The Commentariat -- August 28, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Isaac Arnsdorf of Politico: "'We have a psychopath running for president,' David Plouffe said in an interview on NBC News' 'Meet the Press'.... 'I mean, he meets the clinical definition, OK?' After [host Chuck] Todd pushed back that Plouffe isn't a psychologist and that such claims frustrate voters, Plouffe elaborated, 'The grandiose notion of self-worth, pathological lying, lack of empathy and remorse. So I think he does; right, I don't have a degree in psychology.'" -- CW

MAG says Driftglass has all the BEST words. Yes he does:

Here's Today's Entry. Paulina Firozi of the Hill: "... Donald Trump shared a tweet that tied his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, to the Ku Klux Klan.... The tweet was a reference to the late West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd (D), who was a former KKK member. In 2010, Clinton mourned his death and said Byrd was 'a true American original, my friend and mentor,' CNN reported." -- CW ...

... Dan Evon of Snopes: "Robert Byrd was a member of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1940s and helped establish the hate group's chapter in Sophia, West Virginia. However, in 1952 Byrd avowed that 'After about a year, I became disinterested [in the KKK], quit paying my dues, and dropped my membership in the organization,' and throughout his long political career (he served for 57 years in the United States Congress) he repeatedly apologized for his involvement with the KKK.... In 2010, even the NAACP released a statement honoring Senator Byrd and mourning his passing: 'Senator Byrd reflects the transformative power of this nation,' stated NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous. 'Senator Byrd went from being an active member of the KKK to a being a stalwart supporter of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and many other pieces of seminal legislation that advanced the civil rights and liberties of our country.'" -- CW

Isaac Arnsdorf: Donald Trump's new campaign manager on Sunday moved to clarify his new immigration policy, focusing on 'being fair and humane' instead of deporting all undocumented immigrants. The new plan is, 'if you want to be here legally, you have to apply to be here legally,' Kellyanne Conway told John Dickerson on CBS News' 'Face the Nation.'... That's a clear break from Trump's earlier position, which emphasized removing everyone who was in the country illegally, regardless of their individual circumstances. Conway said Trump's new stance wouldn't cost him voters who were drawn to that hard line because 'this isn't just a referendum on Donald Trump's immigration policy, you have to contrast him to Hillary Clinton's.'" CW: Wait for Trump to contradict her in a tweet. ...

... Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus announced Sunday that Donald Trump ... will deliver prepared remarks clarifying his views on immigration. 'You're going to find out from Donald Trump very shortly. He's going to be giving prepared remarks on this issue, I think very soon,' Priebus told Chuck Todd, host of NBC's 'Meet the Press.' 'His position is going to be tough. His position is going to be fair. His position is going to be humane,' he said." CW: Wait for Trump to contradict him in an ad lib.

*****

Presidential Race

Debate Prep. Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "Hillary Clinton is methodically preparing for the presidential debates.... She pores over briefing books thick with policy arcana and opposition research. She internalizes tips from the most seasoned debate coaches in her party. And she rehearses, over and over again, to perfect the pacing and substance of her presentation. Donald Trump ... summons his informal band of counselors -- including ... Rudy Giuliani, talk-radio host Laura Ingraham and ... Roger Ailes -- to his New Jersey golf course for Sunday chats. Over bacon cheeseburgers, hot dogs and glasses of Coca-Cola, they test out zingers and chew over ways to refine the Republican nominee's pitch.... Trump is not holding any mock debates, proudly boasting that a performer with his talents does not need that sort of prepping." -- CW

It's Sunday, so it must be MoDo complaining about Hillary Clinton. This week, she uses as preamble Trump's bad week (a lot like his other bad weeks), only to pivot to "But Hillary does not have a normal opponent. She has one who manages to self-destruct in every news cycle. So instead she was soaring above her own paranoia and mocking Trump's paranoia, soaring above her egregious messes and gamboling through Trump's egregious messes." -- CW

David Folkenflik of NPR: Hillary Clinton has not exactly been dodging the press, as both members of the media and the usual suspects allege: she has done 350 interviews in the first seven months of the year, though a good percentage were not with "professional journalists," and quite a number were with local media. "Clinton [also] has entertained questions a dozen times in so-called gaggles with the reporters who travel with her. Only in rare moments does she grant them individual interviews. Clinton also participated in nine town-hall sessions..., at which she took questions from journalists and members of the public." CW: But, but she hasn't let Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity harangue her!

