The Commentariat -- August 7, 2015

Internal links removed.

Afternoon Update:

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Obama will slip out of Washington on Friday afternoon for his annual Martha's Vineyard vacation...."

*****

Jennifer Steinhauer & Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Senator Chuck Schumer, the most influential Jewish voice in Congress, said Thursday night that he would oppose President Obama's deal to limit Iran's nuclear program.... As if on cue, Representative Eliot L. Engel of New York, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who was widely expected to oppose the deal, announced his opposition Thursday night." ...

... Here's Schumer's statement. ...

... CW: Seems Schumer's decision to "quietly" make his announcement during the Big Debate Din was neither a tactical move nor a gentlemanly concession to the Obama administration. Seung Min Kim, et al., of Politico: "Though his announced opposition came as the political realm was preoccupied with the Republican presidential debate, Schumer had planned to make his position on the Iran deal official on Friday, according to a person familiar with the situation. The New York senator had told the White House that he had decided to reject the nuclear agreement and would announce it on Friday. But the source accused the White House of leaking Schumer's decision to the Huffington Post, forcing the senator to announce his decision Thursday night." ...

... Julian Hattem of the Hill: "The liberal activist group MoveOn is assailing Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) for his decision, announced late Thursday night, to oppose the nuclear deal with Iran. 'Our country doesn't need another Joe Lieberman in the Senate, and it certainly doesn't need him as Democratic leader,' MoveOn political action executive director Ilya Sheyman said in a statement about Schumer, who is next to line to be the Senate's top Democrat." CW: Yo'bama, the "professional left" has your back here. ...

... Greg Sargent: "Here's the real story: Schumer's opposition is not likely to matter that much to the outcome either way. Does that mean the deal will certainly go forward? No. Rather, the point is, if enough Senate Democrats are inclined to support the deal to prevent an override of President Obama's veto of a motion disapproving the deal -- which isn't assured, but still seems likely -- then Schumer's opposition is unlikely to change that.... My best guess: enough Dems will oppose the deal to get past the 60 needed to break the filibuster of the disapproval motion, but not enough will oppose it to get to the 67 needed to override Obama's veto. And remember, whatever happens in the Senate, there's another potential firewall in the House, which could fail to override and the deal would go forward." ...

... Kirsten Gillibrand, New York's junior senator, explains why she is supporting the Iran deal. ...

... Guardian: "The US secretary of state, John Kerry, has said the Vietnam war was the result of a 'most profound failure of diplomatic insight and political vision' as he marked the 20th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Kerry on Friday extolled the virtues of reconciling with former enemies at the end of a five-nation tour of the Middle East and south-east Asia that has been dogged by domestic US debate over the Iran nuclear deal."

Hakskis. Courtney Kube & Jim Miklaszewski of NBC News/CNBC: "U.S. officials tell NBC News that Russia launched a sophisticated cyberattack' against the Pentagon's Joint Staff unclassified email system, which has been shut down and taken offline for nearly two weeks. According to the officials, the 'sophisticated cyber intrusion' occurred sometime around July 25 and affected some 4,000 military and civilian personnel who work for the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) & President Obama spoke on the Voting Rights Act yesterday:

... New York Times Editors: "The real voter fraud is Texas' ID laws.... The voter ID issue will almost certainly be decided by the Supreme Court. The justices last considered such a law in 2008, upholding Indiana's statute despite a total lack of evidence of fraud. Justice John Paul Stevens, now retired, who wrote the 2008 decision, has since later said that these laws are 'a means of voter suppression rather than of fraud prevention.' How much more do the justices need to see before they reach the same conclusion?"

Annals of Journalism. David Itskoff of the New York Times: "After 16 years of taking satirical aim at the hypocrisy of politics and the fatuousness of the news media, Jon Stewart said goodbye to 'The Daily Show' on Thursday evening with a farewell broadcast that mixed wry parting shots with earnest displays of emotion and with a passionate speech urging his audience not to accept falsehoods and misinformation in their lives." ...

Neil Genzlinger of the New York Times: In the last moments of his last show, "Mr. Stewart was returning to the beginning -- he was delivering a mission statement. The mere fact that it had a mission is what made 'The Daily Show' stand out in the first place."

Presidential Race

Here's the debate in three minutes, via Time, most of it incredibly stupid:

David Fahrenthold & Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: Donald "Trump became the center of the debate's attention from the very beginning, when he was the only candidate who refused to forswear the idea of running a third-party campaign against the Republican party, if he could not be its nominee." ...

Patrick Healy & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Shedding any pretense of civility and party unity, Donald J. Trump overwhelmed the first Republican presidential debate on Thursday night by ripping into his rivals and the moderators alike, but also drew fire from Jeb Bush and other rivals...."

Via Washington Post liveblog.

John Cassidy of the New Yorker & Donald Trump: it was "a fantastic debate." ...

... David Graham of the Atlantic assesses the candidates' performances. ...

... Margaret Hartmann runs down some of other pundits' reviews of the individual candidates' performances. ...

... Michael Barbaro of the New York Times (in the current [7:00 am ET] Times top story) assesses the performance of The One: "From the opening moments of the evening, when he flashed a wry grin and a mischievous victory sign at the boisterous crowd, Mr. Trump remained his irrepressible self: aggrandizing, unapologetic and cutting.... Over and over, in moments that were as startling as they were comedic, he openly flouted the rules of political decorum -- not to mention those of a Republican Party that punishes disloyalty and the slightest flirtation with members of the opposition." ...

... Jonathan Chait: "The question going into the first debate was which candidate would take it upon himself to take down Trump. The answer is that none of them did. Fox News did the work itself, a division of labor that made sense for both sides.... The intense barrage of pointed questions displayed how seriously Roger Ailes takes Trump's threat to hijack the GOP for his own end. It failed to reckon with the other threat: that the Republican plan to drive Trump from their party might instead work all too well." ...

... Alex Griswold of Mediaite: Trump said on "Morning Joe' today that Fox "News" moderators were "really unfair" & "unprofessional" in questioning him, especially about negative comments he'd made about women (which he doesn't remember), that they only "softball questions" of the other candidates, & that the initial question asking for a show of hands on a pledge to support the eventual GOP nominee was "a set-up." ...

... ** Paul Krugman: "... while it's true that Mr. Trump is, fundamentally, an absurd figure, so are his rivals. If you pay attention to what any one of them is actually saying, as opposed to how he says it, you discover incoherence and extremism every bit as bad as anything Mr. Trump has to offer. And that's not an accident: Talking nonsense is what you have to do to get anywhere in today's Republican Party.... Crank economics, crank science, crank foreign policy are all necessary parts of a candidate's resume.... Judge them by positions as opposed to image, and what you have is a lineup of cranks." ...

