The Commentariat -- July 21, 2018

Afternoon Update:

Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "President Trump lashed out at his longtime lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, on Saturday, suggesting that there could be legal consequences for Mr. Cohen's decision to record a discussion they had two months before the 2016 election about paying a former Playboy model who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump. 'Inconceivable that the government would break into a lawyer's office (early in the morning) -- almost unheard of,' Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. 'Even more inconceivable that a lawyer would tape a client -- totally unheard of & perhaps illegal. The good news is that your favorite President did nothing wrong!' With his tweet, Mr. Trump signaled open warfare on Mr. Cohen, a longtime fixer he had until now tried to keep by his side as the Justice Department investigates Mr. Cohen's involvement in paying women to quash potentially damaging news coverage about Mr. Trump during the campaign.... New York law allows one party to a conversation to tape it without the other knowing.... Mr. Trump himself also has a history of recording phone calls and conversations.... When The Wall Street Journal reported on A.M.I.'s payments to [model Karen] McDougal days before the election, the Trump campaign denied knowing about them. Hope Hicks, the campaign spokeswoman, said at the time that Ms. McDougal's claim of an affair was 'totally untrue.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump's fake outrage might seem a little less fake & outrageous if it hadn't been his own lawyers who likely released news of the tape, no doubt at his own direction in hopes of changing the subject from Helsinki to sex. ...

... West Wing Walk-Back Week. Ashley Parker, et al., of the Washington Post: "For Trump and his White House, the days that followed the Helsinki summit amounted to an unofficial Walk Back Week -- a daily scramble of corrections and clarifications from the West Wing. Each announcement, intended to blunt the global fallout of the president's Russophilic performance in Helsinki, was followed by another mishap that only fueled more consternation." A fun read. ...

... Zeke Miller & Jonathan Lemire of the AP: "Facing condemnation from allies and foes alike on Capitol Hill..., Donald Trump was outnumbered even in the Oval Office. Top aides gathered to convince the president to issue a rare walk-back of the comments he'd made raising doubts about U.S. intelligence conclusions of Russian election interference as he stood alongside Vladimir Putin.... As each White House effort to clean up the situation failed to stem the growing bipartisan backlash, Trump's mood worsened, according to confidants. He groused about his staff for not better managing the fallout. He was angry at the two American reporters, including one from The Associated Press, who asked questions at the Helsinki news conference. And he seethed at the lack of support he believed he received from congressional Republicans. Also a target of the president's ire was Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, who issued a rare statement rebutting the president's Monday comments. But it was Coats' televised interview Thursday at a security conference in Aspen, Colo., that set off the president anew...." ...

... Olivia Nuzzi of New York: "'The White House' being separate from 'the president' in this administration as they've never been separate before, with contradictory statements emerging at a machine-gun pace from these two entities that are supposed to be in sync, if nothing else at least spinning the story (i.e. bullshitting) in the same way.... Over the last five days, the White House has attempted to manufacture a permanent state of uncertainty, in which when Trump says or does anything -- even with the world as witness -- we can be talked into believing the most harmless interpretation of the facts."

... digby: "The Giant Toddler had a tantrum after watching TV and decided to show everybody by inviting the foreign leader who sabotaged Hillary Clinton's election campaign for him to a big summit at the White House.... I have no doubt that he made some deal with or is under the influence of Vladimir Putin. There's just no way to avoid that reality anymore. But he's also a psychologically and intellectually unfit cretin."

Jim Rutenberg & Ben Protess of the New York Times: "Federal authorities examining the work President Trump's former lawyer did to squelch embarrassing stories before the 2016 election have come to believe that an important ally in that effort, the tabloid company American Media Inc., at times acted more as a political supporter than as a news organization, according to people briefed on the investigation. That determination has kept the publisher in the middle of an inquiry that could create legal and political challenges for the president as prosecutors investigate whether the lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, violated campaign finance law. It could also spell trouble for the company, which publishes The National Enquirer, raising thorny questions about when coverage that is favorable to a candidate strays into overt political activity, and when First Amendment protections should apply.... The authorities believe that the company was not always operating in what campaign finance law calls a 'legitimate press function.'... Cameron Stracher, an A.M.I. lawyer, indicated that the company was cooperating with the investigation."

Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post: "Nearly a year ago, I speculated that the Trump campaign might have shared data with the Russian Internet Research Agency, the team that created fake personas and put up fake Facebook pages with the goal of spreading false stories about Hillary Clinton.... The latest indictment produced by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation, together with President Trump&'s strange performance in Helsinki, suggests a different hypothesis: that Russia shared data with the Trump campaign, and not vice versa." Applebaum goes on to theorize in a way that supports Rachel Maddow's ruminations in the video linked below. ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Appelbaum ends her column with, "Shared data could also explain why Trump appeared to feel so indebted to Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, why he wanted to speak to him with no aides present, why he is so reluctant to acknowledge Russian interference. It could even explain why he talks so obsessively and inaccurately about the size of his great electoral victory: because he himself believes that the Russians helped him win. He fears that this would make his presidency illegitimate. Which it would." This is what I've thought for a long time -- that all of Trump's nutty conspiracy theories (400-pound NJ hacker in basement, busloads of Massachusetts residents voting in New Hampshire [AND Massachusetts]) & denials about the 2016 election are cover-ups for the fact that Trump knowingly & perhaps aggressively colluded with foreign operatives. He knows (or at least knew) what he did & he's dancing as fast as he can to hide it. He'll grasp any straw (and repeat it incessantly) to that end.

Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post: "Most people seem to think that the proprietors of the Red Hen restaurant were wrong last month to refuse to serve dinner to presidential press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. The question remains: Given their antipathy to the Trump administration, what should they have done? With a little help from my friends, I present some suggestions. Serve Sanders a plate that has only a sprig of parsley, a pea and a chicken beak, and when she complains about the portion size, insist it's the largest amount of food ever served anywhere to anyone." And so on. I laughed out loud. Many thanks to Patrick for the link.

Glenn Greenwald of the Intercept: "Ecuador's President Lenin Moreno traveled to London on Friday for the ostensible purpose of speaking at the 2018 Global Disabilities Summit (Moreno has been confined to a wheelchair since being shot in a 1998 robbery attempt). The concealed, actual purpose of the President's trip is to meet with British officials to finalize an agreement under which Ecuador will withdraw its asylum protection of Julian Assange, in place since 2012, eject him from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, and then hand over the WikiLeaks founder to British authorities. Moreno's itinerary also notably includes a trip to Madrid, where he will meet with Spanish officials still seething over Assange's denunciation of human rights abuses perpetrated by Spain's central government against protesters marching for Catalonia independence. Almost three months ago, Ecuador blocked Assange from accessing the internet, and Assange has not been able to communicate with the outside world ever since. The primary factor in Ecuador's decision to silence him was Spanish anger over Assange's tweets about Catalonia." Mrs. McC: Take everything Greenwald writes with a grain of salt, but I'm going to assume -- he has the basic facts right here.

Florida Is Not a Safe State to Live. Enjoli Francis of ABC News: "A man who was captured on surveillance video fatally shooting another man in Clearwater, Florida, during a parking-spot spat as his young son watched nearby will not be arrested or charged by police, according to Pinellas County Sheriff. 'I don't make the law. I enforce the law,' Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said during a news conference today. 'The law in the state of Florida today is that people have a right to stand their ground and have a right to defend themselves when they believe that they are in harm.' The sheriff announced the case will be sent to the state attorney's office for review."

*****

Corrupt AND Sleazy:

Sex, Lies & Audiotape. Matt Apuzzo, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump's longtime lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, secretly recorded a conversation with Mr. Trump two months before the presidential election in which they discussed payments to a former Playboy model [Karen McDougal] who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump, according to lawyers and others familiar with the recording. The F.B.I. seized the recording this year during a raid on Mr. Cohen's office. The Justice Department is investigating Mr. Cohen's involvement in paying women to tamp down embarrassing news stories about Mr. Trump ahead of the 2016 election. Prosecutors want to know whether that violated federal campaign finance laws, and any conversation with Mr. Trump about those payments would be of keen interest to them. The recording's existence further draws Mr. Trump into questions about tactics he and his associates used to keep aspects of his personal and business life a secret.... The men discussed a payment from Mr. Trump to Ms. McDougal -- separate from the Enquirer payment -- to buy her story, [Rudy] Giuliani said. Such a payment would ensure that Ms. McDougal was silenced going forward. No payment was ever made, Mr. Giuliani said...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Back in February, "a White House spokesperson denied Trump had a relationship with McDougal, calling the reporting 'an old story that is just more fake news.'" ...

