The Commentariat -- Sept. 5, 2016

The Way We Were.

Presidential Race

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.

In his first turn as a presidential debate moderator, Fox "News"'s Chris Wallace does not intend to commit journalism, as MAG points out in today's Comments. Sarah Burris of the Raw Story: Wallace said on Howard Kurtz's Fox "News" show: "'I do not believe it is my job to be a truth squad. It's up to the other person to catch them on that. I certainly am going to try to maintain some reasonable semblance of equal time. If one of them is filibustering, I'm going to try to break in respectfully and give the other person a chance to talk. But I want it to be about them -- I want it to be as much of a debate, people often talk that it's simultaneous news conferences.' Wallace said that he hopes the event will become more of a debate between the candidates and not a debate between the candidate and moderators armed with facts." ...

... CW: Wallace prefaced his promise to let the candidates lie by making this analogy: "I view it as kind of being a referee in a heavyweight championship fight." Referees, Wallace must know, are charged with enforcing fight rules. Wallace is saying then that lying is not an infraction, thus the ref/moderator does not need to call out the candidates' lies. He also is admitting something we all know: that the Fox "News" standard sanctions lying. The debates committee would have done better to employ some print journalists to moderate the debates rather than the pretty teevee-star kind.

David Edwards of the Raw Story: "Former CNN host Soledad O'Brien blasted the cable news business over the weekend for profiting off the hate speech that has fueled Donald Trump's political rise. According to O'Brien, the media had gone through 'contortions to make things seem equal all the time' when comparing Trump to ... Hillary Clinton." O'Brien slammed the she-said/he-said "journalism" employed where there's no equivalency. She said the cable news networks have "normalized white supremacy" by "softening the ground for ... white supremacists..., white nationalists, who would self-identify that way...." -- CW ...

     ... digby: "The idea that Clinton and Trump surrogates are equally dishonest is bullshit. Simple bullshit. But they have to do it. You can see the reflex there at work perfectly in Mark Leibovitz's obvious discomfort [in the segment above] at presenting Trump as something uniquely outrageous." -- CW ...

... Paul Krugman: The press is grading Donald Trump "on a curve. If he manages to read from a TelePrompter without going off script, he's being presidential. If he seems to suggest that he wouldn't round up all 11 million undocumented immigrants right away, he's moving into the mainstream. And many of his multiple scandals, like what appear to be clear payoffs to state attorneys general to back off investigating Trump University, get remarkably little attention. Meanwhile, we have the presumption that anything Hillary Clinton does must be corrupt, most spectacularly illustrated by the increasingly bizarre coverage of the Clinton Foundation.... If reports about a candidate talk about how something 'raises questions,' creates 'shadows,' or anything similar, be aware that these are all too often weasel words used to create the impression of wrongdoing out of thin air." ...

     ... CW: That's Krugman biting the hand that feeds him. Good for him. ...

... Judd Legum of Think Progress: "Hillary Clinton has faced consistent scrutiny for her role in the Clinton Foundation.... Much of the controversy about the Clinton Foundation focuses on ... whether [Secretary Clinton] was complicit in 'selling access' in return for donations to the foundation. These charges were elevated to prominence by Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute..., the non-profit arm of Breitbart.com.... Schweizer's book failed to uncover any clear evidence of wrongdoing  -- and was rife with errors --  but it did succeed in focusing mainstream media attention on the alleged issue.... Meanwhile, on September 1, news broke that the Trump Foundation 'violated tax laws by giving a political contribution to a campaign group connected to Florida's attorney general.' It was required to pay a $2500 fine to the IRS. The details of the case are even more unseemly.... The story has something that none of the Clinton Foundation stories have: Actual evidence of illegal conduct [and] a formal finding of wrongdoing by the IRS. And yet, coverage of the Trump Foundation, even in the few short days since the story of the IRS fine broke, has been scant." ...

     ... CW: Take a look at Legum's chart to see the difference in coverage of the Clinton & Trump foundations. ...

... Steve M.: "... the Clinton campaign should make an ad about the Trump Foundation. It may not be a message that wins over voters in key states, but ads become news of their own these days, and maybe the slap in the face the media needs on this subject is a Clinton paid ad. God forbid the press should do its job without that prodding." Also, Trump has said he won't talk about birtherism, "and the press has been completely deferential to his wish to avoid the subject." -- CW ...

... John Ziegler in Mediaite: "... perhaps the most amazing example of the news media largely letting Trump off the hook regarding a topic which should be a clear disqualifier for the presidency is his 'Birtherism' crusade against President Barack Obama.... Trump, according to The New York Times, lied about having investigators which had uncovered important new data on the topic." -- CW ...