We are going to get rid of the criminals and it's going to happen within one hour after I take office, we start, okay? -- Donald Trump, in Iowa, Saturday

I guess that means there would be no time for an inaugural speech or a parade. -- Constant Weader ...

... Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: In a speech at the Iowa State Fairgrounds Saturday, Donald Trump added some detail to his immigration plan Saturday. "But Mr. Trump largely avoided the question that has caused him trouble this week: what to do about the undocumented immigrants already in the country." CW: Why say more? It turns out the whole immigration controversy is all the media's fault: "'All the media wants to talk about is the 11 million people, or more, or less -- they have no idea what the number is because we have no control over our country, have no idea what it is, that are here illegally,' Mr. Trump said." That SOB feels completely at ease brushing aside the lives of millions of people as some sort of media obsession when he has spent a year using and abusing most of those same people as the raison d'être for his sorry campaign (well, that and the national Christmas tree). ...

... CW: It's worth reading to the end of Corasaniti's story, where Trump "softens" his language on the murder of Nykea Aldridge. And do check out his "solutions.": prayer and "a much better tomorrow." Corasaniti doesn't say if Trump read this bit of wisdom from a teleprompter. Following is yesterday's bit of wisdom on Aldridge's murder, the first tweet of which Trump wrote. ...

John Santucci of ABC News: Donald Trump returned to Iowa [Saturday], yet continued his push for African-American votes. 'Nothing means more to me than working to make our party the home of the African-American vote once again,' Trump said, speaking to Iowans attending the 2nd annual Joni's Roast and Ride, hosted by Sen. Joni Ernst." CW: Iowa's population is about three percent black. And of course Trump frames his so-called "push for African-American votes" in self-referential terms; it's all about what "it means to me."

... Trump Uses Woman's Murder for Self-Promotion. Nick Corasaniti: "Donald J. Trump took to Twitter on Saturday morning to comment on the news that a cousin of Dwyane Wade, the N.B.A. star, had been shot and killed in Chicago.... 'Dwayne Wade's cousin was just shot and killed walking her baby in Chicago,' Mr. Trump wrote, misspelling Mr. Wade's given name, which was later corrected. 'Just what I have been saying. African-Americans will VOTE TRUMP!' Mr. Trump, who initially did not express sympathy for the family of the slain woman, Nykea Aldridge, later in the day posted a Twitter message offering his condolences.... Mr. Trump has had a penchant for using tragedies to illustrate his campaign's message." -- CW ...

... ** Philip Bump of the Washington Post: Dwyane "Wade tweeted about his cousin's death, in a call to address the gun violence that has plagued [Chicago].... Trump [in his tweet] blitzes past the normal considerations of propriety and rhetoric to squeeze a chain of thought into 140 characters: Someone is dead, which is tangentially related to part of his scattershot arguments on race and crime, and therefore this bolsters one of the quivering poles supporting his wobbly pitch to black voters. That's the utility of the life of Nykea Aldridge as far as Donald Trump can see it.... [His tweet] comes off not as a thoughtful statement of concern for a tragedy that needs to be fixed but more as an attempt to leverage a slaying into a campaign slogan." CW: Another irony: Trump opposes Wade's efforts to reduce gun violence. The NRA is his most ardent corporate backer. ...

... ** Chas Danner of New York: "At Business Insider, Allan Smith and Harrison Jacobs have compiled Trump's tweets following the recent terrorist attacks in Orlando, Brussels, San Bernardino, and Paris, and in each case, as with the Chicago shooting, Trump has immediately sought to leverage the tragedies to prove himself right about something, as well as steal at least some of the story's news coverage for himself." -- CW ...