... Matt Naham of Law & Crime. Rudy "Giuliani claims that Cohen's recording of a conversation about paying off a Playboy model for silence about an affair with his client is actually great and 'powerful' news.... Giuliani confirmed that there was such a conversation between Trump and Cohen, but Giuliani says it actually shows Trump did nothing wrong. He said no payment was ever made and that the recording was under two minutes in length. 'Nothing in that conversation suggests that [Trump] had any knowledge of it in advance,' he said. 'In the big scheme of things, it's powerful exculpatory evidence.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Evan Perez, et al., of CNN: "Another source with knowledge of the tape, however, said the conversation is not as Giuliani described and is not good for the President, though the source would not elaborate.... The source famiiar with the tape said Cohen recommends buying the rights to [Karen McDougal's proposed] story [for the National Enquirer] and Trump asks questions about how they would go about doing that.... The discussion, Giuliani said, involved their intention 'to reimburse AMI for what they laid out and to do it by check, properly recorded.'... A source familiar with the AMI deal with McDougal disputed Giuliani's description of the deal. The source said it was not a nondisclosure agreement [-- as Giuliani claimed --] but a license agreement.... Cohen has other recordings of the President in his records that were seized by the FBI, said both a source with knowledge of Cohen's tapes and Giuliani.... When asked by CNN if first lady Melania Trump had a comment on the news of the recorded conversation, her spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said in a statement, 'Mrs. Trump remains focused on her role as a mother and as First Lady of the United States. We will have no further comment on the topic.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Apparently Mrs. Trump is not "focused on her role as the wife of the POTUS*." ...

... Elura Nanos of Law & Crime: "Undoubtedly, the Trump team will raise the issue of attorney-client privilege.... But there's big speed bump in Trump's assertion of attorney-client privilege -- known as the 'crime-fraud exception.' When communications between attorneys and their clients further a crime, tort, or fraud, privilege is a no-go.... In this case, the outcome of the privilege argument will depend significantly on the content (as opposed to the circumstances, as is more often the case) of the recorded conversation.... Buying McDougal's silence -- either directly or through AMI as a middleman -- isn't necessarily illegal.... However..., Trump may have committed campaign finance violations for failing to properly disclose payouts...." ...

     ... BUT Emily Fox of Vanity Fair was on Rachel Maddow's show & said that the Trump-Cohen McDougal tape was one of those the special master in the case deemed privileged. It was Trump's attorneys who released the tape to Mueller's investigators (effectively waiving the privilege), according to Fox, & leaked the tape to the NYT, presumably in an effort to give Michael Cohen less leverage to cut a deal. Vanity Fair -- as of 9:45 pm ET Friday -- has not yet published a story on this reporting. ...

... When in Trouble, Pick on Some Black People. Michael Sykes of Axios: "President Trump took to Twitter Friday to call out the NFL on their national anthem policy. 'The NFL National Anthem Debate is alive and well again - can't believe it! Isn't it in contract that players must stand at attention, hand on heart? The $40,000,000 Commissioner must now make a stand. First time kneeling, out for game. Second time kneeling, out for season/no pay!'" Mrs. McC: It's worth noting that the Trump-Cohen McDougal tape is itself a distraction from the much more important Helsinski debacle. ...

... Julian Zelizer of the Atlantic: "The United States is now so fiercely partisan that shocking tape recordings will still have trouble shaking the political landscape. That congressional Republicans continued to stand by Trump despite his scandalous behavior with Russia has made it clear that almost nothing can overwhelm partisan loyalty. Even if there is a damning tape, the president and his Republican allies in the House would attack the material as fake and illegitimate, part of a 'witch hunt.' Unlike Nixon, who fought tooth and nail to prevent the tapes from being released, Trump seems more likely to focus on moving to control the narrative.... Nor did President Nixon have Fox News hosts to explain why the tapes don't prove anything about the president's wrongdoing.... Indeed, news of the Cohen tapes might be perfectly timed for the president, shifting the conversation away from treason and toward Trump's sex life, just as the Access Hollywood tapes in October 2016 drowned out the public warnings by President Obama's intelligence chiefs that Russia was attempting to sway the election results. Of course, Nixon, too, initially thought that he would survive, and that the tapes might even help his case. He was wrong." ...

... Mueller to Question Manhattan Madam. Manual Roig-Franzia of the Washington Post: "Investigators in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's office have notified an attorney for Kristin Davis, who gained notoriety in the 2000s for running a high-end prostitution ring, that they intend to question her as part of their probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Davis said Friday. Davis, who is known as the 'Manhattan Madam,' said she expects to be asked about her close friend, Roger Stone, a political operative and longtim confidant of President Trump. It comes one week after prosecutors unveiled an indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers who allegedly conspired to hack Democrats during the campaign. Stone was not named in the indictment, but messages cited by prosecutors match communications that he says he had with the Twitter persona Guccifer 2.0, who had claimed online to be a Romanian hacker."

