The Commentariat -- September 8, 2019

Michael Crowley, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump said on Saturday that he had canceled a secret meeting at Camp David with Taliban leaders and the president of Afghanistan and was calling off monthslong negotiations that had appeared to be nearing a peace agreement. Mr. Trump said ... in a series of tweets ... that 'in order to build false leverage,' the Taliban had admitted to a suicide car bomb attack on Thursday that had killed an American soldier and 11 others in the capital of Kabul. 'I immediately cancelled the meeting and called off peace negotiations,' he wrote.... Several people familiar with the diplomacy between the Trump administration and the Taliban puzzled over Mr. Trump's stated decision to cancel peace negotiations entirely in response to one American casualty, however tragic." Mrs. McC: The report discusses various aspects of the negotiations & cancellation, but I think the problem was that Trump had not found a vicious Taliban buddy. ~~~

~~~ Caroline Kelly & Kylie Atwood of CNN: "CNN military analyst John Kirby, a retired Navy rear admiral and former State Department and Pentagon spokesman, called the news 'stunning,' saying this would give the Taliban 'a boost of political legitimacy that they don't deserve at this stage in negotiations and would be a huge propaganda victory for them, not to mention a slap at the Afghan government and President Ghani.'... Despite Trump saying in his tweet Saturday that peace negotiations are called off, new dates are being discussed by the White House for a potential meeting with the Taliban and the Afghan government, the source says."

Mrs. McCrabbie: It looks as if the Turnberry Grift may be less problematic for Trump than suggested by the Politico story linked here yesterday:

~~~ Eric Lipton of the New York Times: "United States military personnel have occasionally stayed at the Trump Turnberry golf resort in Scotland while Defense Department planes stop over and refuel at the nearby airport, according to a person with direct knowledge of the arrangement.... Federal contract documents show that the Defense Department signed an agreement with the Prestwick airport to serve as a refueling location for military flights in August 2016, during the final months of the Obama administration. It could not be determined on Saturday if the department had contracts with the airport before then. The records also show that the first payments under this contract started in early October 2017 and that a total of 917 payments for 'liquid petroleum' have since been made at a total cost of $17.2 million.... There are more than two dozen hotels, guesthouses and inns just a few miles from the Prestwick airport, most of them much less expensive than the full advertised rate at Trump Turnberry.... Any profits from the stay, beyond covering basic services like housekeeping, are being paid back to the federal government, [a] Trump [Organization] representative said.... The Guardian ... reported [in 2018] that the Scottish government sought out the contract with the Defense Department to try to help increase revenue at the airport.... The Trump Organization announced in 2014 that it was teaming up with executives at the Prestwick airport to try to drive more traffic to its runways." ~~~

~~~ Colby Itkowitz of the Washington Post: "The House Oversight Committee is investigating why a financially struggling airport near a Trump-owned golf course in Scotland has seen an uptick in expenditures by the U.S. military since President Trump took office." ~~~

~~~ Eric Lipton & Annie Karni of the New York Times: "Staying at the Trump hotel or hosting an event in one of its ballrooms is hardly a guarantee of getting something in return from the Trump administration, or even getting on Mr. Trump's personal radar. But many people ... have learned that it also does not hurt.... To ethics lawyers, the most extraordinary aspect of the daily merging of Mr. Trump's official duties and his commercial interests both in Washington and around the world is that it has now become almost routine. Since Mr. Trump became president, there have been thousands of visits to his properties, not only by Mr. Trump himself, but by foreign leaders, lobbyists, Republican candidates, members of Congress, cabinet members and others with ties to the president. At least 90 members of Congress, 250 Trump administration officials and more than 110 foreign officials have been spotted at Trump properties since 2017, according to social media posts and counts by various watchdog groups." ~~~

~~~ Scott Lemieux in LG&$: "The fact that the press was able to convince most of the public that Hillary Clinton was the more dishonest of the two candidates in 2016, based on relentless coverage of [an] inane bullshit that wouldn't rank in the top 1,000 bad acts of Donald Trump's pre-presidential life, is ... remarkable."

Andrew Freedman, et al., of the Washington Post: "Nearly a week before the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration publicly backed President Trump over its own scientists, a top NOAA official warned its staff against contradicting the president. In an agencywide directive sent Sept. 1 to National Weather Service personnel, hours after Trump asserted, with no evidence, that Alabama 'would most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated,' staff was told to 'only stick with official National Hurricane Center forecasts if questions arise from some national level social media posts which hit the news this afternoon.' They were also told not to 'provide any opinion,' according to a copy of the email obtained by The Washington Post.... The agency sent a similar message warning scientists and meteorologists not to speak out on Sept. 4, after Trump showed a hurricane map from Aug. 29 modified with a hand-drawn, half-circle in black Sharpie around Alabama. Acting NOAA administrator Neil Jacobs was involved in drawing up the statement as was the NOAA director of public affairs, Julie Kay Roberts, who has experience in emergency management and worked on the president's campaign. The leadership of the Commerce Department, headed by Secretary Wilbur Ross, also approved the release, though Ross was out of the country at the time." ~~~

     ~~~ The Houston Chronicle has republished the WashPo story here. Oops! The Chron is also subscriber-firewalled & won't allow access thru incognito windows. So here's a Washington Examiner story. ~~~

