The Commentariat -- August 20, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

David Sanger of the New York Times: "Four years after 50 of the nation's most senior Republican national security officials warned that Donald J. Trump 'would be the most reckless president in American history,' they are back with a new letter, declaring his presidency worse than they had imagined and urging voters to support former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. The new letter, released just hours before Mr. Biden formally accepts the nomination, lays out a 10-point indictment of Mr. Trump’s actions, accusing him of undermining the rule of law, aligning himself with dictators and engaging 'in corrupt behavior that renders him unfit to serve as president.' They also accused him of 'spreading misinformation' and 'undermining public health experts,' making him 'unfit to lead during a national crisis.'... There are more than 70 [signatories] in the new letter...."

Trump Indicts Biden for "Abandoning" Scranton -- When He Was Ten Years Old. Seung Min Kim & Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "Hours before former vice president Joe Biden accepts the Democratic presidential nomination, President Trump held a rally in this key swing state [Pennsylvania] where he took aim at his rival's record and accused him of having 'abandoned' Pennsylvania — even though Biden was only 10 when his family moved to Delaware for his father’s job. 'He left,' Trump said of Biden. 'He abandoned Pennsylvania. He abandoned Scranton. He was here for a short period of time, and he didn't even know it.'"

I Can't Stop Laughing. Alan Feuer & William Rashbaum of the New York Times: "Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump's former top adviser, was charged on Thursday in New York with fraud for his role in a scheme related to 'We Build the Wall,' an online fund-raising effort that collected more than $25 million for the president's much-touted plan to erect a barrier on the Mexican border, officials said. Mr. Bannon and three other defendants 'defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors, capitalizing on their interest in funding a border wall to raise millions of dollars, under the false pretense that all of that money would be spent on construction,' Audrey Strauss, the acting United States attorney in Manhattan, said in statement Thursday. Mr. Bannon was arrested early Thursday in Connecticut by U.S. postal inspectors and brought to Manhattan where he faced charges in a two-count indictment unsealed in federal district court. He was expected to appear before a U.S. magistrate judge in New York later in the day." Thanks to P.D. Pepe for the link. A Politico story by Josh Gerstein is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I heard the news on NPR as I was driving home from a doctor's visit, and yes, I'm still laughing. Every single element of this caper is perfect: Bannon. Trump. "The Wall." The marks, those dimwitted true Trump believers/xenophobic creeps. The rip-off. The USPS, for Pete's sake; I'm sure those inspectors were laughing even harder than I am. I do hope it turns out Brother Steve planned this scheme while he was hanging out that Italian monastery/fascist thug tank, where apparently he's failed to pay the rent. ~~~

     ~~~ UPDATE. Larry Neumeister, et al., of the AP: "Hours after his arrest, Bannon pleaded not guilty during an appearance in a Manhattan federal court. He is the latest addition to a startlingly long list of Trump associates who have been prosecuted, including his former campaign chair, Paul Manafort, whom Bannon replaced, his longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, and his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn. Trump has also made clear that he is willing to use his near-limitless pardon power to help political allies escape legal jeopardy, most recently commuting the sentence of longtime political adviser Roger Stone. Bannon was taken into custody around 7 a.m. by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service on a 150-foot (45-meter) luxury yacht called Lady May, which was off the coast of Connecticut, authorities said. The boat is owned by exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui and currently for sale for nearly $28 million.... At his hearing later Thursday, Bannon appeared with his hands cuffed in front of him and a white mask covering most of his face. He rocked back and forth on a chair in a holding cell where he appeared via video with his lawyers on the telephone. The magistrate judge approved Bannon's release on $5 million bail, secured by $1.75 million in assets.... After the arrest, Trump quickly distanced himself from Bannon and the the project. 'When I read about it, I didn't like it. I said this is for government, this isn't for private people. And it sounded to me like showboating,' he told reporters at the White House, adding that he felt 'very badly' about the situation." ~~~

~~~ Lachlan Markay of the Daily Beast: "Federal prosecutors on Thursday arrested former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and Brian Kolfage, the head of a nonprofit seeking to privately finance construction of a southern border wall, and accused them of illegally using that nonprofit to enrich themselves. But the sums the two men allegedly extracted from the organization just scratched the surface of their grandiose plans to make money off the effort. As he was using his group, We Build The Wall, to compile millions of email addresses and phone numbers, Kolfage was also plotting ways to use that data to start a Republican fundraising firm. The venture had gotten far enough that earlier this year, he was already shopping around for potential clients. Kolfage, a triple amputee Air Force veteran, described his plans to a Republican consultant in an email written early this year and seen by The Daily Beast." ~~~

~~~ Philip Bump: "The first time one of the people leading Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign faced criminal charges was in March of that year.... Back then, it was Corey Lewandowski.... He was arrested on misdemeanor battery charges after he grabbed a Breitbart reporter's arm after a speech at a Trump property in Florida. He and Trump vigorously denied that Lewandowski had touched reporter Michelle Fields.... Video produced by the Trump property, however, later showed that Fields's allegations were accurate. The charges against Lewandowski were dropped.... Each of the three people primarily responsible for helping shepherd Trump into the White House has, at some point since he announced his candidacy in June 2015, faced criminal charges. And those three people constitute less than half of the close Trump allies to have pleaded guilty to or been indicted on or convicted of criminal charges."

~~~ Then There's Junior's Deal with Polygamous Fraudsters. Graham Kates & Jessica Kegu of CBS News: "Amid a series of campaign appearances in Utah on July 24, Donald Trump Jr. took time to shoot Desert Tech rifles and appeared in promotional images for the company, which is owned by a prominent member of a polygamous sect. The government is currently trying to seize the company's headquarters, which prosecutors say was previously bought with funds originating from other members of the sect who entered guilty pleas in a $1.1 billion fraud scheme. In photos posted by the company to Instagram and Facebook, Trump Jr. is seen wearing a Desert Tech hat, posing with the company's founder, Nicholas Young, and firing the company's sniper rifles. A marketing video on YouTube also includes an image of Trump Jr." ~~~

~~~ Matthew Choi of Politico: "Joe Biden's campaign is calling desperate on the president's latest ad blitz, which portrays the former vice president as overly cozy with China and his son as a corrupt profiteer. Speaking with Politico's Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer on Thursday, senior Biden campaign adviser Symone Sanders dismissed the ad as a tired attack that reveals that the Trump campaign's other offensive strategies have failed."

Fred Imbert of CNBC: "The number of people filing for unemployment benefits last week was greater than expected, raising concern about the state of the economy as lawmakers struggle to move forward on a new pandemic stimulus package. The Labor Department said Thursday that initial jobless claims for the week ended Aug. 15 came in at 1.106 million. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected a total of 923,000. Initial claims for the previous week were also revised higher by 8,000 to 971,000. Last week marked the first time in 21 weeks that initial claims came in below 1 million."

There's Always a Crazy Heckler. Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "Donald Trump did not hide that he was closely following the third night of the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, firing off tweets in real time as former President Barack Obama and Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris delivered withering criticisms of his presidency. The first of Trump's all-caps broadsides came less than 10 minutes into his predecessor's speech, as Obama unleashed a blistering attack on Trump's presidency and his character."

Shayna Jacobs of the Washington Post: "President Trump's latest attempt to block the Manhattan district attorney from obtaining his tax records was rejected Thursday by a federal judge, who said Trump's legal team failed to show the subpoena was issued 'in bad faith.' U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero threw out the lawsuit brought by the president's personal lawyers, who had argued that the subpoena to Mazars USA, Trump's accounting firm, was 'overbroad' in its request for documents and that it amounted to 'harassment.' Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. argued repeatedly that the subpoena, issued by a grand jury, was legally valid and tied to a legitimate criminal investigation.... Shortly after Marrero's decision was announced, Trump's legal team filed an emergency motion asking for a delay in enforcing the subpoena so he may appeal. Vance's office agreed to a one-week grace period before acting on the subpoena...." A CNBC story is here. The New York Times' story is here.

Anita Kumar of Politico: "... Donald Trump may rail against mail-in ballots in public, but state and local Republicans are quietly telling Americans that's exactly how they should vote. In Iowa, the Republican Party mailed absentee ballot applications to voters without waiting for requests. In Pennsylvania, the GOP's website promotes voting by mail: 'Vote Safe: By mail. From home.' And in Ohio, the Republican Party sent mailers with Trump's photo saying 'Join President Trump and Vote by Absentee Ballot.'"

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The Washington Post's live updates of the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night are here. The New York Times' live updates Wednesday are here.

Astead Herndon & Lisa Lerer of the New York Times: "Democrats formally nominated Senator Kamala Harris for the vice presidency on Wednesday night, placing a woman of color on a major party ticket for the first time and showcasing the diversity of race and gender they believe will energize their coalition to defeat President Trump in the fall. The third night of the party's national convention also featured a striking repudiation of Mr. Trump by former President Barack Obama, a break with the presidential custom of not criticizing a successor by name. Mr. Obama praised Mr. Biden's character, contrasting it with Mr. Trump's, and directed a portion of his remarks to voters undecided about whom they will vote for, or whether they will vote at all.... Speeches by Mr. Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Speaker Nancy Pelosi were intended to underscore the history-making moment of Ms. Harris's nomination, highlighting her uniquely American biography...." A Reuters story is here.

Sen. Kamala Harris accepts her nomination:

A civics lesson for the ages: ~~~

     ~~~ CNN has the transcript of President Obama's speech, as prepared. ~~~

~~~ Julie Pace of the AP: "Former President Barack Obama painted a unsparing portrait of American democracy on the brink if ... Donald Trump wins in November, warning in a scathing, and at times emotional, address Wednesday that his successor is both unfit for office and apathetic to the nation's founding principles.... Obama's address amounted to one of the most sweeping condemnations ever of a sitting president by one of his predecessors. It was aimed squarely at jolting Democrats, as well as Republicans who are skeptical of Trump, ahead of the November election, casting the contest not simply as a choice between two politicians or two parties, but as a test of the endurance of American ideals."

