The Commentariat -- September 8, 2018

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Mrs. McCrabbie: I meant to embed this last night. It's an incredible thing that answers the usually-unanswerable historical question: What would So-&-So think if s/he could see what's going on today? John Dean is not rolling over in his grave nearly half a century after his Watergate committee testimony: he's testifying:

Josh Gerstein, et al., of Politico: "Talk show host and liberal activist Randy Credico testified for more than two hours Friday before a grand jury run by special counsel Robert Mueller's office that appears to be zeroing in on former Trump adviser Roger Stone. Credico emerged from the questioning, describing it as something of an ordeal. 'It was like sitting on an electric chair for a couple of hours,' he told Politico.... Credico is a devoted advocate for [WikiLeaks founder Julian] Assange, and Stone's contacts with Credico have led to speculation that Credico served as an intermediary of sorts between Assange and Stone."

Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Eric Levitz of New York: Dr. Richard Sackler made billions on the opioid OxyContin, which he invented & marketed with deceptive ads & other propaganda vehicles claiming OxyContin was not addictive. "Thus, Sackler created immense value for his shareholders -- while providing the American people with a product they value so greatly demand for it has remained robust, even as opioids began killing upwards of 40,000 Americans a year.... So, after creating billions of dollars in value by selling patented opioids, he's poised to make millions selling an innovative form of buprenorphine, a mild opiate that reduces cravings for harder opioids like OxyContin." ...

     ... But, but, Eric. He's a philanthropist! (You may not be surprised to learn that Rudy Giuliani was one of Sackler's defense lawyers.)

David Cay Johnston of DCReport: "Donald Trump's tweets telling the super-rich to expect another big tax cut if Republicans hold onto the House and Senate is paying off for the GOP. National Republican fundraising continues to run well ahead of Democrats, who are saddled with debt, new Federal Election Commission reports show. Republicans have raised $1.1 billion this year, while the parallel Democratic Party organizations have yet to break the billion dollar mark. The Democrats are also saddled with 11 times as much debt as the GOP.... Money alone does not win elections, but it helps." --safari

*****

Trump Takes Another Shot at the First Amendment. Mark Landler of the New York Times: "President Trump said on Friday that he wanted Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate the source of an anonymous Op-Ed essay published in The New York Times, intensifying his attack on an article he has characterized as an act of treason. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One as he traveled to Fargo, N.D., Mr. Trump said, 'I would say Jeff should be investigating who the author of that piece was because I really believe it's national security.' Mr. Trump said he was also considering action against The Times, though he did not elaborate.... In a statement on Friday, The New York Times said any such investigation would be an abuse of power.... Mr. Trump also escalated his attack on a new book by Bob Woodward, describing it as a 'total fraud' and arguing, 'I don't talk that way.' The president said libel laws should be toughened to go after Mr. Woodward for what Mr. Trump claimed was a pattern of falsehoods." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Peter Baker & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "As President Trump tries to refute the portrayal in the latest attention-grabbing book, he has not only denied saying the things attributed to him, he has denied that he has ever said anything like them. The problem for Mr. Trump is that, in some cases at least, the record shows that he has. 'The Woodward book is a scam,' Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter on Friday morning.... 'I don't talk the way I am quoted. If I did I would not have been elected President. These quotes were made up.' In particular, Mr. Trump has denied that he called Attorney General Jeff Sessions 'mentally retarded' or a 'dumb Southerner,' as the book reports. 'I said NEITHER, never used those terms on anyone, including Jeff, and being a southerner is a GREAT thing,' the president wrote earlier this week. But, in fact, Mr. Trump has used the phrase 'mentally retarded' on recorded radio shows that have been unearthed this week. And in a previously unreported incident, a journalist who used to interact with Mr. Trump during his days as a real estate developer in New York said this week that he even used the phrase 'dumb southerner' to describe his own in-laws." He told New York Post gossip columnist Jeane MacIntosh that he was divorcing Marla Maples because "'she was constantly surrounded "by an entourage of dumb Southerners."' He even adopted a fake southern accent to mimic Ms. Maples's mother, Ms. MacIntosh said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... The Whodunit Game. Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair: "With Trump so far unable to execute a strategy to stanch the drip-drip-drip of damaging disclosures, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have taken the lead in getting control of the crisis.... Earlier this week, they told Trump they were deeply troubled by the accounts in [Bob] Woodward's book and blamed Chief of Staff John Kelly for many of the leaks, an outside adviser close to them told me. '"He's destroying your presidency,"' Ivanka told her father, the outside adviser, who was briefed on the conversation, said. Their hunt for the author of the Times op-ed may bring them into the final chapter of their long-running feud with Kelly.... [Javanka's theory:] the op-ed was written by Zachary Fuentes, the deputy chief of staff, at the direction of Kelly." A spokesman for Abbe Lowell, Kuschner's attorney denied the story. ...