     ... CW: Krugman is too kind. Republican voters are cranks (random example here); the candidates & elected officials are transparent frauds. Their overarching "principle" is Reverse Robin-Hooding, a "principle" which they necessarily try to obscure with a tome of cover stories, from "small-government/low taxes" to "I'm not a scientist, man" to "jobs" to "voter fraud" to "religious freeedom." Et-cetera.

** ... Fred Kaplan of Slate: "When it comes to foreign policy, the Republican Party’s presidential candidates are shockingly ill-informed." ...

... Luke Brinker of Salon highlights "one of the debate's rare heartening moments.... Perhaps the most remarkable moment arrived when Ohio Gov. John Kasich was asked how he'd explain his opposition to marriage equality to a hypothetical gay daughter.... 'Look, I'm an old-fashioned person here and I happen to believe in traditional marriage. But I've also said that the court has ruled ... and I said we'll accept it,' Kasich said. 'And guess what? I just went to a wedding of a friend of mine who happens to be gay.... So if one of my daughters happened to be that, of course I would love them and I would accept them. Because you know what? That's what we're taught when we have strong faith.'... The crowd strongly applauded." CW: This was one of the few moments of the debate I caught, & it was a pleasant surprise for me, too. ...

... Josh Kraushaar of the National Journal: "John Kasich is stealing Jeb Bush's thunder.... If there's room for an establishment alternative, Kasich is well-positioned to capitalize. The Ohio governor's deliberate line of being the 'son of a mailman' offers a stark contrast to Bush's elite upbringing. And if style matters as much as substance to Republicans -- something that Donald Trump's surge has demonstrated -- Kasich's ability to connect with voters emotionally trumps Bush's ability to do the same."

... Glenn Kessler: "Two debates, 20 fishy claims." CW: Here's one I didn't know enough about, & Scott Walker: knows less: "I would reinstate, put in place back in the missile defense system that we had in Poland and in the Czech Republic."

Adam Johnson of Alternet proposed a drinking game for the GOP debate main event. Akhilleus linked to it Thursday. WARNING: DON'T PLAY THIS GAME. It will hospitalize you, if not kill you with alcohol poisoning. Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone has devised one you might survive because he urges players to drink only the first time "Donald Trump mentions his wealth, or how smart he is" or "a candidate mentions Benghazi," etc. ...

... David Fahrenthold & Sean Sullivan: "Seven low-polling Republican candidates all needed to create a breakout moment in Thursday night's early, undercard Republican debate. After 80 minutes, it wasn't clear if any of them had. The best performance of the early debate came from former tech executive Carly Fiorina, the only woman onstage and the only non-politician on a stage full of current and former senators and governors.... Asked if the same-sex marriage decision was 'settled law,' [Rick] Santorum responded. 'It is not, any more than Dred Scott was settle law to Abraham Lincoln.'" Because expanding marriage rights to all couples is just like denying citizenship rights to African-Americans. ...

... The Post's liveblog is pretty good, with some analysis & tweets, etc. ...

... CW: I listened to the 5 pm "debate" while I was painting a kitchen cabinet I'm building. I found watching paint dry far more interesting than the debate. I'm skipping the big-boy extravaganza, but I might follow the Post's liveblog. Or not. ...

... New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman & Nicholas Confessore liveblogged the debate. They also thought Carly Fiorina was the star of the show, partly because she mentioned her "good friend Bibi Netanyahu." The reporters thought that needed a fact-check. Confessore: "She has the confidence and polish of the boardroom and the business conference, if not the policy depth of some of the other candidates. It's what makes her so effective here." My paint job came out well.

Gabriel Sherman of New York: Donald Trump's campaign is in disarray. "... inside a campaign that's been built on attacking seemingly anyone and everyone, the staff has now turned to attacking each other.... The conflict between the old guard and the new began in January when Trump hired a brash 40-year-old Republican operative named Corey Lewandowski to serve as campaign manager." (See also yesterday's Commentariat re: Lewandowski.)

King Coal & Prince Jeb! Zachary Mider of Bloomberg: "Chris Cline, the billionaire coal baron, revealed himself today as the donor behind a $1 million contribution to a super-PAC supporting Jeb Bush's presidential campaign.... In one instance described in [a Bloomberg] profile [of Cline], after teachers at his children's school aired Al Gore's film, 'An Inconvenient Truth,' Cline asked them to hand out literature suggesting other potential causes for climate change, such as sunspots or the earth wobbling on its axis.... Bush called [President Obama's Clean Power Plain, unveiled Monday,] 'irresponsible and overreaching' saying it will increase energy prices and 'throw countless people out of work.'"

Sacha Zimmerman, who debated Ted Cruz when they were in college, in a National Journal essay: "It's ... worth pointing out -- with Cruz facing long odds in the GOP primaries, and with other candidates at tonight's debate commanding a lot more attention -- that Cruz's eloquence proved to be a great equalizer for him when his back was against the wall.... THE CHALLENGE FOR Cruz -- which The New York Times highlighted several months ago in a piece about his debating career -- was that he wasn't necessarily likable. 'I remember him as a scary, driven machine who fought a protracted, bloody land war for total victory,' says Ted Niblock, a Johns Hopkins University debater...."

Planned Parenthood had better hope that Hillary Clinton wins this election," Jindal said, "because I guarantee you, under President Jindal, January 2017, the Department of Justice, and IRS, and everybody else that we can send from the federal government, will be going into Planned Parenthood. -- Bobby Jindal, August 6, 2015

Anyone who is participating in the targeting of Americans for our political beliefs ... anybody who knew about it, anybody who cynically looked the other way, anybody under whose watch this occurred, they need to be fired and they need to be fired immediately! You cannot take the freedom of law-abiding citizens, law abiding-Americans, whether you disagree with them or not, and keep your own freedom, when you do that, you go to jail! -- Bobby Jindal, January 2013, while pretending IRS was targeting Tea Party groups

Federal law does include special provisions to ban presidential meddling in the I.R.S. -- New York Times, May 2013

Charles Pierce: The moderators of the kiddie table, Martha McCallum & Bill Hemmer, were more unhinged than the candidates & showed "transparent disrespect by the moderators towards the event they were supposed to be moderating.... But nobody's freak flag flew higher and prouder than that of 'Bobby' Jindal. Nobody was prouder of having rendered his state government impotent or of keeping the sick poor people of his state out of the clutches of Medicaid which, Jindal reminded us, 'is putting more people in the wagon than are pulling the wagon.' Nobody was more outraged than he about the phony Planned Parenthood videos. He announced that, on his first day in office, he would sic the Justice Department and the IRS on Planned Parenthood. Later, in the spin room, he added the EPA to that list so, if you're keeping score at home, 'Bobby' Jindal's EPA would be just big enough to crack down on Pap smears and mammograms...." ...