~~~ Ryan Lizza of Politico: "... the former president delivered a memorable speech that balanced torching the sitting president with assuring voters of the possibility of something better.... Despite the optimistic strands, Obama did not minimize the threat he believes the country faces under ... Donald Trump.... As Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and John Kasich -- three people with major ideological and personal differences between them -- all made clear in their earlier speeches, the case against Trump is not about policy. The urgency that has united socialists, liberals, and conservatives featured this week is about something much more fundamental.... Obama accused Trump of failing to 'discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care.' He essentially accused him of corruption and abuse of power, saying Trump had 'no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends.' And he accused his successor of a dangerous form of narcissism when he said that Trump had 'no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.'"

~~~ Peter Baker of the New York Times: "After watching President Trump systematically demolish many of his achievements, Mr. Obama has almost as much at stake in this year's campaign as his former vice president and his party's 2020 presidential nominee, Joseph R. Biden Jr., does -- a second chance to redeem his legacy and prove to history that Mr. Trump's election was an anomaly, not a permanent repudiation.On the line is not just the opportunity to restore programs and international agreements that Mr. Trump abandoned and bolster those that remain threatened, but also to rewrite the narrative about America and its values according to Mr. Obama.... This time around, Mr. Obama's vehicle for validation happens to be the same man he gently eased aside for the Democratic nomination in 2016 in favor of Hillary Clinton, the woman Mr. Obama himself had defeated in 2008 by telling the country that she was a relic of the past. Many Democratic drinking sessions in the interim have been consumed by the what-if guessing game over what would have happened had Mr. Obama anointed Mr. Biden instead."

The convention included a clip from the January 2017 event when Barack Obama surprised Joe Biden by awarding him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, with Distinction (back when the Presidential Medal of Freedom was reserved for men & women of great accomplishments & merit):

Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "Hillary Clinton Wednesday sought to channel the lessons, energy and disappointment of her campaign to become the first female president into an effort to unseat the man who defeated her, urging Democrats who never fully unified around her to come together against President Trump." ~~~

Jacqueline Feldscher of Politico: "The Army is launching an investigation into two soldiers who appeared in uniform during Democratic National Convention coverage Tuesday night, the service announced Wednesday. During the broadcast, two soldiers in uniform flanked officials from American Samoa while the territory awarded its delegates during the roll call.... The appearance goes against Defense Department regulations, which prohibit all troops from being in uniform at partisan political or campaign events.... The investigation comes following repeated accusations that the Trump administration has injected politics into the military. Most recently, Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley accompanied ... Donald Trump to a photo op outside a church during racial justice protests in Washington, D.C. Milley later said he regretted taking part. But the problem has extended throughout Trump's presidency, including when the Navy was told to cover up the name of the destroyer USS John S. McCain so it wasn't visible during a presidential speech in 2019. The Democratic Party's platform for 2020 promises to 'end the Trump administration's politicization of the armed forces.'"

Former Rep. Charlie Dent, a Pennsylvania Republican, in a CNN opinion piece, explains why he is voting for Joe Biden.

Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "... Donald Trump's campaign is dragging Hunter Biden back into the race -- on the day his father formally accepts the Democratic nomination. The reelection effort is to begin a nearly two-minute digital advertisement early Thursday morning highlighting the younger Biden's business dealings with China and resurfacing past allegations that Joe Biden's family profited off his vice presidency.... Starting Tuesday at midnight, the reelection effort has purchased 96 hours straight of advertising on YouTube, giving it full control of the site's masthead. As part of the plan, the campaign is also running digital advertising on the homepages of news outlets including the Washington Post, Fox News, and the Daily Caller. It will also appear on streaming services including Hulu."

How Do You Spell Hypocrisy? T-R-U-M-P. Miles Parks of NPR: "President Trump cast a vote-by-mail ballot in Florida this week after months of questioning the security of the method of voting, and in doing so he returned it to election officials using a technique many Republicans say should be illegal.... Trump submitted the Florida primary ballot by giving it to a third party to return, a spokesperson for the Palm Beach elections supervisor confirmed to NPR on Wednesday. Republicans often derisively refer to sending in a ballot this way as 'ballot harvesting,' and it's something Trump has criticized. 'GET RID OF BALLOT HARVESTING, IT IS RAMPANT WITH FRAUD,' he tweeted in April. House Republicans recently introduced a bill to force states (which are generally allowed to establish their own rules around voting) to make the practice of turning in a nonfamily member's ballot illegal."

Kanishka Singh of Reuters: "The re-election campaign of ... Donald Trump has sued New Jersey, following a decision on Friday by its Democratic governor to mail a ballot to every voter in the state for November's elections, as well as hold in-person voting amid the coronavirus pandemic. Governor Phil Murphy's announcement came as Trump, a Republican, stepped up his attacks on voting by mail, which is expected to increase dramatically this fall because of the novel coronavirus. The Trump campaign filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for New Jersey late on Tuesday to invalidate "'Executive Order 177'. The filing was made as a 'complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief' and described the step taken by the Democratic governor as 'illegal'." Related story about a Paterson, N.J., municipal election linked below.

Your GOP Today. Florida Congressional Race. Wendy Rhodes & Antonio Fins of the Palm Beach Post: "Laura Loomer ... won the U.S. House District 21 GOP primary. She’ll meet incumbent, ex-West Palm mayor Lois Frankel [D] in November.... Among those gathering to watch returns with Loomer were political strategist Roger Stone, British writer Milo Yiannopoulos and Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes. Even ... Donald Trump weighed in on Loomer's victory via Twitter. 'Great going Laura,' he wrote. 'You have a great chance against a Pelosi puppet!'... Long critical and even threatening on social media, Loomer has called for the widespread firing of Muslims and for Muslim congressional members to be jailed... Loomer told her supporters, Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee, called just before Loomer's acceptance speech to tell her she was a 'political rock star.'... Despite the pandemic, Loomer hosted a blow-out election night watch party for several hundred people at the Hilton Hotel by the West Palm Beach Airport.... The self-described 'Most Banned Woman on the Planet' has been permanently barred from sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Uber, Lyft, Paypal and Venmo, accused of using hate speech and being non-compliant with site rules." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "Laura Loomer (R-Wackadoodle) ... [became] the latest of a score of similarly bizarre figures to be chosen as the GOP standard-bearers in House and Senate races coast to coast. [Milbank has a great rundown of Loomer's intensely insane remarks & tricks.]... This is the new face of the Republican Party. Next week, Republicans, at a convention featuring the couple who waved guns at racial-justice demonstrators walking past their mansion, will renominate Trump, an avid purveyor of conspiracy theories. And the down-ballot nominees show how pervasive the party's Trump-induced madness has become. Nineteen Republican candidates and one independent who have embraced the QAnon conspiracy theory (about a pedophile ring in the U.S. government fighting Trump) have secured spots on the November ballot...." ~~~

~~~ Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "In tweets Tuesday night and early Wednesday, Trump offered Loomer his congratulations and retweeted news articles about her victory. Loomer could have been seen as part of the Republican fringe who got lucky in a crowded primary field, but Trump made sure that she was seen in another way -- as part of the team at the heart of the Republican Party.... The reason the Republican Party can't effectively police its ranks to stymie people like Loomer, of course, is Trump himself. The GOP can't disavow Loomer when the head of the party is clearly sympathetic to her, to her style and to her views. The GOP can't draw firm lines on behavior when Trump is always willing to cross them and always willing to embrace those who join him. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "It should be a much bigger story that the president of the United States has now enthusiastically endorsed the congressional run of a virulently Islamophobic far-right conspiracy theorist.... It ... illuminates the stakes of the 2020 presidential race in a fresh way -- one that should help forestall the sort of terrible errors in media coverage of President Trump's hate-mongering that we saw in 2016.... Trump's championing of Loomer should compel a ... [clear] reckoning, one that faithfully conveys what we're really seeing here: reactionary illiberalism, naked bigotry and nativist incitement of anti-immigrant hate.... In Arizona [Tuesday], Trump [falsely] claimed Biden and Democrats ... want the 'complete elimination of America's borders. That they want to give every migrant 'a free ticket to invent an asylum claim.' That Biden would 'unleash a flood of illegal immigration like the world has never seen.' That Biden's campaign is a 'cult' for open border 'zealots.'... No one should refer to what Trump is doing as 'culture war politics' or 'stoking divisions' or even 'crazy Trump being crazy Trump.' It's extreme radicalization." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) See related stories under "Traitor in the White House."

Ken Meyer of Mediaite: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced on Wednesday that she had a conversation with Postmaster General Louis DeJoy ahead of his upcoming hearings before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. According to the speaker, DeJoy 'frankly admitted' that he did not intend to replace the pieces of the Postal Service infrastructure that were removed as part of his policy reform plans. Pelosi's office released a statement on the discussion, saying she told DeJoy that his announced suspension of changes 'is not a solution and is misleading.'"

Tony Romm & Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post: "The U.S. Postal Service blocked congressional lawmakers from interrogating the firm that helped select Louis DeJoy as the nation's postmaster general, prompting a sharp rebuke from Senate Democratic Leader Charles E. Schumer, who called on the organization Wednesday to be more transparent as a federal investigation unfolds. The spat over access has hindered lawmakers as they investigate DeJoy's recent, controversial changes to mail delivery and, in the process, potentially concealed key details about the involvement of President Trump and his top aides in those decisions, Schumer (N.Y.) warned in a letter to the agency. The missive threatens to add to the already sky-high tensions between the administration and the Senate as DeJoy prepares to testify at a Senate hearing Friday, then a House hearing on Monday." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Michigan. Stephen Henderson of WDET Detroit: "Ten mail sorting machines have been removed from United States Postal Service (USPS) centers in Detroit, Pontiac, and Grand Rapids, according to Chad Livengood of Crain’s Detroit Business. Livengood reports that the machines can process 300,000 letters per hour, and the move significantly reduces the centers’ capacity for processing first-class mail." The Crain article is firewalled. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Oregon. Olivia Rubin of ABC News: "... new images obtained by ABC News appear to show mail sorting machines -- critical pieces of equipment used to speed up the mail delivery process -- sitting in parts in a postal facility in Portland, Ore. The machines are wrapped in yellow caution tape after having recently been decommissioned and broken down into parts within the last month, according to the postal employee who took the photos, who requested anonymity.... At least six sorting machines at the Portland facility alone have already been taken offline in the past month, according to Joe Cogan, the head of Portland's postal union. Their fate remains unclear. Cogan, an employee with the postal service for 30 years, said these changes interfere with employees' ability to carry out their work." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Worth noting: Both Portland, Oregon, and Detroit, Michigan, vote heavily Democratic. Pontiac & Grand Rapids have been leaning Democratric lately. So it's quite clear who would benefit from making sure voters in these cities have a poor change of getting their ballots on time and getting the completed ballots back timely to the boards of election.

