The Commentariat -- August 24, 2019

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Tusk v. Trump. Michael Birnbaum & Damian Paletta of the Washington Post: "European Council President Donald Tusk on Saturday said escalating trade tensions between President Trump and other world leaders risk throwing the world into recession, bemoaning 'senseless disputes' that had ripped countries apart. 'This may be the last moment to restore our political community,' he told reporters at the beginning of the Group of Seven summit [in Biarritz, France].... Trade wars will lead to recession while trade deals will boost the economy,' he said. In response to a question, Tusk questioned Trump's motivation in trade wars launched by the United States.... In a sign that leaders are bracing for things to only get worse, Tusk said the E.U. was ready to retaliate against Trump if the U.S. leader followed through on some of his trade-related threats directed at France. Trump has said he will impose tariffs on French wine because France recently imposed taxes that impact U.S. technology companies." The Hill story citing the Post is here.

** The Real Reason Trump Is Slamming Powell (or Powel). Jonathan O'Connell, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump stands to save millions of dollars annually in interest on outstanding loans on his hotels and resorts if the Federal Reserve lowers rates as he has been demanding, according to public filings and financial experts. In the five years before he became president, Trump borrowed more than $360 million via four loans from Deutsche Bank for his hotels in Washington, D.C., and Chicago, as well his 643-room Doral golf resort in South Florida. The payments on all four properties vary with interest rate changes, according to Trump's official financial disclosures. That means he has already benefited from falling interest rates that were spurred in part by a cut the Federal Reserve announced in July, the first in more than a decade -- and his payments could drop by millions of dollars more annually if the central bank grants Trump's wish and further lowers short-term rates, experts said." Daily Kos has a summary of the WashPo report here. See also Akhilleus's comment in the thread below.

Jair Diddled While the Amazon Burned. Dom Phillips of the Guardian: "While the Amazon burned and Brazilians demonstrated their outrage, Brazil's far-right president Jair Bolsonaro went to a comedy club. As the president's pre-recorded speech to the nation explaining how he planned to use the army to fight the fires -- while simultaneously insisting the rate of burning forest was nothing out of the ordinary -- was broadcast on television on Friday night, he was at a standup show in Brasília by right-wing Christian comic Jonathan Nemer."

Neil Irwin of the New York Times: "The series of economic and financial developments on Friday was a strange, bewildering, exhausting microcosm of why the global economy is at risk of a meltdown. It showed the odd interplay at work between the Chinese government's actions in the escalating trade war with the United States, the sober-minded global central bankers who have limited power to deploy and an American president whose public pronouncements often appear driven by grievance more than strategy.... In one dizzying day, [Donald Trump] had seemed to be searching for whom or what to blame for economic troubles, first using Twitter to call his own Federal Reserve chief an enemy of the United States and then to urge American companies to stop doing business with China. And that was just while the markets were open. Later Friday, he said he would apply tariffs to all Chinese imports and increase those already in place.... President Trump's shoot-first approach adds to the risks at a delicate moment, with major economies in Asia and Europe already teetering and policymakers' capacity to contain the damage in question."

See also Peter Baker's NYT article about Trump's "justification" for his "order" to U.S. corporations who do business with China, linked below late this morning.