~~~ Seth Borenstein of the AP: "Former top officials of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are assailing the agency for undermining its weather forecasters as it defends ... Donald Trump's statement from days ago that Hurricane Dorian threatened Alabama. They say NOAA's action risks the credibility of the nation's weather and science agency and may even risk lives. Dismay came those who served under Republican and Democratic presidents alike as leaders in meteorology and disaster response sized up a sustained effort by Trump and his aides to justify his warning that Alabama, among other states, was 'most likely' to be hit hard by Dorian, contrary to forecasts showing Alabama was clear. That effort led NOAA to repudiate a tweet from the National Weather Service the previous weekend assuring Alabamans -- accurately -- that they had nothing to fear from the hurricane. The weather service is part of NOAA and the tweet came from its Birmingham, Alabama, office. 'This rewriting history to satisfy an ego diminishes NOAA,' Elbert 'Joe' Friday, former Republican-appointed director of the National Weather Service, said on Facebook.... Alabama had never been included in hurricane advisories and Trump's information, based on less authoritative graphics than an official forecast, was outdated even at the time.... Justin Kenney, who headed the agency's communications in the Obama administration, said 'by politicizing weather forecasts, the president ... puts more people -- including first responders -- in harm's way.'" ~~~

~~~ Tracy Connor of the Daily Beast: "The head of the union that represents federal weather workers said Friday that his members are 'shocked, stunned and irate' that the federal agency whose workers they represent put out a statement siding with President Trump in the increasingly bizarre dispute over whether Hurricane Dorian was on track to hit Alabama. 'Never ever before has their management thrown them under the bus like this,' said Dan Sobien, president of the National Weather Service Employees Organization, which represents 4,000 employees under the umbrella of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 'These are the people risking their lives flying into hurricanes and putting out forecasts that save lives. Never before has their management undercut their scientifically sound reasoning and forecasts,' Sobien told The Daily Beast." ~~~