Kansas State House Election. Maria Kramer of the New York Times: “Aaron Coleman admitted that he harassed girls online when he was in middle school. He called one sixth-grade girl fat and told her she should kill herself. Seven years ago, he told another girl, who was 13 at the time, that he would circulate a naked photo of her if she didn’t send him more nude images. When she refused, she said, he followed through on his threat. 'They’re accurate,' Mr. Coleman, 19, said of the women’s claims. On Monday, Mr. Coleman, a dishwasher and community college student, was declared the winner of a Democratic primary for a seat in the Kansas House of Representatives, defeating the incumbent, Stan Frownfelter, by 14 votes.” Mrs. McC: He seems nice. An earlier AP story is here.

New Jersey Municipal Election. Trey Closson of the New York Times: “In the days before New Jersey’s third-largest city held municipal elections in May entirely by mail, postal workers became suspicious when they found hundreds of ballots bundled together. The discovery triggered an investigation that led to charges of voter fraud against two local elected leaders and resulted in nearly 20 percent of the ballots being rejected. It also prompted President Trump to cite the case as an example of how mail-in voting can corrupt elections, though election experts staunchly disagree. On Wednesday, a New Jersey judge ruled that the election in Paterson, N.J., had been irreversibly tainted and ordered a new vote to be held in November to settle the race for the City Council seat. The superior court judge, Ernest M. Caposela, wrote that the election 'was not the fair, free and full expression of the intent of the voters.' His decision came one day after the Trump campaign sued New Jersey over its recent decision to conduct the November election almost entirely by mail to keep people safe from the coronavirus.”

The Traitor* in the White House

* Mrs. McCrabbie: I'm using "traitor" here in the broad sense -- a person who betrays his country -- rather than in the Constitutional meaning: a person levying war against the U.S. or giving aid & comfort to a country with which the U.S. is at war.

** QAnon Backing Thrills Trump. Michael Shear of the New York Times: “President Trump spoke positively on Wednesday about proponents of the QAnon conspiracy theory, telling reporters at the White House that he had 'heard that it is gaining in popularity.' 'I don’t know much about the movement, other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate,; Mr. Trump said.... Mr. Trump claimed not to know that the central premise of the QAnon movement is a false belief that he is saving the world from a Satanic cult made up of Democratic pedophiles and cannibals. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has warned that QAnon poses a potential domestic terrorism threat.... The president’s response amounted to a remarkable public expression of support for a fringe conspiracy movement that has inspired outbursts of violence. He pointedly did not condemn the movement, instead appearing to suggest that the believers are motivated by opposition to the recent racial justice protests.... The QAnon theory predates the current wave of protests by several years. 'These are people that don’t like seeing what’s going on in places like Portland, in places like Chicago and New York, and other cities and states,' Mr. Trump said during a news conference in the White House briefing room. 'And I’ve heard these are people that love our country and they just don’t like seeing it.' Asked whether he agrees with the movement’s theories about his role in saving the world from a Satanic cult, Mr. Trump said, 'I haven’t heard that.' But he added: 'Is that supposed to be a bad thing or a good thing. If I can help save the world from problems, I’m willing to do it I’m willing to put myself out there.'” (Also linked above.) ~~~

     ~~~ Kevin Liptak of CNN: "After skirting the issue for weeks..., Donald Trump offered an embrace Wednesday of the fringe internet phenomenon QAnon, praising its followers for supporting him and shrugging off its outlandish conspiracies. His comments reflected the highest-profile endorsement to date of the group, which has infiltrated Republican circles even as party leaders attempt to distance themselves." ~~~

~~~ (MEANWHILE. Ben Collins & Brandy Zadrozny of NBC News: "Facebook on Wednesday banned about 900 pages and groups and 1,500 ads tied to the pro-Trump conspiracy theory QAnon, part of a sweeping action that also restricted the reach of over 10,000 Instagram pages and almost 2,000 Facebook groups pushing the baseless conspiracy theory, which has spawned real-world violence. Facebook also took down thousands of accounts, pages and groups as part of what it called a 'policy expansion,' seeking to limit violent rhetoric tied to QAnon, political militias and protest groups like antifa.")

Betsy Klein of CNN: "... Donald Trump is calling on his followers to not buy Goodyear tires, despite previously railing against 'cancel culture,' after an employee posted a viral photo of a company policy banning 'Make America Great Again' and other political attire in the workplace. 'Don't buy GOODYEAR TIRES - They announced a BAN ON MAGA HATS. Get better tires for far less! (This is what the Radical Left Democrats do. Two can play the same game, and we have to start playing it now!),' he tweeted Wednesday morning. The tweet came in response to an employee who posted a photo, obtained by CNN affiliate WIBW, from a Topeka, Kansas, Goodyear plant that showed a slide during a training that 'Black Lives Matter' and LBGT pride apparel were 'acceptable' and 'Blue Lives Matter,' 'All Lives Matter,' 'MAGA Attire,' and other political material were 'unacceptable.' Goodyear issued a statement following the President's tweet stating 'the visual in question was not created or distributed by Goodyear corporate,' but that it asks its associates to 'refrain from workplace expressions in support of political campaigning for any candidate or political party, as well as similar forms of advocacy that fall outside the scope of racial justice and equity issues.' The company also stated that it has 'always wholeheartedly supported both equality and law enforcement and will continue to do so.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: This seems amazingly stupid. Goodyear was established in Akron, Ohio, and their HQ is still there. Ohio is a state Trump needs to win. Texas, another close state, has four Goodyear plants, and there are plants in Arizona, Georgia & North Carolina -- all states where the presidential polls show tight races. ~~~

~~~ BUT Do Buy Trump Label Scottish Whisky. Martyn McLaughlin of The Scotsman: "Since [the] introduction [of US tariffs on Scotch whisky] last October, the 25 per cent tariff on single malts has resulted in a 30 per cent drop in exports, worth around £300m.... While his government has stood by its tariffs, the US president’s private family firm has openly embraced the Scotch industry in an attempt to project some much-needed glamour and prestige at its loss-making resorts in Scotland.... [T]he Trump Organisation partnered with the Glendronach distillery in Aberdeenshire to produce its own bespoke malt, complete with none too subtle Trump branding.... The fundamental point ... is that on the one hand, Trump is using his public office to punish the Scotch industry for a dispute it played no part in, while on the other, his resorts are using its products to help sell a luxury lifestyle." --s

Leia Idliby of Mediaite: “Former senior Trump administration official Miles Taylor, who now endorses Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, told MSNBC anchor Hallie Jackson that President Donald Trump wanted to trade 'dirty; Puerto Rico for Greenland.... “... before we went down [to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria], he told us not only did he want to purchase Greenland, he actually said he wanted to see if we could sell Puerto Rico, could we swap Puerto Rico for Greenland because, in his words, Puerto Rico was dirty and the people were poor.'... Jackson asked Taylor if the comment could have been a joke but Taylor insisted it was not.... 'And I’ll go even further about Puerto Rico, the president expressed deep animus towards the Puerto Rican people behind the scenes. These are people who are recovering from the worst disaster of their lifetimes. He is their president. He should be standing by them.'” (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

** Julian Barnes of the New York Times: "More than 200 pages into a sprawling, 1,000-page report on Russian election interference, the Senate Intelligence Committee made a startling conclusion endorsed by both Republicans and Democrats: Donald J. Trump knew of and discussed stolen Democratic emails at critical points late in his 2016 presidential campaign. The Republican-led committee rejected Mr. Trump’s statement to prosecutors investigating Russia’s interference that he did not recall conversations with his longtime friend Roger J. Stone Jr. about the emails, which were later released by WikiLeaks.... The report detailed even more of the president’s conversations with Mr. Stone than were previously known, renewing questions about whether Mr. Trump was truthful with investigators for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, or misled them, much as prosecutors convinced jurors that Mr. Stone himself misled congressional investigators about his efforts to contact WikiLeaks." ~~~

~~~ A pdf of the report, via the Senate, is here. See also yesterday's Commentariat for more news stories on findings of the Intelligence Committee, including one that covers the same territory as Barnes' report, linked above.

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates for coronavirus developments Wednesday are here: "Educators and families around the United States continued to grapple this week with the complicated realities of opening schools in the middle of a pandemic, as teachers’ unions threatened strikes, colleges rethought reopening plans on the fly, and school districts, discovering new cases, improvised quarantines and classroom cleanings. The voice of teachers in the reopening debate took center stage Wednesday in Michigan, where the Detroit Federation of Teachers voted to authorize their executive committee to call for a strike over plans to open public schools for in-person learning." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) 

Rand Paul Says You People Must Suffer. Rashaan Ayesh of Axios: "Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told Fox News Wednesday that he opposes Congress passing more stimulus funding because 'if you give people money and you make it less painful to be in a recession,' governors 'will not have an incentive' to reopen the economy." Mrs. McC: I don't have to tell you that Li'l Randy has not voted to cut his own salary, the better to suffer along with the rest of us so as to nudge governors along. Ah, To see oursels as ithers see us!

Georgia. Kemp Can't Handle the Truth. Greg Bluestein & Scott Trubey of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Gov. Brian Kemp accused The Atlanta Journal-Constitution of playing 'pandemic politics' and sparking panic at a testy press conference Wednesday, a day after a confidential report from ... Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force raised new concerns about his strategy to fight the disease. At the tail end of a media briefing focused on a new human trafficking crackdown, Kemp grew visibly upset as he fielded questions about the report, which urged Georgia officials to take 'continued, expanded and stronger mitigation efforts, including in all open schools.'... In a statement, AJC Editor Kevin Riley said: “The Atlanta Journal-Constitution summarized a White House report that said Georgia has the highest rate of new cases in the nation. The article included information about a recent decline in new cases and hospitalizations, and in positive test rates.... Attacking factual news reports won’t change the course of this pandemic in Georgia.'”

Venezuela. This Is Horrible. Anatoly Kurmanaev, et al., of the New York Times: “Venezuelan officials are denouncing people who may have come into contact with the coronavirus as 'bioterrorists' and urging their neighbors to report them. The government is detaining and intimidating doctors and experts who question the president’s policies on the virus. And it is corralling thousands of Venezuelans who are streaming home after losing jobs abroad, holding them in makeshift containment centers out of fear that they may be infected. President Nicolás Maduro has tackled the coronavirus much as he has any internal threat to his rule: by deploying his repressive security apparatus against it.” (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McC: The good news: Trump's response to the coronavirus U.S. is not as bad as Maduro's. The bad news: Trump probably would not do anything as bad as Maduro has done re: Covid-19, but a president* who would call for a boycott of a large American corporation because it didn't allow employes to wear political advocacy paraphernalia to work would pull quite a few stunts limiting Americans' Constitutional freedoms during a second term.

Alexander Mallin of ABC News: "Attorney General William Barr announced Wednesday that there have been nearly 1,500 arrests across eight U.S. cities thus far under the 'Operation Legend' law enforcement initiative launched roughly six weeks ago and highlighted by ... Donald Trump in his reelection campaign. Of those arrests, according to the Justice Department, approximately 217 defendants have been charged with federal crimes, most of which are drug and gun-related. Barr said investigators have also assisted state and local authorities in bringing homicide charges against more than 90 defendants. 'That’s more than 90 suspected killers who might still be on the streets without Operation Legend,' Barr said at a news conference in Kansas City, Missouri." Mrs. McC: Why not call it "Operation Trump Campaign"?

David Cay Johnston of DC Report: "New rules from the Trump administration will allow toxic methane gas to spew into the atmosphere while destroying jobs and speeding up global temperature increases.... Think of this as Trumpian idiocracy vs. science and sound economics. Every day that idiocracy prevails means decades of damage to the air we breathe and further disruption of the climate. The Trump rules let methane gas flow freely into the atmosphere. Methane is at least 80 times worse for raising global temperatures than carbon dioxide.... Climate scientists at Cornell University believe methane from North American shale wells accounts for 'more than half of all of the increased emissions from fossil fuels globally and approximately one-third of the total increased emissions from all sources globally over the past decade.'" --s

Katie Shepherd of the Washington Post: “A crowd of protesters marched to a county building in southeast Portland on Tuesday night, where a handful of people in masks and all-black outfits threw rocks through windows and lit a small fire inside, marking the 83rd night of protests in Portland that have led to millions of dollars in damage to city property, officials said. Several hundred people participated in the peaceful protest before a smaller group broke off, police said, lighting fires in dumpsters in the street to block traffic and slow down police who later tried to clear the scene. Some sprayed anti-police graffiti on the county building and scrawled instructions to 'aim here' across the windows on the first floor.”

Beyond the Beltway

California. Thomas Fuller of the New York Times: "On Wednesday millions of California residents were smothered by smoke-filled skies as dozens of wildfires raged out of control. They braced for triple-digit temperatures, the sixth day of a punishing heat wave that included a recent reading of 130 degrees in Death Valley. They braced for possible power outages because the state’s grid is overloaded, the latest sign of an energy crisis. And they continued to fight a virus that is killing 130 Californians a day. Even for a state accustomed to disaster, August has been a terrible month. Across the state there were 23 major fires reported on Wednesday and more than 300 smaller ones." ~~~