Daniel Dale & Konstantin Toropin of CNN: "When ... Donald Trump was asked Wednesday what victims of mass shootings are telling him about gun laws, he did not answer directly. Instead, he boasted of 'the love for me' among the people he visited in hospitals in El Paso and Dayton after the August massacres in those cities. 'Not only did they meet with me, they were pouring out of the room. The doctors were coming out of the operating rooms. There were hundreds and hundreds of people all over the floor, he said. Facts First: Doctors did not leave any active operating rooms, spokespeople for both the El Paso and Dayton hospitals said. The Dayton spokesperson said doctors did not even leave any patient rooms." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump is so nuts he thinks doctors would let patients die on the operating tables just to get a chance to see the "Chosen One." OR, he's so nuts he knows the doctors did no such thing, so he has to make up the story to puff himself up. Pathetic, either way.

~~~~~~~~~~

Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump has landed in Biarritz, or thereabouts.

Gabby Orr & Nancy Cook of Politico: "... Donald Trump heads into the G-7 summit ... more isolated than ever -- and perhaps never more in need of the international coordination he has repeatedly assailed. The president faces warnings of a U.S. economic downturn driven partly by his fractious trade negotiations with China. He blames other countries' trade policies for mounting economic risks in the U.S., even as many of those countries teeter on the edge of recession. And Trump is expected to spend his time in southern France urging fellow leaders to follow his lead rather than changing course himself." ...

     ... Update. Peter Baker of the New York Times: "Mr. Trump posted a message on Twitter citing the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 -- a law meant to enable a president to isolate criminal regimes but not intended to be used to cut off economic ties with a major trading partner because of a disagreement over tariffs.... Presidents have used it to target international terrorists, drug kingpins, human rights abusers, cyber attackers, illegal arms proliferators, and multinational criminal organizations.... Seeking to use it in a trade dispute with a country like China would be a drastic departure from its history.... In raising the possibility of forcing American businesses to pull out of China on Friday, Mr. Trump framed it not as a request but as an order he had already issued.... In fact, aides said, no order has been drawn up nor was it clear that he would attempt to do so."

Trump Doubles Down on "Hereby Order." Mary March of the Hill: "President Trump defended his declaration on Friday that American companies were 'hereby ordered' to find alternatives to manufacturing in China, claiming that the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act gave him the power to make such a pronouncement. Trump took aim at the press for questioning his authority to order businesses out of China, tweeting 'For all of the Fake News Reporters that don't have a clue as to what the law is relative to Presidential powers, China, etc., try looking at the Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. Case closed!'... Trump had previously cited the 1977 Act, which gives the president the power to regulate commerce during exceptional international crises, earlier Friday before departing for the Group of Seven (G-7) summit in France.... Claude Barfield, an expert in international trade policy at the [conservative] American Enterprise Institute (AEI), told The Hill that Trump doesn't have any authorities to direct U.S. companies to move their businesses to the United States. He called the tweets a clear example of Trump 'popping off' and predicted his advisers would look to do damage control, especially if his remarks negatively impact the stock market." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: "Holy crap! I might lose the election!" is not "an exceptional international crisis."

Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump on Friday said he does not believe North Korean leader Kim Jong Un violated any pact with him by launching another round of projectiles. 'He likes testing missiles,' Trump told reporters as he departed the White House for the Group of Seven (G-7) economies summit in France.... North Korea hours earlier fired two more unidentified projectiles into the East Sea, according to South Korean news agencies[.]" --s ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: But the Prime Minister of Denmark is "nasty."

"Especially Erratic." Peter Baker of the New York Times: "In the space of a few hours, [Donald Trump] declared that his own central bank chief was an 'enemy,' claimed sweeping powers ... to ['hereby] order' American businesses to leave China and, when stock markets predictably tumbled, made a joke of it. Mr. Trump's wild and unscripted pronouncements on Friday renewed questions about his stewardship of the world's largest economy even as he escalated a trade war with China.... Even some of his own aides and allies were alarmed by his behavior, seeing it as the flailing of a president increasingly anxious over the dark clouds some have detected hovering over an economy that until now has been the strongest selling point for his administration. They privately expressed concern that he was hurting the economy.... Mr. Trump has become one of the biggest sources of global economic instability after presiding over a period of growth and job creation.... He started the day boasting that 'the Economy is strong and good, whereas the rest of the world is not doing so well.' Hours later, he lashed out at the Federal Reserve Board for not taking the sort of action usually reserved only for an economy that is weak and bad.... Mr. Trump's tweets caught most of his advisers and staff by surprise." ...

The "Joke": The Dow is down 573 points perhaps on the news that Representative Seth Moulton, whoever that may be, has dropped out of the 2020 Presidential Race! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet Friday at 3:01 pm ET

The Antidote: @realDonaldTrump is a clear and present danger -- to our country, to the globe and to himself.... #25thAmendment -- William Weld, GOP presidential candidate ...

... Angry Man in White House Pledges to Punish You Because China. Alan Rappeport & Keith Bradsher of the New York Times: "President Trump, angered by Beijing’s decision on Friday to retaliate against his next round of tariffs and furious at his Federal Reserve chair for not doing more to juice the economy, said he would increase taxes on all Chinese goods and demanded that American companies stop doing business with China[.] Mr. Trump, in a tweet, said he would raise tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods to 30 percent from the current rate of 25 percent beginning Oct. 1. And he said the United States would tax the remaining $300 billion worth of imports at a 15 percent rate, rather than the 10 percent he had initially planned. Those levies go into effect on Sept. 1.... Those levels are likely to exacerbate the financial pain already being felt from the tariffs as companies and consumers face higher prices for products that they buy from China. Even before the new 30 percent rate, the tariffs were expected to cost the average American household more than $800 per year, according to research by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York." The CNBC story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Fred Imbert of CNBC: "Stocks plunged on Friday after ... Donald Trump ordered that U.S. manufacturers find alternatives to their operations in China. Apple led the way lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 623.34 points lower, or 2.4% at 25,628.90. The S&P 500 slid 2.6% to close at 2,847.11. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 3% to end the day at 7,751.77. The losses brought the Dow's decline for August to more than 4%." This is an update of an earlier report. Mrs. McC: What? Just because the POTUS* is insane? You people haven't been paying attention. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... ** Morgan Chalfont of the Hill: "President Trump on Friday pledged to respond to China's latest round of tariffs 'this afternoon,' further ratcheting up the trade war between Washington and Beijing. In a string of tweets sent Friday morning, Trump also said he was ordering U.S. companies to 'immediately start looking for an alternative to China,' proposing they begin making their products in the United States, though it was not immediately clear what authority he was attempting to invoke. Trump has previously pressured companies including Apple to begin producing their goods in the U.S. 'The vast amounts of money made and stolen by China from the United States, year after year, for decades, will and must STOP. Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing ... your companies HOME and making your products in the USA,' Trump tweeted." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I don't have to tell you Trump's "order" is insane. Maybe in a state of emergency -- like war -- Trump could "order" private corporations to alter their trade practices, but I know of no authority a president or president* has to do so for political or economic reasons in peace time. Trump so firmly believes he's a dictator who can push everyone around that he doesn't think twice before trying it. ...

     ... Update. The Washington Post story, by Taylor Telford & others, is here. "The White House does not have the authority to force companies to follow such directives, but his comments came in the middle of a Twitter tirade in which he appeared to be expressing mounting fury that his economic agenda is not coming together. 'I have no idea how the president thinks he can order companies to stop working with China. I'm baffled,' said Brian Riedl, a budget expert at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think-tank." See safari's third comment in today's thread. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ...OR, as Kevin Drum puts it, “Anyway, the president obviously doesn't have the authority to order US companies to do anything, even if he does use a big word like 'hereby.' Still, I assume Republicans will all be shocked and outraged by this megalomaniac attempt to interfere in the free market. Right?" Akhilleus, in yesterday's Comments, invoked the Obama Corollary. (Also linked yesterday.)

... Yun Li of CNBC: "China said Friday it will impose new tariffs on $75 billion worth of U.S. goods and resume duties on American autos. The Chinese State Council said it decided to slap tariffs ranging from 5% to 10% on $75 billion U.S. goods in two batches effective on Sept. 1 and Dec. 15. That happens to be when President Donald Trump's latest tariffs on Chinese goods are to take effect. It also said a 25% tariff will be imposed on U.S. cars and a 5% on auto parts and components, which will go into effect on Dec.15. China had paused these tariffs in April. Stocks tumbled and bond yields fell following the announcement." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Jonathan Chait: "President Trump is in the midst of a public meltdown that is humiliating, scary, and banana republic-y even by Trumpy standards. The reason is that Trump started a trade war and China refuses to back down.... Trump has picked fights with lots of countries. Usually they either placate him or try to give him a face-saving way of de-escalating...."

... Earlier, that same morning:

... Jacob Pramuk of CNBC: "... Donald Trump on Friday again ripped into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, comparing him to Chinese President Xi Jinping. 'My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powel or Chairman Xi?' Trump tweeted, misspelling Powell's last name.... Trump tweeted his attack not long after the text of Powell's speech in Jackson Hole Wyoming, was made public. Powell on Friday promised to take the steps needed to maintain U.S. economic growth as fears about a potential recession grow. In his remarks..., [Powell] said the economy has 'continued to perform well overall' but acknowledged 'trade policy uncertainty seems to be playing a role in the global slowdown.' In a previous tweet Friday, Trump said, 'as usual, the Fed did NOTHING!' It is unclear what Trump expected the central bank to do at its symposium, as it does not have a policy meeting until the middle of next month." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Update. The New York Times story, by Jeanna Smialek, is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: A few hours later, it became clear that Trump had more in common with Xi than with Powell when Trump "hereby ordered" U.S. businesses to obey his commands, a power which the communist leader has & which Trump obviously envies.

Renae Merle of the Washington Post: "Attorneys for Deutsche Bank and Capital One repeatedly refused to tell a federal appeals court Friday whether the banks have President Trump's tax returns, citing 'contractual obligations' for rebuffing the court's questions. Trump is appealing a district court ruling that cleared the way for the banks to hand over years of financial records from the president, his three eldest children and the president's companies to two House committees. Toward the end of Friday's hearing, the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit considering the appeal asked the banks' attorneys whether the documents subject to the subpoenas could potentially include the president's tax returns.... The banks, which have not publicly taken a position on Trump's efforts to block the subpoenas, agreed to provide the appeals court a letter within 48 hours addressing the matter, but it was unclear what the letters would specify or whether they would be made public." CNN's story is here.

Katie Benner of the New York Times: "Attorneys general rarely follow up on inmate deaths, but [William] Barr has continued to bird dog the investigation into how one as high-profile as [Jeffrey] Epstein could have died in federal care, evidence of how serious the matter is for the Justice Department.... Mr. Barr is personally overseeing the four federal inquiries into the matter and is briefed on them multiple times a day.... Mr. Barr's close handling of the case also underscores the toll that a nearly three-year war on the Justice Department's credibility -- waged chiefly by Mr. Trump when he attacked the Russia investigation -- has taken." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I would suggest Barr is less interested in restoring the DOJ's credibility than in creating a diversion from the various unsavory stunts he has undertaken in service of the guy he sees as his No. 1 Client. ...

... LIKE THIS. Dominic Holden of BuzzFeed News: "The Trump administration took its hardest line yet to legalize anti-gay discrimination on Friday when it asked the Supreme Court to declare that federal law allows private companies to fire workers based only on their sexual orientation. An amicus brief filed by the Justice Department weighed in on two cases involving gay workers and what is meant by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans discrimination 'because of sex.' The administration argued courts nationwide should stop reading the civil rights law to protect gay, lesbian, and bisexual workers from bias because it was not originally intended to do so. That view conflicts with some lower court rulings that found targeting someone for their sexual orientation is an illegal form of both sex discrimination and sex stereotyping under Title VII." ...

... AND THIS. Hamed Aleaziz, et al., of BuzzFeed News: "An arm of the Justice Department regularly sent summaries and links to articles from an online white nationalist publication over the last year, a BuzzFeed News investigation has found. In addition, similar newsletters sent to the Labor Department, ICE, HUD, and the Department of Homeland Security included links and content from hyperpartisan and conspiracy-oriented publishers.... While these newsletters typically shared articles from local and mainstream national news outlets -- including BuzzFeed News -- they also regularly delivered content from partisan publications touting anti-immigration rhetoric and conspiracy theories. Among these publications: ... VDare, an anti-Semitic and racist site whose editor who has claimed that American culture is under threat from nonwhite peoples..., the Western Journal, a hyperpartisan publisher whose founder once questioned if then-presidential candidate Barack Obama was Muslim, and the Epoch Times, a newspaper associated with the Chinese Falun Gong movement and whose related media properties have backed QAnon, a conspiracy theory claiming a group of high-ranking officials known as the 'Deep State' is subverting ... Donald Trump's goals." ...

... AND THIS. Katelyn Polantz & Caroline Kelly of CNN: "The Justice Department asked a federal court of appeals on Friday to reconsider a case where ... Donald Trump was told he couldn't legally block Twitter users from seeing his tweets. The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals has not yet said if it would rehear the case. The request comes following a three-judge appellate panel having decided in July that Trump blocking users on Twitter from following or interacting with his account handle @realDonaldTrump was unconstitutional. The Justice Department, which has represented Trump in the lawsuit, called the matter one of 'exceptional importance.' The department maintains that Trump's Twitter account is his personal account and will remain his handle after he leaves office." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: What a grotesque waste of taxpayer money, Bill Barr. If Trump were using his Twitter account for nothing but sharing taco salad recipes and cute pictures of him romping with Barron, he might have a case. But Trump uses the account for official business every day: he orders troop withdrawals, communicates with foreign leaders, changes Pentagon policy, fires top staff & now hereby orders U.S. companies to run their businesses in ways he favors. Former press secretary Sean Spicer even said Trump's tweets were "official White House statements." Barr is using the DOJ to press a manifest lie. ...