... Ed Kilgore: At the kiddie table, "A lot of the candidates repeated verbatim big chunks of their rhetoric from Monday night's Voters First Forum in New Hampshire. And that was particularly true of the two consensus winners, Carly Fiorina and Bobby Jindal. It sure didn't take a lot to impress WaPo's Chris Cillizza.... It's becoming truly amazing that Republicans do not acknowledge the rather relevant fact that Fiorina has been a dismal failure in both the private sector and electoral politics. Donald Trump loves to talk about 'losers;' can he resist applying the label to Fiorina?" ...

     ... CW: Also, Fiorina apparently didn't learn how to use HP's printers during her botched, aborted stint at HP: she left her debate closing argument in the printer at her Cleveland hotel, & a Rand Paul staffer found it. Would President Carly leave the nuclear codes in the hotel printer while making a state visit to Russia? A nice way to save her Russian hosts the trouble of hacking the White House. ...

Zeke Miller of Time: "The Republican National Committee’s resolutions committee quietly rejected a pair of resolutions critical of homosexuality Wednesday. The controversial resolutions dealing with sex education and same-sex marriage threatened to cast a shadow on the first GOP presidential debate Thursday in Cleveland, as the party looks toward expanding its base in the key swing state."

Margaret Hartmann: "Hillary Clinton Spent Debate Night With the Kardashians." CW: Seems appropriate.

Bernie Sanders live-tweeted the debate. ...

... Sarah Kaplan of the Washington Post: Bernie Sanders will speak at a student-mandatory convocation at Liberty University. Kaplan explains why Liberty invited him -- it's about the money: "Liberty's non-profit status and its accreditation depend on carefully managing its religious and political affiliations."

Gabriel Debenedetti & Dylan Byers of Politico: "The first debate for the Democratic Party's 2016 presidential contenders will take place October 13 in Nevada and be hosted by CNN, the Democratic National Committee announced Thursday.... A total of six debates are [sic.] scheduled, with six different sponsors: Oct. 13 in Nevada (hosted by CNN); Nov. 14 in Des Moines, Iowa (CBS/KCCI and The Des Moines Register); Dec. 19 in Manchester, New Hampshire (ABC/WMUR); Jan. 17 in Charleston, South Carolina (NBC/Congressional Black Caucus Institute); and two scheduled for either February or March in Miami, Florida, and Wisconsin, hosted by Univision/The Washington Post and PBS, respectively." Sanders, O'Malley & Webb wanted more debates, especially before the first primary states caucus or vote. Clinton's campaign had preferred fewer.

Beyond the Beltway

Jason Whitely of WFAA Dallas-Fort Worth: "... this has not been a good week for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Two days after Collin County unsealed indictments against him for securities fraud, a federal judge ordered him to court for a contempt hearing to explain why he is not letting the state recognize same-sex marriages."

The Way of the West. Tami Hoey of CBS 5 Arizona: "Close to a dozen bounty hunters raided a Phoenix home Tuesday night, looking for a suspected fugitive.... The home they raided belongs to the Phoenix Chief of Police.... Police said at least one bondsman banged on the chief's door, yelled inside, and pointed a flashlight inside the now-surrounded home. This bondsman was armed, his weapon was not holstered, and he reportedly got into a verbal confrontation with Chief [Joseph] Yahner, demanding he come out of his residence." Giddyup.

News Ledes

Bloomberg News: "Employers added 215,000 jobs in July and the unemployment rate held at a seven-year low of 5.3 percent, a Labor Department report showed Friday...."

Environmental Pollution Agency. Reuters: "A team of US regulators investigating contamination at a Colorado goldmine accidentally released a million gallons (3.8 million liters) of orange-hued waste water containing sediment and metals into a local river system, the Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday."

Washington Post: "A manhunt ended Thursday afternoon for the 27-year-old man who authorities suspect fatally shot an on-duty Louisiana police officer who was responding to a call.... [Grover] Cannon was found inside of a garage behind a house Thursday afternoon and was arrested without incident...."

The Commentariat -- August 6, 2015

Internal links removed.

Erik Eckholm of the New York Times: "A federal appeals panel ruled Wednesday that a strict voter identification law in Texas discriminated against blacks and Hispanics and violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 -- a decision that election experts called an important step toward defining the reach of the landmark law.... The appeals panel said Wednesday that because illegal intent to discriminate had not been established -- in passing the law, legislators declared an interest in preventing voter fraud -- the district court in Texas should seek ways to alter the voter law short of overturning it entirely. The state could, for example, reinstate the acceptance at the polls of certain forms of identification that may be more easily available." ...

... Rick Hasen: "This is a narrow but important victory coming on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Voting Rights Act.... It is quite possible that Texas will try to take this case en banc to the full 5th Circuit, or perhaps to the Supreme Court. It is also possible that Texas would let this play out in another round at the district court and then appeal, but that seems less likely. This also strikes me as an opinion written as narrowly as possible to still give a victory to the plaintiffs."

How to Get Voting Rights through a GOP Congress. Rick Hasen in Slate: "A strengthened Voting Rights Act should start with this proposition: When the state has no good reason for making it harder for people to register and vote, doing so should be illegal. If we can get Congress to acknowledge this fundamental point, we won't have to worry about parsing racial or partisan intent.... Voting rights will be protected without having to prove Republican racism. We will protect not just minority voters but student voters, military and overseas voters, poor voters, and voters who move around a lot and lose their registrations.... A colorblind amendment to the act seems like the only path through a Republican Congress to adding voting rights protections for the next 50 years of the Voting Rights Act.

Brian Murphy of the Washington Post: "President Obama took sharp aim at critics of the Iran nuclear deal on Wednesday, saying many of those who backed the U.S. invasion of Iraq now want to reject an accord that showed America's ability to work with partners rather than push ahead with potentially dangerous unilateral action." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Wherein the President explains international relations in the way that even your Uncle Fred & Tom Cotton, could understand:

... New York Times Editors: "President Obama on Wednesday made a powerful case for the strong and effective nuclear agreement with Iran.... Mr. Obama's defense of the deal, which is designed to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon in exchange for relief from sanctions, was blunt and forceful. He likened Republicans to Iranian hard-liners.... The speech was so trenchant because Mr. Obama ably connected the opposition to the Iran agreement to recent history." ...