~~~ The New York Times has live updates of fire developments here.

Way Beyond

Russia. Mary Ilyushina & Zahra Ullah of CNN: "Russian opposition leader and outspoken Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny was unconscious and on a ventilator in a Siberian hospital Thursday after falling ill from suspected poisoning, his spokesperson said. Navalny, 44, started feeling unwell while on a return flight to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk, his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh, said on Twitter. The plane later made an urgent landing in Omsk, she added. He only drank black tea in an airport cafe before takeoff, Yarmysh told Russian radio station Echo of Moscow. 'We assume that Alexey was poisoned with something mixed into the tea. It was the only thing that he drank in the morning. Doctors say the toxin was absorbed faster through the hot liquid,' Yarmysh tweeted." A developing New York Times story is here.

The Commentariat -- August 19, 2020

Afternoon Update:

Your GOP Today. Wendy Rhodes & Antonio Fins of the Palm Beach Post: "Laura Loomer ... won the U.S. House District 21 GOP primary. She'll meet incumbent, ex-West Palm mayor Lois Frankel [D] in November.... Among those gathering to watch returns with Loomer were political strategist Roger Stone, British writer Milo Yiannopoulos and Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes. Even ... Donald Trump weighed in on Loomer's victory via Twitter. 'Great going Laura,' he wrote. 'You have a great chance against a Pelosi puppet!'... Long critical and even threatening on social media, Loomer has called for the widespread firing of Muslims and for Muslim congressional members to be jailed... Loomer told her supporters, Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee, called just before Loomer's acceptance speech to tell her she was a 'political rock star.'... Despite the pandemic, Loomer hosted a blow-out election night watch party for several hundred people at the Hilton Hotel by the West Palm Beach Airport.... The self-described 'Most Banned Woman on the Planet' has been permanently barred from sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Uber, Lyft, Paypal and Venmo, accused of using hate speech and being non-compliant with site rules." ~~~

~~~ Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "In tweets Tuesday night and early Wednesday, Trump offered Loomer his congratulations and retweeted news articles about her victory. Loomer could have been seen as part of the Republican fringe who got lucky in a crowded primary field, but Trump made sure that she was seen in another way -- as part of the team at the heart of the Republican Party.... The reason the Republican Party can't effectively police its ranks to stymie people like Loomer, of course, is Trump himself. The GOP can't disavow Loomer when the head of the party is clearly sympathetic to her, to her style and to her views. The GOP can't draw firm lines on behavior when Trump is always willing to cross them and always willing to embrace those who join him. ~~~

~~~ Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "It should be a much bigger story that the president of the United States has now enthusiastically endorsed the congressional run of a virulently Islamophobic far-right conspiracy theorist.... It ... illuminates the stakes of the 2020 presidential race in a fresh way -- one that should help forestall the sort of terrible errors in media coverage of President Trump's hate-mongering that we saw in 2016.... Trump's championing of Loomer should compel a ... [clear] reckoning, one that faithfully conveys what we're really seeing here: reactionary illiberalism, naked bigotry and nativist incitement of anti-immigrant hate.... In Arizona [Tuesday], Trump [falsely] claimed Biden and Democrats ... want the 'complete elimination of America's borders. That they want to give every migrant 'a free ticket to invent an asylum claim.' That Biden would 'unleash a flood of illegal immigration like the world has never seen.' That Biden's campaign is a 'cult' for open border 'zealots.'... No one should refer to what Trump is doing as 'culture war politics' or 'stoking divisions' or even 'crazy Trump being crazy Trump.' It's extreme radicalization."

The New York Times' live updates for coronavirus developments Wednesday are here.

This Is Horrible. Anatoly Kurmanaev, et al., of the New York Times: "Venezuelan officials are denouncing people who may have come into contact with the coronavirus as 'bioterrorists' and urging their neighbors to report them. The government is detaining and intimidating doctors and experts who question the president's policies on the virus. And it is corralling thousands of Venezuelans who are streaming home after losing jobs abroad, holding them in makeshift containment centers out of fear that they may be infected. President Nicolás Maduro has tackled the coronavirus much as he has any internal threat to his rule: by deploying his repressive security apparatus against it." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McC: The good news: Trump's response to the coronavirus U.S. is not as bad as Maduro's. The bad news: Trump probably would not do anything as bad as Maduro has done re: Covid-19, but a president* who would call for a boycott of a large American corporation because it didn't allow employes to wear political advocacy paraphernalia to work would pull quite a few stunts limiting Americans' Constitutional freedoms during a second term. ~~~

~~~ Betsy Klein of CNN: "... Donald Trump is calling on his followers to not buy Goodyear tires, despite previously railing against 'cancel culture,' after an employee posted a viral photo of a company policy banning 'Make America Great Again' and other political attire in the workplace. 'Don't buy GOODYEAR TIRES - They announced a BAN ON MAGA HATS. Get better tires for far less! (This is what the Radical Left Democrats do. Two can play the same game, and we have to start playing it now!),' he tweeted Wednesday morning. The tweet came in response to an employee who posted a photo, obtained by CNN affiliate WIBW, from a Topeka, Kansas, Goodyear plant that showed a slide during a training that 'Black Lives Matter' and LBGT pride apparel were 'acceptable' and 'Blue Lives Matter,' 'All Lives Matter,' 'MAGA Attire,' and other political material were 'unacceptable.' Goodyear issued a statement following the President's tweet stating 'the visual in question was not created or distributed by Goodyear corporate,' but that it asks its associates to 'refrain from workplace expressions in support of political campaigning for any candidate or political party, as well as similar forms of advocacy that fall outside the scope of racial justice and equity issues.' The company also stated that it has 'always wholeheartedly supported both equality and law enforcement and will continue to do so.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: This seems amazingly stupid. Goodyear was established in Akron, Ohio, and their HQ is still there. Ohio is a state Trump needs to win. Texas, another close state, has four Goodyear plants, and there are plants in Arizona, Georgia & North Carolina -- all states where the presidential polls show tight races.

Leia Idliby of Mediaite: "Former senior Trump administration official Miles Taylor, who now endorses Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, told MSNBC anchor Hallie Jackson that President Donald Trump wanted to trade 'dirty; Puerto Rico for Greenland.... "... before we went down [to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria], he told us not only did he want to purchase Greenland, he actually said he wanted to see if we could sell Puerto Rico, could we swap Puerto Rico for Greenland because, in his words, Puerto Rico was dirty and the people were poor.'... Jackson asked Taylor if the comment could have been a joke but Taylor insisted it was not.... 'And I'll go even further about Puerto Rico, the president expressed deep animus towards the Puerto Rican people behind the scenes. These are people who are recovering from the worst disaster of their lifetimes. He is their president. He should be standing by them.'"

Tony Romm & Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post: "The U.S. Postal Service blocked congressional lawmakers from interrogating the firm that helped select Louis DeJoy as the nation's postmaster general, prompting a sharp rebuke from Senate Democratic Leader Charles E. Schumer, who called on the organization Wednesday to be more transparent as a federal investigation unfolds. The spat over access has hindered lawmakers as they investigate DeJoy's recent, controversial changes to mail delivery and, in the process, potentially concealed key details about the involvement of President Trump and his top aides in those decisions, Schumer (N.Y.) warned in a letter to the agency. The missive threatens to add to the already sky-high tensions between the administration and the Senate as DeJoy prepares to testify at a Senate hearing Friday, then a House hearing on Monday." ~~~

~~~ Michigan. Stephen Henderson of WDET Detroit: "Ten mail sorting machines have been removed from United States Postal Service (USPS) centers in Detroit, Pontiac, and Grand Rapids, according to Chad Livengood of Crain's Detroit Business. Livengood reports that the machines can process 300,000 letters per hour, and the move significantly reduces the centers' capacity for processing first-class mail." The Crain article is firewalled.

~~~ Oregon. Olivia Rubin of ABC News: "... new images obtained by ABC News appear to show mail sorting machines -- critical pieces of equipment used to speed up the mail delivery process -- sitting in parts in a postal facility in Portland, Ore. The machines are wrapped in yellow caution tape after having recently been decommissioned and broken down into parts within the last month, according to the postal employee who took the photos, who requested anonymity.... At least six sorting machines at the Portland facility alone have already been taken offline in the past month, according to Joe Cogan, the head of Portland's postal union. Their fate remains unclear. Cogan, an employee with the postal service for 30 years, said these changes interfere with employees' ability to carry out their work."