Jamil Smith of Rolling Stone: "It typically takes a mass shooting to keep the National Rifle Association this quiet. As of this writing, the NRA has issued no public comment about this week's arrest and indictment of Maria Butina, a 29-year-old Russian gun rights activist who had spent years ingratiating herself with the NRA, as well as Republican politicians and conservative notables. Butina is suspected of conspiracy to act as an unauthorized agent of the Russian Federation within the United States.... The NRA contributed $30 million to help elect Donald Trump in 2016. The FBI has been investigating whether some or all of that cash may have been supplied by Russia. Rolling Stone reported in April that the Russian central banker Alexander Torshin, along with Butina, had deeper ties to the NRA than previously known. The NRA even flew a delegation to Moscow in 2015 to meet with Kremlin officials, including one freshly sanctioned by the Obama administration." ...

... Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "Perhaps, rather than covering for Trump, some Republicans are covering for themselves.... On Monday, we learned of the arrest of Maria Butina, who is accused of being a Russian agent who infiltrated the National Rifle Association, the most important outside organization in the Republican firmament. Legal filings in the case outline a plan to use the N.R.A. to push the Republican Party in a more pro-Russian direction.... If the N.R.A. as an organization turns out to be compromised, it would shake conservative politics to its foundation.... It is not surprising that Republicans would want to protect the N.R.A. According to an audit obtained by the Center for Responsive Politics, the N.R.A.'s overall spending increased by more than $100 million in 2016.... [Sen. Ron] Wyden [D-Oregon] said Republicans on the Intelligence Committee have thwarted his attempts to look deeply into the Russian money trail.... (... Richard Burr, the North Carolina Republican who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, is one of Congress's leading recipients of N.R.A. support.) On Monday, a few hours after news broke of Butina's arrest, the Treasury Department announced a new rule sparing some tax-exempt groups, including the N.R.A., from having to report their large donors to the I.R.S.... You might ask who benefits. The answer is: not just Trump."

Craig Timberg & Shane Harris of the Washington Post: "On the eve of one of the newsiest days of the 2016 presidential election season, a group of Russian operatives fired off tweets at a furious pace, about a dozen each minute. By the time they finished, more than 18,000 had been sent through cyberspace toward unwitting American voters, making it the busiest day by far in a disinformation operation whose aftermath is still roiling U.S. politics. The reason for this burst of activity on Oct. 6, 2016, documented in a new trove of 3 million Russian tweets collected by Clemson University researchers, is a mystery that has generated intriguing theories but no definitive explanation.... [The next day,] Wikileaks began releasing embarrassing emails that Russian intelligence operatives had stolen from the campaign chairman for Democrat Hillary Clinton.... The Clemson researchers and others familiar with their findings think there likely is a connection between this looming release and the torrent of tweets, which varied widely in content but included a heavy dose of political commentary." ...

... ** Rachel Maddow has a compelling theory on how Russia helped (or ensured) Trump win the 2016 election:

Tim Egan excoriates Trumpbots: "We should stop thinking that a Fifth Avenue moment -- the shooting that Trump famously said he could commit that wouldn't hurt him -- will change minds. For there are enough Fifth Avenue Republicans, in the apt term of James Hohmann of The Washington Post, to shield this man.... In rooting for Trump to be Putin's poodle, the ex-Klan man [David Duke] is just a goose step ahead of the party that has been remade in Trump's image.... Even though most Americans are appalled, polls taken after the Russia summit show that a majority of Republicans approve of his submission to the former Soviets.... These people disgrace the history that preceded the American moral collapse in Helsinki."

Trump Lets Putin Define U.S. Policy. Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "Russia provided additional details Friday of what it said were agreements made at the presidential summit in Helsinki this week, shaping a narrative of the meeting with no confirmation or alternative account from the Trump administration. Not surprisingly, the Russian story line tended to favor the Kremlin's own policy prescriptions, at times contradicting stated administration strategy. Russia already has sent formal proposals to Washington for joint U.S.-Russia efforts to fund reconstruction of war-ravaged Syria and facilitate the return home of millions of Syrians who fled the country, following 'agreements reached' by President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Col. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev, the three-star head of the Russian National Defense Management Center, said Friday." ...