... Rosie Gray of BuzzFeed: "President Obama told Jewish leaders Tuesday that he'll talk to the Israeli press next month to sell the Iran deal in Israel, according to two sources who attended the meeting."

Norm Ornstein in the Atlantic makes a compelling case that when Congress returns in September, it will be in perpetual crisis mode: "... expect the slew of angry-populist presidential candidates, some of them sitting senators, including [Donald] Trump, Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, and others, to push Congress to toughen up, stare Obama and his Democrats down, and push for confrontation" on a host of issues, which now includes defunding Planned Parenthood. CW: Better not plan to visit Washington, D.C., this fall.

CW: Katha Pollitt of the Nation agrees with a comment I made here yesterday. In a New York Times op-ed, Pollitt writes, "On the issue of fetal-tissue research, we need to hear loud and clear from the scientific community. Anti-abortion activists are calling for a ban on this research, which ironically is used primarily to find treatments for sick babies. Will scientists let that happen?" Pollitt also urges women, their families & doctors to speak up for abortion & abortion rights. ...

... Amanda Marcotte of Alternet, republished in Salon, has a useful & informative guide on how to counter arguments against Planned Parenthood. "... conservative talking points are easy to debunk, but it's also important not to get so much in the weeds that you forget the larger point: The assault on Planned Parenthood is not about the videos at all, but a larger war on women being waged by conservatives.... The real goal is to make it harder for women -- especially low-income women -- to have happy, healthy sex lives.

AP: "Police must get a search warrant to obtain records about cellphone locations in criminal investigations, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. The American Civil Liberties Union said the decision by a three-judge panel of the fourth US circuit court of appeals conflicts with two other federal appeals court rulings and increases the possibility that the US supreme court will take up the issue. Attorneys last week asked the supreme court to review an appeals court ruling in a Florida case that said search warrants are not required."

Linda Greenhouse: "In Batson v. Kentucky, decided in April 1986, the [Supreme C]ourt ruled that prosecutors could be required to provide a race neutral explanation when their use of peremptory challenges to strike black potential jurors raised an inference of discrimination.... But the open secret is this: Batson hasn't really worked.... Blacks are still being excluded from juries at disproportionate rates, especially when the defendant is black and the crime victim is white." The Supreme Court has finally agreed to hear one egregious case of bias against black jurors. "What if we abolished peremptory challenges? There is nothing in the Constitution that requires them.... There clearly aren't five votes on the Supreme Court to abolish peremptory challenges. But just as clearly, their continued existence threatens to erode even further the public's confidence in the fairness of the criminal justice system, already stretched to near the breaking point."

Anna Palmer & Jeremy Herd of Politico: "Combined, Boeing and GE have halted political contributions to more than a dozen Republican lawmakers opposed to reauthorizing the [Export-Import] bank, after cutting checks to those lawmakers during the 2014 election cycle.... And an additional 17 Ex-Im opponents that received contributions in 2014 from one of GE's political action committees have gotten nothing this year from either company.... The battle over Ex-Im is the latest example of the GOP splitting with the business community."

Sam Byford of the Verge: John Hersey's "Hiroshima is one of the most remarkable works of journalism ever published. Its narrative non-fiction style was unusual for the time [1946], but even more striking was the way Hersey humanized the Japanese victims with sensitivity and dignity so soon after barrages of wartime propaganda had portrayed them as barbarians.... Albert Einstein reportedly ordered a thousand copies to spread the word, and several newspapers serialized it; Hersey asked them to donate to the American Red Cross rather than pay him." Read Hersey's essay here. It took up most of the New Yorker's August 31, 1946 issue.

Presidential Race

Scott Kauman of Salon: Megyn Kelly, one of the Fox "News" debate questioners, says Fox has a secret plan to keep Donald Trump in his place (um, would be center stage), should he fail to follow debate rules. ...

... Kaufman & Benjamin Wheelock do a send-up of the GOP slate: "What if the Democratic presidential primary were as bizarre as the GOP one currently is?" Their satirical take is totally unfair; unlike one candidate in their hypothetical Democratic primary, none of the GOP candidates is currently incarcerated.

Hillary's Trump Card. Robert Costa & Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "Former president Bill Clinton had a private telephone conversation in late spring with Donald Trump at the same time that the billionaire investor and reality-television star was nearing a decision to run for the White House, according to associates of both men. Four Trump allies and one Clinton associate familiar with the exchange said that Clinton encouraged Trump's efforts to play a larger role in the Republican Party and offered his own views of the political landscape.... The call came as Trump was making a final decision about whether to run, and he was candid about his political ambitions and his potential interest in seeking the White House during the talk.... Clinton never urged Trump to run, the four people said." ...

Yay! Steve M. Has a Conspiracy Theory: "... the lead author is Robert Costa, who used to write for National Review and whose sources include many prominent Republicans. I assume the party has been saving this up for the eve of the first debate and fed it to Costa. But will Republican voters get the intended message -- that Trump is a traitor deployed by the evil Clintons to divide the GOP and guarantee Hillary's election? The fact that four 'Trump allies' confirmed the story tells me that either Trump isn't worried about that possibility or his 'allies' are very, very stupid.... On Twitter, Maggie Haberman of The New York Times has said that the call was recorded."

... Paul Krugman: "It's true that Trump isn't making sense -- but neither are the mainstream contenders for the GOP nomination. On economics, both Jeb Bush and Scott Walker are into deep voodoo. Bush takes his experience of presiding over a giant housing bubble in his state, as proof that he can double America's underlying growth rate. Walker is Brownback-light: his governorship on Wisconsin was premised on the proposition that tax cuts, spending cuts, and union-bashing can create an economic miracle, but the reality is budget deficits and subpar growth, lagging in particular the performance of neighboring Minnesota.... I'm not denying that Trump is a clown, an absurd figure. But given his party's field, that's not a distinctive judgment." ...

... Andrew Kaczynski, et al., of BuzzFeed: "Donald Trump's presidential campaign ended its relationship with an Arizona-based politico Tuesday evening after BuzzFeed News asked about Islamophobic Facebook posts he wrote and racially charged Facebook posts about Barack and Michelle Obama. Asked by BuzzFeed News about Aaron Borders, who identified himself on various social media profiles and his LinkedIn as Trump's Arizona state director, the Trump campaign originally falsely denied that he had any connection to the campaign. But audio recordings provided by Borders to BuzzFeed News show Trump Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski informing Borders of the campaign's intent to hire him. In a second recording, Lewandowski tells Borders that he is going to fire him over the Facebook posts, and in a third recording delivers a threat 'to sue your fucking ass to next year.' Trump fired a longtime aide last week after Business Insider unearthed racially charged Facebook posts." ...