     ... William Saletan of Slate: "... the most likely author, based on the op-ed's content and style, is the U.S. ambassador to Russia, Jon Huntsman. Huntsman is an obvious suspect for several reasons. The article's themes are classic Huntsman: effusive about conservative policies, blunt about low character.... The topic that gets the most space and detail in the piece is Huntsman's current area, Russia. (As Slate's Fred Kaplan points out, Trump has been circumventing and undermining Huntsman.) The prose, as in Huntsman's speeches and interviews, is flamboyantly erudite. The tone, like Huntsman's, is pious. And the article's stated motive -- 'Americans should know that there are adults in the room' -- matches a letter that Huntsman wrote to the Salt Lake Tribune in July." Saletan goes on to analyze content & style.

This Should Go Well. Mark Landler & Maggie Haberman: "Three weeks from now, in New York, President Trump will find himself in the setting he most relishes: seated at the head of a polished table, calling on those seated around him, rewarding those he likes and cutting off those who displease him.... Mr. Trump will be presiding at the United Nations Security Council, a rotating role that falls to the United States this month. His star turn is prompting anxiety among people, inside and outside the administration, who worry that the president will bring reality-TV antics to the world stage." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "During a flight from Montana to North Dakota on Friday..., reporters ... [asked Trump] about Mueller and the investigation." Bump provides an annotated transcript, based on a recording by the Washington Post's Josh Dawsey. "Number one, there is no obstruction.... Number two, there was no obstruction, there was no collusion.... Everyone has given up at collusion.... . It's so hard for us to deal with other countries including Russia because of that witch hunt. It endangers our country.... . It's really unfair for our midterms. Really, really unfair for the midterms." He doesn't know George Papadopoulos; 17 angry Democrats cried at Hillary's funeral (i.e., election night), blah blah.

Mark Mazzetti & Sharon LaFraniere of the New York Times: "George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign adviser, was sentenced on Friday to 14 days in prison for lying to the F.B.I. about his contacts with Russian intermediaries before the 2016 election, with the judge saying he wanted to send a message to the public about the consequences of impeding an inquiry of national import. Mr. Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty last year, is the first Trump campaign adviser to be sentenced as part of the continuing investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. Three others pleaded guilty or were convicted of felonies and await sentencing. Though lying to federal investigators is not typically punished by incarceration, United States District Judge Randolph D. Moss said that Mr. Papadopoulos deserved prison time because he had deceived investigators probing 'a matter of grave national importance.' He also fined him $9,500 and ordered him to complete 200 hours of community service and one year of probation after his release." ...

... New York Times: "Mr. Papadopoulos spoke with The New York Times this week and discussed a wide range of issues -- including his foreign contacts and his interactions with the Trump campaign. The following are excerpts from that interview, as prepared by The Times.... 'My biggest regret, actually, is not telling the U.S. intelligence community what [Joseph] Mifsud told me actually the minute after I left that meeting in London with him. The stupidest thing I did was actually gossiping about it with foreign diplomats. Allegedly, the Australian and for sure with the Greek. And not telling the U.S. intelligence community until I was interviewed.... And we [he & Mifsud] met at the Andaz hotel by Liverpool Street Station. And at that infamous meeting is where he told me that he had information that the Russians had thousands of Hillary Clinton's emails. I never heard the word 'Podesta,' 'DNC.' I just heard 'Hillary Clinton's emails.'... [On arranging a meeting between Trump & Putin:] Though he wasn't committed either way, but he nodded and deferred to Jeff Sessions who I remember being actually quite enthusiastic about a potential meeting between then-candidate Trump and Putin." Worth a read. ...

... Marshall Cohen of CNN: "Former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos says he doesn't remember telling anyone on the campaign that Russia had damaging emails about Hillary Clinton, but 'can't guarantee' that he kept the bombshell from his campaign colleagues.... In April 2016, when Papadopoulos met Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud, [Mifsud] told him that the Russians had 'thousands of emails' about Clinton. These emails burst into public view two months later with the first WikiLeaks releases. Papadopoulos described Mifsud's comments as a 'momentous statement' and not an explicit offer of assistance. He says he didn't take the bait or express any interest in the emails."

David Voreacos & Neil Weinberg of Bloomberg: "Paul Manafort's lawyers have talked to U.S. prosecutors about a possible guilty plea to avert a second criminal trial set to begin in Washington this month, according to a person familiar with the matter.... The negotiations over a potential plea deal have centered on which charges Manafort might admit and the length of the sentence to be recommended by prosecutors working for Special Counsel Robert Mueller.... It's not clear whether Manafort might cooperate in Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.... Trump, who said he was 'very sad' after Manafort's conviction, could still pardon him."

Justin Miller & Lachlan Cartwright of the Daily Beast: "A major Republican fundraiser allegedly demanded that his Playboy playmate mistress have an abortion. That's according to accusations leveled by the mistress, Shera Bechard, and revealed in a document unsealed in court on Friday. Bechard suedElliott Broidy, the former deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, for allegedly breaching their hush-money agreement that saw the former Playboy playmate receive $1.6 million for her silence about their extramarital affair. Broidy's attorneys filed a motion in July to redact parts of Bechard's complaint that contain explosive allegations against him. A judge agreed and redacted portions of Bechard's complaint this summer. Broidy's motion, however, contains the redacted allegations. They include Bechard's claim that Broidy compelled to her to have an abortion; that he refused to wear a condom; and that he had sex with Bechard 'without telling her he had genital herpes.' In addition, Broidy allegedly told Bechard he had prostate cancer and that he was unwilling to have his prostate removed 'because it would stop him from having sex, which he told her was more important to him than life itself.'" There's more. Mrs. McC: Broidy is so repulsive, he sounds like ... Donald Trump.