~~~ Brian Stelter of CNN: "If, on Sunday, Trump actually believed that Alabama was at risk, it shows a shocking lack of knowledge about geography, science, and storms. Everyone watching TV on Sunday knew Dorian was a Bahamas, Florida, Georgia, and Carolinas storm. A single glimpse at a map showed that Alabama wasn't going to be 'hit.' So what does this episode tell us about Trump's critical thinking skills and his unwillingness to admit to mistakes?... Chris Hayes' answer on MSNBC Friday night: We're 'watching the president lose his mind.'... This week, the Trump administration distributed: -- Multiple tweets from the president that tried (and failed) to justify his incorrect claims that Alabama was, as of Sunday, at risk of being 'hit' by Hurricane Dorian. -- A misleading statement from Trump's homeland security adviser that attempted to justify Trump's falsehoods[.] -- An op-ed by Stephanie Grisham and Hogan Gidley attacking the Post. The op-ed contained multiple errors. -- A video from the president's Twitter account containing out-of-date info about Dorian, in an attempt to critique CNN, followed by an amateurish graphic of a CNN logo driving and crashing. All of this disinformation is taxpayer-funded." ~~~

~~~ Matt Stieb, et al., of New York: "Though he's proven himself incapable of working eight-hour days or maintaining a consistent story about why he fired his FBI director, President Trump has shown remarkable focus and dedication when it comes to proving certain minor and irrelevant points.... Though most Americans probably missed Trump's false claim on Sunday that Alabama was likely to be hit by Hurricane Dorian, he spent the rest of the week highlighting his own embarrassing mistake.... Here's a recap of this week's dumbest saga, which now seems poised to outlast the hurricane itself."

This should silence you cynics who thought Trump was too self-absorbed to care for a pet. Thanks to unwashed for the photo.Frank Rich: "To call Trump erratic right now is a compliment. He makes Roseanne Barr look like Theresa May.... Sharpiegate is only one offering in the past week or so's 24/7 repertory of White House Looney Tunes. Not even another mass killing in Texas could distract our president from a public feud with his long-ago fellow NBC primetime star Debra Messing, of Will & Grace. There's also the bagatelle of his tweeting out a classified surveillance photo of an Iranian missile site, yet another in an endless series of moves to undermine American intelligence agencies. But there may be more of a method to the madness of Trump's 'congratulations' to Poland on the 80th anniversary of the German invasion. Far from being one of his typical displays of utter historical and geopolitical ignorance, this tweet may have been a heartfelt expression of his genuine conviction that there are very fine people on both sides' when Nazis launch a blitzkrieg."

Craig Howie of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Saturday took aim at two Washington Post reporters.... 'The Washington Post's @PhilipRucker (Mr. Off the Record) & @AshleyRParker, two nasty lightweight reporters, shouldn't even be allowed on the grounds of the White House because their reporting is so DISGUSTING & FAKE,' the president tweeted at 7:09 a.m. The tweet linked to an op-ed by White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham and Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley rebutting a Washington Post story published earlier this week that highlighted the president';s missteps amid the administration's policy stumbles over the summer. But the White House op-ed inaccurately claimed the Washington Post didn't report stories that it actually did cover."

Sam Brodey & Erin Banco of the Daily Beast: "Corey Lewandowksi, Donald Trump's 2016 campaign manager and a key figure in his political orbit, is set to appear before the House Judiciary Committee where he will be questioned in a public hearing on Sept. 17, according to two sources familiar with the discussions. Lawmakers are interested in pressing Lewandowski for more information on the instances of possible obstruction of justice by the president that were outlined in Robert Mueller's report. Though Lewandowski did not hold a White House job, he figures prominently in Volume 2 of the report, which found that Trump asked his former campaign chief to press then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to curb the special counsel's investigation. In August, Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) issued a subpoena for testimony from Lewandowski, who has publicly said he'd be happy to testify and, as he put it during a Fox News radio interview, 'remind the American people that these guys are on a witch hunt, right?'... Lewandowski will answer questions in an open hearing with the cameras rolling -- making him the first Trump associate to do so before Nadler's committee."

Presidential Race 2020

Trent Spiner & Holly Otterbein of Politico: "The 1,280 most influential Democrats in [New Hampshire] hosted 19 presidential hopefuls on Saturday for the party's annual convention. Joe Biden found little mojo for his candidacy among Democratic Party insiders at their state convention here Saturday, despite leading the polls in the first-in-the-nation primary state. A striking number of party activists said they were undecided as 19 presidential candidates delivered stump speeches over seven hours at the SNHU Arena, according to interviews with 100 delegates by Politico. Elizabeth Warren led the way among the surveyed delegates who had made up their minds, followed by Bernie Sanders in second and Biden in third." ~~~

~~~ Love Thy Neighbors. Annie Linskey & Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post: "It took until midafternoon [in Manchester, New Hampshire] for Democrats in the first-in-the-nation primary state to start showing some real enthusiasm for their presidential candidates who traveled here for the party convention. When Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) took the stage Saturday, a huge roar came from the left bleachers, where his supporters had packed the stadium seats at the SNHU Arena. And later, when the name of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was announced, the entire area erupted, with thousands banging together inflatable 'thunder sticks' emblazoned with the slogan: 'Win With Warren.'... While Sanders and Warren, who are the most liberal in the field, don't lead in early polls, the overwhelming response suggested some blend of superior organization from the campaigns and untapped excitement from the most plugged-in voters and party activists who attended Saturday's event. It also doesn't hurt that both are from states that border New Hampshire."