... Ross Lincoln of Deadline: "It's a day ending in 'y', and so it is that Donald Trump has sparked another firestorm of criticism this morning, and in doing so landed himself the honor of being called 'a POS' (piece of sh**) by House of Lies star Don Cheadle." -- CW ...

... Jim Fallows speculates, with evidence, that the second tweet coming from "Trump," which corrected the spelling of Wade's name, & the third, which expressed condolences (in response to social media outrage) were written by campaign staff.

CW: Remember that speech way last week where Donald Trump said he had "regrets" for ... something? You'll be so surprised to learn that his "regrets" were a throwaway line delivered in exchange for $100 million. I'm not kidding. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump met privately last week with Sheldon G. Adelson ... who this spring pledged to contribute as much as $100 million to support Mr. Trump's campaign but has not yet followed through on that commitment.... Mr. Adelson ... told Mr. Trump that he was committed to his campaign, but urged the brash candidate to demonstrate a measure of humility. The conversation took place last Wednesday, the day before Mr. Trump used a rally in Charlotte, N.C., to say, without offering any specific examples, that he had regrets over 'saying the wrong thing.'" Somebody tell me why a pro-Israel zealot would give a dime to a candidate who embraces alt-right anti-Semites.

Washington Post Editors: "Republicans supporting Mr. Trump, explicitly or tacitly, cannot reasonably claim that they do not know who he is and what he has been doing.... Ms. Clinton ended her Thursday speech by praising Bob Dole, George W. Bush and John McCain, all of whom, in critical moments, stood up to bigoted elements on the right. Unfortunately, Republican leaders are not showing as much mettle this year. Even two of the men Ms. Clinton praised, Mr. Dole and Mr. McCain, have endorsed Mr. Trump. They should reconsider the cost to their reputations and the nation's well-being." -- CW

Brent Johnson of NJ.com: "Gov. Chris Christie on Friday refused to say whether he agrees with Donald Trump when the the Republican presidential nominee calls Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton a 'bigot.' 'Next question,' Christie, a top adviser to Trump, said when asked during a news conference at the East Dover Fire Company about Trump's comments.... NJ Advance Media reported Friday that Christie's advice was instrumental in having Trump soften his stance on immigration, according to another Trump adviser, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani." (CW: That would be Giuliani fingering Christie for causing what many, apparently including Trump, considered a misstep.... The entire Trump campaign is a comic version of "The Sopranos," though none of the cast is as likeable as the murdering thugs in the HBO series.) ...

... Here's Anderson Cooper trying to explain to Donald Trump what "bigot" means. Cooper is not successful:

... "'No Vacancies' for Blacks." Jonathan Mahler & Steve Eder of the New York Times on Donald Trump's inglorious debut. For a decade, beginning in 1963, "as Donald Trump assumed an increasingly prominent role in the {family] business, the company's practice of turning away potential black tenants was painstakingly documented by activists.... The Justice Department undertook its own investigation and, in 1973, sued Trump Management for discriminating against blacks. Both Fred Trump, the company's chairman, and Donald Trump, its president, were named as defendants. It was front-page news, and for Donald, amounted to his debut in the public eye.... Looking back, Mr. Trump's response to the lawsuit can be seen as presaging his handling of subsequent challenges, in business and in politics. Rather than quietly trying to settle ... he turned it into a protracted battle, complete with angry denials, character assassination..., and a $100 million countersuit accusing the Justice Department of defamation.... An investigation by The New York Times ... uncovered a long history of racial bias at his family's properties...." Read on. -- CW

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: Dr. Harold Bornstein's interview by NBC News about the letter he supposedly wrote attesting to Donald Trump's "astonishingly excellent" health, raises more questions than it answers. CW: Pardon my conspiratorial bent, but I'm not convinced Bornstein wrote the letter; at best, I suspect a Trump goon -- a guy who got out of the waiting limo to pick up the letter -- dictated it to him.

Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. Michael Grynbaum & John Hermann of the New York Times: "Breitbart News..., once a curiosity of the fringe right wing, is now an increasingly powerful voice, and virtual rallying spot, for millions of disaffected conservatives who propelled Donald J. Trump to the Republican nomination for president.... Its longtime chairman, Stephen K. Bannon, was named campaign chief by Mr. Trump, whose nationalist, conspiracy-minded message routinely mirrors the Breitbart worldview.... For those who track hate groups, Breitbart's success is particularly alarming." -- CW

Arlie Russell Hothschild of Mother Jones: An adaption of the Berkeley sociologist's book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, that examines "how Donald Trump took a narrative of unfairness and twisted it to his advantage." The book is based on five years of field study of disaffected white voters in Louisiana. -- LT

"Fever Dreams." Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Anti-Trump Republicans are preparing to launch a broadcast TV ad in a handful of swing-state suburbs urging Donald Trump to quit the presidential race so the party can replace him with a more electable nominee.... The 30-second spot is marked for a limited run on broadcast networks in suburban Florida, Virginia, Ohio and Michigan...." -- CW

CW: Robert Frank of the New York Times doesn't say so, but he inadvertently adds another point on the web of Trump's connections to Russian oligarchs: "In 2008, Donald Trump sold a Palm Beach, Fla., estate for $95 million, making it the most expensive single residential property ever sold in town. Now the property is about to set another record -- as Palm Beach's most expensive tear-down.... Bought by Mr. Trump in 2004 for $41 million and sold in 2008 to a Russian billionaire for $95 million, the residence has since sat empty, a monument to the housing bubble and to Trump's outsize salesmanship." -- CW

Other News & Views

Carolyn Johnson of the Washington Post: "Enrollment in the insurance exchanges for President Obama's signature health-care law is at less than half the initial forecast, pushing several major insurance companies to stop offering health plans in certain markets because of significant financial losses. As a result, the administration's promise of a menu of health-plan choices has been replaced by a grim, though preliminary, forecast: Next year, more than 1 in 4 counties are at risk of having a single insurer on its exchange, said Cynthia Cox [of] ... the Kaiser Family Foundation.... The success of the law depends fundamentally on the exchanges being profitable for insurers -- and that requires more people to sign up." -- CW

Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "... the Colombian peace deal announced last week offers the possibility of a rare victory for American diplomacy. It would be a validation of Plan Colombia, the U.S. counternarcotics and security-aid package that has sent roughly $10 billion to Bogota since 2000, tipping the government's fight against the Marxist FARC insurgents. The accord finalized Wednesday would convert the rebels from one of the world's most powerful drug-trafficking groups to a legal political party with a sworn commitment to ending both the 52-year war and its narcotics trade.... The fate of the deal rests with Colombian voters, who will go to the polls Oct. 2 to approve or reject it. The accords are unquestionably more popular abroad -- backed by Pope Francis, President Obama and seemingly every leader in Latin America -- than they are in Colombia" -- CW

"A Literary Guide to Hating Barack Obama." Carlos Lozado of the Washington Post: "Throughout the presidency of Barack Obama, and even before it, a chorus of writers has stood stage right, reinterpreting the era but mainly eviscerating the man. Obama, initially little known, became a literary subgenre and publishing obsession, with countless volumes attacking the president, promising to unmask [him].... Donald Trump's rise in GOP presidential politics has drawn sustenance and inspiration from the anti-Obama literature.... Indeed, the arc of Trump's criticisms of the president, from his birtherism in 2011 to his more recent charge that Obama is 'the founder of ISIS,' traces, in a distorted and exaggerated way, these portrayals of the president, from unknown outsider to recidivist lawbreaker." -- CW

Beyond the Beltway

Daniel Politi of Slate: "Police in Muskogee, Oklahoma have released body cam footage of the moment when police officers were apparently so threatened by the actions of 84-year-old Geneva Smith that they felt the need to blast her with pepper spray." Police also "used an electrical stun gun on [her son] while he had his hands up." The son, who allegedly ran a red light & refused to stop during an ensuing police chase, drove to his mother's home & refused to come out when police ordered him to do so. -- CW

News Lede

Washington Post: "James W. Cronin, who shared the Nobel prize in physics for discovering a startling breakdown in what was assumed to be the immutable symmetry of physical law, thereby helping to explain the behavior and evolution of the universe as a whole, died Aug. 25 in St. Paul, Minn. He was 84." -- CW

Comments

[Ken Winkes]

Might get back to the U of Chicago and PC later but now am thinking how very bitter and how little sweet it is to say "I told you so," when accurately foretelling a disaster that you knew years ago had to be coming.