... Devlin Barrett of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department has canceled a news-clip service for employees in its immigration review office after Monday's edition included a link to and a summary of a blog post from a white-nationalist website that used an anti-Semitic slur, officials said Friday. In an email Friday, employees at the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) were told that 'the Communications and Legislative Affairs Division will no longer distribute a daily news briefing within EOIR,' and were given instructions for how to sign up for a different department-wide briefing service, if they wished to receive those notifications.... The Justice Department called the Florida-headquartered firm [TechMIS] Friday and explained its decision. The contract expires at the end of August." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Barrett's story refers only to the clips that went to EOIR. It isn't clear whether or not the DOJ also is cancelling TechMIS's clips to the other agencies which BuzzFeed outlines in the story linked above.

     ... Bill Barr has a couple of investigations going into the FBI for its checking out Russian interference in the 2016 elections, & he has four, count 'em four investigations running on the federal prison system. Where are the investigations about of ICE & Customs & Border Patrol? Everyone knows these agencies are out of control, yet Bill Barr seems totally unconcerned. ...

... Noah Lanard of Mother Jones: "In February, Congress directed ICE to reduce its detention population, but ICE has ignored that request. After President Donald Trump forced a government shutdown in December, legislators ... directed ICE to go from detaining nearly 49,000 people to 40,520 by October. Instead, ICE has pushed its detention population to all-time highs. The agency was detaining a record-high 55,220 people as of Saturday and has been rapidly contracting with new private prisons to house that increased number of detainees." --s

Tal Axelrod of the Hill: "Immigration authorities did not realize for eight days earlier this month that they had detained both parents of two children [aged 12 and 14] in Mississippi after a massive workplace raid, family members told ABC News." --s

Presidential Race 2020

Trip Gabriel & Isabella Paz of the New York Times: "Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Friday took a series of unusual rhetorical detours at the end of a town-hall-style campaign event nominally dedicated to health care, speculating about how a political assassination of Barack Obama might have affected the country in 2008 and recalling that he was accused of being gay because of his support of women's rights in the 1970s.... A campaign spokesman said Mr. Biden had previously drawn an analogy between an Obama assassination and the political killings of 1968 [-- Biden's senior year in college --] when speaking to younger audiences not alive at the time."

Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "Representative Seth Moulton of Massachusetts is dropping out of the presidential race, ending a candidacy that emphasized Mr. Moulton's centrist politics and military service but gained no traction with Democratic primary voters.... He warned in [an] interview that if Democrats were to embrace an overly liberal platform, it could make it harder for the party to defeat President Trump." The CNN story is here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Rachel Siegel of the Washington Post: "The Epoch Times, a conservative publication that has become a key promoter of President Trump and been criticized for spreading conspiracy theories, has been barred from advertising on Facebook. An NBC News investigation earlier this week showed how the Epoch Times became Trump's biggest advocate on the social media platform, morphing from a nonprofit newspaper with anti-communist messages into a conservative outlet often promoting the White House and right-wing theories. Facebook banned future ads after NBC News' reporting showed that the Epoch Times had shifted its spending on Facebook in a way that blurred its links to $2 million worth of ads promoting Trump and disparaging his critics. Pro-Trump conspiracy ads peddled by the Epoch Times would appear under page names like 'Honest Paper' and 'Pure American Journalism,' which effectively bypassed Facebook's rules around political advertising and transparency." The NBC News story is here.

Elizabeth Thomas & Devin Dwyer of ABC News: "Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was recently treated for a 'localized malignant tumor' on her pancreas, a court spokesperson said Friday. 'The tumor was treated definitively and there is no evidence of disease elsewhere in the body,' the spokesperson said." (Also linked yesterday.)

Daniel Markovits in the Atlantic writes about the rise of "meritocracy" and how it leaves everyone worse off. --s

Robert McFadden of the New York Times: "David H. Koch, who joined his brother, Charles G. Koch, in business and political ventures that grew into the nation's second-largest private company and a powerful right-wing libertarian movement that helped reshape American politics, has died. He was 79." Thanks to unwashed for the lead. Here's the NBC News obituary. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Just a Reminder. Jessica Piper of Open Secrets (June 7): "Over the last two decades, the Koch network ... spent about $120 million ... supporting Republican candidates or opposing Democratic candidates.... They have not spent a single dollar supporting Democratic candidates during that time." --s

Lynh Bui of the Washington Post: "Leon Haughton, a legal U.S. resident & green-card holder, bought three bottles of honey from a Jamaica roadside stand last Christmas "before heading home to Maryland. It was a routine purchase for him until he landed at the airport in Baltimore. Customs officers detained Haughton and police arrested him, accusing him of smuggling in not honey, but liquid meth. Haughton spent nearly three months in jail before all charges were dropped and two rounds of law enforcement lab tests showed no controlled substances in the bottles." There's an AFP report here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Isaac Chotiner of the New Yorker interviews "Amy Wax, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School..., the academic who perhaps best represents the ideology of the Trump Administration's immigration restrictionists. Wax, who began her professional life as a neurologist, and who served in the Solicitor General's office in the late eighties and early nineties, has become known in recent years for her belief in the superiority of 'Anglo-Protestant culture.' In 2017, Wax said, in an interview, 'I don't think I've ever seen a black student graduate in the top quarter of the class, and rarely, rarely, in the top half.' The dean of Penn Law School, Theodore Ruger, said that Wax had spoken 'disparagingly and inaccurately' and had been barred from teaching core-curriculum classes.... During our conversation..., Wax expounded on her beliefs that people of Western origin are more scrupulous, empirical, and orderly than people of non-Western origin, and that women are less intellectual than men. She described these views as the outcome of rigorous and realistic thinking, while offering evidence that ranged from two studies by a eugenicist to personal anecdotes, several of which concerned her conviction that white people litter less than people of color." (Also linked yesterday.)

Way Beyond the Beltway

Hans von der Burchard & Rym Momtaz of Politico: "Only two months after Europe concluded a landmark trade deal with the South American Mercosur bloc [Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay. Uruguay & other South American countries], the French president [Emmanuel Macron] is threatening to kill it off over what he sees as betrayal by Brazil's maverick President Jair Bolsonaro, who is accused of allowing big business interests like ranchers and loggers to torch the [Amazon rainforest]. Macron has called for the burning Amazon to lead the agenda of the G7 summit he is hosting in Biarritz this weekend. In an unusually undiplomatic broadside against his Brazilian counterpart, he concluded that Bolsonaro 'lied to him' about the Mercosur pact when it was struck in June, by promising to respect the Paris Climate Agreement and to protect the rainforest, an Elysée official said. If France doesn't sign up to the EU-Mercosur trade agreement, it is dead." ...

... Looks like that got Bolsonaro's attention. ...

... Victor Caivano of the AP: "Under international pressure to contain fires sweeping parts of Brazil's Amazon, President Jair Bolsonaro on Friday authorized use of the military to battle the huge blazes while thousands took to the streets to protest his environmental policies. Brazilian forces will deploy starting Saturday to border areas, indigenous territories and other affected regions in the Amazon to assist in putting out fires for a month, according to a presidential decree authorizing use of the army. The military will 'act strongly' to control the wildfires, Bolsonaro promised as he signed the decree.... Bolsonaro has previously described rainforest protections as an obstacle to Brazil's economic development, sparring with critics who note that the Amazon produces vast amounts of oxygen and is considered crucial for efforts to contain climate change. As the president spoke, thousands of Brazilians demonstrated in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and the capital of Brasilia demanding the government announce concrete actions to curb the fires.... An Associated Press journalist who traveled to the Amazon region Friday saw many already deforested areas that had been burned.... In some instances, the burned fields were adjacent to intact livestock ranches and other farms, suggesting the fires had been managed as part of a land-clearing policy." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I assume that "act strongly" is a translation from the original Portugese, but it is still notable that Bolsonaro & Trump use exactly the same weird clause, one that normal speakers never say.

The Commentariat -- August 23, 2019

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Angry Man in White House Pledges to Punish You Some More. Alan Rappeport & Keith Bradsher of the New York Times: "President Trump, angered by Beijing's decision on Friday to retaliate against his next round of tariffs and furious at his Federal Reserve chair for not doing more to juice the economy, said he would increase taxes on all Chinese goods and demanded that American companies stop doing business with China[.] Mr. Trump, in a tweet, said he would raise tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods to 30 percent from the current rate of 25 percent beginning Oct. 1. And he said the United States would tax the remaining $300 billion worth of imports at a 15 percent rate, rather than the 10 percent he had initially planned. Those levies go into effect on Sept. 1.... Those levels are likely to exacerbate the financial pain already being felt from the tariffs as companies and consumers face higher prices for products that they buy from China. Even before the new 30 percent rate, the tariffs were expected to cost the average American household more than $800 per year, according to research by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York." The CNBC story is here.

Elizabeth Thomas & Devin Dwyer of ABC News: "Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was recently treated for a 'localized malignant tumor' on her pancreas, a court spokesperson said Friday. 'The tumor was treated definitively and there is no evidence of disease elsewhere in the body,' the spokesperson said."

Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "Representative Seth Moulton of Massachusetts is dropping out of the presidential race, ending a candidacy that emphasized Mr. Moulton's centrist politics and military service but gained no traction with Democratic primary voters.... He warned in [an] interview that if Democrats were to embrace an overly liberal platform, it could make it harder for the party to defeat President Trump." The CNN story is here.

Yun Li of CNBC: "China said Friday it will impose new tariffs on $75 billion worth of U.S. goods and resume duties on American autos. The Chinese State Council said it decided to slap tariffs ranging from 5% to 10% on $75 billion U.S. goods in two batches effective on Sept. 1 and Dec. 15. That happens to be when President Donald Trump's latest tariffs on Chinese goods are to take effect. It also said a 25% tariff will be imposed on U.S. cars and a 5% on auto parts and components, which will go into effect on Dec.15. China had paused these tariffs in April. Stocks tumbled and bond yields fell following the announcement." ...

... ** Morgan Chalfont of the Hill: "President Trump on Friday pledged to respond to China's latest round of tariffs 'this afternoon,' further ratcheting up the trade war between Washington and Beijing. In a string of tweets sent Friday morning, Trump also said he was ordering U.S. companies to 'immediately start looking for an alternative to China,' proposing they begin making their products in the United States, though it was not immediately clear what authority he was attempting to invoke. Trump has previously pressured companies including Apple to begin producing their goods in the U.S. 'The vast amounts of money made and stolen by China from the United States, year after year, for decades, will and must STOP. Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing ... your companies HOME and making your products in the USA,' Trump tweeted." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I don't have to tell you Trump's "order" is insane. Maybe in a state of emergency -- like war -- Trump could "order" private corporations to alter their trade practices, but I know of no authority a president or president* has to do so for political or economic reasons in peace time. Trump so firmly believes he's a dictator who can push everyone around that he doesn't think twice before trying it. ...

     ... Update. The Washington Post story, by Taylor Telford & others, is here. "The White House does not have the authority to force companies to follow such directives, but his comments came in the middle of a Twitter tirade in which he appeared to be expressing mounting fury that his economic agenda is not coming together. 'I have no idea how the president thinks he can order companies to stop working with China. I'm baffled,' said Brian Riedl, a budget expert at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think-tank." See, especially, safari's third comment in the thread below. ...

     ...OR, as Kevin Drum puts it, "Anyway, the president obviously doesn't have the authority to order US companies to do anything, even if he does use a big word like 'hereby.' Still, I assume Republicans will all be shocked and outraged by this megalomaniac attempt to interfere in the free market. Right?" Akhilleus, in commentary below, invokes the Obama Corollary.

     ... Update 2. Fred Imbert of CNBC: "Stocks plunged on Friday after ... Donald Trump ordered that U.S. manufacturers find alternatives to their operations in China. Apple led the way lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 623.34 points lower, or 2.4% at 25,628.90. The S&P 500 slid 2.6% to close at 2,847.11. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 3% to end the day at 7,751.77. The losses brought the Dow's decline for August to more than 4%." This is an update of an earlier report. Mrs. McC: What? Just because the POTUS* is insane? You people haven't been paying attention. ...

... Earlier, that same morning:

... Jacob Pramuk of CNBC: "... Donald Trump on Friday again ripped into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, comparing him to Chinese President Xi Jinping. 'My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powel or Chairman Xi?' Trump tweeted, misspelling Powell's last name.... Trump tweeted his attack not long after the text of Powell's speech in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, was made public. Powell on Friday promised to take the steps needed to maintain U.S. economic growth as fears about a potential recession grow. In his remarks..., [Powell] said the economy has 'continued to perform well overall' but acknowledged 'trade policy uncertainty seems to be playing a role in the global slowdown.' In a previous tweet Friday, Trump said, 'as usual, the Fed did NOTHING!' It is unclear what Trump expected the central bank to do at its symposium, as it does not have a policy meeting until the middle of next month." ...

     ... Update. The New York Times story, by Jeanna Smialek, is here.

Robert McFadden of the New York Times: "David H. Koch, who joined his brother, Charles G. Koch, in business and political ventures that grew into the nation's second-largest private company and a powerful right-wing libertarian movement that helped reshape American politics, has died. He was 79." Thanks to unwashed for the lead. Here's the NBC News obituary.

Isaac Chotiner of the New Yorker interviews "Amy Wax, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School..., the academic who perhaps best represents the ideology of the Trump Administration's immigration restrictionists. Wax, who began her professional life as a neurologist, and who served in the Solicitor General's office in the late eighties and early nineties, has become known in recent years for her belief in the superiority of 'Anglo-Protestant culture.' In 2017, Wax said..., 'I don't think I've ever seen a black student graduate in the top quarter of the class, and rarely, rarely, in the top half.' The dean of Penn Law School, Theodore Ruger, said that Wax had spoken 'disparagingly and inaccurately' and had been barred from teaching core-curriculum classes.... During our conversation..., Wax expounded on her beliefs that people of Western origin are more scrupulous, empirical, and orderly than people of non-Western origin, and that women are less intellectual than men. She described these views as the outcome of rigorous and realistic thinking, while offering evidence that ranged from two studies by a eugenicist to personal anecdotes, several of which concerned her conviction that white people litter less than people of color."

Lynh Bui of the Washington Post: "Leon Haughton, a legal U.S. resident & green-card holder, bought three bottles of honey from a Jamaica roadside stand last Christmas "before heading home to Maryland. It was a routine purchase for him until he landed at the airport in Baltimore. Customs officers detained Haughton and police arrested him, accusing him of smuggling in not honey, but liquid meth. Haughton spent nearly three months in jail before all charges were dropped and two rounds of law enforcement lab tests showed no controlled substances in the bottles." There's an AFP report here.