~~~~~~~~~~

Day 2 of the Democratic National Convention was held Tuesday between 9 pm & 11 pm ET. The New York Times' live updates of the convention events Tuesday are here.

Alexander Burns & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times, in a fairly chilly report: "Democrats formally nominated Joseph R. Biden Jr. for the presidency on Tuesday night, anointing him as their standard-bearer against President Trump with an extraordinary virtual roll call vote that showcased the cultural diversity of their coalition and exposed a generational gulf that is increasingly defining the party. Denied the chance to assemble in Milwaukee because of the coronavirus pandemic, Democratic activists and dignitaries cast their votes from locations across all 50 states, the American territories and the District of Columbia.... The second night of the Democratic National Convention straddled themes of national security, presidential accountability and continuity between the past and future leaders of the party.... Tracee Ellis Ross, the program skipped between recorded tributes from political luminaries, personal testimonials from activists and voters, and various forms of music and entertainment."

The most civilized roll call in anyone's memory. You probably won't have time to watch it all, but the states & territories, as usual, report in alphabetical order, so you might want to dip in at about where your state would fall. The end is especially moving, beginning with Vermont, where Bernie & Jane Sanders stand by while the Democrats' gubernatorial candidate David Zuckerman reads the count:

~~~ Here's a highlights reel, courtesy of the New York Times:

The Washington Post's live updates of convention events Tuesday are here: Toluse Olorunnipa, et al.: "Former second lady Jill Biden headlined the two-hour event from an empty classroom. Classrooms like the ones she stood in, empty now because of the pandemic, 'will ring out with laughter and possibility' if her husband is elected, she said. She was one of a mix of speakers from across the country who extolled the nominee as a man of character and virtue while making an aggressive and unsubtle case that Trump's presidency has been a failure.... Democrats also used the night to elevate the issue of health care, both as an asset to Biden's candidacy because of his current and previous commitment to the Affordable Care Act and as an indictment against Trump, who has tried to gut the ACA."

Annie Linskey of the Washington Post: "She was last seen blurting 'I love you' to Joe Biden as she escorted him in an elevator to an editorial board meeting at the New York Times last December, part of an exchange that went viral as the Biden campaign cast her adulation as a bigger deal than the news organization's endorsement, which he lost. On Tuesday night, Jacquelyn Brittany, a 31-year-old African American security guard, did something else for Biden: she became the firs person to put his name into nomination for president." This video includes a portion of the viral video as well as her nominating speech. (It looks as if it won't play, but despite that, it did play this morning.)

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Chuck Schumer did a better job than I did last week in rewriting Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in Trump's image: ~~~

... we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. -- Abraham Lincoln, November 1863

It is what it is. -- Donald Trump, August 2020, for the dead

Mrs. McCrabbie: Here's a pretty good graf from a Fox "News" report on the convention: "'When this president goes overseas, it isn't a goodwill mission it's a blooper real,' [former Secretary of State John] Kerry said Tuesday night. 'He breaks up with our allies and writes love letters to dictators. America deserves a president who looked up to, not laughed at.'" I would not have noticed it, but "blooper real" was also once featured in the story's headline. Somebody fixed it there, but not in the body of the report.

Michael Kranish of the Washington Post: "Doug Emhoff, whose wife, Kamala D. Harris, is to set to become the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, is taking a leave of absence from his law firm, where he has worked for an array of powerful clients, including those his boss described as 'some of the biggest names in Hollywood.' Emhoff, 55, is an attorney at the Los Angeles office of DLA Piper, one of the world's largest law firms. Emhoff represented 'large domestic and international corporations and some of today's highest profile individuals and influencers in complex business, real estate and intellectual property litigation disputes,' the firm said on its website.... If Emhoff returns to his job, that description would raise questions about whether any of his work would conflict with federal policy that could be influenced by Harris if she is elected vice president. Emhoff's leave was announced by the firm."

Devan Cole of CNN: "A former senior Trump administration official who is endorsing Joe Biden's presidential campaign said Tuesday that if ... Donald Trump wins a second term he will 'align with dictators around the world. "There are people serving very close to the President that have told me verbatim we should expect, quote, 'shock and awe' if the President wins a second term. You will see a flurry of executive orders. You will see the President pull out of foreign alliances. You will see the President align with dictators around the world,' said Miles Taylor, [a political appointee] who served as chief of staff to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, in an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper...." A clip from Tapper's interview accompanies the story, but the full interview is here in this YouTube video, and it's worth watching. ~~~

     (~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: It's always jarring to hear how much more articulate some of Trump's more minor appointees are than he is. If you watch video of the full interview, you'll see that Taylor clips right along, answering Tapper's questions quickly and in detail. No matter how often Taylor may or may not have spoken to the press off-camera, he hasn't the years of on-camera interview experience Trump has. Yet here's Trump, also yesterday, responding to a reporter's question about the protests in Belarus: "I like seeing democracy. It doesn't seem like it's too much democracy there in Belarus.")

Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump on Tuesday complained that former first lady Michelle Obama's speech a night earlier at the Democratic National Convention was 'extremely divisive,' hitting back after she said he's 'in over his head.' 'She was over her head, and frankly she should've made the speech live, which she didn't do,' Trump said during a White House event commemorating the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage. 'She taped it. It was taped a long time ago& because she had the wrong deaths. She didn't even mention the vice presidential candidate in the speech. She gets these fawning reviews. If you gave a real review it wouldn't be so fawning,' Trump added. 'I thought it was a very divisive speech. Extremely divisive.'" Mrs. McC: Trump forgot to call Mrs. Obama "nasty." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Here are the New York Times' election updates Tuesday. The Washington Post's live updates for Tuesday are here: A10:16 am ET: "Trump on Tuesday raised the prospect of having to redo the presidential election if states widely embrace universal mail-in balloting, a voting method he has relentlessly attacked in recent weeks, often making claims that are not backed up by any evidence. 'Universal is going to be a disaster, the likes of which our country has never seen,' Trump said at a White House event. 'It will end up being a rigged election or they will never come out with an outcome. They'll have to do it again, and nobody wants that, and I don't want that.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

** Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post: "The U.S. Postal Service will halt its controversial cost-cutting initiatives until after the election -- canceling service reductions, reinstating overtime hours and ceasing the removal of mail-sorting machines and public collection boxes, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced in a statement Tuesday. The declaration comes as lawmakers prepared to question DeJoy and USPS board of governors Chairman Robert M. Duncan in a Friday hearing in the Senate and at a Monday hearing in the House on those policy changes, which have caused mail slowdowns and threatened to jeopardize ballot collection during the November election." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) The Guardian's story is here. ~~~

~~~ Inae Oh of Mother Jones: "According to DeJoy, the suspensions will apply to maintaining consistent retail hours, keeping mail processing equipment and blue collection boxes where they currently are, and preventing the future closures of mail processing facilities. But critics questioned its failure to address other agency changes that have likely contributed to the widespread mail delivery delays. Those include the directive for workers to leave late-arriving mail for the following day and the move to end the Postal Service's longstanding practice of treating election mail with priority, no matter the postage rate -- two changes election advocates warn could significantly disrupt mail-in voting.... In his statement, DeJoy addressed the sudden prohibition on overtime pay but was curiously vague. 'We reassert that overtime has, and will continue to be, approved as needed,' he said while declining to outline the criteria for such approval." ~~~

~~~ Reuters: "'This is not a business,' [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi said at a news conference in San Francisco, California. 'It is called the Postal Service.'... Pelosi called DeJoy's announcement inadequate and said she would push ahead with legislation later this week to aid the Postal Service.... The legislation is expected to contain provisions to prevent the post office from reducing service levels below what they were in January." ~~~

~~~ Matt Shuham of TPM: "Around 90 minutes after the postmaster general sought to assure Americans that he was pausing certain new initiatives 'to avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail,' the former deputy postmaster general appeared via webcam before an assembly of reporters, unimpressed. 'It's important to be candid here,' said Ronald Stroman, the former deputy postmaster general and now a senior fellow at Democracy Fund. '... as far as we can tell, this is more than just the appearance of a problem.... There is delayed mail across the system.'... For one thing, Stroman said, [Louis] DeJoy didn't actually define what policies he was talking about. For example, DeJoy's statement referenced 'longstanding operational initiatives -- efforts that predate my arrival at the Postal Service.' But Stroman said the postmaster general had that wrong. 'Unless these were implemented in the two weeks between the time when I left and the time that the new PMG arrived, certainly these were not implemented,' he said.... Stroman resigned his position in mid-May, a few days after news broke that Republican megadonor Louis DeJoy would be the Postal Service's next leader." ~~~

~~~ Amy Gardner & Erin Cox of the Washington Post: "At least 21 states planned to file lawsuits this week against the U.S. Postal Service and its new postmaster, Louis DeJoy, seeking to block service changes that have prompted widespread reports of delays and accusations of an intentional effort to thwart voters from mailing their ballots this fall. The suits, including one filed Tuesday afternoon in federal court in Washington state, will argue that the Postal Service broke the law by making operational changes without first seeking approval from the Postal Regulatory Commission. They will also argue that the changes will impede states' ability to run free and fair elections, officials from several state attorney general's offices told The Washington Post. The Constitution gives states and Congress, not the executive branch, the power to regulate elections." TPM has a summary story here. ~~~