The wonder here is not the disaster the Republican Party is experiencing, but that it took so long to arrive.

Republican stalwarts don't know how to respond to Trump? Can't summon the wherewithal or the courage to denounce who he is and what he says, even when both fly--er, spit--in the face of all the comforting platitudes they have sheltered behind for thirty years and professed (their votes are something else) to believe?

No acknowledgement from them of the consequences of their poisonous tax policies that have made inequality worse, no admission that they knowingly let Fox do their dirty work while they pretended to be above it all, no claim to fathering the many toxic policies and ideologies they have continued to support, or to the chorus of dog whistles designed to stoke the resentment that animates their angry base. No courage of honesty anywhere, none at all.

And now that the low-lifes they have bred and fed are all grown up and flexing their muscles, the dog whistles gone party mainstream,Trump's campaign operatives out-thugging Karl Rove, Breitbart supplanting Fox News, they are frozen in disbelief.

It was inevitable and almost Oedipal. The shambling monster they nurtured from birth is about to consume them and they have no idea how it happened or what to do.

No surprise, really. The Republicans have not had any ideas for forty years. All they know is power, and the old guard taught their successors the power game only too well.

I almost feel sorry for them, and if they hadn't worked to hard to screw up the country and done it so well, I might extend them a little sympathy.

But as it is, I'll reserve my sympathy for the millions of people to whom they have done so much harm.

[PD Pepe]

"It was inevitable and almost Oedipal. The shambling monster they nurtured from birth is about to consume them and they have no idea how it happened or what to do." (Ken)

It would never have entered the imagination of Mary Shelly back in 1818 that her Frankenstein's monster would be such a fitting metaphor for a 2016 Republican candidate for the President of the U.S. and for the party itself. Her monster turned on it's creator and ultimately destroyed him. A rainy night ghost story becomes the stuff of reality.

SUNDAY'S QUOTABLE QUOTES

Beneath the carefully constructed veneer of a blithering buffoon, there lurks a blithering buffoon. (me)

"You have always regarded women as disposable, my lord, and you cannot complain if in the end they think the same of you." (Bring Up the Bodies" –-Mantel)

"He lifts it up from the gutter with verbal tongs and holds it up for us to see just how nauseating it is." (?) but has a current ring to it, doncha think?

"God, it would be good to be a fake somebody rather than a real nobody." (Mike Tyson)

and finally––"Get the cool whip––Get the love." (commercial)

[Akhilleus]

Ken,

Well said. And the incontrovertible proof of your thesis can be found in two simpering, fearful words expressing debased accommodation of infamy and a craven calculation to preserve the tiniest sliver of personal safety while the monster runs amok.

Mitch. McConnell.

At the end of a horror film about an encounter with the fictional but terrifying Blair Witch, a group of hikers lost in the woods are haunted and harried by the witch. In the end, one of them sides with the witch, luring the last hiker to his death so that the monster will allow the traitor to live. He turns his face to the wall in abject cowardice as his best friend is devoured.

This is Mitch McConnell. And every other coward in the Republican Party (what's left of it) who sides with the monster, a monster very much in the non-fictional category.

Oh yeah, the traitor in that movie? The witch kills him anyway.

[Akhilleus]

Oops, forgot this link.

Here's the end of "The Blair Witch Project" if you're so inclined.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GYOXS2dZhG4

The big difference is that the hikers didn't create their monster.