... Stephen Brown of the New York Daily News: "Donald Trump has blasted Hillary Clinton for accepting money from Saudi Arabia through her foundation, but a Daily News investigation reveals he has padded his bank account with cash from the same country. Trump sold the 45th floor of Trump World Tower to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for $4.5 million in June 2001, according to a city Finance Department spokeswoman.... Rebecca Ocampo, who alleged in court papers she helped broker the deal between Trump and the Saudis, said the apartments were about more than money -- they were also about 'access' to a new, potentially lucrative market in the Middle East.... In 1985, Osama Bin Laden's half-brother Shafiq Bin Laden paid an $8,500 security deposit for an apartment in Trump Tower." ...

... CW: So it's horrible for the Clintons to take Saudi money for charity, but A-Okay for Trump to take Saudi money for profit.

Kathleen Gray of the Detroit Free Press: Bill "Clinton will march with organized labor down Michigan Avenue in Detroi this morning and greet union members along the way. He's not scheduled to speak at the end of the parade." ...

     ... CW: Probably because Hillary Clinton's health is so precarious she can't walk down the street, so she's sending her husband, who has had quadruple bypass surgery, out in the noonday sun to do her job. Oh, wait, "Hillary Clinton and her running mate -- Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine -- are participating in a Labor Day Festival in Cleveland today. Clinton also plans on attending a Salute to Labor program in Hampton, Ill., while Kaine will be joined by [Vice President] Biden at a Labor Day parade in Pittsburgh."

I think that anytime that we hear intolerance, anytime that we hear policy measures that are contrary to our values, banning certain classes of people, because of who they are or what they look at, what faith they practice, then we have to be pretty hard about saying no to that. And I think that America will do that this time as well. -- President Obama, in an interview ...

... Obama: Trump's a Jerk, But He's a Copycat Jerk. Louis Nelson of Politico: "The America-first, nationalistic tones upon which Donald Trump has built his campaign are nothing new, President Barack Obama said in an interview that aired Sunday morning...."

By Driftglass.Cyra Master of the Hill: "... Donald Trump took to Twitter Sunday night to again attack rival Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server.... 'Lyin' Hillary told the FBI that she did not know the "C" markings on documents stood for CLASSIFIED. How can this be happening?' he tweeted.... However, several people on social media noted that FBI Director James Comey has said the 'C' stands for confidential." CW: That is, Trump lied in a tweet in which he called Clinton a liar. SOP.

Cyra Master: "... Donald Trump lashed out at Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) Sunday on Twitter. He tweeted that the Republican Party needs 'strong and committed leaders, not weak people such as @JeffFlake' in order to address illegal immigration.... Earlier Sunday, Flake reiterated on CNN's 'State of the Union' that he would not be voting for Trump in November." -- CW

Louis Nelson"... Chuck Todd worked hard to nail down Republican vice-presidential candidate Mike Pence on his running mate's immigration plan, asking the Indiana governor more than 10 times during Sunday's installment of NBC's 'Meet the Press' what would happen to undocumented immigrants who had not committed a crime in a Donald Trump administration. But each time Todd asked a variation of the question, Pence demurred.... In an interview on ABC's 'This Week,' Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway similarly declined to offer a concrete answer to the question of what the Manhattan billionaire would do with undocumented immigrants who have not committed a crime...." CW: Might be the only time we read the clause "Chuck Todd worked hard".

"Trump Card." Donald Even Rigged His Stupid Beauty Pageants. Lucia Graves of the Guardian: "Miss Universe judge Jeff Lee admitted in GQ that Trump -- who from 1996 to 2015 owned or co-owned both Miss Universe and Miss USA -- frequently had a say in which women made the final round. According to the story's author, Burt Helm: 'Lee will tell you that from 2005 until Donald Trump sold the Miss Universe pageant last year, the billionaire quietly handpicked as many as six semifinalists -- "Trump cards", they were called.'" But when Trump contestant Sheena Monnin wrote about the fix on her Facebook page, Trump disparaged her character, then sued her for $10MM. "... last year, Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen bragged to the Daily Beast about the time he 'destroy[ed]' Monnin's life. Because her lawyer didn't show up or even tell her about a scheduled arbitration meet, a judge ruled for Trump, ordering Monnin had to pay Trump $5MM, though Monnin ended up paying nothing after she sued her incompetent attorney.

Wayne Barrett, in the New York Daily News, on the long, seamy relationship between Donald Trump & his top surrogate Rudy Giuliani: CW: It's impossible to decide which of them is more despicable.