... MEANWHILE.... Julian Barnes, et al., of the New York Times: "The Pentagon declared on Friday that it would provide $200 million in assistance to Ukraine to help fight the Russian-controlled separatists in the country's east. 'Russia should suffer consequences for its aggressive, destabilizing behavior and its illegal occupation of Ukraine,' Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in a statement. And a day earlier, the director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, pledged to offer Mr. Trump a candid assessment of the vast risks of inviting Mr. Putin to the White House.... In administration strategy documents, NATO communiqués and other official orders, Russia is called a growing threat, a potential or actual adversary intent on undermining democratic institutions of the United States and its allies.... The disconnect between the policies aimed at curbing Russia and the president's position has never been wider, a gap that presents serious risks, current and former American officials said." ...

... Ben Mathis-Lilley of Slate: "On Thursday, director of national intelligence Dan Coats more or less said that he didn't support any of Trump's recent decisions regarding Putin; today, Secretary of Defense James Mattis took his turn doing the implicit disavowing in a statement about new military aid to Ukraine: 'Russia should suffer consequences for its aggressive, destabilizing behavior and its illegal occupation of Ukraine. ... The fundamental question we must ask ourselves is do we wish to strengthen our partners in key regions or leave them with no other options than to turn to Russia, thereby undermining a once in a generation opportunity to more closely align nations with the U.S. vision for global security and stability.'"

Ana Swanson, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump accused China and the European Union of manipulating their currencies and continued to criticize the Federal Reserve for raising interest rates, saying those moves are putting the United States at a disadvantage. In a flurry of early-morning Twitter posts, Mr. Trump complained that the Fed's rate increases and a 'stronger and stronger' United States dollar are 'taking away our big competitive edge.' He also said the Fed's plan to raise rates -- known as tightening because it makes borrowing more expensive -- 'hurts all that we have done.'... His comments once again break with longstanding White House norms, in which American presidents tend to talk sparingly about the United States dollar and, when they do, generally reiterate that a strong dollar is in the national interest.... While financial markets seemed to shrug off Mr. Trump's initial comments on the Federal Reserve on Thursday, his Twitter posts on Friday -- all of which seemed aimed at pushing the dollar lower -- drew a reaction. The dollar, as measured by the U.S. Dollar Index, fell sharply, by roughly 0.6 percent. Prices of 30-year United States Treasury bonds ... also dropped, pushing yields -- which move in the opposite direction -- higher. Prices for gold, a traditional hedge against inflation risk, rose.... Eswar Prasad, a professor at Cornell University, said the president's tweets displayed 'a breezy ignorance of facts and limited understanding of basic principles of economics.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Elizabeth Williamson & Emily Steel of the New York Times: "Bill Shine, a former co-president of Fox News hired this month as President Trump's communications chief..., was ousted from Fox News last year in the wake of a sexual harassment scandal at the network. Mr. Shine was never publicly accused of harassment, but he was accused in multiple civil lawsuits of covering up misconduct by Roger E. Ailes, the founding chairman of Fox News, and dismissing concerns from colleagues who complained.... In one previously undisclosed action, Mr. Shine was subpoenaed last year by a federal grand jury in New York as part of a criminal investigation into Fox News's handling of sexual harassment complaints.... (He is the fourth person in 18 months to hold the post under Mr. Trump, and others have filled in.) His wife, Darla, was found to have made racially charged remarks on a Twitter account that has since been deleted." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Megan Garber of the Atlantic: Sarah "Sanders, on behalf of the president she works for, ... takes for granted an assumption that ... there are things that are more important than truth.... It is ... an approach that is wholly consistent with the Trumpian worldview -- one that valorizes strength above all..., one that is populated by a collective of uses and thems, one whose sum, always, is zero.... This is a White House that subscribes to the incontrovertible realities of the world according to one man. Donaldpolitik." Thanks to PD Pepe for the link. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

GOP Leaders Make Sure Donald & Ivanka Keep Their China Deals. Ana Swanson: "Republican lawmakers backed away from a plan to reinstate stiff penalties on Chinese telecom firm ZTE, handing a win to President Trump, who had personally intervened to save the Beijing company. Congressional leaders removed a provision, tucked into a military policy bill, that would have stopped the Trump administration from lifting penalties on ZTE. Rather than prevent the company from buying American technology, the bill will simply limit federal purchases of ZTE products, such as handsets. The move drew swift criticism from lawmakers who had pushed for a tougher approach to ZTE, which was found guilty in 2016 of violating American sanctions on Iran and North Korea.... President Xi Jinping of China appealed personally to Mr. Trump to save the company and Mr. Trump obliged." ...