~~~~~~~~~~

The irony here is that Trump's erratic, chaotic approach to the economy is probably the most significant economic risk factor in the world right now. Their response is just to show even more erratic behavior. It's economic narcissism. It's economic policy by whim, pride, ego and tantrum. -- Gene Sperling, top economist in the Clinton & Obama administrations

This administration has not done itself a whole lot of favors in talking about the economy. They have done a lot of communicating that is verifiably false on the economy. -- Tony Fratto, top economist in the Bush II administration ...

... Damian Paletta, et al., of the Washington Post: "Even as his aides warn of a business climate at risk of faltering, the president has been portraying the economy to the public as 'phenomenal' and 'incredible.' He has told aides that he thinks he can convince Americans that the economy is vibrant and unrattled through a public messaging campaign. But the internal and external warnings that the economy could slip have contributed to a muddled and often contradictory message. Administration officials have scrambled this week to assemble a menu of actions Trump could take to avert an economic downturn. Few aides have a firm sense of what steps he would seriously consider, in part because he keeps changing his mind." Here's an ABC News story on Trump's mixed messages on the economy. ...

... The Ripple Effect of Trump's Trade War. Jonelle Marte of the Washington Post: "The prolonged trade war between the United States and China is taking a toll on the manufacturing sector, which contracted for the first time since 2009, data show.... Sales of U.S. exports decreased at the fastest pace since August 2009, according to the report. When exports fall, manufacturers typically respond by reducing inventories and cutting production. Over time, that gloominess could lead manufacturers to trim jobs.... A contraction in manufacturing can have large ripple effects across the economy, [Mark] Zandi [of Moody's Analytics] said. Factories that produce fewer goods tend to cut back on shipping and distribution, which affects transportation companies, warehouses, seaports and airports, he said. Struggling manufacturers also have less need for general business services such as accounting, media and advertising. And when factories start reducing staff, those workers cut back on spending, hurting retailers and service providers, Zandi said." Here's the CNBC story.

Tim O'Brien of Bloomberg: "The Trump of the past few weeks is the same disordered figure of the past several decades with, I suspect, a big dollop of something new blended in: unbridled and unmanageable panic.... When Trump gazes into the sky at the White House and says that he's the chosen one, he's not the type who thinks he can actually walk on water. He's the type who's hoping that droves of evangelical voters might keep falling for his shtick. And Trump is willing to playact in this extraordinary way, I think, because he's mired in fear.... Trump, understandably, has started to panic and his attempt to convince people that he's the second coming shows how deeply worried he is about things he can't control -- and how increasingly reckless he might become."

Phil Rucker of the Washington Post has a good piece on the transactional nature of Donald Trump's pro-Israel stance. He begins, "President Trump decided long ago that it would be smart politics for him to yoke his administration to Israel and to try to brand the Democratic Party as anti-Semitic. He set about executing a pro-Israel checklist: moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing the Golan Heights as part of sovereign Israel, and taking a hard line against Iran. And he promoted himself as the greatest president -- a deity even -- for Jewish people." Mrs. McC: Rucker very much backs up what I wrote in Wednesday's thread in response to a reader who argued that Trump was Israel's BFF. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... AND Talia Lavin, in a Washington Post op-ed: "... the series of bizarre statements Trump made about Jews this week do a lot to clarify why the president appears to be pressing for the Jewish vote. Assailing a minuscule, politically left-wing ethnic group under the guise of right-wing outreach makes a lot more sense when you realize it was never really about, or for, American Jews at all. Trump's appeals both reflect and attempt to reach a different population entirely, one much more likely to talk about the second coming of God or anoint a King in Israel: evangelical Christians.... Their support for Israel is grounded in the Book of Revelation, which dictates that Israel must be 'restored' to the Jews before the Jews convert en masse, redeeming themselves for having once rejected Jesus. This redemption comes in fire, and at the cost of complete erasure of any distinct Jewish identity; it is a hallmark of the end of history, a time of tribulation that will exterminate the faithless." ...

... Javanka MIA. Again. Kaitlan Collins & Betsy Klein of CNN: "During a week filled with uncertainty over the economy, retweets of conspiracy theorists, battles for his ear on gun legislation and an unsolicited fight with the prime minister of Denmark over buying Greenland, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have remained under the radar. The couple was on vacation in Wyoming with their children over the weekend, and, on Monday, participated in a Trump Victory fundraiser alongside his acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney. They returned to Washington this week but with a limited presence in the West Wing, people familiar with the situation said. The President's daughter and son-in-law -- who are Modern Orthodox Jews -- stayed silent publicly as Trump caused a firestorm by questioning the loyalty of some Jewish Americans to Israel. Trump has recently decided that branding the Democratic Party as anti-Semitic would be savvy political strategy -- and aides have largely supported the fight, but when he questioned the intelligence and loyalty of Jewish people who support Democrats, some inside the West Wing privately conceded to CNN he had gone too far.... Trump's daughter and son-in-law have developed a pattern of being absent amid some of the biggest controversies of his presidency."

Trump's Second-Term Project: Gutting Medicare & Social Security. Bess Levin of Vanity Fair: "While Republicans do not expect Trump to push for cuts [in Medicare & Social Security] while campaigning for reelection, they've apparently encouraged him to do so should he win a second term -- a proposition to which President 'I'm not going to cut Social Security, I'm not going to cut Medicare' has reportedly been receptive. 'We've got to fix that,' Senator John Thune, the number two Republican in the Senate, told the Times. 'It's going to take presidential leadership to do that, and it's going to take courage by the Congress to make some hard votes. We can't keep kicking the can down the road. I hope in a second term, he is interested,' Thune said of Trump.... Republicans, said Senator John Barrasso, who seems to regularly chat with the president, have 'brought it up with President Trump, who has talked about it being a second-term project.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This, of course, is what Republicans do: cut taxes to balloon the deficit, then demand cuts to social services programs. And Republican voters go along with the program time & again, never, ever figuring out the con.

Alan Rappeport & Edward Wong of the New York Times: "President Trump has shifted his stance on the unrest in Hong Kong in recent days to show greater solidarity with the pro-democracy protesters after coming to view the issue as a point of leverage in trade negotiations with China. For months, Trump administration officials described the Hong Kong uprising as an internal matter for China.... But as the protests have dragged on, advisers to Mr. Trump have succeeded in making the case that wading into the issue could prove necessary -- and advantageous -- to the United States as it tries to push Beijing to accede to its trade terms. After previously saying Hong Kong was a 'very tough situation' that was up to Chinese leaders to handle, Mr. Trump has more recently called on those leaders to offer a 'humane' response and urged Mr. Xi to engage in dialogue with the protesters.... The words were couched in practical terms centered on a trade deal, not in the language of human rights, but they were nevertheless surprising given Mr. Trump's earlier passive remarks on Hong Kong." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Of course Trump's sudden "interest" in democratic rights is a tactic, not a principled stance.