~~~ OMG! Susan Collins Is a Hypocrite! Eric Cortellessa in the Washington Monthly: "... the vast majority of Congressional Republicans have responded to the Trump administration's gutting of the U.S. Postal Service with near silence.... The only GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill to speak out are those facing competitive re-elections this fall, such as Montana Senator Steve Daines and Maine Senator Susan Collins.... Collins is actually one of the members of Congress most responsible for the Postal Service's devastation. Long before DeJoy started manipulating the USPS, Collins was at the forefront of a bill that crippled the agency's finances. In 2005, she sponsored and introduced legislation, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA), that required the USPS to pre-pay the next 50 years worth of health and retirement benefits for all of its employees -- a rule that no other federal agency must follow. As chair of the Senate oversight panel at the time, she shepherded the bill's passage, along with her House GOP counterpart Tom Davis, during a lame-duck session of Congress. It passed by a voice vote without any objections -- a maneuver that gave members little time to consider what they were doing." ~~~

~~~ Sam Brodey of the Daily Beast: "... before the Trump administration’s COVID-era designs on the USPS took shape..., Capitol Hill was content to let the Postal Service twist in the wind for 15 years as it sank into the red and piled up tens of billions of dollars in long-term debt. A sweeping postal reform bill that was unanimously approved in 2006 was hailed as a major achievement in that moment, when concerns over the fiscal viability of the USPS were high.... It seemed like sound fiscal housekeeping until the Great Recession hit, decimating Postal Service revenues that were already being eroded by the growth of email and the decline of first-class mail.... The authors of that 2006 bill, Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Tom Carper (D-DE), have stuck by the law but have floated proposals in recent years to shore it up. But year after year, the only thing surer than a sea of red ink at the Postal Service was Congress' inability to do anything about it."

~~~ Megan Botel in the Guardian introduces six American women who are still fighting for the right to vote in fair elections.

Florida Congressional Races. Susan Cornwell of Reuters: "Freshman U.S. Representative Ross Spano was ousted by a challenger in the Florida Republican primary Tuesday amid a federal investigation into campaign finance violations from two years ago. Spano conceded defeat to Scott Franklin, a businessman and commissioner from the city of Lakeland. Spano has acknowledged mistakes with respect to campaign loans in 2018 but says they were unintentional.... The mayor of Miami-Dade County, Carlos Gimenez, won the Republican primary in Florida's 26th Congressional District, which Republicans hope to snatch back from Democrats in November. Democratic Representative Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, an immigrant from Ecuador, flipped the seat two years ago.... In Florida's 21st Congressional District, home to Trump's Mar-a-Lago club, far-right activist Laura Loomer won the Republican primary. But whoever wins is likely to face an uphill fight against Democratic Representative Lois Frankel in November.... Florida, Wyoming and Alaska all held primaries on Tuesday for seats in Congress."

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The Washington Post's live updates of coronavirus developments Wednesday are here: "The University of Notre Dame is halting face-to-face instruction for undergraduates for at least two weeks after a spike in confirmed novel coronavirus cases. Michigan State University also announced a pivot to virtual learning on Tuesday, joining the growing number of colleges that have reversed course on reopening for in-person instruction."

The New York Times' coronavirus live updates Tuesday are here. The Washington Post's live updates for Tuesday are here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Alan Fram of the AP: "Senate Republican leaders are preparing a slimmed-down coronavirus relief package of roughly $500 billion that will include extended payments for unemployed people and smaller businesses, a GOP senator said Tuesday. The measure will also include $10 billion for the embattled Postal Service, said one top GOP aide. The agency has become the focus of a campaign-season battle over whether it will have enough resources to handle an expected flood of mail-in ballots for this November's presidential and congressional elections."

Another Toothless Executive Order. Tony Romm of the Washington Post: "Auto part suppliers, clothing sellers, retailers, restaurants and a torrent of top businesses signaled Tuesday they are unlikely to implement President Trump's order deferring payment of workers' payroll taxes, threatening an early blow to a policy the White House has touted as a major form of economic stimulus. Roughly 30 industry groups, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, described Trump's executive action as potentially 'unworkable,' stressing in a letter to the administration and top congressional leaders that technical and logistical challenges are likely to prevent them from passing any extra income back to their employees as the president intended."

** "This Is What Collusion Looks Like." Mark Mazzetti & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "A sprawling report released Tuesday by a Republican-controlled Senate panel that spent three years investigating Russia's 2016 election interference laid out an extensive web of contacts between Trump campaign advisers and Russian government officials and other Russians, including some with ties to the country's intelligence services. The report by the Senate Intelligence Committee, totaling nearly 1,000 pages, provided a bipartisan Senate imprimatur for an extraordinary set of facts: The Russian government undertook an extensive campaign to try to sabotage the 2016 American election to help Mr. Trump become president, and some members of Mr. Trump's circle of advisers were open to the help from an American adversary.... The report showed extensive evidence of contacts between Trump campaign advisers and people tied to the Kremlin -- including a longstanding associate of the onetime Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Konstantin V. Kilimnik, whom the report identifies as a 'Russian intelligence officer.'... [In an appendix,] Democrats also laid out a potentially explosive detail: that investigators had uncovered information possibly tying Mr. Kilimnik to Russia's major election interference operations conducted by the intelligence service known as the G.R.U." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Karoun Demirjian & Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "President Trump's 2016 campaign chairman posed a 'grave counterintelligence threat' due to his interaction with people close to the Kremlin, according to a bipartisan Senate report released Tuesday that found extensive contacts between key campaign advisers and officials affiliated with Moscow's government and intelligence services. In its report, the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee states that Trump's then-campaign chair Paul Manafort worked with a Russian intelligence officer 'on narratives that sought to undermine evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election,' including the idea that purported Ukrainian election interference was of greater concern." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) A Politico report is here. ~~~

~~~ A Guardian report, by Luke Harding & Julian Borger, is here. ~~~

~~~ Where There's Trump, There's Sleaze. Mr. Trump & Miss Moscow, Etc. Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "Two decades before he ran for president, Donald J. Trump traveled to Russia, where he scouted properties, was wined and dined and, of greatest significance to Senate intelligence investigators, met a woman who was a former Miss Moscow. A Trump associate, Robert Curran, who was interviewed by the Senate investigators, said he believed Mr. Trump may have had a romantic relationship with the woman. On the same trip, another Trump associate, Leon D. Black, told investigators that he and Mr. Trump 'might have been in a strip club together.' Another witness said that Mr. Trump may have been with other women in Moscow and later brought them along to a meeting with the mayor. Mr. Trump was married to Marla Maples at the time.... The allegations about Mr. Trump were included in the fifth and final volume of a bipartisan report released on Tuesday by the Senate Intelligence Committee...." ~~~

~~~ Where's There's Trump, There Are Lies. Ken Dilanian of NBC News: "Trump says he didn't discuss hacked emails with Roger Stone. A bipartisan Senate report says he did.... The report portrayed Stone as the campaign's go-between with WikiLeaks, which was receiving the hacked emails from Russian intelligence officers. Trump, in written responses [Mrs. McC: under penalty of perjury] to the special counsel, said he didn't remember having discussed WikiLeaks with Stone, 'nor do I recall being aware of Mr. Stone having discussed WikiLeaks with individuals associated with my campaign.' The report said, 'Despite Trump's recollection, the committee assesses that Trump did, in fact, speak with Stone about WikiLeaks and with members of his campaign about Stone's access to WikiLeaks on multiple occasions.'" ~~~

~~~ Where There's Trump, There Are Criminals. Ken Dilanian of NBC News: "The Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee made criminal referrals of Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Steve Bannon, Erik Prince and Sam Clovis to federal prosecutors in 2019, passing along their suspicions that the men may have misled the committee during their testimony, an official familiar with the matter told NBC News. The official confirmed reports in the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post, which reported on the matter last week." ~~~

~~~ Anne Gearan & Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "The investigation from the [Republican-led] Senate Intelligence Committee portrays Trump's 2016 campaign as eager to accept help from a foreign power and the then-candidate as a direct participant. Its arrival also underscores how little the evidence of Russia's desire to wreak havoc on U.S. elections ... has chastened the president and his allies.... Trump has dismissed ... warnings [that Russia, China & other countries are interfering in the 2020 election] while advocating theories the report and the intelligence community say are being propagated by Russian intelligence services. Trump has pushed the debunked theories that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 election and that it did so on behalf of ... Hillary Clinton. The report found that Russian intelligence operations manufactured that theory, which Trump has never disavowed and which played a role in his impeachment when he pressed the issue in a 2019 phone call with Ukraine's president. 'I don't know about Russia, I don't know about Ukraine,' he told reporters Tuesday in response to the report's findings."

Tara Bahrampour of the Washington Post: "A coalition of civil rights groups, cities, counties and other entities has sued the Trump administration over its shifting of the deadline for the 2020 Census, saying the change was politically motivated and will harm the accuracy of the count. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, says the administration's decision this month to stop collecting data on Sept. 30 rather than Oct. 31 is connected to the president's recent directive to exclude undocumented immigrants from being counted for apportionment of House seats -- an order that sparked its own flurry of lawsuits."

Mrs. McCrabbie: For your own peace of mind, don't watch the whole video (it's only part of the interview) of Anderson's Cooper's interview of Trump's friend and coronavirus cure guru, the My Pillow guy, who is now pushing an oleander oils elixir in which he has a financial interest. But the crosstalk was wild, and gives you a better grasp of Trumpworld, the fake POTUS* and his fake coronavirus briefings: "

~~~ Jeremy Barr of the Washington Post: "Even by the somewhat raucous standards of cable news, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper's interview with pillow company executive Mike Lindell on Tuesday afternoon was particularly tense, During the segment, which launched an avalanche of commentary on social media, Cooper challenged the MyPillow founder on his support of a plant extract, oleandrin, which he has been lobbying the Trump administration to approve as a possible therapeutic for the novel coronavirus. Cooper likened Lindell to a 'snake oil salesman' and asked, 'How do you sleep at night?'... Lindell met with President Trump in July to discuss the potential use of oleandrin and arranged for a biopharmaceuticals executive whose company makes it to get a White House meeting, The Washington Post reported last week; Lindell later joined the company's board. When asked about the extract on Monday, Trump said, 'We'll look at it.' (Lindell serves as the Minnesota chairman for the president's reelection campaign.)"