     ... Snopes (May 16): "Two days before ... Donald Trump took the unusual step on 13 May 2018 of announcing plans to help save jobs in China, reports surfaced that the Chinese government would back a development project in Indonesia featuring Trump-branded properties to the tune of $500 million." ...

     ... New York Times (May 28): "China this month awarded Ivanka Trump seven new trademarks across a broad collection of businesses.... At around the same time, President Trump vowed to find a way to prevent a major Chinese telecommunications company from going bust, even though the company has a history of violating American limits on doing business with countries like Iran and North Korea." ...

... Sad! Rosie Perper of Business Insider: "Trump-themed flags and hats made in China are reportedly being held up at US customs amid an intensifying trade war." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Alice Ollstein of TPM: "With the deadline for reuniting thousands of separated immigrant families less than a week away, the Trump administration revealed in a federal court filing late Thursday night that it plans to reunite just about 60 percent of the children between ages 5-17 that are in its custody. The rest -- just over 900 -- have been labeled 'ineligible' for reunification.... Just 364 families with children older than 5 years old, out of a total of 2551, have been reunited so far, though 848 parents have been cleared for reunification, and 272 are likely to be cleared after they are interviewed by ICE." --safari

"Clean" Coal. Mark Hand of ThinkProgress: "After reaching a low point in the late 1990s, new studies are showing that black lung disease has made a startling resurgence, especially among coal workers in the central Appalachian region.... The dramatic increase in cases of black lung disease is occurring at the same time that the Trump administration is seeking ways [to]weaken coal dust rules that protect coal miners from the disease -- a move that would reduce costs for coal companies, which have been strong financial backers of Trump." --safari

Casey Quilan of ThinkProgress: "The Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services changed or removed information on its website about sex discrimination, according to a new report from the Sunlight Foundation." --safari

But Jim Jordan Knew Nothing about It! Elise Viebeck & Shawn Boburg of the Washington Post: "More than 100 Ohio State University alumni have given investigators firsthand accounts of sexual misconduct by former athletic doctor Richard Strauss, the school said Friday in an update on the probe. Strauss has been accused of sexually abusing student athletes involved in 14 sports, as well as patients at the campus health center, between 1979 and 1997, according to the school. Controversy over whether OSU athletic coaches knew about Strauss' alleged conduct has ensnared Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), an influential conservative lawmaker who served as an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State from 1987 to 1995. Jordan has consistently denied that he knew that Strauss was engaging in misconduct toward students."

Meet Your GOP. Andrew Kaczynski of CNN: "Republican Rep. Jason Lewis [Minn.] has a long history of racist rhetoric about African-Americans, pushing claims of a 'racial war' by blacks on whites and arguing that violence regularly occurs at black gatherings. He also frequently claimed that black people have an 'entitlement mentality' and viewed themselves as victims. Lewis made those comments on 'The Jason Lewis Show,' a syndicated radio program Lewis hosted from 2009 until 2014.... CNN's KFile reported on Wednesday that Lewis made a large number of deeply misogynistic comments on the show, including one monologue in which he lamented not being able to call women 'sluts' anymore." --safari

Alexander Kaufman of HuffPost via Mother Jones: "Fossil fuel producers, airlines and electrical utilities outspent environmental groups and the renewable energy industry 10 to 1 on lobbying related to climate change legislation between 2000 and 2016, according to a new analysis released Wednesday.... 'Public opinion is pretty much a minor factor in deciding what Congress is going to do,' said Robert Brulle, the study's author and a sociologist at Drexel University. Money spent on lobbying, he said, is likely a much bigger determinant of whether federal legislation gets off the ground. 'We seem to have a public opinion fetish where if we get public opinion to be supportive of climate change legislation, then it'll happen,' Brulle said. 'My answer to that is, gee, well, we should have gun control legislation then.'" --safari ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Under the current regime, the only times public opinion affects federal policy is when Republican voters unite behind a policy need. Thanks to GOP propaganda, climate change doesn't stand a chance. But the opioid crisis, which surprised Republican "leaders.", has received Congress's attentions.