Trump Invited Himself to Denmark, Then Blew off Danes. Erin Banco & Sam Stein of the Daily Beast: "Speaking to reporters on the White House's South Lawn in late July..., Donald Trump revealed that he was 'looking at' a stop in Denmark after an upcoming trip to Poland to attend a World War II commemorative ceremony. For officials in Copenhagen, the comment came as a surprise. Although it is customary in Denmark for there to be a standing invitation for the U.S. president -- and though officials in both countries had been discussing the possibility of an American delegation visiting -- no formal invitation had actually been extended to Trump, according to two senior Danish officials and an individual who works closely with the Trump administration in Copenhagen. By the next day, Queen Margrethe II had issued the invite, and the White House had officially announced the president's plans to visit the country." The Danish government, including the Queen, were in the midst of elaborate preparations for Trump's visit when they learned he had decided not to show up, after all. ...

... Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Wednesday defended President Trump's push to buy Greenland, revealing that he discussed the idea in a conversation with the president [more than a year ago] and even proposed it in a meeting with the Danish ambassador [a few months back]. It was unclear whether Cotton was the first person to raise the idea to the president. Cotton said Wednesday that Trump had received the suggestion 'from me and from some other people as well.'" The USA Today story is here. ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: As a reminder of who Tom Cotton is, here's a November 2017 post by Jeff Toobin in the New Yorker which asks the question, "Is Tom Cotton the Future of Trumpism?" ...

... Sam Stein & Will Sommer of the Daily Beast: Carla Sands, "the United States ambassador tasked with cleaning up bizarrely strained relations with Denmark in the wake of Donald Trump's failed attempt to buy Greenland is a frequent retweeter of conspiracy theories who once starred in a movie so bad it was parodied on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Since becoming ambassador, she has frequently retweeted bizarre claims on her personal Twitter account.... It's rare for a top diplomat to be the one openly spreading conspiracies, even under a private account.... Sands ... appeared utterly caught off-guard by [Trump's] cancellation [of his Denmark visit].... How Sands performs in this now-delicate role could raise a myriad of questions, from why the U.S. government continues to rely on unseasoned hands in ambassadorial roles to how she ended up in this spot in the first place." (Also linked yesterday.)

Steve Peoples & Hanah Fingerhut of the AP: "About 6 in 10 Americans disapprove of ... Donald Trump's overall job performance, according to a new poll released Thursday by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which finds some support for the president's handling of the U.S. economy but gives him weak marks on other major issues. Just 36% of Americans approve of the way Trump is handling his job as president; 62% disapprove."

Hamed Aleaziz of BuzzFeed News: "An email sent from the Justice Department to all immigration court employees this week included a link to an article posted on a white nationalist website [VDare] that 'directly attacks sitting immigration judges with racial and ethnically tinged slurs,' [including an antisemitic slur] according to a letter sent by an immigration judges union and obtained by BuzzFeed News.... The post detailed a recent move by the Justice Department to decertify the immigration judges union.... After publication of this article, [Executive Office for Immigration Review] Assistant Press Secretary Kathryn Mattingly told BuzzFeed News 'the daily EOIR morning news briefings are compiled by a contractor and the blog post should not have been included. The Department of Justice condemns Anti-Semitism in the strongest terms.'" ...

... Steve M.: "It's appalling that the Justice Department would link to anything at the [VDare] site. [Steve elaborates on this.] But the post doesn't seem to attack any of the targeted judges in a specifically anti-Semitic way. On the other hand, it does refer unfavorably to a New York Times story with the word '#Lugenpresse' -- 'lying press,' a term used by the Nazis in reference to anti-Nazi journalism. The Times story in question is 'Trump Administration Moves to Decertify Outspoken Immigration Judges' Union' by Christina Goldbaum. Referring to a woman named Goldbaum as a member of the Lugenpresse? That's over the line."

Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha

Niraj Chokshi of the New York Times: "Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the former White House press secretary, will join Fox News as a contributor next month, reinforcing the strong ties between the conservative cable network and the Trump administration. Ms. Sanders, who left the administration less than two months ago, will make her debut on Sept. 6 on 'Fox & Friends,' the network said in a statement. In her new role, she will provide political commentary and analysis across Fox properties, including Fox News and Fox Business Network as well as digital and radio outlets." ...

... Matt Gertz of Media Matters: "In perhaps the least surprising news of the year, Fox News has hired ... Sarah Huckabee Sanders as a contributor. Sanders' White House tenure was characterized by the total contempt in which she held journalists and the public at large. She shamelessly lied from the press room podium and constantly belittled the reporters who tried to pry actual information away from her. In the end, she stripped them of access and eliminated the press briefings altogether." ...

... MEANWHILE, Elizabeth Williamson of the New York Times profiles Trump's latest (and most invisible) press secretary, Stephanie Grisham: "... the White House is the loftiest stop in a turbulent career trajectory that has mixed toughness and loyalty to her bosses with professional scrapes, ethical blunders and years spent alternately wooing and pounding the press on behalf of scandal-prone Arizona Republicans.... Her career history ... include[s] losing a private-sector job after being accused of cheating on expense reports, a later job loss over plagiarism charges and two arrests for driving under the influence, the second while working on Mr. Trump's campaign." Mediaite has a short summary of the lowlights of the Times report. Mrs. McC: All the best people, etc. ...

     ... Walter Einenkel of Daily Kos: "The real takeaway from this profile is that Grisham comes with all of the warning signs we have come to expect from a Republican administration, and maybe more so from this current crew of cons and grifters."

Weird News. Scarce of Crooks & Liars: "The Topeka Capitol-Journal reported [Thusday night] that congressman Steve Watkins, [R-Kansas] barely eight months in office, is being asked to step down immediately by Republicans in Kansas and DC. The odd thing is though that no one will say why.... Speculation so far has centered around Watkins unorthodox 'open marriage', and allegations of inappropriate behavior towards multiple women." Here's the enigmatic Topeka Capital-Journal report. Best graf: "The Topeka Capital-Journal reported he was dating women in Topeka during the campaign while engaged to be married and after he was wed, and identified a Wasilla, Alaska, resident who accused Watkins of unwanted sexual advances. Watkins called the allegations 'preposterous.'" Oh what Wasilla resident could that be?

Presidential Race 2020

Biden's Enthusiasm Gap. Katie Glueck of the New York Times:"... there are signs of a disconnect between [Joe Biden's] relatively rosy poll numbers and excitement for his campaign on the ground [in Iowa], in the state that begins the presidential nominating process. In conversations with county chairs, party strategists and dozens of voters this week at Mr. Biden's events, many Democrats in Iowa described a case for Mr. Biden, the former vice president, that reflected shades of the one his wife, Jill Biden, bluntly sketched out on Monday. 'You may like another candidate better, but you have to look at who is going to win,' she said, citing Mr. Biden's consistent lead in early surveys.... That stands in stark contrast to the way voters explain their support for candidates like Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who drew 12,000 people to an event this week in Minnesota..., or Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who also draws large crowds and maintains a core base of die-hard fans." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: To this, I say, "Remember President John Kerry. And don't forget President Al Gore."

Alexander Kaufman & Chris D'Angelo of the Huffington Post: "A panel of the Democratic National Committee on Thursday rejected a proposal to host a single-issue debate on the climate crisis. At a party conference Thursday in San Francisco, the DNC's resolutions committee voted 17-8 against a resolution that has become a cause célèbre for activists and for more than a dozen presidential contenders who felt the traditional debate format failed to adequately address the looming threat of catastrophe. The issue could resurface during the full committee's general session on Saturday.... The vote came a day after ... climate candidate Jay Inslee, who had been pushing for the debate, dropped out of the race."

Ken Vogel & Andrew Kramer of the New York Times: "Months after backing out of a trip to Ukraine amid criticism that he was mixing partisan politics with foreign policy, Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump's personal lawyer, has renewed his push for the Ukrainian government to pursue investigations into political opponents of Mr. Trump. Over the last few weeks, Mr. Giuliani has spoken on the phone and held an in-person meeting, in Madrid, with a top representative of the new Ukrainian president, encouraging his government to ramp up investigations into two matters of intense interest to Mr. Trump. One is whether Ukrainian officials took steps during the 2016 election to damage Mr. Trump's campaign. The other is whether there was anything improper about the overlap between former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s diplomatic efforts in Ukraine and his son's role with a gas company there." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Pamela Brown & Caroline Kelly of CNN: "Rudy Giuliani said Wednesday that he had spoken with a Ukrainian official about Joe Biden's possible role in that government's dismissal of a prosecutor who investigated Biden's son. The move shows [Giuliani] is making a renewed push for the country to investigate ... Donald Trump's political enemies." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... It Gets Worse. Allan Smith of NBC News: "... Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani confirmed Thursday that the State Department assisted his efforts to press the Ukrainian government to probe two prominent Democratic opponents of the president: former Vice President Joe Biden and the Democratic National Committee.... [Giuliani] confirmed to NBC News that the State Department helped put him in touch with ... Andriy Yermak, a lawyer and close ally of recently elected President Volodymyr Zelensky.... The State Department put Yermak 'in contact with me,' Giuliani said. 'Not other way around....'"

New Poll Finds What We Knew All Along. Jill Filipovic in the Guardian: "A new poll shows ... the 'pro-life' movement is fundamentally about misogyny. A Supermajority/PerryUndem survey released this week divides respondents by their position on abortion, and then tracks their answers to 10 questions on gender equality more generally. On every question anti-abortion voters were significantly more hostile to gender equity than pro-choice voters." (Also linked yesterday.)

