The Commentariat -- Nov. 25, 2016

Afternoon Update:

New York Times Editors: "Donald Trump will take office as president facing a tsunami of litigation over his business practices and personal behavior. He may have settled the fraud suits involving Trump University, but at least 75 other lawsuits are underway against him or his companies, according to USA Today. Its investigation found more than 3,500 lawsuits over the past three decades, ranging from contract disputes to real estate battles to harassment and discrimination claims. In short, Mr. Trump could find himself in a near-constant stream of court fights while he tries to focus on running the country." -- CW

*****

Jeremy Peters & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Rival factions of Republicans are locked in an increasingly caustic and public battle to influence ... Donald J. Trump's choice for secretary of state, leaving a prominent hole in an otherwise quickly formed national security team that is unlikely to be filled until next week at the earliest. The debate inside Mr. Trump's wide circle of formal and informal advisers -- pitting supporters of one leading contender, Mitt Romney, against those of another, Rudolph W. Giuliani -- has led to the kind of dramatic airing of differences that characterized Mr. Trump's unconventional and often squabbling campaign team.... Mr. Romney would represent a departure from the hard-liners Mr. Trump has already picked for his national security team. But aides like Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump's chief strategist, have expressed doubts about Mr. Romney's loyalty given his denunciation of Mr. Trump as a 'phony' and a 'fraud.' Mr. Bannon and others have told colleagues they fear that a State Department under Mr. Romney could turn into something of a rogue agency."...

     ... CW: Worth reading as a harbinger of what a fiasco the Reign of Terror will be. Bannon's lobbying for Rudy is indicative of his long-held desire to "destroy the state" and "bring everything crashing down." When a leader places a revolutionary -- "Leninist," is Bannon's word -- at his right hand, expect chaos.

Julie Davis of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump is expected to select as commerce secretary Wilbur Ross, a billionaire investor who became known as the 'king of bankruptcy' for buying, restructuring and selling off steel makers and other fading industrial companies, officials on the transition team said on Thursday.... Mr. Trump is now turning to a group of ultrawealthy conservatives to help steer administration policy.... In addition to Mr. Ross, a generous contributor to his campaign, Mr. Trump is likely to choose Todd Ricketts, a Republican megadonor who is an owner of the Chicago Cubs and whose father founded TD Ameritrade, to be the deputy commerce secretary, the officials said. And on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said he would name Betsy DeVos, a school choice activist and Republican fund-raiser, as his education secretary." -- CW

The TrumPutin Presidency. Craig Timberg of the Washington Post: "The flood of 'fake news' this election season got support from a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy, say independent researchers who tracked the operation. Russia's increasingly sophisticated propaganda machinery -- including thousands of botnets, teams of paid human 'trolls,' and networks of Web sites and social-media accounts — echoed and amplified right-wing sites across the Internet as they portrayed Clinton as a criminal hiding potentially fatal health problems and preparing to hand control of the nation to a shadowy cabal of global financiers. The effort also sought to heighten the appearance of international tensions and promote fear of looming hostilities with nuclear-armed Russia." -- CW

Henry Grabar of Slate: "To the extent HUD is capable of helping poor Americans obtain and afford good housing, it is uniquely situated to fight against poverty, crime, bad education, poor health, and other negative outcomes tied to instability at home. Under Ben Carson’s watch [should Trump nominate him & the Senate confirm him as HUD secretary], HUD will almost certainly contribute as little as possible to that fight." His qualifications for the job, according to Ole Doc himself: "He grew up in a city, spent some time in a city, and worked in one." ...

    ... CW: Hey, I lived & worked in more big cities than did Doc Ben: NYC, Chicago, L.A., and I've spent a couple of months in Houston, too. That's the top four. So I'm totally super-qualified to run HUD. Pick me! Pick me!

He's a Jerk, But He's Our Jerk. Paul Krugman: "You can't explain the votes of places like Clay County[, Kentucky, where Trump got 87 percent of the vote] as a response to disagreements about trade policy. The only way to make sense of what happened is to see the vote as an expression of, well, identity politics -- some combination of white resentment at what voters see as favoritism toward nonwhites (even though it isn't) and anger on the part of the less educated at liberal elites whom they imagine look down on them.... Democrats have to figure out why the white working class just voted overwhelmingly against its own economic interests, not pretend that a bit more populism would solve the problem." ...