How to Treat the U.S.'s Closest Ally. Daniel Dale of the (Toronto) Star: "... Donald Trump warned Friday that he would cause the 'ruination' of Canada if he imposed tariffs on Canadian-made cars. Trump issued the threat during another day of North American Free Trade Agreement negotiations that did not produce a deal between the U.S. and Canada. Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland continued to describe the talks as constructive but provided no details." ...

Don De Lusional. You know when Abraham Lincoln made the Gettysburg Address speech, the great speech, you know he was ridiculed? Fifty years after his death they said it may have been the greatest speech ever made in America. I have a feeling that's going to happen with us. In different ways, that's going to happen with us. -- Donald Trump, at a rally in Montana, Thursday

Our ancestors built the railroads, linked the highways. And they proudly planted an American flag on the face of the moon, which is not shown in that movie. -- Donald Trump, same rally

... this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and ... you know they really need to install a telegraph system in the White House. -- Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, Trump-style, courtesy of Gail Collins

In addition to thinking his rambling, incoherent, narcissistic speeches are on a par with the Gettysburg Address, Don De Lusional uses the royal "we," because unlike Abe Lincoln, who was born in a log cabin he helped his father build, Don is American royalty. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

In public and in private, President Trump shows a preference for autocrats and dictators, such as President Vladimir Putin of Russia and North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un. -- Anonymous, New York Times op-ed, Sept. 5 ...

Kim Jong Un of North Korea proclaims 'unwavering faith in President Trump.' Thank you to Chairman Kim. We will get it done together! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet, responding to Anonymous

How to Manage a Demented President*. Damian Paletta, et al., of the Washington Post: "The top two Republicans in Congress arrived at the White House this week armed with props aimed at flattering and cajoling President Trump out of shutting down the government at the end of this month. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.) showed the president glossy photos of a wall under construction along the U.S.-Mexico border. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) brought an article from the Washington Examiner that described Trump as brilliantly handling the current budget process, and portrayed the GOP as unified and breaking through years of dysfunction. Their message, according to two people briefed on the meeting: The budget process is going smoothly, the wall is already ­being built, and there's no need to shut down the government. Instead, they sought to persuade Trump to put off a fight for more border wall money until after the November midterm elections, promising to try then to get him the outcome he wants, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity...." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie Alternatives. (1) Persuade mike pence & the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment. (2) Let Trump veto it, & override the veto with a budget that both sides can embrace. (Even less likely than [1].)

Michael Kranish of the Washington Post: "Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said Friday that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was 'not truthful' when he denied knowing that he had received documents that Leahy said had been 'stolen' from him and other Democrats. Leahy said that emails disclosed during Kavanaugh's nomination hearing this week buttress his case that Kavanaugh knew, or should have known, that he had received documents that Republican staffers took from a computer jointly shared with Democrats. Kavanaugh, asked during this week's hearing whether he ever suspected the material was taken from Democrats, responded, 'No.'... The allegation is one of several from Democrats who say Kavanaugh has not been completely forthcoming during his confirmation hearings, both for the federal bench years ago and during this week's Supreme Court hearings." Kranish lays out the details of Leahy's charge. ...

... Liar, Liar. Liar, Liar. "But His Emails." Jay Michaelson of the Daily Beast: "For over a month, Democrats (and this writer) have complained that the confirmation process of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is fatally flawed because the records of Kavanaugh's White House tenure were being redacted by his former deputy, then redacted again by the Trump White House, then redacted a third time by Judiciary Committee chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).... On Thursday, with the release of a half dozen emails by Grassley and several more by Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), the Democrats have been proven right. Brett Kavanaugh has misled the Senate at least four times [under oath], and the censored emails have been withheld not because of national security or executive privilege, but, at least in part, because they make Kavanaugh look bad." Do read on. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Should a Supreme Court justice have a record of committing perjury at his confirmation hearings? Let me think. Maybe Republicans got used to it after the infamous Clarence Thomas hearings. Of course Thomas's well-known lies were about sexual abuse, and boys will be boys, heh-heh. Kavanaugh's lies are about everything. ...

... Lisa Graves, in Salon: Judge Brett Kavanaugh should be impeached from the federal judiciary.... Newly released emails show that while he was working to move through President George W. Bush's judicial nominees in the early 2000s, Kavanaugh received confidential memos, letters, and talking points of Democratic staffers stolen by GOP Senate aide Manuel Miranda. That includes research and talking points Miranda stole from the Senate server after I had written them for the Senate Judiciary Committee as the chief counsel for nominations for the minority.... Kavanaugh should be removed because he was repeatedly asked under oath as part of his 2004 and 2006 confirmation hearings for his position on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit about whether he had received such information from Miranda, and each time he falsely denied it.... During the hearings on his nomination to the D.C. Circuit a few months after the Miranda news broke, Kavanaugh actively hid his own involvement, lying to the Senate Judiciary Committee by stating unequivocally that he not only knew nothing of the episode, but also never even received any stolen material." ...

    ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I'm with Graves. If Democrats win control of the House, they can practice the impeachment process by starting with Kavanaugh. It's true the Senate won't convict him (conviction requires a super-majority) even though it was Senators to whom he lied. But it would be fitting for Kavanaugh to be saddled with that impeachment asterisk for the rest of his, sadly, long future career. He's already stuck with the Trump-nominee label. ...

... HOWEVER, Dylan Matthews of Fox interviews law professors who say Kavanaugh's lies don't "meet the high bar for a perjury prosecution." ...

... AND Scott Lemiuex in LG&$: ": I'm not sure there would be a Senate supermajority to convict Kavanaugh if it could be proven that he shot a man in Reno just to watch him die, and certainly for any lesser offense there's a 0% chance. What valuable about bringing this out is that it makes Republicans more politically toxic, which since the only remedy is at the ballot box is critically important."

... Seung Min Kim of the Washington Post: "John Dean, the former Nixon White House counsel who played a crucial role in the Watergate scandal, testified Friday that confirming Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh as a justice will lead to the 'most presidential-powers friendly' Supreme Court in the modern age. The sharp criticism was laid out in Dean's remarks before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the last day of Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings. More than two dozen witnesses testified in favor of and against President Trump's Supreme Court pick. Dean argued in his testimony that conservatives have 'slowly done a 180-degree turn' on executive power and that a Supreme Court that is overly deferential to the president is 'deeply troubling,' wit Republicans controlling both the House and Senate. 'Under Judge Kavanaugh's recommendation, if a president shot someone in cold blood on Fifth Avenue, that president could not be prosecuted while in office,' Dean told senators, a reference to Trump's oft-repeated campaign line that he could act that way and not lose support. Dean elaborated on his prepared testimony to the committee, in which he said: 'There is much to fear from an unchecked president who is inclined to abuse his powers. That is a fact I can attest to from personal experience.'" ...

... Paige Lavender of the Huffington Post has a rundown to Friday's witnesses & their testimony. Mrs. McC: Oddly, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) did not follow up on her strong suggestion that Kavanaugh had discussed the Russia investigation with an attorney from the firm of Marc Kasowitz, Trump's former lawyer. This was a big wind-up for a pitcher who never released the ball. ...

... Brett Is Really Creepy. David Brock in an NBC News opinion piece: "... I want to tell any senator who cares about our democracy: Vote no. Twenty years ago, when I was a conservative movement stalwart, I got to know Brett Kavanaugh both professionally and personally.... Brett and I were part of a close circle of cold, cynical and ambitious hard-right operatives being groomed by GOP elders for much bigger roles in politics, government and media. And it's those controversial associations that should give members of the Senate and the American public serious pause.... Kavanaugh took on the role of designated leaker to the press of sensitive information from [Ken] Starr's operation.... While Ted [Olsen] was pushing through the Arkansas Project conspiracy theories claiming that Clinton White House lawyer and Hillary friend Vincent Foster was murdered (he committed suicide), Brett was costing taxpayers millions by pedaling the same garbage at Starr's office.... He was cherry-picking random bits of information from the Starr investigation -- as well as the multiple previous investigations -- attempting vainly to legitimize wild right-wing conspiracies. For years he chased down each one of them without regard to the emotional cost to Foster's family and friends, or even common decency." ...

... ** Al Franken, in a USA Today op-ed: "... in his opening remarks at the White House ceremony announcing his nomination, Judge Kavanaugh praised ... Donald Trump's diligence, declaring that 'no president has ever consulted more widely, or talked with more people from more backgrounds, to seek input about a Supreme Court nomination.' This was extremely untrue. President Barack Obama, for example, had taken a month or close to it to pick both Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Trump had taken just 12 days to make his pick. And, of course, he made that pick from a list of 25 names presented to him by the right-wing Federalist Society. If judgment matters..., a big, fat, easily debunked lie like Kavanaugh's should have been instantly disqualifying.... It's time for all of us on the left to recognize that Republicans have already destroyed the independence of our judicial system and turned it into yet another partisan battlefield...." Franken lays into Chuck Grassley, Susan Collins & all those other GOP senators who are busy packing the courts with winger judges.