Election 2018

Thanks, Supremes! Li Zhou of Vox: "States are kicking a growing number of voters off their rolls in the wake of a 2013 Supreme Court decision that invalidated a key part of the Voting Rights Act. The rate of voter purges -- a sometimes faulty process that states use to clean their voter rolls -- is significantly higher than it was a decade ago, according to a new report from NYU's Brennan Center for Justice.... The spike is notable. Between 2006 and 2008, 12 million voters were purged from voter rolls. Between 2014 and 2016, that number rose to 16 million -- a roughly 33 percent increase.... Voter purge rates in preclearance jurisdictions between 2012 to 2016 far outpaced those in jurisdictions that were not previously subject to federal preclearance." --safari ...

... ** GOP Allies. Jen Kirby of Vox: "A Microsoft executive said at the Aspen Security Forum panel ... that the company had detected phishing attacks targeting three US congressional candidates... The cyberattacks weren't successful in hacking the three candidates. Burt didn't identify them by name, but intriguingly described them as 'interesting targets from an espionage standpoint.'... He said, according to the BBC, that Microsoft detected the suspicious activity on web domains that had been linked to a group tied to Russian intelligence that had been active in 2016." --safari ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Hackers, Russian on otherwise, need to flip only a few Congressional elections to affect control of the House (& Senate). If you watch Rachel Maddow's brief segment above, you can see how it works -- and how little in the way of hacking efforts (and expenditures) is necessary to keep Congress in Republican control. For various domestic reasons -- gerrymandering, voter suppression, Constitutional Senate makeup -- Republicans already have a huge electoral advantage over Democrats; a little help from hackers is all that's needed to again put the Congress in control of the party with a minority of voter support. The media have made much of the "blue wave" that put a few Democrats in Congress over the past months, but it's reasonable to assume that Russia put no effort into influencing the outcomes of special elections. The general election is a different story.

Senate Race. Caleb Ecarma of Mediaite: "GOP Senate nominee Corey Stewart claimed New York Times reporter Stephanie Saul broke into one of his staffer's homes for a story; the newspaper of record responded by calling the allegation 'entirely false.' On Wednesday, Stewart accused Saul of breaking into the Woodbridge, Virginia home of campaign aide Brian Landrum, who was recently revealed to have been part of a group chat created to plan a white supremacist rally for the anniversary of last year's deadly Unite the Right event. Landrum claimed the campaign is 'working with police investigators, and look forward to justice being served' for the alleged break in, but according to the Washington Post, no files were charged by Thursday night.... New York Times spokesperson Ari Bevacqua ... [said in a statement,] 'Ms. Saul went to an address for Landrum Associates in Woodbridge looking for Mr. Landrum. She was told by a woman who opened the door that he was not present. She left a note with the woman for Mr. Landrum asking him to call. At no time did she enter the premises.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Just more evidence Stewart is a nutjob. His opponent in the Senate race is Sen. Tom Kaine (D).

2020 Presidential Race. Ed Kilgore: "GOP Awards Its 2020 Convention to the Only City That Sorta Kinda Wanted It [-- Charlotte, North Carolina.... Friday] the Republican National Committee hastily took up Charlotte on its offer before it evaporated. That nearly happened earlier this week, when protestors flooded a meeting of the Charlotte City Council, which subsequently approved a tentative contract to host the convention by a narrow 6-5 vote." Mrs. McC: The last time Charlotte hosted a party convention was 2012, when the nominee was President Barack Obama. What a comedown the 2020 show will be, especially if Donald Trump is the nominee (and I'm not certain that's a given).

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "A Russian company accused by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III of being part of an online operation to disrupt the 2016 presidential campaign is leaning in part on a decision by Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh to argue that the charge against it should be thrown out. The 2011 decision by Kavanaugh, writing for a three-judge panel, concerned the role that foreign nationals may play in U.S. elections. It upheld a federal law that said foreigners temporarily in the country may not donate money to candidates, contribute to political parties and groups or spend money advocating for or against candidates. But it did not rule out letting foreigners spend money on independent advocacy campaigns." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Courtney Kube, et al., of NBC News: "Iranian hackers have laid the groundwork to carry out extensive cyberattacks on U.S. and European infrastructure and on private companies, and the U.S. is warning allies, hardening its defenses and weighing a counterattack, say multiple senior U.S. officials. Despite Iran having positioned cyber weapons to carry out attacks, there is no suggestion an offensive operation is imminent, according to the officials...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Way Beyond the Beltway