[Schlemazel]

"Somebody tell me why a pro-Israel zealot would give a dime to a candidate who embraces alt-right anti-Semites."

A few years back, when Manchester United and Chelsea played for the championship of the UEFA Champion's League, I went to see the game at a local pub that was packed to the gills with the ManU fans in the back and the Chelsea fans in the front room.

I'm a fan of Leeds United and I went and joined the Chelsea fans. One of the Chelsea fans looked at my Leeds shirt and asked, What the f*** are you doing here?"

To which I responded, "I hate them more than I hate you."

Says a lot about both Trump and Adelson that they hate Hillary more than they hate racists. Adelson makes me ashamed to be a Jew, and Trump makes me ashamed to be an American.

[Schlemazel]

As for ACA enrollment.......

The key to the success of the act is that everyone needs to be enrolled, but the tax penalties for failing to enroll are tiny relative to the cost of insurance, and since young people (who are the ones not signing up) know that they will still be taken care of if something catastrophic happens, they're making the rational decision not to sign up.

Risk Management 101 tells us that, all other things being equal, the larger the risk pool, the lower the cost for each individual member of the pool. Therefore, the least expensive risk pool for medical care is the one that includes everyone.

Medicare for all, please.

[Schlemazel]

Apologies for the run-on sentence. I'd go back and edit it if I could.

[Akhilleus]

Schlemazel,

Run-on sentences are no big deal as long as they run somewhere sensible. Better than Trumpish, lumpish pile ups of half-baked sentence fragments straining to express the half-assed thoughts of a full throated, empty headed halfwit.

[Marie Burns]

@Akhilleus: You mean to tell me that in your personal opinion this is not a perfectly eloquent, well-structured sentence: "We are going to get rid of the criminals and it's going to happen within one hour after I take office, we start, okay?"

Marie

[Akhilleus]

Oh, and it's more than half funny to see Trumpy on his rhetorical knees, apologizing (not sure for what so we can feel free to consider it a blanket apology for everything) to voters and rolling over like a good little doggie for the 100 mil treat being dangled by King Adelson. If he had an ounce of self awareness he might consider what it feels like to be on the non- receiving end of any of his many braggart's promises of millions in donations and gifts that never materialize. Here's hoping Adelson decides that supporting an anti-Semite is a bridge too far and schtups that orange headed bigot. Not expecting that, but you never know with these crazy billionaires. As F. Scott used to say, they ain't like you and me.

Ain't it da trute?

[Akhilleus]

Marie,

Yeah. And like that.

Montaigne he ain't.

[Akhilleus]

...and another ting,

Doncha just love all these Confederate pols who try to avoid a full dose of Trump cooties by trying to pretend they don't know what he's talking about, who he really is, what he stands for, and who he hangs out with?

Who supports a person they know nothing about, whose beliefs, words, and policy pronouncements they claim never to have heard?

Only two kinds: liars or mental defectives.

I suppose, though, it could be both.

Yeah. Yeah, it's both. Definitely both.

[Marie Burns]

Speaking of liars & mental defectives, it sure is funny that a Reality Chex reader -- Schlemazel -- can write an essential fix to the ACA before breakfast (run-on sentences acceptable in addendum to a 2,700-page document), yet Congress cannot? Either they are mental defectives or they don't care if Americans have health insurance. As Akhilleus writes, definitely both.

Marie

[Whyte Owen]

As an old-time Faulkner fan: bring 'em on.

[Diane]

In the interview KA Conway responded to Maddow's direct question about the role of Ailes in the Trump campaign. KA answered unequivocally, Ailes had no formal or informal role in the campaign. He's identified as one of those assisting with debate prep. Oh, that's right, there's debate prep and then there's the campaign. Clearly, there's no nexus between the two.

I think Trump will do the 1st debate, declare himself the winner by a yuuuuge margin, state the process was rigged and refuse to participate in anymore debates unless Bannon moderates and they're on Fox news.

Meanwhile I am thoroughly enjoying the crickets from the "leaders" of the GOP. The quicksand is at chest level, while they scream inside their heads.