Martin Farrer of the Guardian: "Donald Trump has said he has a new tranche of tariffs ready to place on virtually all Chinese goods.... A package of tariffs was already close to being imposed on $200bn worth of Chinese goods imported to the US, Trump said, while suggesting a further package, worth $267bn, could also be imposed, which would sharply escalate his trade war with China. Economic tensions between the two countries were heightened further on Saturday when official data showed that China's trade surplus with the US widened to a record level in August." --safari

Kyla Mandel of ThinkProgress: "Trump administration officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced in a quietly released statement on Thursday that 234,000 acres of land near a popular Minnesota wilderness area will officially open to mining.... Critics, however, say this decision ignores 'science and facts' because the department did not conduct an adequate study into the environmental, social, and economic impacts that may occur as a result of lifting a temporary suspension on mining in the area.... The Boundary Waters area is a hugely popular wilderness area with over 1,000 lakes, providing more than 1,000 miles of canoe routes and numerous hiking trails.... These areas were set to be banned to industry activities under the Obama administration." --safari

Amerikan Baby Snatchers. Tom Hals of Reuters: "Immigrant parents separated from their children by the Trump administration and returned to their homes are refusing to be reunited with their children because their countries are so dangerous, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union told a court on Friday.... Lee Gelernt of the ACLU told a federal judge in San Diego[,] 'As much as they want to be with their child, and it's heartbreaking, they feel it's too dangerous.' Gelernt told the court that he had spent time over the past week in Guatemala trying to locate parents of some of the roughly 300 children in U.S. care and found about two-thirds were refusing to have their child returned to them." --safari

Election 2018

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "Former President Barack Obama assailed President Trump on Friday as a 'threat to democracy' as h emerged from a period of political silence to kick off a campaign blitz intended to help Democrats take control of Congress in the November midterm elections. In a speech meant to frame his message on the campaign trail over the next two months, Mr. Obama offered a stinging indictment of his successor, sometimes by name, sometimes by inference, accusing him and his Republican supporters of practicing a 'politics of fear and resentment,' cozying up to Russia, emboldening white supremacists and politicizing law enforcement agencies." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Vox has the full transcript of President Obama's speech. ...

Ezra Klein of Vox: "In his speech Friday, Barack Obama offered a succinct explanation for the rise of Donald Trump.... The right reacted to this with outrage, but also with an alternative explanation, one even simpler than Obama's. Conservative pundit Ben Shapiro put it most succinctly: [Obama lecturing us is LITERALLY how you got Trump]. You see this on the right a lot, and I've come to think it the most revealing argument in conservative politics right now. It shows how desperate conservatives are to absolve their movement of responsibility for Trump, but it's also, in an important sense, true -- it's just a truth the right (and sometimes the left) refuses to follow to its obvious conclusions.... Donald Trump capitalized on fears triggered by demographic, technological, economic, social, religious, and civic change, and nothing represented or activated those fears as powerfully as Obama himself." --safari ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: So Shapiro's argument is, "All those saccharine kumbaya speeches made me vote for Trump." Goes along with, "I can't stand Grandma because she's so nice to me so I set her house on fire."

... Paul Waldman & Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "In his speech, Obama offered a scathing indictment of Trump's racism and ethnonationalism -- 'how hard can that be, saying that Nazis are bad?' -- and he called for a 'restoration of honesty and decency and lawfulness in our government.' He insisted, in the face of the rage and polarization coursing through our politics, that 'common ground exists. I have seen it. I have lived it.'... No one can say Obama didn't regularly call Americans to be their best selves.... One remarkable thing about Trump is that he never appeals to the better angels of our nature.... What he does instead is appeal to what is worst in people, like their fear and hatred and bigotry.... The undercurrent of realism here, one that Obama did not directly address but was plainly on his mind, is that this civic awakening, that backlash, is about to collide with the GOP's structural advantages in this election, which are rooted in geography and gerrymandering. The winner of this clash will determine whether the damage Trump is inflicting will continue in its current form or get much worse, or whether we will achieve something approaching real oversight and accountability that puts a check on it." ...

... Juan Cole: "The country is in the midst of a constitutional crisis. Asked about its resolution, former Secretary of State John Kerry urged that the solution is to elect a Democratic Congress, and if possible, senate -- the solution is for voters to vote.... The problem is gerrymandering.... The long and the short of it is that even if Democratic voters dutifully come out in droves, so many voting districts have been gerrymandered to have a permanent Republican majority that there is no guarantee that we can produce a congressional democratic majority.... Everyone who is worried for our country has to pull out all the stops. The inertia is with Trump." --safari

** A History of "Voter Fraud". Rick Perlstein & Livia Gershon in TPM: "Numerous studies have found that voter fraud ... is vanishingly rare.... And yet, as of last summer, 68 percent of Republicans thought millions of illegal immigrants had voted in 2016, and almost three quarters said voter fraud happens 'somewhat' or 'very often.' Trump may have brought the Republican Party into a new era, but such attitudes long predate Trump. For decades, complaints about 'voter fraud' have been a core component of Republican right-wing folklore — and one of their most useful election-year tools, particularly in places where winning the white vote isn't enough to win elections. The story begins in Chicago...." Read on. --safari...

Kansas Gubernatorial Race. Voter Frauds. Kira Lerner of ThinkProgress: "An election integrity activist in Kansas filed an objection Thursday to Kris Kobach's candidacy for governor, claiming elections officials illegally rejected more early ballots than Kobach’s margin of victory. Davis Hammet, the director of the Kansas-based organization Loud Light, told ThinkProgress that the rejected advance mail ballots throw Kobach's extremely narrow primary win into question. Kobach defeated current Gov. Jeff Colyer (R) in August's primary by just 343 votes.... There's no way to know exactly how many ballots were illegally rejected across the state. Kansas elections are run at the county level, and county officials are not required to report why they reject provisional ballots in a primary election." --safari: If Colyer had any backbone at all, he'd follow up on this. My educated guess? TheKochs will cut him a check and he'll lounge in cozy chairs the rest of his unprincipled life. ...