Saeed Kamali Dehgran of the Guardian: "Alarm bells have been raised about [Iran] edging towards a political, economic and even environmental precipice, and analysts fear that the warnings are bein ignored. Sadegh Zibakalam, a professor of politics at Tehran University, says the situation ha become so bad that 'people see no light at the end of the tunnel.'... Zibakalam adds that Iranian society has turned its back against both conservatives and reformists, as people see no prospect of reconciliation with the US. He believes that if, or rather when, the situation gets worse, hardliners will become strengthened...The post-revolutionary optimism that helped people go through the Iran-Iraq war, he says, has given way to a state of despair as economic, social and political resources have become depleted.'" --safari

Comments

[PD Pepe]

When my brother was around four or five he heard my father say re: something he was frustrated about, "You would think, Henny Penny, the sky is falling!" From then on little brother Billy would not want my mother to read him the book about those chickens–-he was so fearful of the sky actually falling.

I thought of this when I was reading Bacevich's piece yesterday:

"Note, for example, the events of the past couple of weeks, which have featured an endless sequence of Henny Penny prognostications about the sky falling. Yet today the G-7 still exists (and won’t be readmitting Russia anytime soon). The United States remains committed to NATO. And international sanctions imposed on the Kremlin for offenses real and alleged are still firmly in place. For all of Trump’s bluster, insults, and diplomatic gaffes, in other words, nothing has changed."

Then I remembered Rumsfeld addressing journalists who were concerned and asking questions about the looting that was taking place early in the Iraq War:

"Oh, my, goodness–-(here he threw up his hands) you people–-you would think, Henny Penny the sky is falling!"

The sky was falling and it came down with a thud that has changed our world; and I would say to Andrew Bacevich who thinks nothing has changed, that EVERYTHING has changed. Those chickens in the Henny Penny tale learned their lesson. It appears we haven't.

Eswar Prasad (see above), the prof. at Cornell U. who said Trump's tweets displayed a breezy (such a poetic adjective) ignorance of facts and a limited understanding of basic principles of economics is what some other economists have been saying, and yet no one is stopping him riding roughshod over the system–-trade wars not withstanding!

But hey! it's Saturday and lovely weather here for a change. Maybe I'll go back packing up in the mountains, breathe deeply and never worry that the sky will fall. Oh, yeah?

.

[PD Pepe]

One more thought before I go up on the mountain top: How does the revelation of the Cohen tape (more tapes to come) effect Melania and how do Trump's kinder deal with it. This must not be a secret to any of them, but to have your husband's peccadilloes ( a fancy word for cheating bigly) spread across the airwaves and your father's lies being front and center ––how do you deal with this? The videos of this smiling family touting the greatness of this soon to be president early in the campaign is such a sham–-such a shame–-and do any of them feel that shame? And I think of the young son whom we hear very little about–- he must get an earful–- "careful, he may hear you", must be whispered frequently, I would think.

[Mrs. Bea McCrabbie]

@PD Pepe: Couldn't agree with you more. I was going to write the other day that I don't think of myself as Chicken Little, but I do know that the situation is far more alarming than Bacevich thinks it is. I don't know the reason for his nonchalance, but I do think it's misplaced. Millions of Americans see themselves in about the same place as ordinary Germans found themselves in the 1930s, and for numerous reasons, that kind of fix allows our contempories to be rather sanguine or even enthusiastic about the curtailing & even reversal of the democratic norms they've experienced & enjoyed all their lives. I don't know that it's too late for a correction, but with every usurpation of people power the three branches of government take under Republican leadership, the chances of a correction diminish. We're in trouble, & people who don't recognize the signs imperil all of us.

[MAG]

We're in trouble, & people who don't recognize the signs imperil all of us.

Fer sure!

[Patrick]

Gene Weingarten's weekly humor column in the Washington Post Magazine has examples of things the Red Hen Restaurant staff could have done when Sarah HB came to dinner. Funny.

[Marie Burns]

@Patrick. Thanks. I hope Washington, D.C.'s many restaurateurs read Weingarten. Most of his suggestions would work in any restaurant frequented by Trump's staff.

[MAG]

Interesting legal tactic!

Michael Cohen’s secret tape was originally deemed ‘privileged’ – but Trump’s team blabbed about it anyway: Source
Emphasis added. (https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/21/trump-team-waived-privilege-to-release-michael-cohens-tape-source.html )

"But it was Trump's own legal team that decided to release a tape of the two men discussing a possible payment to a Playboy model, which had been deemed "privileged" in a federal court, a source with knowledge told CNBC."