Vincente Fox (former president of Mexico) in the Guardian: "The Republican presidential candidate arrived in my country offering diplomacy as fake as a $3 bill...[W]ith this visit to my country he has confirmed that he is without a doubt someone who cannot be trusted...He used the president of Mexico and all of the country's citizens to his own benefit...Well, even though I'm against walls, I’d gladly build one around Trump, to spare the world from people like him. We don't need you." --safari

**The Other Terrorism. Contributors of Juan Cole: "[A] study from The Program on Extremism at The George Washington University analyzed accounts from prominent white nationalist organizations such as the American Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan. It found that from 2012 to 2016 these accounts had a 600 percent increase in followers, now estimated to stand at around 22,000 up from around 3,500 in 2012...The study also found that people who follow white nationalist accounts were unsurprisingly 'invested in Donald Trump's presidential campaign.' White nationalist followers used Trump hashtags more than any other white nationalist related hashtag except for #whitegenocide." --safari

James Kirchick of The Daily Beast: "Trump is a living repudiation of everything religious conservatives claim to believe in. A thrice-married, epically greedy, congenitally dishonest serial adulterer who brags about his sexual conquests and exalts the rich and powerful while heaping scorn upon the weak and vulnerable, Trump is the villain of Sunday school parables made real...[Yet] according to a July Pew poll, 78 percent of white evangelicals have expressed support for him, compared to just 73 percent who backed Mitt Romney at the same time in 2012." --safari

Other News & Views

Dana Priest, et al., of the Washington Post: "U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies are probing what they see as a broad covert Russian operation in the United States to sow public distrust in the upcoming presidential election and in U.S. political institutions, intelligence and congressional officials said.... The effort to better understand Russia's covert influence operations is being spearheaded by James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence." -- CW

William Wan & Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to reach a deal Monday on a cease-fire for Syria, but the two sides have agreed to continue negotiating even as Syrian government forces close in on the beseiged city of Aleppo. Meeting with Putin on the sidelines of the G20 meeting [in Hangzhou, China], Obama emphasized the humanitarian importance and urgent need for a ceasefire but was adamant about not striking an agreement that wouldn't meet his long-term objectives in Syria, a White House official said...." ...

... Rebecca Morin of Politico: "President Barack Obama 'wouldn't overcrank the significance' of the altercations between Chinese and White House officials over press access that greeted Air Force One on Saturday after it landed in Hangzhou, China, for the G20 summit. At a news conference Sunday with British Prime Minister Theresa May, Obama said this is not the first time there have been issues with security and press access. The president said the U.S. provides access to the press pool that "other countries may not insist on.... After the arrival of Obama and White House officials, Chinese and White House officials had several disagreements, such as whether the press pool could be on the tarmac for the president's arrival." -- CW ...

... Mark Landler & Jane Perlez of the New York Times have the backstory on President Obama's bumpy arrival in China, which is more complicated that previously reported. -- CW

Way Beyond

Tom Phillips & Eric Cheung of the Guardian: "Two years after tens of thousands of young people poured on to the streets of Hong Kong to issue an unprecedented call for political change, a new generation of pro-democracy activists has gained a foothold in power in the former British colony. At least four radical young activists who support greater political autonomy or outright independence from China claimed seats in Hong Kong's 70-member legislative council, or Legco, after a record 2.2 million people went to the polls on Sunday." --safari

Juan Cole has a good summary of the ironclad rule of the recently deceased Uzbekistan president Islam Karimov. A little taste: " Karimov was only one dog-eaten uncle short of running a North Korea." --safari

News Lede

NBC News: "Storm warnings were in effect Monday from Long Island to Nantucket as post-Tropical Cyclone Hermine drifted slowly up the Atlantic, promising near hurricane-strength winds, floods and beach erosion. The National Weather Service said large waves will pound the East Coast from the mid-Atlantic states to southern New England through the end of Labor Day. Life-threatening rip currents are expected at least into the middle of the week, it added. At 5 a.m. ET, Hermine was about 305 miles southeast of the eastern tip of Long Island, N.Y. The storm was 'drifting northward' at 3 mph and 'expected to meander off the mid-Atlantic coast during the next day or two,' according to the National Weather Service." -- CW

The Commentariat -- Sept. 4, 2016

Mark Landler & Jane Perlez of the New York Times: "President Obama and President Xi Jinping of China formally committed the world's two largest economies to the Paris climate agreement [in Hangzhou, China] on Saturday, cementing their partnership on climate change and offering a rare display of harmony in a relationship that has become increasingly discordant.... On multiple fronts, like computer hacking and maritime security, ties between China and the United States have frayed during the seven and a half years of Mr. Obama's presidency.... Yet the fact that [they]... could set aside those tensions to work together yet again on a joint plan to reduce greenhouse gases attests to the pragmatic personal rapport they have built, as well as to the complexity of the broader United States-China relationship...." -- CW ...

... Mark Landler: "... the reception that President Obama and his staff got when they arrived [in China] Saturday afternoon was bruising, even by Chinese standards." CW: The Chinese must have been practicing for Trumpelthinskin. Their rude "greeting" to Obama certainly would rile Trumpus. ...

... Tom Phillips of the Guardian: "China's leaders have been accused of delivering a calculated diplomatic snub to Barack Obama after the US president was not provided with a staircase to leave his plane during his chaotic arrival in Hangzhou before the start of the G20.... When Obama did find his way on to a red carpet on the tarmac below there were heated altercations between US and Chinese officials, with one Chinese official caught on video shouting: 'This is our country! This is our airport!'" CW: Very Trumpy.