... Kansas Congressional Race. Bryan Lowry of McClatchy News: "A fearful mother stares into a camera and warns that Democratic [Congressional] candidate Sharice Davids will put her four children at risk. In a new ad from a super PAC linked to House Speaker Paul Ryan, Alana Roethle of Leawood, Kansas, calls Davids 'too risky for Kansas families.' What Roethle does not say in the ad is that she is secretary of the Kansas Republican Party and a member of the Kansas Lottery Commission, who was appointed to her seat by then-Gov. Sam Brownback in 2015.... Roethle has long-standing ties to both the state and national GOP."

Alan Pyke of ThinkProgress: "Cities cannot arrest or cite a person for sleeping outdoors unless it can prove it had a shelter bed or other indoor housing option available at the time, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found almost a decade after a group of homeless people in Idaho sued over Boise's ban on 'sleeping rough.'... More than 30 different cities and towns outlawed sleeping in public between 2006 and 2016, according to a National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty report that found dramatic increases in laws criminalizing homelessness in 187 towns around the country.... This week's ruling will not annul every one of those laws. But cities in the Ninth Circuit's jurisdiction -- Montana, Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and California -- will have to abandon or amend their policies." --safari

Jack Nicas of the New York Times: "Late Friday, Apple removed [Alex Jones'] Infowars app from its App Store, eliminating one of the final avenues for Mr. Jones to reach a mainstream audience. An Apple spokeswoman said it was removed under company policies that prohibit apps from including content that is 'offensive, insensitive, upsetting, intended to disgust or in exceptionally poor taste.'... Apple had removed Mr. Jones's show from its podcast service on Aug. 5, leading Facebook, YouTube and other tech companies to also eliminate Mr. Jones and his Infowars site from their services. Those moves have cut off Mr. Jones from a wider audience; social media was his primary channel for finding new viewers. After those removals, downloads of the Infowars mobile app spiked, and Mr. Jones has recently been directing his followers to find his show through Infowars’ website and app. Apple's move does not affect iPhone users who had already downloaded the Infowars app, but it limits any more users from downloading it. The app is still available on smartphones that run Google's Android software, which backs roughly 80 percent of the world's smartphones."

Beyond the Beltway

Rachel Cohen of The Intercept: "One in 10 eligible voters in Florida are effectively disenfranchised, thanks to a draconian law that bars former felons from voting and a broken clemency system. When it comes to black voters, the numbers are even more grim: More than 20 percent of otherwise eligible black voters from Florida cannot cast a ballot. In total, more than a quarter of all disenfranchised felons in the entire country are in the Sunshine State. But this November, Florida voters will have a chance to reverse that by weighing in on Amendment 4, a constitutional ballot measure to restore voting rights to an estimated 1.5 million Floridians who have fully completed their felony sentences. Florida is just one of three states in the U.S. that indefinitely bans citizens with felony convictions from voting." --safari

AP: "A Dallas police officer returning home from work shot and killed a neighbor [26-year-old Botham Jean] after she said she mistook his apartment for her own, authorities said on Friday. The officer called dispatch to report that she had shot the man on Thursday night, police said. She told responding officers that she believed the victim's apartment was her own when she entered it.... She will be placed on administrative leave[.]" --safari

Comments

[Akhilleus]

Great to see the last real president enter the fray. I saw one headline that said something like “The Battle Everyone’s Been Waiting For: Trump v Obama!” Right.

Obama gives a detailed, passionate speech outlining the damage the little dictator and the Party of Traitors has inficted on the nation. Trumpy’s response? “Huh? What? Oh, I fell asleep.” Whoa, good comeback little donnie. A regular Gettysburg Address.

Not exactly a clash of the titans.

Trump v Obama is a nasty, ignorant little kid flinging turds v a smart, eloquent and righteous adult.

One other thought about the upcoming midterms, and I certainly don’t want to get ahead of things here, but if Democrats are able to take control of Congress away from the traitors, look for a tsunami of crazy anti-American, anti-democratic Bills to pass before the current disgraceful session ends.

[safari]

The main thing about Obama's speech that pisses me off to no end is, ironically, his most appreciated attribute: a call to a better America.

I acknowledge the grave importance of the message, especially in Times of Drumpf. But that's also the stickler. The entire GOP is wholly devoid of such rhetoric. Across the country they're flying their freak flags as far and wide as they can, drumming up racial and economic resentments as their official Ass Covering Campaign strategy. Division is their ONLY message. Us or "those [colored] people". In D.C., they don't even bother to mention, "let's listen to some Demcrats and see if we can compromise". No. Nothing. The one supposed Republican "maverick" who even mentioned decorum and norms is lying in his grave right now. All the others are feckless, partisan hacks. In fact, the last decade of politics, mostly led by Mitch "burn the city to 'save' it" McConnell, has seen the engineering of GOP leadership to completely disregard and infantilize the entire Democratic Party, as if they were 5th or 6th-grade fucking morons with no values to contribute. They're SO shameless that they're now toading to their "leader" who actually IS a fucking moron with no positive value to contribute to our society.