Way Beyond the Beltway

Danielle Paquette of the Washington Post: "The president of Mali announced his resignation on state television early Wednesday, speaking only hours after mutinous soldiers stormed the capital, forced him into their custody and set off global outrage. The somber address marked the end of Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta's seven-year reign over the West African country, which is straining under the pressure of an Islamist insurgency, an economic crisis and the coronavirus pandemic. 'I do not wish for blood to be shed anymore so I can maintain power,' said Keita, speaking just after midnight local time through a surgical mask. 'I have decided to quit my duties.'"

The Commentariat -- August 18, 2020

Afternoon Update:

** Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post: "The U.S. Postal Service will halt its controversial cost-cutting initiatives until after the election -- canceling service reductions, reinstating overtime hours and ceasing the removal of mail-sorting machines and public collection boxes, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced in a statement Tuesday. The declaration comes as lawmakers prepared to question DeJoy and USPS board of governors Chairman Robert M. Duncan in a Friday hearing in the Senate and at a Monday hearing in the House on those policy changes, which have caused mail slowdowns and threatened to jeopardize ballot collection during the November election."

** "This Is What Collusion Looks Like." Mark Mazzetti & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "A sprawling report released Tuesday by a Republican-controlled Senate panel that spent three years investigating Russia's 2016 election interference laid out an extensive web of contacts between Trump campaign advisers and Russian government officials and other Russians, including some with ties to the country's intelligence services. The report by the Senate Intelligence Committee, totaling nearly 1,000 pages, provided a bipartisan Senate imprimatur for an extraordinary set of facts: The Russian government undertook an extensive campaign to try to sabotage the 2016 American election to help Mr. Trump become president, and some members of Mr. Trump's circle of advisers were open to the help from an American adversary.... The report showed extensive evidence of contacts between Trump campaign advisers and people tied to the Kremlin -- including a longstanding associate of the onetime Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Konstantin V. Kilimnik, whom the report identifies as a 'Russian intelligence officer.'... [In an appendix,] Democrats also laid out a potentially explosive detail: that investigators had uncovered information possibly tying Mr. Kilimnik to Russia's major election interference operations conducted by the intelligence service known as the G.R.U." ~~~

~~~ Karoun Demirjian & Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "President Trump's 2016 campaign chairman posed a 'grave counterintelligence threat' due to his interaction with people close to the Kremlin, according to a bipartisan Senate report released Tuesday that found extensive contacts between key campaign advisers and officials affiliated with Moscow's government and intelligence services. In its report, the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee states that Trump's then-campaign chair Paul Manafort worked with a Russian intelligence officer 'on narratives that sought to undermine evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election,' including the idea that purported Ukrainian election interference was of greater concern."

The New York Times' coronavirus live updates Tuesday are here. The Washington Post's live updates for Tuesday are here.

Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump on Tuesday complained that former first lady Michelle Obama's speech a night earlier at the Democratic National Convention was 'extremely divisive,' hitting back after she said he's 'in over his head.' 'She was over her head, and frankly she should've made the speech live, which she didn't do,' Trump said during a White House event commemorating the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage. 'She taped it. It was taped a long time ago because she had the wrong deaths. She didn't even mention the vice presidential candidate in the speech. She gets these fawning reviews. If you gave a real review it wouldn't be so fawning,' Trump added. 'I thought it was a very divisive speech. Extremely divisive.'" Mrs. McC: Trump forgot to call Mrs. Obama "nasty." ~~~

~~~ Here are the New York Times' election updates Tuesday. The Washington Post's live updates for Tuesday are here: A10:16 am ET: "Trump on Tuesday raised the prospect of having to redo the presidential election if states widely embrace universal mail-in balloting, a voting method he has relentlessly attacked in recent weeks, often making claims that are not backed up by any evidence. 'Universal is going to be a disaster, the likes of which our country has never seen,' Trump said at a White House event. 'It will end up being a rigged election or they will never come out with an outcome. They'll have to do it again, and nobody wants that, and I don’t want that.'"

Mrs. McCrabbie: For your own peace of mind, don't watch the whole video (it's only part of the interview) of Anderson's Cooper's interview of Trump's friend and coronavirus cure guru, the My Pillow guy, who is now pushing an oleander oils elixir in which he has a financial interest. But the crosstalk was wild, and gives you a better grasp of Trumpworld, the fake POTUS* and his fake coronavirus briefings: "

~~~~~~~~~~

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Here's the video that PD Pepe refers to in today's Comments. I thought it was the best part of the whole show, certainly so in introducing Joe Biden to the American people:

The New York Times' live analysis of the Democratic National Convention Monday is here. "The event, which is nominally being held in Milwaukee, will be streamed and televised from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern time. It will feature Michelle Obama, the former first lady, in a leading role, and will offer remarks from an ideologically wide range of speakers who want to turn the page on the Trump era...." ~~~

~~~ Steve Peoples of the AP: "Michelle Obama delivered a passionate broadside against ... Donald Trump during Monday's opening night of the Democratic National Convention, assailing the Republican president as unfit for the job and warning that the nation's mounting crises would only get worse if he's reelected.... Joe Biden introduced the breadth of his political coalition to a nation in crisis Monday night at the convention, giving voice to victims of the coronavirus pandemic, the related economic downturn and police violence and featuring both progressive Democrats and Republicans united against Trump's reelection. The ideological range of Biden's many messengers was demonstrated by former presidential contenders from opposing parties: Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist who championed a multi-trillion-dollar universal health care plan, and Ohio's former Republican Gov. John Kasich, an anti-abortion conservative who spent decades fighting to cut government spending.

Here's the part of Michelle Obama's remarks that got the most attention:

     ~~~ Video of Obama's full remarks is here. CNN has the transcript, as prepared, here.

Here's a portion of Bernie Sanders' speech. Video of his full remarks is here:

My dad was a healthy 65-year old. His only preexisting condition was trusting Donald Trump. And for that he paid with his life. -- Kristin Urquiza of Arizona ~~~

~~~ Here's what struck Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Four years ago, then-First Lady Michelle Obama offered one of the most stirring speeches of the Democratic Convention. On Monday, she offered an attempted indictment not just of President Trump, but of the movement he has led.... One of [the convention's messages] was reinforced a couple times Monday night: Biden won't go hard left.... The night was full of testimonials from average people and, even more than that, average people touched by crucial election-year issues like police violence and the coronavirus." ~~~

~~~ The AP's "takeaways" report, by Bill Barrow & Nicholas Riccardi, is here. Mrs. McC: I guess my favorite sentence in the report is the last one: "Trump, meanwhile, confirmed two guests he has invited to participate at his convention next week: a white St. Louis couple who gained national headlines when they emerged from their house wielding weapons to confront protesters who were in their neighborhood." So Democrats had all these nice people, most bringing uplifting messages, and Trump's first-announced guests are a couple of old, white, wealthy, overprivileged, gun-wielding hatemongers bent on scaring the stuff out of passersby. It's them vs. us, and them is pointing guns at us.

Bill Barrow of the AP: "Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez said Monday that this year's handful of presidential caucuses should be the last the party ever holds. 'I think by 2024 we ought to have everyone being a primary state,' Perez told The Associated Press in an interview on the opening day of the Democratic National Convention. The chairman didn't specifically name Iowa, which for decades has led off the nominating calendar, but his position could represent a seismic shift in the party's traditions, and it underscores the pressure on the caucus structure that has intensified since Iowa's count dragged out for days to open the 2020 nominating fight eventually won by Joe Biden."

Michael Scherer of the Washington Post: "Former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg plans to spend $60 million to strengthen the Democratic House majority in November, roughly matching the money he invested in flipping control of the House in 2018, according to a Bloomberg adviser familiar with the plans." The Hill has a summary report here.

Trump's Pathetic Counterprogramming. Kevin Liptak of CNN: the New York Times: "... Donald Trump's darkly portentous campaign message came into stark focus Monday as he launched his most intensive campaign swing since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, warning of 'fascist' Democrats with a 'Trojan horse' candidate during stops in the Upper Midwest. The dire warnings -- reliant on false information and racist tropes -- foreshadowed a bitter fall campaign as Trump seeks to reverse a slide in the polls. And they presaged a drawn out post-election battle as Trump preempted a potential loss with warnings of fraud. 'The only way we're going to lose this election is if this election is rigged,' he said during a stop in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, the second of several battleground events he is using this week to counterprogram the Democrats' all-digital convention."

Zachary Cohen & Marshall Cohen of CNN: "... Donald Trump on Sunday night retweeted Russian propaganda about former Vice President Joe Biden that the US intelligence community recently announced was part of Moscow's ongoing effort to 'denigrate' the Democrat ahead of November's election. Late Sunday, Trump amplified a tweet that contained audiotapes of a 2016 conversation between Biden and then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko -- material that was released earlier this year by Andriy Derkach, a Ukrainian lawmaker named by the US intelligence community in its August 7 statement about Russia's disinformation campaign against Biden. US authorities labeled Derkach's efforts as disinformation because they are intentionally designed to spread false or misleading information about Biden. By retweeting material that the US government has already labeled as propaganda..., Trump demonstrated once again that he is willing to capitalize on foreign election meddling for his own political gain. There is no proof of wrongdoing on the tapes of Biden and Poroshenko. But Trump and his allies, as well as Kremlin-controlled media outlets, have used the tapes to foment conspiracies about Biden's dealings with Ukraine.... [Twitter suspended] the account Trump retweeted ... 'for violations of the Twitter Rules on platform manipulation and spam.'"