... CW: It appears "I'm going to sue your fucking ass to next year," is the default method of handling any little unpleasantness that may come the way of the Donald. In Trumpspeak, it is of a piece with, yet a lesser threat than "I'm going to mess your life up ... for as long as you're on this frickin' planet." You can see why Trump appeals to the lumpenproletariat of the right; he is the Tony Soprano of presidential candidates: a loudmouthed, garish, sociopathic mob boss with a family of wiseguys to whack anyone who annoys him. There are millions of angry people out there who wish they had the wherewithal to be more like Tony & Trump. ...

... Scott Keyes of Think Progress: "Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump regularly calls for getting rid of gun-free zones. However, if the real estate magnate is to succeed in his quest, he'll have to start with places like Trump-branded hotels and golf courses.... ThinkProgress spoke with a number of hotels and golf courses in the Trump empire and found that multiple locations were gun-free zones, even for guests with concealed-carry permits." CW: Nice catch, Scott, but the inconsistency between Trump's policies & his corporate practices is entirely consistent with Republican Rule IOKIYAR. ...

... James Surowiecki of the New Yorker: P. T. "Barnum's key insight into how to arrest public attention was that, to some degree, Americans enjoy brazen exaggeration. No American businessman since Barnum has been a better master of humbug than Trump has.... [Trump's] bizarre blend of populist message and glitzy ways has allowed him to connect with precisely the voters that any Republican candidate needs in order to get elected (including many whom Romney couldn't reach)."

Glen Thrush & Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "Jeb Bush ... was as surprised as anybody when Donald Trump jumped into the 2016 presidential race in June.... Like everyone else, Bush soon found Trump impossible to ignore.... 'Seriously, what's this guy's problem?' he asked one party donor he ran into recently according to accounts provided by several sources close to Bush -- and he went on to describe the publicity seeking real estate developer now surging in public polls far ahead of Bush and all the 15 others in the Republican field as 'a buffoon,' 'clown' and 'asshole.'" Whatever Bush wants to call Trump, the most accurate appellation ... is the label that should have been Bush's: 'frontrunner.'"

The Sound of Rich People Clapping. Ken Vogel of Politico: "Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker won a surprising nod in an informal straw poll of major conservative donors gathered by the Koch brothers' operation last weekend in Orange County, California, according to sources familiar with the gathering. In a closed-door session that included about 100 donors, Republican pollster Frank Luntz asked donors to clap to indicate their choice for the Republican Party's nomination. While Luntz did not formally track or announce the results, sources say it was clear that Walker got the most applause, followed by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who received roughly the same amount of applause.... Walker's presentation on Saturday did not exactly electrify the crowd, though it seemed generally well-received." CW: No doubt what they find so attractive in the Scottie Puppet is how lightweight he is: they can pull his string with remarkably little effort. ...

... Freeedom & the One Percent. Alele Stan in the American Prospect: At last weekend's Koch Konfab, Jeb! was his awkward self, but he said something that surely pleased his lovely hosts who own "the second-largest privately held corporation in the United States":

The one that is unique to America? Private property rights. Private property rights.... And you know what the second was? Private business. Not a public company ... a private business. Because a private business, by the way, through trial and error, they can do what they want. They don't have to worry about the quarterly returns, and get on the call to listen to shareholders or analysts say why it's stupid to be spending money on something that may be out of the ordinary. -- Jeb!

     ... Stan: As president, Bush would help these secretive companies "do what they want."

Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "A supporter and former close adviser to Senator Rand Paul has been charged with hiding secret payments to secure the endorsement of an Iowa lawmaker during the 2012 presidential campaign of his father, former Representative Ron Paul, the Justice Department said on Wednesday. Jesse Benton, who was Ron Paul's presidential campaign manager, is accused of paying more than $70,000 to Kent Sorenson, a former Iowa state senator, to win his support ahead of the state's caucuses in 2012. Mr. Sorenson had been backing former Representative Michele Bachmann but later switched to support Mr. Paul." ...

... Sean Sullivan, et al., of the Washington Post: "Jesse Benton, a longtime ally of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) who is heading up a super PAC supporting his presidential campaign, has been indicted by a federal grand jury.... Two other former Ron Paul campaign officials were indicted, including John Tate, who was Ron Paul's campaign manager and is now also involved with heading up the pro-Rand Paul super PAC; and Dimitri Kesari, who was Ron Paul's deputy national campaign manager.... Both Ron Paul and a spokesman for Rand Paul issued statements accusing the Justice Department of a politically-motivated attack.... Benton is married to the granddaughter of Ron Paul, Rand Paul's father."

Gubernatorial Race

Alan Yuhas of the Guardian: "A Mississippi truck driver who claims to have spent no money on his campaign won a nomination to be governor early Wednesday morning. Robert Gray, 46, reported spending zero dollars on his campaign to become the Democratic party's nominee for governor, and defeated two rivals with 51% of the vote. He told the Associated Press that he did not vote on Tuesday 'because he was busy'.... 'I know my two opponents, they campaigned real, very hard. But still they wasn't getting to the mass majority of people.'... He said that his family did not know he was running for office. The state Democratic party has said it has contacted Gray, and Mississippi public radio reported that the unexpected nominee was quickly shuffled behind closed doors at the party headquarters in Jackson." CW: Sounds like an excellent candidate. ...

... R. L. Nave of the Jackson Free Press: "Gray said he plans to stay in the race until November and wants to debate Gov. Phil Bryant. At his own party, Bryant walked out clad in cowboy boots and a smile to the cheers of family, friends and patrons as the predictable results came that he would represent the GOP as their nominee for Mississippi governor."

Beyond the Beltway

Cindy Chang & Joel Rubin of the Los Angeles Times: "Capping years of scandal, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has agreed to federal oversight and to sweeping reforms aimed at ending deputy abuse of inmates as well as improving chronically poor treatment for mentally ill inmates. The agreement announced Wednesday establishes an independent monitor who will make sure the reforms are carried out. Richard Drooyan, a former Los Angeles Police Commission president who served on a blue-ribbon commission that was highly critical of Sheriff's Department operations, was appointed to be the monitor."