The GOP leaders know this, it's all coldly calculated. And in their calculation of activating deep resentments is the baked in addition of Democrats "calling to better angels" and reaching some sort of wobbly equilibrium that keeps our country from acting on the worst impulses actively peddled by the GOP campaign strategists, a.k.a. race mongers.

So out goes Obama, calling for civility and rejecting fear, while Republicans simultaneously go shopping for their favorite spoiled ingredients.

[PD Pepe]

I'm bringing my late comment from yesterday here: if some of you haven't read the postings from Friday, you may find them, as I did, very worth your while.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What wonderful commentary––you people are truly quite something. I am so proud to be a part of a place like this where intelligence and humanity reign supreme. And @AK; the West Wing episode has stuck with me and because of that episode, what we are dealing with now gives me the willies.

When listening to Obama this afternoon I felt absolutely lifted––this special man's way with words and delivery is breathtaking. Look what we had––once–-, I said to the mister––look what we had!

[Ken Winkes]

Yeah, it's a tough one, Safari, and I don't have the answer.

What Obama had to say was absolutely true, and it will no doubt fall on the deliberately deafened ears of the Trumpsters as it did on the Pretender himself. There is just so much they don't want to hear--or know--in large part because the message from the left carries with it a heavy burden of well-justified criticism of the way Trumpsters live or wish to live.

HRC found it's not politic to call them "deplorable," but even the relatively mild appeal to angels of our better nature strongly implies many are in thrall to our worst. The Trumpsters don't need advanced powers of analysis to know who those people are and I'm guessing, they don't like the label, so we have a feedback loop of deniers who grow more resentful every time someone (particularly a smart, successful black person) points out their behavior is fueled by the darker forces.

The Right is already going after Obama because he came out and said Repugnants are motivated by fear, envy, and resentment. It's absolutely true, of course, as objectively demonstrable as the link between carbon dioxide and global warming, but the Right doesn't want to hear that either--so they don't, instead blaming the elitist messenger for telling them that they somehow fall short in the what-it- takes-to-be-human sweepstakes.

Ultimately, the November election will come down to two factors.
Turnout, of course, and how many Americans who still count themselves among the proudly deplorable.

[Marvin Schwalb]

PD, good point. Obama- articulate, intelligent, professional. A reminder of what the term POTUS is supposed to represent.

[safari]

@ Ken

Maybe my ranting went a bit off course as my anger stewed. I wholly agree that Obama needs to step out into the lights and say the exact things he said. As PD mentions, for those still connected to humanity, his words truly do lift spirits. We literally need Democrats to fulfill these duties, more precisely because the GOP since Obama has been MIA in every instance of bringing sides together, unless it's to whine about Dems not kowtowing to their dicktats (pun intended).

The conundrum lies within a soulless conservative movement that is drowning in cash and ruthless in its divisive objectives. Matthew Yglesias of Vox shares similar views: "The problem, at the end of the day, with trying to out-Trump Trump is that [Obama's words:] 'the more cynical people are about government, the angrier and more dispirited they are about the prospects for change, the more likely the powerful are able to maintain their power.'"

https://www.vox.com/2018/9/7/17832276/obama-speech-trump-midterms

And the problem with Drumpf and his GOP fear-mongering strategists is that it's Springtime for Fear-Mongering. With so many drastic changes affecting American society today, and into the foreseeable future, fear is worth it's wait in federal judges and tax cuts these days. And since the GOP has purged its party of any true free thinkers, they all fall in line with this hate and division. Bob Woodward's new book is aptly titled because that's the long view of Drumpf ascent and the GOP's success: Fear.

[OldStone50]

This country has been veering ever closer to fascism ever since WW II. The sentiment and arrogance of my way or the highway has dominated USA thinking since before then, but USA self-righteousness really started to take off with Truman's brutal use of atomic bombs against a people. By the 50s, God and Country Above All was the inviolable basis for USA politics and although that perspective was pushed by the various presidents to varying degrees, it was a norm from which no great deviation could be tolerated. The great danger is that the closer a system gets to fascism the more difficult it is to move away from it and the easier it is to move toward it, much in the same way that the more demands there are for safety standards the more difficult it is to relax them and the easier it is to make them more stringent.

If Kavanaugh wins confirmation and the Republicans retain control of Congress in November then I argue the last nail in the coffin of the USA experiment in democracy will have been driven. The USA may again (or not) subsequently stagger back toward a more democratic government, but just as, at best, democracy in the USA has been only semi-functional since 1789, it is not likely to be any more so in the future. It is so structurally compromised that it will never achieve a high level of democracy, and structural problems require structural solutions.