Eric Levitz of New York: "... on certain segments of the right, criticisms of the [New York Times' 1619 Project] have been so histrionic, they read less as arguments than primal screams.... But if the right's catastrophizing response to the 1619 Project is incomprehensible in intellectual terms, it's more understandable in psychological ones. The Times's narrative ... does challenge the legitimacy of white American identity -- and the secular saints and potted histories that lend that identity its substance. And for many white conservatives in the U.S., the idea of surrendering that identity is quite painful."

New York Times: "Patrick Byrne resigned as chief executive of the online retailer Overstock.com on Thursday, saying he had no choice but to quit because of the attention stirred up by his public disclosure of a relationship with [Maria Butina,] a woman accused of being a Russian agent.... The company's shares were up more than 10 percent on Thursday after Mr. Byrne announced his resignation."

Way Beyond the Beltway

Brazil/Earth. The Devastating Effects of Right-Wing "Populism." Leah Asmelash of CNN: "The Amazon rainforest is an ecological marvel. It's twice the size of India, according to the World Wildlife Fund, and it's the largest remaining tropical rainforest in the world. It's home to at least 10% of the world's biodiversity, produces 20% of the world's oxygen and helps regulate the temperature of the whole planet. Without it, climate change could become irreversible -- a reality brought to light by the fires in the region that have been raging this week. Here are some ways the Amazon rainforest helps the environment, and what these devastating fires could mean for climate change." ...

... Tom Phillips of the Guardian: "France's president, Emmanuel Macron, has said the fires in the Amazon are an 'international crisis' and called for them to be top of the agenda at the G7 summit, prompting a furious response from Brazil's leader. 'Our house is burning. Literally,' Macron tweeted.... Brazil's president, Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing nationalist who bristles at the idea of foreign interference in the Brazilian Amazon, took exception to his French counterpart's comments. 'I regret that president Macron seeks to take advantage of what is a domestic Brazilian issue and of other Amazonian countries for personal political gain,' Bolsonaro tweeted, targeting what he called Macron's 'sensationalist tone'."

The Commentariat -- August 22, 2019

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

New Poll Finds What We Knew All Along. Jill Filipovic in the Guardian: "A new poll shows ... the 'pro-life' movement is fundamentally about misogyny. A Supermajority/PerryUndem survey released this week divides respondents by their position on abortion, and then tracks their answers to 10 questions on gender equality more generally. On every question, anti-abortion voters were significantly more hostile to gender equity than pro-choice voters."

Phil Rucker of the Washington Post has a good piece on the transactional nature of Donald Trump's pro-Israel stance. He begins, "President Trump decided long ago that it would be smart politics for him to yoke his administration to Israel and to try to brand the Democratic Party as anti-Semitic. He set about executing a pro-Israel checklist: moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing the Golan Heights as part of sovereign Israel, and taking a hard line against Iran. And he promoted himself as the greatest president -- a deity even -- for Jewish people." Mrs. McC: Rucker very much backs up what I wrote yesterday in response to a reader who argued that Trump was Israel's BFF.

Ken Vogel & Andrew Kramer of the New York Times: "Months after backing out of a trip to Ukraine amid criticism that he was mixing partisan politics with foreign policy, Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump's personal lawyer, has renewed his push for the Ukrainian government to pursue investigations into political opponents of Mr. Trump. Over the last few weeks, Mr. Giuliani has spoken on the phone and held an in-person meeting, in Madrid, with a top representative of the new Ukrainian president, encouraging his government to ramp up investigations into two matters of intense interest to Mr. Trump. One is whether Ukrainian officials took steps during the 2016 election to damage Mr. Trump's campaign. The other is whether there was anything improper about the overlap between former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s diplomatic efforts in Ukraine and his son's role with a gas company there." ...

... Pamela Brown & Caroline Kelly of CNN: "Rudy Giuliani said Wednesday that he had spoken with a Ukrainian official about Joe Biden's possible role in that government's dismissal of a prosecutor who investigated Biden's son.The move shows the former New York mayor is making a renewed push for the country to investigate ... Donald Trump's political enemies."