Josh McElveen of WMUR Manchester: "New Hampshire's Republican-led Executive Council rejected $639,000 in state funding for Planned Parenthood along party lines Wednesday amid a renewed national debate over whether the organization should receive public money.... The contract rejection will cut Planned Parenthood's public funding by about one-third in New Hampshire, officials said, as the organization will still receive federal money. Both [Gov. Maggie] Hassan [D] and Jennifer Frizzell, vice president for public policy at Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, said the loss of the state contract will result in diminished services." The deciding vote came from Chris Sununu, a son of John, who claims to be pro-choice but who is evidently tacking right in a run-up to a gubernatorial bid.

Mark Berman of the Washington Post: "A man armed with a hatchet attacked a movie theater in the Nashville area on Wednesday afternoon before he was shot and killed by police officers, authorities said. One man was injured by the hatchet. That man and two other people also needed treatment after being 'blasted with pepper spray' by the attacker, said ... a Nashville police spokesman."

Jade Helm, Ctd. AP: "Investigators are questioning a person of interest after shots were reportedly fired a second consecutive day near a military facility in southern Mississippi, officials said Wednesday. There were no reported injuries.... The description of the shooter was the same in both instances, Patterson said: a white male in a red pickup truck.... Earlier reports that two people were involved proved to be wrong...." ...

... Abby Phillip of the Washington Post: "How federal agents foiled a murderous Jade Helm 15 retaliation plot" where in three men planned "to lure government forces into a trap, federal officials say, and were amassing a stockpile fit for war.... Federal officials say three North Carolina men -- Walter Eugene Litteral, 50; Christopher James Barker, 41; and Christopher Todd Campbell, 30 -- spent months compiling their cache, much of it purchased through a military surplus store owner who became so concerned about the plot that the person became the FBI's informant."

Jim McLean, KCUR, Kansas City: "Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback's administration will not follow through on plans to limit welfare recipients to cash withdrawals of $25 per day. Phyllis Gilmore, secretary of the Kansas Department for Children and Families, said Tuesday that federal officials objected to the limit, saying that it would prevent needy families from having 'adequate access to their cash assistance.'... Gilmore said in a news release, 'This was an amendment offered during legislative debate. At the time of discussion on the floor, DCF advised against such a low limit. I'm pleased that we now have the guidance we needed to rescind this measure.'" Via Think Progress.

News Ledes

New York Times: "A Stradivarius violin that disappeared without a trace after it was stolen in 1980 from the violin virtuoso Roman Totenberg has been found, and is being restored to his family, said one of his daughters, Nina Totenberg. Ms. Totenberg, the legal affairs correspondent for NPR news, reported the discovery of her father's stolen violin on Thursday morning on NPR's 'Morning Edition.' She said in an interview that law enforcement officials were planning to hold a news conference about it in New York on Thursday afternoon.... Ms. Totenberg said that the woman had inherited the violin from the man Ms. Totenberg's father had suspected all along of stealing the instrument."

AP: "What initially appeared to be another mass shooting at a [Nashville] movie theater ended up being an attack by a disturbed homeless man who wasn't armed with a real gun and was eventually shot and killed by police."

AP: "Japan marked the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Thursday, with Mayor Kazumi Matsui renewing calls for U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders to step up efforts toward making a nuclear-weapons-free world. Tens of thousands of people stood for a minute of silence at 8:15 a.m. at a ceremony in Hiroshima's peace park near the epicenter of the 1945 attack, marking the moment of the blast. Then dozens of doves were released as a symbol of peace."

Washington Post: "The United States has begun conducting airstrikes over Syria from a base in southern Turkey, the Pentagon said Wednesday, opening a new front in the Obama administration's air war against the Islamic State."

New York Times: "Bill Cosby will be questioned under oath in October in a second case involving accusations that he sexually assaulted a young woman, a judge said on Wednesday. The deposition of Mr. Cosby, 78, in the case involving Judy Huth, a California woman who said she was molested by the entertainer in 1974, when she was 15, was allowed to go forward last month, when the California Supreme Court denied Mr. Cosby's petition for review."

The Commentariat -- August 5, 2015

Internal links removed.

Afternoon Update:

Brian Murphy of the Washington Post: "President Obama took sharp aim at critics of the Iran nuclear deal on Wednesday, saying many of those who backed the U.S. invasion of Iraq now want to reject an accord that showed America's ability to work with partners rather than push ahead with potentially dangerous unilateral action."

*****

Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "President Obama will call for the restoration of the Voting Rights Act on its 50th anniversary Thursday, the White House said. Obama will hold a teleconference to commemorate the landmark legislation and call for its renewal, following a 2013 Supreme Court ruling that voided one of its central provisions. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who rose to prominence in the 1960s as a civil rights leader, will participate.... Asked about the timing of the event, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said that 'one person's irony is another person's serendipity. Maybe there will be an opportunity for Republican candidates to discuss the right for every American to cast a vote.'...".

... Ed Kilgore: "It will tell you a lot about the GOP and about Fox News if the subject is not mentioned on Thursday night." ...

... CW: If we were a normal country, we'd be having parades to celebrate the anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, just as we would have had last week to celebrate 50 years of Medicare & Medicaid, programs that have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Instead, millions of Americans will be glued to Fox "News" listening to a panel of preening jerks who not only oppose voting rights but also will tell us how we have to phase out Medicare & Medicaid "entitlements," leaving Americans with "nothing," as Jeb! puts it. ...

... A Glimmer of Hope in Oklahoma. Oklahoma! Russell Berman of the Atlantic: "Nearly a year ago, a coalition of voter-advocacy groups wrote ... to Oklahom's top elections official to deliver a stark, but not uncommon, message: The state ... was not giving citizens receiving public assistance an opportunity to register to vote, which is a requirement of the 1993 National Voter Registration Act." Then a surprising thing happened: "Last week, the coalition and Oklahoma's election board announced an agreement in which the state committed to asking any person who interacts with welfare agencies whether they want to register to vote and then to helping them through the process. That includes assistance with helping them register online."

Julie Davis of the New York Times: "President Obama is rolling out a campaign of private entreaties and public advocacy over the next several weeks to build support in Congress for the nuclear deal with Iran, an effort to counter a well-financed onslaught from critics who have promised to use a monthlong congressional recess to pressure lawmakers to oppose the accord. In a speech at American University in Washington on Wednesday, Mr. Obama will seek to explain and defend the international agreement reached last month, which would lift some sanctions in exchange for restrictions on Iran's ability to develop a nuclear weapon." ...

... Julian Hattem of the Hill: "The highest-ranking Jewish Democrat in the House [Steve Israel (NY)], announced his opposition to the nuclear accord with Iran on Tuesday, in a blow to the Obama administration's lobbying efforts.... In addition to Rep. Israel, Reps. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) and Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) also came out against the deal on Tuesday...."