... President Obama speaks to Julie Davis of the New York Times:

... Justin Gillis of the New York Times: "For decades, as the global warming created by human emissions caused land ice to melt and ocean water to expand, scientists warned that the accelerating rise of the sea would eventually imperil the United States' coastline. Now, those warnings are no longer theoretical: The inundation of the coast has begun. The sea has crept up to the point that a high tide and a brisk wind are all it takes to send water pouring into streets and homes. Federal scientists have documented a sharp jump in this nuisance flooding -- often called 'sunny-day flooding' -- along both the East Coast and the Gulf Coast in recent years." -- CW ...

... Ian Livingston of the Washington Post: "... [Tropical Storm] Hermine's assault on the East Coast is just beginning. By the time it finishes during the week ahead, significant impact is anticipated up-and-down the coastline." The story includes updates. -- CW

Reuters: "U.S. President Barack Obama told Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan Sunday that his administration would work with Turkey to help ensure that those responsible for an attempted coup are brought to justice.... Obama and Erdogan met on the sidelines of the G-20 summit under way in eastern China's Hangzhou city." -- CW

Elisabetta Polvoledo of the New York Times: Pope Francis made Mother Teresa a saint at a "canonization ceremony in St. Peter's Square. The canonization marked a highlight of the Jubilee year that Francis had proclaimed to celebrate the theme of mercy. On Saturday, he told thousands of cheering volunteers gathered in St. Peter's Square that Mother Teresa was a 'witness to mercy in our time.'" -- CW

Presidential Race

Jordan Weissmann of Slate: "Hillary Clinton already had a plan to lower prescription drug costs. In fact, it was one of the first pieces of her agenda that she rolled out. But following the furor over Mylan's decision to increase EpiPen prices by some 500 percent, her campaign has released a new proposal specifically aimed at stopping 'unjustified' price spikes on pharmaceuticals. And it's surprisingly bold.... Clinton would create a task force of regulators with the power to ... mete out punishments to companies that were trying to profiteer, potentially with fines." -- CW

Campaigning with the Rich & Famous. Amy Chozick & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Mr. Trump has pointed to Mrs. Clinton's noticeably scant schedule of campaign events this summer to suggest she has been hiding from the public. But Mrs. Clinton has been more than accessible to those who reside in some of the country's most moneyed enclaves and are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to see her. In the last two weeks of August, Mrs. Clinton raked in roughly $50 million at 22 fund-raising events, averaging around $150,000 an hour, according to a New York Times tally." -- CW ...

... CW BTW: Hillary Clinton's clever strategy of running out the clock, is, unsurprisingly, not going well. Hillary should recall the Michael Dukakis campaign. I remember one poll, taken right after the Democratic convention, that had Dukakis up by 25 points over Bush Pere. Then Dukakis went home to Massachusetts to do his governor thing & did little campaigning for the month of August.

Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "Under attack from Republicans over pay-for-play allegations, Hillary Clinton's campaign on Friday took the opportunity to punch back, ripping Donald Trump over his own foundation's run-in with the Internal Revenue Service. Trump's foundation -- which the Clinton campaign refers to as the one 'that has been caught in an actual pay-to-play scandal' -- was forced to pay the IRS a $2,500 penalty this year following the revelation that the Trump Foundation improperly donated $25,000 to a political committee supporting Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi in 2013. The foundation failed to document the payment in its IRS filings. The fine was first revealed Thursday by the Washington Post." -- CW

Sam Frizell of Time: "Colorado Democrats are setting up a taco truck outside of Donald Trump's campaign office in Denver to register voters after a Trump surrogate said that more Mexicans moving to the United States would lead to 'taco trucks on every corner.'... The Arizona Democratic Party has changed its sign to say 'Taco Trucks On Every Corner.'" -- CW

Yamiche Alcindor & Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump ... visited a black church for the first time.... Flanked by a few black supporters, including Ben Carson ... and Omarosa Manigault, a former contestant on 'The Apprentice,' Mr. Trump cut a subdued figure here at Great Faith Ministries International.... In Detroit, Mr. Trump did not express regret for, or even acknowledge, the actions and remarks that had opened a gulf between him and black voters. Instead, reading from prepared remarks, he hailed the Christian values and political contributions of black Americans and told his audience he cared about making their lives better.... Mr. Trump's appearance on Saturday ... was swathed in uncertainty up to the last minute.... Plans for stops in nearby neighborhoods were announced, then retracted; Mr. Trump ultimately paid a short visit to Mr. Carson's childhood home before flying out of Detroit. And a scheduled interview with [Bishop Wayne T.] Jackson, Mr. Trump's host on Saturday, became a source of embarrassment when it was revealed that both the questions and Mr. Trump's answers had been scripted in advance." -- CW ...