Sam Stein & Will Sommer of the Daily Beast: "The United States ambassador tasked with cleaning up bizarrely strained relations with Denmark in the wake of Donald Trump's failed attempt to buy Greenland is a frequent retweeter of conspiracy theories who once starred in a movie so bad it was parodied on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Carla Sands heads the U.S. mission to the kingdom of Denmark.... Since becoming ambassador, she has frequently retweeted bizarre claims on her personal Twitter account.... It's rare for a top diplomat to be the one openly spreading conspiracies, even under a private account.... Sands ... appeared utterly caught off-guard by [Trump's] cancellation [of his visit to Denmark].... How Sands performs in this now-delicate role could raise a myriad of questions, from why the U.S. government continues to rely on unseasoned hands in ambassadorial roles to how she ended up in this spot in the first place."

~~~~~~~~~~

Yesterday, as I was reading & writing some of what Trump had said & done Monday & Tuesday, I felt exhausted. How much more of this can we take? I wondered. Well, here we are, another day, and the beat goes on. Intensified. Wednesday we found out that Trump considers himself to be "the Chosen One," "the Second Coming" of Jesus, & "like the King of Israel." And that doesn't get to his plan to indefinitely detain asylum applicants or to the international incident he created with cancelling his trip to Denmark & calling the Danish Prime Minister "nasty." -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie ...

... Peter Baker & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, in a story about the Greenland/Denmark debacle: "Some former Trump administration officials in recent days said they were increasingly worried about the president's behavior, suggesting it stems from rising pressure on Mr. Trump as the economy seems more worrisome and next year's election approaches. After casting off advisers who displeased him at a record rate in his first two and a half years in office, Mr. Trump now has fewer aides around him willing or able to challenge him, much less restrain his more impulsive instincts."

Not That Funny. Quint Forgey of Politico: "... Donald Trump claimed to laughter on Wednesday that he sought to give himself a Medal of Honor, but decided not to after being counseled against the move by aides. The offhand remark from the president came during his address to the 75th annual national convention of American Veterans, a volunteer-led veterans service organization also known as AMVETS.... Trump never served in the military and was granted five draft deferments -- four for college and one for bone spurs in his heel." ...

     ... Watch especially "Thing 2." See also safari's commentary in today's thread.

Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "President Trump said Wednesday that Jewish Americans who vote for Democratic candidates are 'very disloyal to Israel,' expanding on his remarks from the previous day and dismissing criticism that his remarks were anti-Semitic.... Asked by a reporter Wednesday to clarify his remarks, [Trump said,] 'In my opinion, the Democrats have gone very far away from Israel... I cannot understand how they can do that ... In my opinion, if you vote for a Democrat, you're being very disloyal to Jewish people and you're being very disloyal to Israel. And only weak people would say anything other than that.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... The NBC News story, by Allan Smith, is here. "Then, while speaking to reporters on Wednesday about his efforts to take on China's trade practices, Trump pointed at the sky and said, 'I am the chosen one.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... John Wagner of the Washington Post: "President Trump went on Twitter on Wednesday to quote a conservative radio host and known conspiracy theorist who praised him as 'the greatest President for Jews' and claimed that Israelis 'love him like he is the second coming of God.' In his tweets, Trump thanked Wayne Allyn Root for 'the very nice words.'... In his Wednesday morning tweets, Trump quoted Root saying, 'President Trump is the greatest President for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world, not just America, he is the best President for Israel in the history of the world ... and the Jewish people in Israel love him like he's the King of Israel.'... 'But American Jews don't know him or like him,' Root continued, according to Trump's tweets. 'They don't even know what they're doing or saying anymore. It makes no sense! But that's OK, if he keeps doing what he's doing, he's good for all Jews, Blacks, Gays, everyone. And importantly, he's good for everyone in America who wants a job.' In his own words, Trump added: 'Wow!'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: As Wagner notes, "Jews do not believe in a second coming." That, of course, is because they don't believe in Christians' claim there was a first coming. If Trump sees himself as the "King of Israel," you might think he'd want to buy Israel instead of Greenland. Maybe he's concerned that the Israelis are more formidable negotiators than the Danes & Greenlanders. ...

... Beth Levin of Vanity Fair: "It's probably self-evident that anyone claiming Trump is the Messiah is not right in the head, but just so it's on the record, Wayne Allyn Root -- a self-described 'Jew turned evangelical Christian' -- is an unhinged conspiracy theorist who believes the 2017 Las Vegas shooting was a 'coordinated Muslim terror attack' by ISIS and that George Soros paid actors to stage the 'Unite the Right' rally in Charlottesville that included Nazi chants like 'Jews will not replace us.' Trump, incredibly, seems to believe that he's going to win over Jewish voters by telling them they don't [know] what's good for them ('They don't even know what they're doing or saying anymore!')." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

This thread, not a full day after calling American Jewish Democrats disloyal, is eschatological antisemitism from a right wing extremist. It draws a line between good (right wing and/or Israeli) and bad (liberal) Jews. This is stochastic terrorism. -- Rabbi Andy Kahn, in a tweet

The President is a raving lunatic. He is not well. -- Andrew Gillum in a tweet ...

... Jonathan Chait: "If the president is seeking more insight into why Jews have failed to jump onto the Trump train, this tweetstorm itself supplies more evidence. Root is taking the traditional complaint that Christians make against Jews -- Why are you stiff-necked people forsaking your Lord and Savior? -- and substituting Trump himself for the role of the Messiah. The traditional Trumpist overture to Jews is that Trump might go after all the other minority groups but definitely won't turn on Jews. That approach having failed to yield dividends, he is now turning to castigating them for failing to worship the true King of the Jews and veritable Second Coming of God. 'They don't even know what they're doing or saying anymore' is not usually a good pitch for any constituency. And where Jews specifically are concerned, the whole 'Second Coming' thing remains a bit of a sensitive area." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Zack Beauchamp of Vox: "Trump wants American Jews to think of him as their friend, all of the evidence staring our community in the face that he isn't. If the past day's outbursts have any upside, it's that they reveal just how false this charade is -- and show that American Jews are yet another minority group threatened by the Trump presidency.... To what extent can American Jews trust America's white Christian majority to protect their community and civil rights? Historically, the answer is 'not very much.'... Jews of European descent enjoy many of the privileges of whiteness -- especially when they aren't visibly Jewish. But we also are only contingently accepted as equal participants in white American society.... We Jews are most certainly part of the 'Other' with a capital-o, a tiny percentage of the country seen as different and distinct from the majority culture. We are targeted for attacks by the growing white supremacist movement and smeared by the president when we don't do what he wants." ...

Bradley Burston of Haaretz: "[Donald Trump] has now proven himself, well beyond all rivals, as the greatest anti-Semite of our age.... This week ... he made it official.... There it is. His test of the Jews, full frontal. Come and get me, he taunts. And just watch me as I mine and inflame and leverage the Jew in you, and turn all of it into votes.... It's not Jews he's talking to at all. He's talking to Evangelicals..., and what he's telling them is simple as flat trajectory AK fire: You're better Zionists than the Jews are, and at this point, you -- and especially, I -- are even more pro-Israel than that Omar-Tlaib waffler Netanyahu." --s ...

... ** Ed Kilgore of New York: "... in ... supporting an aggressive and expansionist Jewish State, Trump may be appealing to Jewish solidarity with Israel, but more important to him politically is the demonstration to Evangelicals that in this, as in many other things (notably the fight to reverse LGBTQ and reproductive rights), he is an agent of the divine will, despite (or sometimes because of) his heathenish personal behavior. From this perspective, Trump's strange rhetoric begins to make sense: When he accuses American Jews of 'disloyalty,' he really means they are not playing the role Christians have assigned them in the great redemptive saga of the human race [i.e., the End Times]." ...

... Zak Cheney-Rice of New York sees Trump's embrace of Israel as an attack on Muslims: "... if [Rep. Ilhan] Omar [D-Minn.] is an anti-Semite, and Trump is akin to the 'King of Israel' -- as suggested in a tweet he promoted on Wednesday -- then something more sinister than concern for Jewish people is going on. And given the Republican Party's long-term investment in demonizing Muslims and galvanizing white Evangelicals to back its agenda while casting its Democratic opponents as the 'real' bigots, it's not hard to see what that is."

It's What He Says about Women. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump on Wednesday said that the new prime minister of Denmark was 'nasty' to him when she rejected his interest in purchasing Greenland, as he explained why he abruptly canceled a trip to the European nation next month. Mr. Trump made the remarks to reporters outside the White House as he departed for a trip to Kentucky for an official event. The statement from Mette Frederiksen, the 41-year-old prime minister of Denmark, had called Mr. Trump's hope of buying Greenland 'absurd,' a statement the president called 'nasty.'... 'She's not talking to me, she's talking to the United States of America,' he said. 'They can't say "how absurd."'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Allie Malloy of CNN: "The President has frequently used the word 'nasty' to describe women he is angry with." Malloy cites "nasty" remarks Trump made about Nancy Pelosi, Meghan Markle, Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris & Elizabeth Warren. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Rick Noack, et al., of the Washington Post: "... Trump continued to lash out [at Denmark].... After departing on a trip to Kentucky, Trump ... [wrote] on Twitter that despite being 'a wealthy country,' it was falling short of a NATO goal for defense spending.... A Trump adviser said the president was annoyed at planned back-to-back trips to Europe in the coming days and the extensive flying involved and that the comments by [Danish PM Mette] Frederiksen gave him a reason to cancel the Denmark leg. Trump is scheduled to leave later this week for a Group of Seven summit in France. 'It doesn't take a member of the Intelligence Committee to know that canceling meetings with our foreign allies over the momentary whims of the President is absurd,' Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) wrote on Twitter. 'We can't keep making foreign policy decisions based on this President's fantasy world.'" ...

... As Baker & Haberman of the New York Times write (also linked above), after Trump chastised Denmark for re: NATO spending, "he went after NATO as a whole for not spending enough on their militaries. 'We protect Europe and yet, only 8 of the 28 NATO countries are at the 2% mark,' he wrote, referring to the goal set by the alliance for members to spend 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense. The dust-up could have wider ramifications, analysts said."

... Shaun Walker of the Guardian: "The Danish prime minister has said she is surprised and disappointed that Donald Trump has called off his planned visit to the country over Copenhagen's refusal to sell Greenland to the US.... [Danish] politicians from across the spectrum were united in their condemnation.... Villy Søvndal, a former foreign minister, said the decision 'confirms that Donald Trump is a narcissistic fool.... If he had been a clown in a circus, you could probably say that there is considerable entertainment value. The problem is that he is the president of the most powerful nation in the world,' he said." ...

... New York Times Editors: "What came through in Mr. Trump's approach [to purchasing Greenland] was not realpolitik, but a crude and insulting transactional vision of a world in which buying a self-ruled territory and its more than 56,000 people was just another 'large real estate deal' -- in his view, one that Denmark should welcome because Greenland was purportedly draining $700 million a year in Danish subsidies. When first reported in The Wall Street Journal last Friday, the idea drew howls of hilarity. But when Mr. Trump made clear he was serious, amusement turned to astonishment and, in Denmark and Greenland, to indignation.... That the president of the United States would demonstrate such willful ignorance of how the world works, that he would treat a territory and its independent people like goods and chattel, that he would so readily damage relations with an old and important ally out of petty pique, is frightening." ...

... Thomas Wright of the Brookings Institution in the Atlantic: "The cancellation of Trump's visit to Denmark is part of a disturbing pattern. Trump regularly beats up on and abuses America's closest democratic allies while being sycophantic to autocrats.... This is the kind of thing the Russians and the Chinese do. It is territorial revisionism -- the use of national power to acquire territory against the desire of its sovereign government and its people.... Free societies and autocracies are at odds with each other -- over human rights, the rule of law, technology, freedom of the press, the free flow of information, and territorial expansion. At this particular moment, it is not sufficient to say that the free world is without a leader. He has actually defected to the other side." Emphasis added.

Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump on Wednesday said his administration is once again seriously considering an executive order to end birthright citizenship months after several lawmakers cast doubt on his ability to take such action. 'We're looking at that very seriously,' Trump told reporters as he left the White House for Kentucky. 'Birthright citizenship, where you have a baby on our land -- walk over the border, have a baby, congratulations, the baby's now a U.S. citizen.'... [Last year, Trump said he] would sign an executive order to enact the change. Numerous lawmakers, including several Republicans, quickly pushed back on the idea and argued Trump lacked the authority to make such a change using an executive order. They cited that birthright citizenship is a right enshrined under the 14th Amendment. Trump responded to the criticism by saying birthright citizenship would be ended 'one way or another.'" ...