     ... CW: The answer is as clear as their Christian faith: resentment of the other absolves them of taking responsibility for their sorry lot in life, just as confession absolves them of sin.

Kyle Balluck of the Hill: "Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein has raised enough money for a recount in Wisconsin, her campaign said early Thursday. Donations totaled at least $2.7 million in less than one day, according to a fundraising page on her web site." -- CW ...

... Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "Stein's fundraising goal was $2.5 million -- and donors blew right past it. At that point, as New York magazine first reported, the goal spiked to $4.5 million.... It's a lot of money, especially for the Green Party. Stein's 2016 campaign, the party's most electorally potent since 2000, took in $3,509,477 from donors. As of Thursday afternoon, the recount effort had raised $3,875,502. It's the largest donation drive for a third party in history...." Weigel explores the reasons for the successful campaign. -- CW

Justin Baragona of Mediaite: "While meeting with the New York Times yesterday for an on-the-record interview..., Donald Trump stated that the president cannot have conflicts of interest and that the law was on his side. This comes in response to numerous concerns over Trump using his position to further enrich himself and his personal businesses. During a discussion on CNN this morning, former White House lawyer Richard Painter made the case that if it appears that Trump will be in violation of the emolument clause of the Constitution, then the Electoral College must decide to not vote for him next month.... Painter, who served as President George W. Bush's ethics counsel from 2005 to 2007, also took a shot at Trump over his past birtherism. 'This is just as important as your birth certificate. More important than your birth certificate or proof of age, whatever other requirements there are to be President of the United States,' Painter concluded." -- CW

** Hamilton! Larry Lessig, in a Washington Post op-ed: "... where the people voted, the electoral college was intended [by the framers] to confirm -- or not -- the people's choice. Electors were to apply, in [Alexander] Hamilton's words, 'a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice' -- and then decide. The Constitution says nothing about 'winner take all.'... Today, the vote of a citizen in Wyoming is four times as powerful as the vote of a citizen in Michigan.... The winner, by far, of the popular vote is the most qualified candidate for president in more than a generation.... Choosing her is thus plainly within the bounds of a reasonable judgment by the people.... The framers left the electors free to choose. They should exercise that choice by leaving the election as the people decided it: in Clinton's favor." -- CW

Robert Pear of the New York Times: "... emboldened House Republicans say they will move forward on a years-old effort to shift Medicare away from its open-ended commitment to pay for medical services and toward a fixed government contribution for each beneficiary. The idea rarely came up during Mr. Trump's march toward the White House, but a battle over the future of Medicare could roil Washington during his first year in office, whether he wants it or not." -- CW

Tim Egan: "Trump can't tell a joke, nor can he take one. He was graceless and unfunny at the Al Smith dinner last month, getting booed for his boorishness.... I miss the wit of Barack Obama. No president has had a better comic sensibility.... Obama has great timing, and a sense of self-deprecation honed over years of making fun of his name and his ears.... You would think that having your legitimacy challenged would make you Nixonian dark or Trumpian enraged. For Obama, the birther nonsense has given him some of his best material.... Appearing on 'Between Two Ferns,' the mock cable show with Zach Galifianakis, Obama was asked, 'What's it like to be the last black president?' POTUS didn't blink. 'What's it like for this to be the last time you'll ever talk to a president?'... The 44th president is leaving office with soaring approval ratings, or as he put it: 'The last time I was this high, I was trying to decide my major.'" -- CW

Thomas Gibbons-Neff of the Washington Post: "A U.S. service member was killed by an improvised explosive device in northern Syria on Thursday, the Pentagon announced in a statement.... The death marks the first time a U.S. service member has been killed in the country since a contingent of Special Operations forces were deployed there in October 2015 to go after the extremist group." -- CW

Way Beyond the Beltway

Tim Arango of the New York Times: "At least 80 people, many of them Shiite pilgrims on their way home to Iran, were killed on Thursday when an Islamic State suicide bomber detonated a truck filled with explosives at a roadside service station in southern Iraq, local officials said."-- CW