... Ryan Felton & Amber Jamieson of the Guardian: "After [Bishop Wayne T] Jackson spoke about the need for love and called on parishioners to hug and love each other, Trump could be seen hugging and greeting churchgoers himself. He posed for selfies and held up a baby.... Reading from a script and adopting a milder tone than that familiar from campaign rallies and debates, [Trump]... said: 'We're all brothers and sisters and we're all created by the same God.'" -- CW ...

... Chas Danner of New York gives the best account of Trump's brief visit to Detroit. It's titled, "Trump Successfully Reads Prepared Remarks at Black Church in Detroit," and includes tidbits like this: "Ben Carson, for his part during the brief stop, gave a live interview to CNN during which he walked away for a time because he was worried about his luggage." ...

... The full speech, which Trump claimed he wrote himself, is here. Near the end, Trump read a verse from 1 John. The audience clapped & cheered when he said "First John" instead of "One John." Trump seemed not to understand (or at least pretended not to understand) the reason for the applause. -- CW ...

... Lindsay Gibbs of Think Progress: "Protesters, including pastors from the community, greeted Trump as he arrived at the church. 'What do you have to lose?' the crowd asked. 'Everything,' they answered." -- CW

Callum Borchers of the Washington Post: Donald Trump has not committed to participating in the presidential debates. "One reason for the holdout: 'I'll have to see who the moderators are,' the Republican nominee told Time magazine last month. 'Yeah, I would say that certain moderators would be unacceptable, absolutely.'" Now that the debate committee has announced the moderator line-up, will Trump commit? His campaign would not respond to the Post. Borchers reprises some of Trump's interactions with the moderators named.

Harper Neidig of the Hill: "Donald Trump this week railed against allowing Syrian refugees to settle in Detroit as a way of rebuilding the city, calling it 'unfair to the people that are living there.'. 'I think it's crazy,' Trump told Breitbart of the idea, floated by former President Bill Clinton in February. 'I mean, these people are getting started -- I think it's a very, very hard place to get your start. We shouldn't have them in the country,' Trump added, referring to Syrian refugees. 'We don't know who these people are. We have no idea. This could be the all time great Trojan horse. We have no idea who they are.'" ...

     ... CW: This is part & parcel of Trump's lack of knowledge of macroeconomics. Population increases fuel economic growth. Detroit has been depopulating for decades, so one way to repopulate it is with immigrants.

All the Best People. Sophie Tatum of CNN: "A top Donald Trump surrogate admitted to falsifying some of his professional accomplishments after a contentious confrontation with CNN anchor Victor Blackwell. South Carolina preacher Mark Burns, who regularly introduces Trump at his campaign events, had listed on his church's website that he had a Bachelor of Science degree and served six years in the Army Reserve.Burns, however, was never in the Army Reserve. He was in the South Carolina National Guard, from which he was discharged in 2008, CNN found. As far as a Bachelor's degree, North Greenville University told CNN he only attended the school for one semester. Burns admitted that he did not finish his degree when CNN asked him about it." -- CW ...

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post has a few highlights: "Confronted with an apparently bogus claim that he was a member of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, Burns initially says he 'started the process' of joining the fraternity. Then he argues that such facts were added to his bio by a hacker.... When confronted with his claim to have graduated with a bachelor of science degree from North Greenville University, Burns tries to argue that the interview was and had been off the record.... Asked about his claim to be pursing a master's degree from Andersonville Theological Seminary, where he enrolled in 2008 but hasn't advanced, Burns's explanation shifts. Now standing and swaying, he explains: "Do you know how old this [bio] is?... Then, perhaps predictably, Burns walks away, mid-interview." -- CW

Kevin Baker in Politico Magazine: How Rudy Giuliani, boy liberal Democrat, became a raving, lying maniac. "What lies at the heart of Trumpism, and Rudyism, is the same, nostalgic impulse that has driven reactionary Republican populism for a half-century now -- 'The shining city on the hill!' as Giuliani managed to splutter at the convention, just before, 'Greatness!' It's no coincidence that Trump and Giuliani both came of age in the New York of the 1960s and -70s, the time when the dream seemed to die, during the nihilistic, wholesale destruction of our cities." -- CW

Sorry to be so late with this. Tim Egan: "In the hate speech that Donald Trump gave on immigration in Phoenix on Wednesday night, he all but deported the Statue of Liberty, laying out one of the darkest visions of the American experience that any major-party nominee has ever given. Despite the media misread by some who presented the speech as a pivot, it got rave reviews from neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan supporters, and prompted some of Trump's few Latino advisers to resign in protest. 'Excellent speech,' said David Duke, the former Klan leader.... [Trump]laid out a test for political correctness, in the most authoritarian sense of the term. 'I call it extreme vetting,' said Trump. 'Right? Extreme vetting. I want extreme.'... He said 'an ideological certification' would be required." -- CW ...