... Also at the "rambling, 35-minute back-and-forth with reporters..., Trump denied he is considering a payroll tax cut to head off a recession, arguing that there is no need to do so even after he confirmed it was under consideration the previous day," according to Washington Post reporters Rick Noack and others (also linked above). ...

... Yet Another "Catch & Release" Trump Plan. Matt Stieb of New York makes a stab at listing the crazy things Trump said yesterday, but he misses a few. Here's one he caught, though, that I haven't seen reported elsewhere: "As if his reputation in the European Union needed any further damage, Trump threatened to 'release' captured ISIS fighters from the continent in their respective countries if 'Europe doesn't take them.' It was the second time this month Trump had proposed that ultimatum: On August 2, he told reporters, 'We have 2,500 ISIS fighters that we want Europe to take,' and, if they were not received, 'we'll probably have to release them to Europe.'"

Alexandra Hutzler of Newsweek: "... Donald Trump has spent nearly a third of his presidency visiting his business properties at taxpayer expense, according to a new report by the government watchdog group Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington. CREW has found over 2,300 conflicts of interest resulting from Trump's decision not to divest ownership of his global business empire upon entering office.... The nonprofit added that there are likely more conflicts of interest than the ones they have been able to identify." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Partly this is because Trump avoids doing the inconvenient or quasi-arduous parts of this job. As the WashPo reported (linked above), "A Trump adviser said the president was annoyed at planned back-to-back trips to Europe in the coming days and the extensive flying involved," so he picked a fight with Denmark as an excuse to avoid a state visit. Even when Trump is in the White House, at the times of day most people are at work, Trump is taking "executive time," fixing his hair & watching Fox "News."

Michael Shear & Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "The Trump administration unveiled a regulation on Wednesday that would allow it to detain indefinitely migrant families who cross the border illegally, replacing a decades-old court agreement that limited how long the government could hold migrant children in custody and mandated the level of care they must receive.... The new regulation would codify minimum standards for the conditions in family detention centers and would specifically abolish a 20-day limit on detaining families in immigration jails, a cap that has prompted President Trump to repeatedly complain about the 'catch and release' of families from Central America and elsewhere into the United States. The change will require approval from a federal judge before it can go into effect, and administration officials said they expect it to be immediately challenged in court." The NPR story is here. Mrs. McC: It's like, it's like, DHS has revealed Stephen Miller's wet dreams. But left out the torture part. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Jake Thomas of The Intellectualist: "In Hildalgo County, Texas, residents are fighting to protect the graves of veterans under threat by ... Donald Trump's border wall, according to local news station KVEO-TV. The Eli Jackson Cemetery is the final resting place of veterans of bot World Wars as well as the Korean War, but the Trump administration wants to have those graves moved in order to make way for the proposed barrier along the southern U.S. border. Others buried in the cemetery, which is considered sacred land by local natives, include freed slaves and native ancestors." --s

Jim Tankersley & Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "The federal budget deficit is growing faster than expected, even as President Trump muses about more tax cuts and other ideas that would add to government debt. The deficit will reach $960 billion for the 2019 fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, and $1 trillion for the 2020 fiscal year, the Congressional Budget Office said in updated forecasts released on Wednesday. Previously, it had projected an $896 billion deficit for 2019 and $892 billion for 2020. Those numbers would be even higher, if not for lower-than-expected interest rates, which are reducing the cost of servicing the national debt." The CBS/AP story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Ben Casselman of the New York Times: "Employers added a half-million fewer jobs in 2018 and early 2019 than previously reported, the Labor Department said Wednesday. The revisions, which are preliminary, are part of an annual process in which survey-based estimates are brought into alignment with more definitive data from state unemployment insurance records. Wednesday's revision covers the period through March; final updates, which will include the rest of 2019, will be released in February. The revisions don't change the overall picture of a healthy job market. But they do mean that 2018, which had ranked among the strongest years of job growth in the decade-long recovery, was weaker than previously believed." ...

     ... Jeffry Bartash of Market Watch: "The newly revised figures indicate the economy didn't get a huge boost last year from President Trump's tax cuts and higher federal spending. They also signal the economy is a bit weaker than previously believed and could give the Federal Reserve even greater reason to cut interest rates in September."

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Ever since Trump announced his Farmer Welfare Program to help make up for the billions American farmers were losing as a result of his trade wars, I have been wondering how much of that money was going to actual farmers. Well, contributor Anonymous looked into it, and the answer is not much:

... Matthew Chapman of the Raw Story (July 30): “... Donald Trump has tried to paper over the disaster his trade war has been causing for American farmers by issuing a $16 billion bailout, paying farmers for the work they lost due to the tariffs.... But ... according to a new report from the Environmental Working Group, of the $16 billion in 'Market Facilitation Payments' Trump's Department of Agriculture appropriated, the group found, 54 percent of it went to just the top one-tenth of farms, with 82 farmers receiving at least $500,000 and many of the recipients actually living in large cities. Smaller family farms, meanwhile, have received very little, with the bottom 80 percent of farmers getting less than $5,000 each -- and farmers of color have received almost nothing. The USDA initially said it would cap payments at $125,000 -- but in practice, Trump officials have allowed the richest farmers to get around that limit by having family members who do not do meaningful work on the farm apply for their own payments, double-dipping again and again." ...

... Sarah Burris of the Raw Story: "... Donald Trump's officials were abruptly told to end their agricultural tour in the Midwest this week as tensions among farmers continue to rise.... Trump has claimed farmers support his trade war with China, that is going into its second year. Farmers told [Ag Secretary Sonny] Perdue that things weren't 'great' and they were concerned Americans see Trump's bailout as a welfare program for farmers. To make matters worse, the bailouts were given to corporate farms over family farms and put those in rural areas at a greater disadvantage as they struggle through Trump's trade war." ...

... Mario Parker, et al., of Bloomberg: "In a sign of rising tensions with the farm community, the Trump administration withdrew staff from a privately run tour of Midwestern corn and soybean fields after a government employee was threatened.... The USDA's data arm has been the subject of ire in recent months after crop estimates surprised traders and growers who had expected the agency to significantly reduce its outlook after rain delayed planting.... Its withdrawal from the crop tour comes about two weeks after farmers leveled criticism at Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue at a fair in Minnesota over ... Donald Trump's yearlong trade war with China, which has eroded demand and pressured already low prices."

Rebecca Leber of Mother Jones: "Allan Blutstein, an America Rising [a Republican opposition research outfit] lawyer and senior vice president, [has been] seeking the records of EPA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration employees who have contributed to Democrats.... Blutstein appears to be searching for evidence that ... EPA and NOAA employees violated the Hatch Act, which forbids government employees from performing any electioneering during work hours and from hosting political fundraisers.... Blutstein targets have included an EPA geologist, several EPA attorneys, and a National Weather Service staffer." --s ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: As Leber notes, "Government employees ... are free to donate to political candidates so long as the contribution is made on their personal time and does not involve the use of government resources or equipment." Blutstein's requests smack of harassment & attempts to intimidate career federal employees.

Presidential Race 2020

John Bowden of the Hill: "Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) dropped out of the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination on Wednesday. Inslee told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow during an interview that he would withdraw from the race because it had 'become clear' to him that he had no path to the nomination." ...

     ... The more extensive Washington Post report, by Eli Rosenberg, is here.

Jeff Toobin of the New Yorker: "A fledgling liberal organization, Demand Justice, is trying to force the [Democratic presidential] candidates to take a stand on a provocative proposal for the next Democratic administration. The group's founders, Christopher Kang, who helped run judicial selection for President Barack Obama, and Brian Fallon, a former aide to Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer, argue that the next President should not nominate any judicial candidates who come out of the world of corporate law. As Kang and Fallon, two insiders to the process, point out, even in Democratic administrations, there is a recurring pattern among nominees to the federal bench: 'A typical nominee might have an Ivy League degree and clerkships with one or more respected federal judges,' they write, in a new article in The Atlantic. 'But perhaps no qualification is more prevalent than prior work at a major private-sector firm, representing the interests of large corporations.' As they note, roughly sixty per cent of federal appellate judges come from corporate firms.... Sheldon Whitehouse, a senator from Rhode Island, has been one of the few Democratic politicians to focus on this issue of corporate power in the courts; he's even written a book about it."

Senate Race 2020. Kyle Balluck of the Hill: "Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D), who last week ended his 2020 presidential campaign, announced on Thursday that he will seek a seat in the U.S. Senate. 'I'm not done fighting for the people of Colorado,' he said in a video attacking Washington over preexisting conditions, prescription prices and the opening of public land to developers." Cory Gardner (R) currently holds the seat & is running for re-election.

Jessica Campisi of the Hill: "A Tennessee man was arrested Wednesday for allegedly posting threats online to 'shoot up' a Planned Parenthood facility in Washington, D.C. Jacob Cooper, 20, allegedly wrote in an Aug. 13 comment that he planned 'to shoot up a planned parenthood facility in Washington D.C., on August 19th at 3pm,' the Department of Justice (DOJ) wrote in a release. The FBI and U.S. attorneys in Washington and Nashville said in the release that Cooper appeared in court Wednesday on a charge of unlawfully transmitting a threat to injure. According to a criminal complaint, Cooper allegedly wrote in a separate Aug. 13 post, 'If you are a member of the FBI, CIA, whatever, and are on my profile I will trace your IP address and kill you if the opportunity arises.'" ...

... Steve Almasy, et al., of CNN: "... more than two dozen people ... have been arrested over threats to commit mass shootings since 31 people were killed in one weekend this month in shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. The raft of cases follows a directive by the FBI director immediately after the two early August massacres for agency offices nationwide to conduct a new threat assessment in an effort to thwart more mass attacks." The report lists "the known threats with publicized arrests that law enforcement agencies have investigated since the Dayton and El Paso shootings[.]"

Devlin Barrett of the Washington Post: "At least eight Bureau of Prisons staffers knew that strict instructions had been given not to leave multimillionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein alone in his cell, yet the order was apparently ignored in the 24 hours leading up to his death, according to people familiar with the matter. The fact that so many prison officials were aware of the directive — not just low-level correctional officers, but supervisors and managers -- has alarmed investigators assessing what so far appears to be a stunning failure to follow instructions, these people said.... Investigators suspect that at least some of these individuals also knew Epstein had been left alone in a cell before he died...." The Raw Story has a summary report of the WashPo story. ...

... Tom Sykes of The Daily Beast: "Flight logs for Jeffrey Epstein's private jet reportedly suggest that Prince Andrew was in the same part of the world as Virginia Roberts Giuffre on at least three occasions. Giuffre alleges she was 'given' to Andrew by Epstein three times. The flight logs ... show that Giuffre was flown around the world by Epstein, while Andrew was touring the globe himself, touching down in similar locations." --s

News for MAGA Users. Lateshia Beachum of the Washington Post: "Now, people can apparently purchase 3,4-Methyl​enedioxy​methamphetamine (MDMA), known as ecstasy or molly, in the shape of Trump's face." Here's the ABC News story.

Way Beyond the Beltway

Brazil. Jonathan Watts of the Guardian: "The Brazilian president,Jair Bolsonaro, has accused environmental groups of setting fires in the Amazon as he tries to deflect growing international criticism of his failure to protect the world's biggest rainforest. Brazil has had more than 72,000 fire outbreaks so far this year, an 84% increase on the same period in 2018.... More than half of them were in the Amazon..., Bolsonaro suggested the fires were started by environmental NGOs to embarrass his government.... Bolsonaro said there were no written records and it was just his feeling." --s

Japan/North Korea. Justin McCurry of the Guardian: "Japan's government will reportedly state that North Korea is capable of miniaturising nuclear warheads in a forthcoming defence report, it has emerged. Tokyo will upgrade its estimate of the regime's nuclear capability, having said last year only that the technical feat was a possibility[.]" --s

Japan/South Korea. Choe Sang-Hun of the New York Times: "South Korea said on Thursday that it would abandon a vital military intelligence-sharing pact with Japan, a move that is likely to alarm the United States, which pushed for the arrangement in part to ensure that North Korea's missile activity is closely tracked. South Korea's relations with Japan have been at a low point in the weeks since Tokyo imposed a series of trade restrictions on the South. Kim You-geun, first deputy chief of the South Korea's National Security Council, said Thursday that the South had chosen to terminate the intelligence-sharing deal because the restrictions had 'caused an important change in security-related cooperation between the two countries." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: In case you don't think that trade wars precipitate or at least portend more serious tensions.