Reid Wilson of the Hill: "The South Carolina Republican Party appeared to violate its own rules on Saturday when the party's executive committee voted to cancel next year's primary election. The executive committee voted nearly unanimously to cancel the primary, state party chairman Drew McKissick said, because President Trump had drawn 'no legitimate primary challenger.' Trump has drawn two former Republican elected officials as challengers. Former Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) -- who served two terms as governor of South Carolina -- is also considering joining the field. Any of those candidates may decide to sue the South Carolina GOP, some Republican insiders said, because Saturday's vote ran contrary to the state party's rules. The rule that governs South Carolina's presidential preference primary allows the state party to cancel the primary only by a vote at the state party convention, within two years of the subsequent primary. South Carolina Republicans did not vote to cancel the primary at either of its last two conventions." ...

... Meg Kinnard of the AP: "Republican leaders in Nevada, South Carolina and Kansas have voted to scrap their presidential nominating contests in 2020, erecting more hurdles for the long-shot candidates challenging ... Donald Trump. 'What is Donald Trump afraid of?' asked one of those rivals, former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld. Canceling primaries, caucuses and other voting is not unusual for the party of the White House incumbent seeking a second term."

Marc Tracy & Tiffany Hsu of the New York Times: "The director of M.I.T.'s prestigious Media Lab [Joichi Ito] stepped down on Saturday after an outcry over his financial ties with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, whose contributions to the proudly contrarian lab roiled and divided its members.... Mr. Ito ... stepped down less than a day after an article in The New Yorker described the measures that officials at the lab took to conceal its relationship with Mr. Epstein.... Mr. Ito ... was a board member of The New York Times Company since 2012, but on Saturday, the company announced that he had resigned from the board." the Hill story is here. ~~~

~~~ Ronan Farrow of the New Yorker: "The M.I.T. Media Lab, which has been embroiled in a scandal over accepting donations from the financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, had a deeper fund-raising relationship with Epstein than it has previously acknowledged, and it attempted to conceal the extent of its contacts with him. Dozens of pages of e-mails and other documents obtained by The New Yorker reveal that, although Epstein was listed as 'disqualified' in M.I.T.'s official donor database, the Media Lab continued to accept gifts from him, consulted him about the use of the funds, and, by marking his contributions as anonymous, avoided disclosing their full extent, both publicly and within the university. Perhaps most notably, Epstein appeared to serve as an intermediary between the lab and other wealthy donors, soliciting millions of dollars in donations from individuals and organizations, including the technologist and philanthropist Bill Gates and the investor Leon Black.... The effort to conceal the lab's contact with Epstein was so widely known that some staff in the office of the lab's director, Joi Ito, referred to Epstein as Voldemort or 'he who must not be named.'... On Wednesday, Ito disclosed that he had separately received $1.2 million from Epstein for investment funds under his control, in addition to five hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars that he acknowledged Epstein had donated to the lab." ~~~

~~~ Scott Lemieux in LG&$: "I mean, yes, serial child rape sounds bad, but the Director of Development and Strategy could really use a second secretary and perhaps an Associate Director for Leveraging Synergistic Liaisons, and I could go on like this for a while, so you can see the dilemma they had.... We can be confident there are many more such scandals to come. Epstein's ability to purchase the appearance of respectability is really 2019 America in a nutshell."

R.I.P. Sam Stein & Gideon Resnick of the Daily Beast (September 6): "ThinkProgress, the influential news site that rose to prominence in the shadow of the Bush administration and helped define progressivism during the Obama years, is shutting down. The outlet, which served as an editorially independent project of the Democratic Party think tank Center for American Progress (CAP), will stop current operations on Friday and be converted into a site where CAP scholars can post.... [Navin] Nayak, [director of the CAProgress Action Fund] did say that ClimateProgress, which started as an independent blog before merging with ThinkProgress, will be taken over by its founder, Joe Romm." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I sure hope Ian Millhiser, among others, finds a soft landing place. I have found his legal analysis to be very helpful. Update: In a tweet, Millhiser says he'll be starting a new job next week, TBA.