... Amy Davidson of the New Yorker on Trump's "new immigration commission," whose charter would be "to select immigrants based on their likelihood of success in U.S. society, and their ability to be financially self-sufficient. . . . To choose immigrants based on merit, skill, and proficiency." Davidson thought that sounded good till she learned a bit about Great Britain's experiment with a similar program: experts who had served on the commission said the effect was that "a hugely disproportionate number of these 'entrepreneurs' [who were admitted] were wealthy people from Russia -- 'I believe the polite term is "oligarchs,"' and China. 'There were a lot of Subway franchises,' another said." ...

     ... CW: The U.S. already has a similar program, and frankly, the effect is the same. There's a good reason gas stations & motels are run or owned by foreign-born individuals & Florida is crawling with mini-oligarchs. If you think the petite bourgeoisie & dirty, rotten crooks form the best possible models for future generations, you might like this part of Trump's plan. ...

... Steven Rosenfeld of AlterNet, republished in Salon: "Donald Trump's pledge this week to speedily deport 'anyone who has entered the United States illegally' would require the creation of a vast police state that harkens back to the early 20th century, with Nazi Germany's roundups and deportations of millions of Jews and others deemed undesirable." Rosenfeld supplies stats to support his assertions. He also addresses the "economic devastation" the Trump "plan" would cause. -- CW ...

... ** Matthew Sheffield in the Washington Post: "According to [Hillary] Clinton -- and many conservative intellectuals who oppose Trump -- the conspiratorial, winking-at-racists campaign he has been running represents a novel departure from Republican politics. That's not quite true, though. Trump's style and positions -- endorsing and consorting with 9/11 truthers, promoting online racists, using fake statistics -- draw on a now-obscure political strategy called 'paleolibertarianism,' which was once quite popular among some Republicans, especially former presidential candidate Ron Paul.... There's no question that the paranoid and semi-racialist mien frequently favored by Trump originates in the fevered swamps that ... Paul dwelled in for decades." Read on. -- CW ...

... Richmond Times-Dispatch Editors: "Neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton meets the fundamental moral and professional standards we have every right to expect of an American president. Fortunately, there is a reasonable -- and formidable -- alternative. Gary Johnson is a former, two-term governor of New Mexico and a man who built from scratch a construction company that eventually employed more than 1,000 people before he sold it in 1999. He possesses substantial executive experience in both the private and the public sectors." -- CW

Beyond the Beltway

Corey Jones of the Tulsa World: "Oklahoma's second magnitude-5.0 earthquake in 2016 and third in five years has renewed concerns a 6.0 may strike after Saturday's temblor revealed another undiscovered fault line. The magnitude-5.6 -- which fired off at 7:02 a.m. Saturday about nine miles northwest of Pawnee -- is tied with one near Prague in 2011 for the state's strongest quake. That seismicity triggered state regulators, in an unprecedented move, to mandate that 37 disposal wells [from fracking] in a 725-square-mile area shut down operations for an indefinite period of time." -- CW

The Commentariat -- Sept. 3, 2016

Presidential Race

Holt, Raddatz, Cooper & Wallace. Photos via the New York Times.John Koblin & Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "Lester Holt, Martha Raddatz, Anderson Cooper and Chris Wallace have been selected to moderate this year's presidential debates, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced on Friday. Mr. Holt, the anchor of the 'NBC Nightly News,' will moderate the first debate on Sept. 26; Ms. Raddatz of ABC and Mr. Cooper of CNN will moderate the town hall debate on Oct. 9; and Mr. Wallace of Fox News will handle the final debate on Oct. 19." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

** Paul Waldman: "Whenever some new piece of information emerges about Hillary Clinton or people close to her, we're told that it 'raises questions' of some kind, which means it's being shoehorned into a larger narrative that ... she's tainted by scandal, or corrupt, or just sinister.... Yet somehow, stories about Donald Trump that don't have to do with the latest appalling thing that came out of his mouth don't 'raise questions' in the same way." Waldman compares two reports: one a non-story by the New York Times about Clinton's e-mails, and the other a Washington Post story about Donald Trump's contributing to Florida AG Pam Bondi's campaign while she was supposedly investigating Trump University, an investigation she dropped after Trump paid her tribute money. "Some stories 'raise questions,' and others don't." -- CW

Standing Rule: If it's Friday before a holiday weekend, you know there has to be a major docudump. ...

... Eric Lichtblau & Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "F.B.I. officials questioned Hillary Clinton extensively about her judgment in using her private email system to discuss classified drone strikes and in allowing aides to destroy large numbers of emails, before ultimately deciding she should not face criminal charges, according to investigative documents released Friday. The documents provided a number of new details about Mrs. Clinton's private server, including what appeared to be a frantic effort by a computer specialist to delete an archive of her emails even after a congressional committee had requested that they be preserved." The page includes the FBI's summary of its investigation. -- CW ...

