billboard in the state. A GoFundMe page organized by USA Latinx, a political group focused on supporting Latinx candidates, topped its $6,000 fundraising goal, raising nearly $10,000 in less than 24 hours. Parkland, Fla., school shooting survivor and gun control advocate David Hogg and Claude Taylor, the chairman of the liberal Mad Dog PAC, helped promote the effort on social media.... The proposed sign will feature a February 2016 tweet from Trump...[:] 'Why would the people of Texas support Ted Cruz when he has accomplished absolutely nothing for them,' Trump's tweet reads. 'He is another all talk, no action pol!'"

Congressional Races. Why Not to Go to a Seahawks Game. Jim Brunner of the Seattle Times: "Billionaire Seahawks owner and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen this year has made his largest-ever foray into congressional politics, donating $100,000 to a group aiming to keep Republicans in control of the U.S. House of Representatives."

Gubernatorial Race. Florida. Courtesy of Cleve Wootson of the Washington Post, here's some of the text of that racist robo-call against Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew Gillum that the Tallahassee Democrat refused to publish in a story we linked last week: 'Well, hello there,' the call begins as the sounds of drums and monkeys can be heard in the background.... 'I is Andrew Gillum. We Negroes ... done made mud huts while white folk waste a bunch of time making their home out of wood an' stone.' The speaker goes on to say he'll pass a law letting African Americans evade arrest 'if the Negro know fo' sho' he didn't do nothin'.'... In a statement emailed to The Washington Post, Gillum's spokesman, Geoff Burgan said: 'This is reprehensible -- and could only have come from someone with intentions to fuel hatred and seek publicity. Please don't give it undeserved attention.'" The campaign of Gillum's GOP opponent also has condemned the call.

Presidential Election 2020. Axios: "An 'exhaustive review' of Sen. Elizabeth Warren's professional history by the Boston Globe found that her claim to Native American ancestry was never a consideration during her hiring process for Harvard Law School or throughout her rise in the legal profession." The Globe story is firewalled, but click on the link if you're a subscriber. Mrs. McC: I'm sure Trump will quit calling Warren "Pocahontas" now. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Beyond the Beltway

** David Roberts of Vox: "California is one signature away from committing to 100 percent clean electricity. If it does so, it will become the most significant political jurisdiction in the world to take that step, by a wide margin. (It is the world's fifth-largest economy!) The state is on the verge of making history -- again. SB 100, the bill sponsored by state Sen. Kevin de León, would set a target of 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2045. It passed the California Senate last year, passed the state Assembly on Tuesday, and was reconciled by the Senate on Thursday. All that remains is a signature from Gov. Jerry Brown." --safari

Adam Peck of ThinkProgress: "Lawmakers in California passed new legislation that will restore virtually all of the net neutrality protections first introduced during the Obama administration. The bill is the most sweeping state legislation since current FCC chairman Ajit Pai led a campaign to repeal those Obama-era regulations.... Predictably, the industry's largest lobbying group came out forcefully against California's new bill, which now goes to the desk of Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown for his signature or veto. He has yet to indicate whether he will sign the measure." --safari

Way Beyond

Dom Phillips of the Guardian: "Brazil's oldest and most important historical and scientific museum has been consumed by fire, and much of its archive of 20m items is believed to have been destroyed.... 'It was the biggest natural history museum in Latin America. We have invaluable collections. Collections that are over 100 years old,' Cristiana Serejo, one of the museum's vice directors [said].... Luiz Duarte, another vice-director ... said that governments were to blame for failing to support the museum and letting it fall into disrepair. At its 200th birthday in June, not one state minister appeared.... Duarte also said that the museum had just closed a deal with the Brazilian government's development bank, BNDES, for funds that included a fire prevention project. 'This is the most terrible irony,' he said." --safari

Benjamin Haas of the Guardian: "South Korea's capital and largest city, Seoul, is set to begin daily checks for hidden cameras in public toilets in response to growing public outrage over an epidemic of 'spy-cam porn'. South Korea is in the middle of a battle against videos secretly filmed in places such as toilet stalls and changing rooms. Police have said more than 26,000 victims between 2012 and 2016 have been identified, but many cases go unreported.... But experts and activists have criticised sweeps of public bathrooms, saying they were little more than a show and most cameras were installed in homes and offices." --safari ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Wait, wait. They're installing spy-cams to spy on people who installed spy-cams? Okaaaay.