New Rule. Drew Harwell & Jena McGregor of the Washington Post: "The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday is expected to finalize a long-delayed rule forcing businesses to share their 'pay ratio.'... Once the pay-ratio rule is in place, millions of workers will know exactly how their top boss's payday compares to their own, revealing a potentially embarrassing disparity in corporate riches that many companies have long fought to keep hidden. While the average American's pay and benefits have been growing at the slowest pace in 33 years, executive wages have soared. Fifty years ago, the typical chief executive made $20 for every $1 a worker made; now, that gap is more than $300-to-$1, and growing."

Jessica Glenza of the Guardian: "The anti-abortion activist group Center for Medical Progress have released a fifth undercover video of Planned Parenthood employees discussing fetal tissue donation. The videos purport to show employees of the women's healthcare organization illegally trafficking in fetal tissue, though, like previous videos, there is no apparent evidence of such activity." See also news re: Jeb! under Presidential Race. ...

... ** Callie Beusman of Vice (Aug. 2): "... the Center for Medical Progress is a flimsy front set up by three anti-abortion extremists, one of whom has ties to violent radicals -- including the man convicted of murdering abortion provider Dr. George Tiller. And, since the Center's founding in 2013, it has potentially violated numerous federal and state laws in its single-minded quest to malign Planned Parenthood." Thanks to Victoria D. for the link. Also, read Victoria's comment in today's thread. ...

... CW: Yesterday, I misstated the Senate's Planned Parenthood vote. Two Democrats, not one, voted to defund Planned Parenthood: Joe Donnelly (Ind.) & Joe Manchin (W.Va.) Republican Mark Kirk (Ill.) voted with Democrats against the defunding measure. ...

... CW: A couple of commenters have mentioned this disgusting diatribe by Joe Scarborough, so here it is (Joe begins about 36 sec. in). Mika is no Elizabeth Warren:. We've discussed elsewhere the distortions & outright lies Joe embeds in his holier-than-thou remarks:

Julie Davis of the New York Times: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel intensified his campaign against the nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers on Tuesday, denouncing it as a fatally flawed and dangerous accord and charging that proponents are trying to muzzle criticism of it with deceitful claims. 'As a result of this deal, there will be more terrorism, there will be more attacks, and more people will die,' Mr. Netanyahu said in a webcast viewed by thousands of American Jews. 'This is a very dangerous deal, and it threatens all of us.'"

Presidential Race

Carol Leonnig, et al., of the Washington Post: "The FBI has begun looking into the security of Hillary Rodham Clinton's private e-mail setup, contacting in the past week a Denver-based technology firm that helped manage the unusual system, according to two government officials. Also last week, the FBI contacted Clinton's lawyer,David Kendall, with questions about the security of a thumb drive in his possession that contains copies of work e-mails Clinton sent during her time as secretary of state." ...

     ... CW: At first blush, this story seems to be well-reported, albeit, like so many reports of this nature, it relies in part on anonymous sources. All those "declined to comment"s suggest the gist of the story is accurate. One would think that the administration would have had a handle on how all sensitive material was being transmitted electronically. Either it did not -- as it appears -- or Clinton & other officials who had access to her e-mail account knowingly evaded the "known" system.

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Gov. John Kasich of Ohio is in and former Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is out of Fox News's Republican debate on Thursday night in Cleveland, officials with the network said Tuesday, resolving the mystery of which lower-polling candidates will make the cut for the first debate of the 2016 presidential contest.... The others included in the lineup are Donald J. Trump, former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ben Carson, former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey." I just love that this is the Times' top story (at 7:30 pm Tuesday). ...

... Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "Fox added a 5 p.m. candidate forum that will air prior to the main debate. Derisively referred to as the 'kiddie table' debate, it will include former Texas governor Rick Perry (at 1.8 percent), former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum (1.4), Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (1.4), businesswoman Carly Fiorina (1.3), Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C., 0.7), former New York governor George Pataki (0.6) and former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore (0.2). Former IRS commissioner Mark Everson, who filed a complaint about the selection process with the FEC, will not be included." ...

... Harry Enten of 538: "National surveys haven't been great at predicting the results of primary elections. In fact, the candidate leading in a February to July polling average has become the nominee just seven of 12 times in open primaries since 1980.... It turns out the best individual predictor of the eventual results has been early New Hampshire polling...." (Footnotes deleted.)

I look forward to being FoxNews 5pm debate for what will be a serious exchange of ideas & positive solutions to get America back on track. -- A Sarcastic Commenter Rick Perry

The Doofus, Ctd. Sabrina Siddiqui of the Guardian: "Jeb Bush on Tuesday questioned the need for the federal government to spend $500m on women's health annually.... 'You could take dollar for dollar -- although I'm not sure we need a half a billion dollars for women's health issues -- but if you took dollar for dollar, there are many extraordinarily fine, federally sponsored community health organizations to provide quality care for women on a wide variety of health issues. But abortions should not be funded by the government -- any government, in my mind.'... Bush's comments sparked instant backlash from Democrats and pro-choice advocates, including Hillary Clinton, who responded on Twitter by calling her Republican opponent 'absolutely, unequivocally wrong.'... Bush attempted to walk back the comments in a statement issued shortly after his appearance at the convention, saying he 'misspoke' and intended to question the funding specifically for Planned Parenthood and not women's health in general." In his "correction," he said, "I was referring to the hard-to-fathom $500m in federal funding that goes to Planned Parenthood -- an organization that was callously participating in the unthinkable practice of selling fetal organs." ...

... CW: (a) Planned Parenthood is not "participating in the unthinkable practice of selling fetal organs," so his "correction" is predicated on a big fat lie. (b) As we know, the federal government doesn't fund most abortions, but they do pay for abortions in the case of rape, incest or the health of the mother. So whether or not Jeb! knows that Planned Parenthood does not receive federal funding for most abortions -- and it's not at all clear he does know that -- he is going beyond current federal law in opining that "abortions should not be funded by the government." ...

... Worse than Mitt. Margaret Hartmann of New York: "Bush's speedy response actually shows some progress, since it took him days to come up with the correct answer after he suggested in May that he would have invaded Iraq in 2003 even 'knowing what we know now.'... In the past three months, Bush declared 'immigrants are more fertile,' said Americans 'need to work longer hours,' and discussed a Medicare 'phase out.'... The severity and regularity of Bush's flubs have drawn comparisons to the last GOP presidential nominee.... Bush is one of the few candidates with a background in finance, but unlike Romney's long and successful career at Bain Capital..., Bush spent seven years advising Lehman Brothers and Barclays [which took over what was left of Lehman], and was present as the former collapsed in 2008." Also, Bush is faring worse in polls than Romney did at a comparable point in his campaign. ...