... Matt Zapotosky & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her staffers employed an informal and sometimes haphazard system for exchanging and storing sensitive information and were at times either unaware or unconcerned with State Department policy, documents from an FBI investigation into her private email server system show. The documents reveal a myriad of new details about the email set-up and show that investigators found multiple attempts by hackers to access Clinton's system -- a series of personal devices and servers that the Democratic presidential candidate told investigators she used as a matter of convenience while she was secretary of state. The materials, which include a summary of the FBI's entire investigation as well as Clinton's hours-long interview with agents in July, contain no major revelations." -- CW ...

... Adam Goldman & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times report on "highlights" from the documents. -- CW ...

... Adam Blake of the Washington Post: "In the three hours-plus that Hillary Clinton spoke with FBI investigators about her private email server on July 2, she cited more than three-dozen things that she could not recall. Among them were things such as specific emails that perhaps nobody could be expected to remember years later, but Clinton also said she had no recollection of several key moments when it came to her email server, including briefings on how to handle classified information and key conversations about her server." Blake lists some of the things Clinton said she couldn't remember. -- CW ...

Nick Gass of Politico:"Former Secretary of State Colin Powell warned Hillary Clinton about using a BlackBerry to conduct official business in her first days as President Barack Obama's secretary of state, according to the FBI investigation's report.... According to the report, Clinton emailed Powell on Jan. 23, 2009, to ask about his use of a BlackBerry during his time in office.... In his response, according to the FBI, Powell told Clinton that if it became 'public' that she was using a BlackBerry to 'do business,' the emails could become 'official records[s] and subject to the law.' 'Be very careful. I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data,' Powell said in the same email." -- CW ...

     ... Paul Waldman: "Don't forget that when the State Department told Powell, along with other secretaries of state, to produce all their work-related emails, Powell said he couldn't because they were all deleted." -- CW

Nick Gass: "Hillary Clinton opened up in a recent interview about the personal crisis she faced as first lady to Bill Clinton as scandal over his affair with Monica Lewinsky enveloped the political world and impeachment proceedings unfolded. 'It was really hard. It was painful. And I was so supported by my friends...," the Democratic nominee told CNN's Pamela Brown in a clip from a forthcoming documentary set to air Monday night.... CNN will also air a documentary about Donald Trump on Monday night following the Clinton special." CW: Yeah, Trump will probably open up about how painful it was to have to tell is potential dates to get HIV & other STD testing. "It’s one of the worst times in the history of the world to be dating," he said in 1991." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: Hillary Clinton created the "vast right wing conspiracy" because she wanted to hide something about the Whitewater deal. And she did it when she wasn't even in the room. CW: See, Republicans would have been normal people instead of turning into a pack of radical, hateful loons if not for Hillary Clinton. With Tumulty's story, we have officially turned down the volume on the "Everything is Obama's fault" meme and activated the well-tested "Everything is Hillary's fault" back-up. ...

... CW: Here's Scott Lemieux, in LG&$, "raising questions" about Clinton coverage just as I did in a remark below. Here's he's referring to a NYT non-story story that ran a couple of days ago: "Hmm, it strikes me that the 'questions' that were 'raised' have an 'answer.'... 1)a Hillary Clinton aide asked for a special favor, 2)didn't get it, and 3)this 'raises questions' because the Clintons once lost money in a minor Arkansas land deal or something. I have no idea what explains it, but this form of hackery has been endemic at the Times for decades. The clouds over the Clinton campaign can never be dissipated." Let's commend Karen Tumulty for her NYT-style "journalism."

** Michelle Conlin & Grant Smith of Reuters: "... Donald Trump has run an unusually cheap campaign in part by not paying at least 10 top staffers, consultants and advisers, some of whom are no longer with the campaign, according to a review of federal campaign finance filings. Those who have so far not been paid ... include recently departed campaign manager Paul Manafort, California state director Tim Clark, communications director Michael Caputo and a pair of senior aides who left the campaign in June to immediately go to work for a Trump Super PAC[, which appears to violate federal campaign law].... Caputo told a Buffalo radio station in June after he resigned from the campaign, that he was not volunteering. Rather, he said he just had not gotten paid. Caputo confirmed to Reuters on Thursday that the Trump campaign has still not paid his invoices.... The Trump campaign said the Reuters' reporting was 'sloppy at best' but declined to elaborate." -- Thanks to Akhilleus for the link. -- CW

** Michelle Goldberg of Slate: "In a new New York magazine story, the invaluable Gabriel Sherman gives us fresh details of the depravity of ex-Fox News head Roger Ailes. [Linked yesterday in the Commentariat.]... There is abundant evidence, then, that Ailes is a vicious misogynist and a workplace predator. So why isn't it a bigger deal that he's advising the Republican presidential nominee?... If the Clinton Foundation were accused of doing anything this outrageous, it would be front-page news. The difference in how the two candidates are covered stems, in part, from a long-standing mainstream media tendency to view everything about Bill and Hillary Clinton in the most invidious possible light. But it's also a result of the fact that Trump is consistently able to bury his old misdeeds with new misdeeds, until all the outrages start to blur together." -- CW ...