Way Beyond the Beltway

Iran. Nasser Karimi & Jon Gambrell of the AP: "Iran on Saturday said it now uses arrays of advanced centrifuges prohibited by its 2015 nuclear deal and can enrich uranium 'much more beyond' current levels to weapons-grade material, taking a third step away from the accord while warning Europe has little time to offer it new terms. While insisting Iran doesn't seek a nuclear weapon, the comments by Behrouz Kamalvandi of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran threatened pushing uranium enrichment far beyond levels ever reached in the country. Prior to the atomic deal, Iran only reached up to 20%, which itself still is only a short technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%."

U.K. BBC News: "Amber Rudd has quit Boris Johnson's Cabinet, with an outspoken attack on the way the government is managing the Brexit process. The ex-work and pensions secretary said the government was having no 'formal negotiations' with the EU about a new Brexit deal, only 'conversations'. Instead, 80-90% of its time was spent preparing for an 'inferior' no-deal option, she said."

Comments

[Procopius]

I notice the stories from American media always describe Iran's actions as "breaking the agreement," or "breeching the limits in the agteement." One from the AP that I saw did include a sentence in the fifth or sixth paragraph acknowledging that "President Trump unilaterally withdrew from the agreement and imposed sanctions," but the rest of the article made it sound like Iran was somehow at fault. Obviously, by noticing this I am being disoloyal. To somebody.

[Ken Winkes]

Let's see now....

In three years, what exactly has the I-alone-can-fix-it -guy fixed?

On trade? A repackaged Nafta with a new and harder to utter name that won't get past Congress. And tariffs. Lots of them. And loads of promises about some relatively puny bilateral deals but nothing that will reverse the trends noted in the Sept. 4 Kiplinger letter:

"The trade deficit for the full year of 2019 will climb 7% to 8% to around $670 billion. It’s already up 8% year over year during the first seven months of 2019, to $373.8 billion...... But there are warning signs flashing about the U.S. economy’s health as well, with potential consequences for trade volumes. Notably, manufacturers surveyed in August reported that export orders received by American factories plunged to their lowest level since April 2009, pointing to falling overseas business and the risk that companies will have to trim production in coming months."

Foreign policy? North Korea, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan? Nuttin. In some cases, worse. It is to laugh, except...for the actions that have supported Russia's efforts to undermine NATO. There, have to give him credit. He-alone is doing his best to fix it for Vlad.

Immigration? Also have to grant him something here. He's trying to get rid of it.

Infrastructure? Nuttin'. Lately, not even any infrastructure weeks.

Health care? Worsened, and great disappointment expressed that he couldn't have made it even worse. Gotta say, he's tried.

Deficit. Ballooning, but who cares?.

Environment. He's fixing that, all right. Fixing it good. The environment is public enemy number 2, right behind brown immigrants.

The economy? Here his talent shows. He lives well on someone else's dime. The economy is still riding relatively high on the lift provided by the Obama years, massive deficit spending and countenanced private raids on public resources.

And tapping his other innate talent, he has managed to corrupt much of the government (even the Coast Guard and NOAA, whose primary purpose has swerved from public service to covering his large ass.

He may not be able to fix anything himself, but in the Pretender's administration the Fix is definitely in.

[Patrick]

Procopius -- even though the US left the Iran nuclear agreement, the other parties remained in it. So the agreement remains operative. And by establishing increased enrichment facility, Iran is breaking part(s) of the agreement.

It is unclear what Iran's objective is, but they are "at fault" for this violation. "X" wrongs still don't make a right.

[Bobby Lee]

A scary thought on a Sunday afternoon: Trump campaign manager Brad Pascale in California declared that "the Trump dynasty would last for generations".

[Ken Winkes]

Interesting analysis of our China trade war.

https://www.businessinsider.com/trumps-obsession-with-trade-deficits-make-a-trade-deal-impossible-2019-9

Almost sounds like the Pretender doesn't know what he's doing....beyond keeping his name in the news, which come to think of it might be the only point.

[Akhilleus]

Bobby Lee,

The Nazis predicted their Reich would last a thousand years. It barely made 12. Still, 12 years of Trumpism and there wouldn’t be a stick left standing.