... BTW, for word-salad fans, here's how Jeb! led into his pronouncement that the federal government is overspending on women's health care: "The argument against this is, well, women's health issues are going to be -- you're attacking, it's a war on women, and you're attacking women's health issues." I defy anyone to definitively tell me what that means.

     ... For a rundown of how Planned Parenthood is funding & how they spend those funds, Janell Ross of the Washington Post has the numbers. Apparently it is too much to ask of presidential candidates that they be familiar with issues their own parties is raising. ...

     ... In another post, Ross points out that women's healthcare costs typically exceed men's costs: "... these costs are so significant that in the years before the Affordable Care Act outlawed the practice in 2014, health insurance companies regularly charged women more for coverage, anticipating both more frequent use of their health-care benefits than ... men...." CW: Ross doesn't mention it, but one reason for this disparity is that "women bear the majority of the social, economic, and health-related burdens associated with contraception." Obviously, Jeb!, you lying, ignorant doofus, when it comes to contraception, men & women both benefit from Planned Parenthood's services for women. ...

... Alexandra Petri of the Washington Post thinks Jeb! raises an important issue: "How many dollars are too many dollars for women's health issues?"

... Fortunately, some men do take responsibility for contraception. ...

... Too Much Information. Isabelle Taft of Politico: "... at a town hall meeting in Manchester, New Hampshire Tuesday morning ... [Chris Christie] explained to a diner full of voters, 'I'm a Catholic, but I've used birth control, and not just the rhythm method'":

     ... CW: Christie was not discussing his view on Planned Parenthood here. Instead, "Near the two-hour mark of the event, a man cited three Bible verses to raise arguments in support of environmental conservation and ending wars abroad." So his justification for his anti-environmental, pro-war stances is his sex life. Excellent.

** Jonathan Chait: "It must be galling for the party regulars to prostrate themselves helplessly before the base, purging any hint of independent thought, only to watch [Donald Trump,] a formerly pro-choice, libertine if not liberal, Democratic donor, waltz into the lead.... His affect supplies his appeal -- he is strong, mad, and, above all, unapologetic in a world that demands he apologize. Trump is not the spokesman for an idea at all, but the representation of undifferentiated resentment."

After Gawker published one of Donald Trump's cellphone numbers as payback for Trump's releasing Sen. Lindsey Graham's phone number, he recorded a new voicemail message for the phone:

When Lindsey Graham's cell number was released to the public, his response was to set the cell phone on fire and destroy it with a bat, an ax and a cinder block ... which is actually not good for the environment. Donald Trump turns the number into a campaign announcement that has received within the first few hours tens of thousands of calls. Now do you see the difference between Donald Trump and the rest of the field? -- Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who apparently is not too busy boning up on marital law or suing the Daily Beast

Copy of Lindsey Graham tweet:

Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "Ted Cruz Anti-Iran Deal Site Accidentally Links To Big Photo Of Ass Instead Of Senator [Maria Cantwell]'s Twitter Account." CW: Yeah, maybe "accidentally."

In yesterday's Comments thread, Akhilleus wrote, "American presidential politics truly has become a cheap carny sideshow." CW: I can't imagine why he would say such a thing.

Beyond the Beltway

AP: "A sheriff in Mississippi says authorities are searching for two men who fired gunshots from a vehicle at soldiers at a military facility. No injuries were reported.... The soldiers were training at Camp Shelby Joint Forces Training Center in Hattiesburg.... U.S. Special Forces Command designated Camp Shelby as one of the sites where a multi-state military training exercise, 'Jade Helm 15', was expected to take place, according to The Army Times.... Authorities say they are still looking for two white males who allegedly fired from [a red Ford Ranger] and fled in the vehicle." CW: The revolution has begun. The shots heard 'round the world, & all.

Annals of "Justice," Ctd. Jon Swaine of the Guardian: "A [white] police officer in Alabama proposed murdering a black resident and creating bogus evidence to suggest the killing was in self-defence.... Officer Troy Middlebrooks kept his job and continues to patrol Alexander City after authorities there paid the man $35,000 to avoid being publicly sued over the incident." The city attorney claimed the city's insurance company made the decision to settle. CW: You may want to read this. The police chief said it was all okay because Middlebrooks wasn't going to kill the man himself; he was just urging the man's brother to kill him & telling the brother how to cover up the murder.

Michael Cooper of the New York Times: "The Metropolitan Opera said on Tuesday that the new production of Verdi's 'Otello' that will open its season next month will not use blackface makeup on the white tenor singing the title role, breaking with a performance tradition of more than a century.... Long after most theater companies stopped using dark makeup for their Othellos -- seeing it as an uncomfortable vestige of minstrelsy -- leading opera companies around the world continued to use dark makeup for their Otellos."

Sarah Larimer of the Washington Post: "Shipments of hunting trophies are still allowed by United Parcel Service, a UPS spokeswoman told The Washington Post on Tuesday, noting that the global shipping giant follows U.S. and international laws, not public opinion, in determining what it will and won't ship." ...

... AP: "An American doctor accused of killing a lion in an illegal hunt in Zimbabwe said on Tuesday that he had complied with all rules and regulations, filled out all the necessary paperwork and obtained the correct permits."

News Ledes

New York Times: "There are 'very strong presumptions' that the airplane part that washed ashore last week on the French island of Réunion in the western Indian Ocean came from the missing [Malaysian Airlines Flight 370] Boeing 777, an official said on Wednesday at a Paris news conference after experts inspected the object."

Bloomberg: "The trade deficit in the U.S. widened in June as the strong dollar lifted imports and hobbled exports, representing a hurdle for economic growth. The gap grew by 7.1 percent to $43.8 billion, the largest in three months, Commerce Department figures showed Wednesday...."

Guardian: "Radical cleric Anjem Choudary has been charged with encouraging support for Islamic State, Scotland Yard has said. Choudary, 48, of Ilford, faces a charge of inviting support for a proscribed organisation, namely Isis."

BBC News: "Russian freediving champion Natalia Molchanova is feared dead after going missing on Sunday. The 53-year-old was diving for fun off Formentera, a Spanish island near Ibiza, when she failed to surface. Search efforts have been continuing but it is feared she may have been caught up in strong underwater currents." The Washington Post story is here.