... Molly Ball of the Atlantic: "Polls show majorities of Americans worried about being victims of terrorism and crime, numbers that have surged over the past year to highs not seen for more than a decade." In a longish piece, she shows how effectively Trump has tapped into, heightened and used that fear to his advantage. ...

... CW: BTW, I suspect the fear factor is largely a reflection of an aging U.S. population. People who are older are more fearful, not because we're all nuts but because we understand the stupidity of youthful bravado & we recognize not only our waning physical power but also our power to shape the world to more closely conform to our own ideal. Clinton began her campaign portraying herself as the protective grandmother figure, someone who would both bring you milk & cookies AND keep you safe from the bogeyman. But the press portrays her as a shady, elusive character (see this piece about the NYT's use of "shadow" and "cloud" in its Clinton stories, plus Paul Waldman's post linked above) and Trump of course calls her a crook (which is true of him but not of her). Together, the press & Trump have turned beloved "Nana" into a mashup of Lady MacBeth & the female villains in "Throw Mama from the Train."

... Dana Milbank: "... in recent episodes, something has gone wrong with the Trump Show. Trump still dominates the airwaves, but ... it turns out the Trump Show, late in the season, has lost its plot progression. And voters, belatedly but finally, are less inclined to view Trump the same way they view reality TV: with a suspension of disbelief.... Trump [has] benefit[ed] from the expectation of phoniness.... Reality TV may favor scoundrels, but reality can be more judgmental.... The Trump Show has lost its coherent story lines, its narrative arc.... This is no longer reality TV; it's reality. And reality is not as kind to Trump." -- CW

Alexander Burns & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "... the collaboration between Mr. Trump's campaign and [The Republican National Committee] has grown strained over the last month.... There is no prospect of a full public breach between the Trump campaign and the R.N.C. because both sides rely on a joint fund-raising arrangement crucial to their election efforts. But tensions have grown to such a point that they threaten to diminish the party's ability to work smoothly with Mr. Trump.... Mr. Trump, who has struggled to raise money, is dependent on his party's national committee to perform many of the basic functions of a presidential campaign." The reporters characterize Trump's Phoenix speech as perhaps a last straw. Prince Rebus & a Trump spokesman deny it.

AND Gideon Resnick of the Daily Beast on Trump's other teevee show. (And what a shame he didn't get to produce that show which aimed to pit black & white contestants against each other. Yeah, that was really a plan.)

Hey, there's one campaign that's more screwed-up than Trump's. Jill Stein's Green party staff sent her to the wrong city. Randy Ludlow of the Columbus Dispatch: Stein was scheduled to give a speech in Columbus, Ohio; her campaign sent her to Cincinnati. CW: We'll have to assume that Stein is as clueless as her staff: after all, she got on the plane bound for Cincinnati. Her excuse: "'A little scheduling error,' Stein said. 'I wish we had the resources of the other candidates. We're the only candidate who operates like the American people.'" Really? Do the "American people" routinely take flights to places they never intended to go? Ah, well, fly-over country. One place is about the same as the next, isn't it, Jill?

Beyond the Beltway

Matt Zapotosky: "Less than three months after the Supreme Court vacated the convictions of former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell, the U.S. attorney’s office that prosecuted the Republican has recommended to Justice Department higher-ups that they endeavor to try him again, according to people familiar with the case.... The decision ultimately rests with senior officials at the Justice Department, including the deputy attorney general and possibly the attorney general. But it is a significant step that demonstrates ... the prosecutors who convinced jurors that he was guilty the first time believe they could do it once more." -- CW

Robert Salonga & Mark Gomez of the San Jose Mercury News: "As he regained his freedom, Brock Turner faced protesters and heavy media scrutiny as an enduring public face of the issue of sexual assault on American college campuses. That was just with his first few steps out of jail. Turner's early release just after 6 a.m. Friday after three months in jail was met by a throng of television and press cameras from far-reaching parts of the country, as well as critics who continue to lament the light sentence given to the former Stanford swimmer for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman last year outside a campus party." -- CW (Also linked yesterday.)

Way Beyond

Neil MacFarquhar of the New York Times: "Islam Karimov, a ruthless autocrat who ruled Uzbekistan for almost three decades, died on Friday in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent. He was 78. A joint statement by the cabinet of ministers and the Parliament announced the death, saying he had a stroke that led to multiple organ failure. The announcement came after a long, strange interlude during which Uzbek officials refrained from confirming the death even while the leaders of Turkey and Georgia expressed condolences, mosque leaders were barred from offering prayers for the president's health, and funeral arrangements were being made very publicly." -- CW