Ruth Eglash of the Washington Post: "More than 60,000 people from the northern city of Haifa were evacuated from their homes Thursday, as firefighters battle massive blazes that have gripped the country over the past three days. A number of countries, including Russia and Turkey, sent firefighting planes to assist Israel in tackling the fires, which officials said may have been started intentionally." -- CW

News Lede

AFP: "A jihadist terror ring was planning to attack Paris on December 1 and had researched sites including a Christmas market and Disneyland outside the capital as potential targets, a police source said Thursday. Seven suspects were arrested in police raids last weekend in the eastern city of Strasbourg and Marseille in the south following an eight-month investigation by security services, although two were later released." -- CW

Comments

[Marvin Schwalb]

The idea that Guiliani is being even considered as a candidate for Sec. of State (or anything else) tells it all. It fully explains the Trump decision process and the reason Marie is not a candidate for HUD. Guiliani has left a serious lip imprint on Trumps ass.

And in response to Paul Krugman, the problem is that the people of
Clay County Kentucky never received a decent education. Like most of America, they are totally unprepared to deal with modern reality.

[PD Pepe]

Charles Blow speaks for me and apparently hundreds of others who responded to this piece. I find myself getting angrier and angrier instead of accepting this final solution and "giving the guy a chance" business.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/opinion/no-trump-we-cant-just-get-along.html

I also want to ask why in hell can't Trump's young son transfer to a school in D.C. Kids transfer all the time and they survive. In Germany the majority of elementary schools have a program where kids experience a semester of schooling in a foreign country. My own granddaughter, from Freiburg, will be going to school in the US in January. Having Melania and her son remain in N.Y.C. is going to cost taxpayers millions.

[BobbyLee]

How much of this Romney/Guiliani fracas is just more reality show drama from the ultimate drama drag queen? Mittens hasn't formally kissed the ring and profusely apologized for ever for a second doubting the anointed one. I'm betting this is just another side show in the Trump transition circus.

[Marvin Schwalb]

Sorry NYT, you got it wrong. Trump will never 'focus on running the country'. The absolutely only thing he focuses on is himself. Pence and Bannon will be the functional POTUS.

[Gloria]

One thing HRC clearly didn't do enough of was to drive home the Dem benefits that the cons want to remove, and blame cons for refusing to do their jobs and legislate to correct problems. Not forgetting an ultra conservative SCOTUS making Obamacare more expensive than it should be. This quote from the Amy Goodnough NYT piece “I think it was rammed down our throats,” Mr. Verrastro, 64, of Boynton Beach, said of the law. “I’m taking advantage of it because I’d be silly not to. But it needs to be changed.” Cons and frump campaigned on repealing Obamacare, and many of their voters are counting on them not fulfilling this promise. So, they wouldn't vote for a liar, but are counting on their guy lying. I want to see this promise in particular enacted. I know it is cruel, and innocent people will be hurt. How do you show low info voters they can't do this? It also happened in Kentucky, with Bevan and Medicaid expansion. It should have been easy to scare the bejesus out of these guys with "if you like your doctor - tough!" There needs to be more demographic and geographic info out there in the campaigns about just who receives, and so will lose, social welfare - food stamps, medicaid, ss, farm subsidies, roads, education, etc. People would be surprised. Cons need to learn that they are going to lose their benefits regardless of being rural, white, frump voters.
Dems have to work on universal voting immediately.
After eight years of disrespect and disloyalty we are under no obligation to show any courtesy to these bums.

[Nancy]

Here's pretty much the m.o. for a Trump presidency (gah I can't believe I typed those last two words):

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/25/world/europe/donald-trump-scotland-wall.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0

[Haley Simon]

I want to cut Barron Trump some slack. I suspect he may have some 'challenges'. Until, or unless, we learn more, I hope we will swallow hard and let him finish the school year.

[Gloria]

I would like to agree with you, Haley, but that entire family seem to be entitled, arrogant, scammers. It's hard, though not impossible, to see Barron growing up to be any different. I don't advocate that he be moved mid year, though other kids have done it successfully, but it will be interesting to see if he and his mum ever relocate. A few challenges and bumps in life can develop character and empathy in young people, especially if they have a supportive family. My kids often had to relocate, and learn different cultures, languages and make new friends. It was hard work, but they are stronger and wiser for it. I think, as I've said before, that it is more likely to be a reflection of the fragility of the marriage than Barron's in moving.