“A State divided into [the] rich and [the] poor will always develop a government manipulated by the rich” - Harold Laski

[forrest morris]

Just a reminder. It's the tenth anniversary of the big September 2008
market crash. I was without TV, computer, smart phone for 2
weeks during that time (relaxing at Lake Como). And no, George
Clooney didn't keep our luncheon date.
It didn't really sink in until coming home and checking in with a
client that we had projects planned for late September. Sorry, we
will have to give up your services, lost millions last week and we
will have to sell our house in Santa Barbara, and the condo in
Chicago is costing us a fortune.
I shed a tear.

[Marie Burns]

@forrest morris: I'm hazy on the details. Wasn't that all Obama's fault?

[forrest morris]

Yeah. That 2008 thing was all Obamas fault, so we'll just start
deregulating all the lending institutions and that will never happen
again. Because those bankers are smart people who have only
the interest of their customers in mind. At least they're smart
enough not to loan the trump family millions of $ after how many
bankruptcies?
At least I'm comforted by the thought that my tax payments go to
good causes, like bailing out banks and helping corporate 'farmers'
through trumps tariff idiocy, not to mention the millions spent on
hauling his fat ass around on golf carts and on and on.

[Akhilleus]

OldStone,

Excellent point about the fascist strain that has been developing and mutating to escape the various democratic antibodies sent out to attack it. There has been a see-saw effect after the war going back and forth from a more open and fair society to the stench of right-wing totalitarianism. The 50's certainly were a low point if you were not all in for You-Ess-Ay! The 60's started to balance things out, but as you may recall, there were plenty of examples of the gravitational pull to fascistic violence. Remember all those clips and stories of construction workers beating up "hippies"? Brave boys, there. Chase down a kid with long hair and hit him with a hammer. Way to make America great.

Nixon made serious appeals to those people, and along with incipient racism that has never really gone away (in fact, now, it's almost as bad as it was 40 years ago), pushed the country toward strongman control and violence. Nixon crashed and burned but within six years of his departure on Marine One to the dustbin of history, we had us the Ronnie of Rayguns, and it's been mostly downhill since then with a brief respite for one or two of the Clinton years and a few years with Obama.

As I mentioned earlier in the week, there is a huge problem with the love it or leave it mentality, the my country, right or wrong mindset. First, it sets up a false binary. You can love your country and still see problems that need fixing. You don't have to go along with whatever the oligarchs, racists, and haters want in order to be a real American.

In Eastern philosophy, students often were taught that the first step to knowledge is to empty yourself of everything you believe you are sure of. If you believe you already know everything, you'll learn nothing.

A Zen expression goes:

Great doubt, great awakening.
Little doubt, small awakening.
No doubt, no awakening.

The No Doubt is what bothers me. No Doubt was the motto of both Reagan and Bush II (Poppy, to his credit, actually went back on that Read My Lips bullshit because it was necessary for the country). And No Fucking Doubt At All is the Trumpy mantra and that of his slavish followers.

If you believe everything to be perfect, there's no need of adjustments or second guessing. This is the source of those fearful Fox cries about Obama's "Apology Tours". They were so out of their minds that someone might admit that we are not perfect that wet diapers covered the landscape around winger enclaves for years.

Now Trumpy is promising more tax breaks to the super wealthy and they are responding, because, really, fuck the country as long as I can buy my own island somewhere. And once the fascists take complete control, they won't mind a bit. They have no ideology, no belief system that is disconnected from their bank accounts.

The only thing we can all be sure of is that fascist oligarchies don't last forever. And when they come down, it's a hard fall, but it usually comes with violent revolution. Hopefully it won't come to that. This is what at stake over the next four or five national elections, and most especially in November.

[Cowichan's Opinion]

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-notes-from-a-disillusioned-canadian-our-friendship-with-the-us-may/
An excellent article about the effect of Trump Trade War on the Canadian psyche and the Canadian view of the results to date of the tariffs on our US/Canadian trade.
I've previously posted my reaction to Trumps tariffs. Apparently 70% of my fellow Canadians are reviewing their spending practices to stop buying American and deleting the US from their travel plans.

[Akhilleus]

Cowichan,

I don't blame you a bit. Normally, in most circumstances, longstanding friendships get some leeway. An old friend gets out of line, or says or does something off base, they get a "Hey, dude, WTF?", differences are discussed, resolved, and everyone's cool before the next backyard barbecue or weekly card game.

But if this longstanding friend (and, in truth, we're not talking about the United States of America here, we're talking about the Disunited States of Trump) drives over your lawn, pisses on your roses, throws his cigar butts in your pool, parades up and down in front of your house buck naked, waggling his tiny member in your general direction, and spray paints obscenities on your garage door, enough is enough.

One problem is that Trump sees all trade interactions as reflections of his personal superiority and dominance rather than agreements born of mutual international comity and respect. If he sees a disparity (dairy products, eg), it's not something to be worked out dispassionately and professionally, it's a personal affront, even if he really knows nothing about it beyond its usefulness as a sop to to his supporters and something upon which to hang yet another resentment.

It won't matter. If Canadians refused to buy a single solitary washer from the US, Trump would interpret that as a sign that he had won.

Because no sign can ever be interpreted differently.