** Miles Taylor, a Trump political appointee as DHS chief-of-staff, in a Washington Post op-ed: "After serving for more than two years in the Department of Homeland Security's leadership during the Trump administration, I can attest that the country is less secure as a direct result of the president's actions.... The president has tried to turn DHS, the nation's largest law enforcement agency, into a tool used for his political benefit.... Trump's indiscipline was also a constant source of frustration.... The decision-making process was itself broken: Trump would abruptly endorse policy proposals with little or no consideration, by him or his advisers, of possible knock-on effects.... Top DHS officials were regularly diverted from dealing with genuine security threats by the chore of responding to these inappropriate and often absurd executive requests, at all hours of the day and night.... Meanwhile, Trump showed vanishingly little interest in subjects of vital national security interest, including cybersecurity, domestic terrorism and malicious foreign interference in U.S. affairs.... Four more years of this are unthinkable."~~~

     ~~~ Jeremy Diamond, et al., of CNN have a story here. ~~~

~~~ Alex Thompson of Politico: "'Anonymous' is trolling ... Donald Trump one more time. The self-described 'senior Trump administration official,' who anonymously trashed the president's leadership in a 2018 op-ed and a 2019 best-selling book, is calling for voters to throw the president out of office this November in a new preface for the paperback '2020 election edition' of the book, 'A Warning.'... 'Anonymous' said last year that [s/he would reveal [her/his] identity to Trump before the election, but the person stays nameless in the latest edition, only saying they plan to unveil herself in 'due course.'... Trump called the original op-ed an act of treason and asked for the Justice Department to investigate. In 2019, the DOJ asked the book's publisher and the author's agents for identifying details." Mrs. McC: (1) Speaking freely is not "treason," Donnie (see First Amendment), and (2) Thanks, Billy Barr, for doing the bully's bidding again. She's probably Kellyanne Conway.

Trumpies Sink All Ships. Elliott Njus of the Oregonian: "A boat on the Willamette River took on water and sank Sunday afternoon after being swamped by waves as a 'Trump Boat Parade' passed. Video posted to Twitter showed the boat taking on water as its occupants called for help while more than 20 boats and personal watercraft flying ... Donald Trump flags headed south on the Willamette River near downtown Portland.... A spokesman for the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office, said river patrol deputies responded to the incident but that the people on the boat had already been picked up by other boaters in the area by the time the deputies arrived. Video appeared to show at least one of the boats that stopped to help was a parade participant." Includes video. Thanks to Akhilleus for the lead. See also his commentary below. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Perhaps the first rule of the sea is that you take care to respect other vessels. That means, among other things, that you slow down for passing craft. This is especially (and obviously) true when a motorboat passes by a sailboat or when a large craft passes a smaller one. You can see from the video that the craft the captains of Trumpism swamped was not the only one they endangered. They whizzed past a small sailboat tacking in the other direction, and as they did so, many of them also ignored the rule that you pass approaching crafts port-to-port. Why, the Trump supporters just kept on tearing up the river as if they had no responsibilities to others at all.

Paul Krugman: Donald Trump's attack on the Postal Services is 'part of a broader attack on the institutions that bind us together as a nation.... A key part of the post office's ethos has long been that it has a 'universal service obligation,' 'binding the nation together' and 'facilitating citizen inclusion.'... Most Americans -- presumably including most of the 91 percent of the public with a favorable view of the Postal Service -- believe that there are some things that should be universally available, even if providing those things isn't profitable, because they're important components of full citizenship. Unfortunately, Trump and those around him don't share that belief, perhaps because they don't really buy into this notion of 'full citizenship' in the first place."

Digby in Salon: "One of the more tedious tasks in writing about politics is that every single election year it's necessary to discuss the latest cheating schemes cooked up by the Republican Party to suppress the votes of minorities, challenge the legality of perfectly legal votes and otherwise make all elections they do not win look suspect in the eyes of American voters. Needless to say, this year is worse than usual because Donald Trump makes everything worse than usual.... At some point, this country is going to have to come to terms with the fact that the Republican Party is fundamentally hostile to democracy and do something about it." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Tony Romm of the Washington Post: "Top Senate Democrats have set their sights on the little-known board that oversees the U.S. Postal Service, urging it to undo the postmaster general's controversial policies out of concern they have "endangered" Americans. The call for action came Monday from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) and five other Democratic senators. They urged the Postal Service's Board of Governors to rein in Postmaster General Louis DeJoy by canceling his recent policies -- including a crackdown on overtime -- that postal workers say have caused mail delivery and processing slowdowns. The senators raised the prospect that the watchdog body could remove DeJoy from his post outright if he chooses not to cooperate.

Heather Caygle, et al., of Politico: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi finalized plans Monday to provide billions of dollars in funding to the flailing Postal Service as Democrats seek to prop up the agency ahead of the November election, even while senior Republicans decry the move as partisan and unnecessary. The House will vote Saturday on legislation that will deliver $25 billion to address funding shortfalls and block organizational changes at the Postal Service that Democrats say are politically motivated and threaten to jeopardize the presidential election by inhibiting mail-in voting.... Pelosi said the bill, which will be released by the House Oversight Committee in the coming days, paints a 'clear choice' for Republicans, many of whom have remained silent during Trump's continued broadsides against the Postal Service and mail-in ballots." See also Jordain Carney's report below re: the Senate Republicans' proposed coronavirus relief bill.

Matthew Mosk, et al., of ABC News: "A group of Democratic state attorneys general are now in the final stages of preparing legal action against the Trump administration for recent cost-cutting changes made to the United States Postal Service, a lawsuit that one official said could demand a halt to any cutbacks that could impede mail-in voting. As many as 10 state attorneys general are now involved, two state officials involved in the effort told ABC News.... States will assert that the federal government is trying to impede their constitutional right to oversee their own elections. And they will argue that the Trump administration is interfering with every American's individual right to participate in the election. The lawsuit will also argue that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy failed to follow administrative procedures when he made cuts to overtime and decommissioned equipment -- steps the states will ask the courts to halt, the attorney said."

This is Louis DeLuxe.Daniel Lippman of Politico: "Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has agreed to House Democrats' request for him to testify next week about his controversial Postal Service changes that have raised hackles around the nation, according to two people familiar with the matter. On Sunday, Democrats moved up a request for DeJoy to testify to Monday, Aug. 24, calling it an 'urgent' matter.'... [House Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn] Maloney [D-NY] also has requested the testimony of Mike Duncan, chairman of the Postal Service's Board of Governors. Duncan also agreed to testify, according to a person familiar with the matter. Duncan is a former chairman of the Republican National Committee.... The House is also expected to vote as early as this Saturday on a proposal to block DeJoy's plans to overhaul the Postal Service." Mentioned on MSNBC: The Oversight Committee has also asked the USPS for production of documents. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ This is one of the letter carriers who works for Louis. And for us. Not sure where this is. But wouldn't it be awful if that mailman got a few hours of overtime pay for delivering the mail across flooded streets? The video was posted in July 2018:

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

Big Whup. Tony Romm of the Washington Post: "Out-of-work Americans may see only a three-week boost to their unemployment benefits, as state and federal officials scramble to stretch out a limited pot of money and implement President Trump's recent policy order.... The dollars will come from a federal disaster relief fund managed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which will initially dispatch an amount to the states meant to cover three weeks' worth of payments, the Trump administration said.... FEMA said in its guidance that it anticipated it could take an 'average' of three weeks from when Trump first signed his directive -- perhaps putting some of those first payments around Aug. 29."

Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Senate Republicans are preparing to unveil a smaller coronavirus relief package as soon as Tuesday that is expected to include billions in new funds for the Postal Service. In addition to $10 billion in post office funding, the Republican proposal is expected to include liability protections, a $300-per-week federal unemployment benefit, another round of Paycheck Protection Program funding, and additional money for coronavirus testing and schools, according to aides. The bill is a pared-down version of the roughly $1 trillion package offered by Senate Republicans late last month, known as the HEALS Act, and comes as House Democrats are drafting their own stand-alone Postal Service bill."

North Carolina. Surprise! College Students Are Bad at Social Distancing. Nick Anderson of the Washington Post: "The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, one of the largest schools in the country to bring students to campus for in-person teaching, said Monday that it will pivot to all-remote instruction for undergraduates after testing showed a pattern of rapid spread of the novel coronavirus. The shift signaled enormous challenges ahead for those in higher education who are pushing for professors and students to be able to meet on campus. Officials announced the abrupt change just a week after classes began at the 30,000-student state flagship university. They said 177 cases of the dangerous pathogen had been confirmed among students, out of hundreds tested."

Brad Plumer & Henry Fountain of the New York Times: "Overturning five decades of protections for the largest remaining stretch of wilderness in the United States, the Trump administration on Monday finalized its plan to open up part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas development. The decision sets the stage for what is expected to be a fierce legal battle over the fate of this vast, remote Alaska habitat. The Interior Department said it had completed its required reviews and would start preparing to auction off leases to companies interested in drilling inside the refuge's coastal plain, which is believed to sit atop enough oil to fill billions of barrels but is prized by environmentalists for its pristine landscapes and wildlife. While the agency has not yet set a date for the first auction, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said on Monday, 'I do believe there could be a lease sale by the end of the year.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Ben Fox of the AP: "A nonpartisan congressional watchdog's finding that the two top officials at the Department of Homeland Security are legally ineligible to hold their posts is 'erroneous' and should be withdrawn, a Trump administration official ... acting DHS general counsel Chad Mizelle ... said Monday.... GAO said in the finding released Friday that the appointment of acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf and acting Deputy Ken Cuccinelli violate a federal law that regulates the appointment of senior government officials. It is an important issue because there are pending lawsuits challenging DHS actions related to immigration and law enforcement that argue in part that Trump administration policies are invalid because the top officials are not legally eligible to hold those positions."

Julian Barnes of the New York Times: "A former C.I.A. officer was charged with giving classified information to the Chinese government, the Justice Department announced on Monday, the latest in a string of former intelligence officers accused of spying for Beijing. The suspect, Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, worked as a C.I.A. officer in the 1980s and then as a contract translator for the F.B.I. in the 2000s. He was arrested on Friday. According to a criminal complaint, Mr. Ma, 67, and an unnamed older relative, now 87 and suffering from debilitating cognitive disease, first provided information to Chinese intelligence officials in March 2001 about C.I.A. personnel, foreign informants, classified operations, cryptography and other methods of concealing communications, secrets for which they were paid $50,000. The accusations against Mr. Ma are the most recent in a series against former intelligence officers." An NBC News story is here.

Samantha Schmidt of the Washington Post: "A federal judge on Monday blocked the Trump administration from removing nondiscrimination protections for transgender people in health care, issuing a temporary setback to a major policy priority for social conservatives. The new rules, which were set to take effect on Tuesday, would have reversed Obama-era Affordable Care Act regulations that said discrimination protections 'on the basis of sex' should apply to transgender people. Civil rights advocates had decried the new interpretation, saying it could be used to deny care to transgender patients. The Department of Health and Human Services finalized the regulations in June, three days before the Supreme Court ruled that federal nondiscrimination protections 'because of sex' include gay and transgender employees. The Supreme Court justices held that such discrimination 'has always been prohibited by Title VII's plain terms,' and that 'that should be the end of the analysis.'" A Politico story is here.