The Commentariat -- October 15, 2018
Afternoon Update:
"Rogue Killers." Trump Pushes New Conspiracy Theory. Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump said on Monday that he spoke with the king of Saudi Arabia and that the ruler denied any knowledge of what happened to a missing Saudi dissident journalist. After the call, Mr. Trump said it was possible that 'rogue killers' were behind the disappearance of the journalist, Jamal Khashoggi.... 'It sounded to me like maybe these could have been rogue killers -- who knows,' Mr. Trump said. In introducing the possibility that another party could have been involved in Mr. Khashoggi's disappearance, the president opened a window for King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to stand by their denials.... The president said the secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, was traveling to Saudi Arabia later Monday morning to meet with King Salman.... Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, wrote in a Twitter post on Monday that he had heard the Saudis were pushing a 'rogue killers' theory and called it 'extraordinary' that the kingdom was able to get the president on board." Mrs. McC: A 400-pound man from New Jersey maybe? ...
... Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "Two overlapping things of widely divergent importance happened Monday morning that bring into clear relief President Trump's double standard on the proof he demands on political issues. The first was his response to a question about the missing Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.... 'I just spoke with the King of Saudi Arabia, and he denies any knowledge of what took place with regards to, as he said, to Saudi Arabia's citizen,' Trump said while talking to reporters Monday morning. 'He firmly denies that.'... In each case -- Saudi Arabia, Russia, [Roy] Moore, climate change, [Brett] Kavanaugh -- there is reason to believe, if to varying degrees, that the allegations [that Trump finds inconvenient] have merit. Trump, though, seizes on any tiny argument to reject them.... [MEANWHILE.] Trump has increasingly disparaged [Elizabeth] Warren, a likely (if not probable) Democratic candidate. Among the assertions he had made is that Warren -- who[m] he disparagingly calls 'Pocahontas' -- should have to conduct a DNA test to prove her heritage. In July, he even offered to give $1 million to charity were she to do so. When he learned Monday morning that she had, his response was curt: 'Who cares?' He also denied having offered to give $1 million to charity, despite his saying it at a campaign rally.... For Trump's opponents, any offered proof is flawed, incomplete or insufficient. For his allies, any offered evidence is robust and more than enough." Bump invokes the imaginary 400-pound guy, too, as well as Obama's birth certificate. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Warren should be demanding her $1MM loudly & often. She could donate it to Snopes. Update: Madeleine Aggeler of New York: "After the Globe published the results of her test, Warren tweeted at the president asking him to make his donation to the National Indigenous Woman's Resource Center." That's good, too. ...
My family (including Fox News-watchers) sat together and talked about what they think of @realDonaldTrump’s attacks on our heritage. And yes, a famous geneticist analyzed my DNA and concluded that it contains Native American ancestry. pic.twitter.com/r3SNzP22f8
— Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) October 15, 2018
Jonathan Chait: "In his interview with 60 Minutes last night, President Trump made a number of self-incriminating comments about Russia. He downplayed Russia’s certain role in conducting assassinations to a mere 'probability,' defending his skepticism by saying, weirdly, 'I rely on them, it's not in our country.'... The most revealing statement he made was when asked about Russian interference in the 2016 election.... The question [was] about Russian election interference in 2016. Trump turn[ed] it into a diatribe about China.... [An] official rollout of the new Cold War posture [highlighted by a mike pence speech & a Wall Street Journal feature story] was supposed to give Trump's hard-line stance the patina of legitimacy. But the 60 Minutes interview gives the game away. Trump is bringing up China in response to questions about Russia. The whole point of the exercise is to supply his supporters with a talking point they can use to wave away the ever-growing pile of damning evidence. The answer is to the Russia story is now, 'What about China?'"
A New York Times video op-ed by Jason Stanley:
Jamelle Bouie of Slate: No, it isn't true that the Founding Fathers favored "minority rule" & baked it into the Constitution for the good of future wingers. "... key voices [like James Madison & Benjamin Franklin] anticipated the problems the Senate might pose for governance and democratic representation. That future Americans, to whom the Framers entrusted the republic and its maintenance, might seek reform to solve those problems is not an attack on the intent of the Constitution. It is in keeping with the debates around its creation.... Calls to transform the Senate, or create new states, or even 'pack the court' aren't attacks on norms; they are Americans doing the hard work of crafting a democracy that works for them, of taking seriously the idea that the Constitution exists for us, not us for the Constitution." Thanks to PD Pepe for the link. See also David Leonhardt's column, linked below.
Heather Murphy of the New York Times: "Curtis Rogers, 80, a retired businessman..., and John Olson, 67, a transportation engineer from Texas ... began [a genealogical database] as a side project, [which] has unintentionally upended how investigators across the country are trying to solve the coldest of cold cases. Within three years, the DNA of nearly every American of Northern European descent -- the primary users of the site -- will be identifiable through cousins in GEDmatch's database, according to a study published on Thursday in the journal Science.... [So far,] GEDmatch had provided essential clues leading to a suspect in a murder or sexual assault case [in 15 cold cases], starting with the arrest in April of Joseph James DeAngelo, a former police officer, for the rapes and murders committed across California in the 1970s and 1980s by the notorious Golden State Killer."
*****
Quint Forgey of Politico: "... Donald Trump defied climate scientists, intelligence specialists and even his own defense secretary on Sunday evening, capping a week of freewheeling press engagements with a sprawling primetime network television interview in which he portrayed himself as an isolated but eminently empowered commander in chief.... The president ... dismissed the work of researchers studying increases in global temperature that could exacerbate natural disasters, purporting that 'they have a very big political agenda' and claiming that Earth's climate 'could very well go back.'" ...
... Axios: "Trump was discursive -- and often combative -- while defending some of his administration's most controversial policies, including family separation at the border. He ended one particularly tense exchange with [Lesley] Stahl by reminding her, 'Lesley, it's okay. In the meantime, I'm president -- and you're not.'" The report touches on some lowlights. ...
... Mrs. McC: In case you haven't noticed, "I'm president -- and you're not" is a form of bullying, it's insulting, and it's a logical fallacy: an argument from authority (or, more correctly, from false authority, since Trump knows nothing AND lies). Of course it's no wonder Trump was rude to Stahl throughout the interview; she is, after all, an "impolite, arrogant woman." In Trump's view, an "interview" is a tête-à-tête wherein a male journalist asks him how he got to be so great. ...
... Sarah Burris of the Raw Story: "Stahl was baffled by the friendship [Trump & Kim Jong-Un] shared. 'He presides over a cruel kingdom of repression, gulags, starvation. Reports that he had his half-brother assassinated. Slave labor. Public executions. This is a guy you love?' she asked. 'I'm not a baby. I know these things,' Trump snapped." ...
... Trump's Dictator Buddies Can Assassinate Opponents as Long as They Don't Do It in the U.S. Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "President Trump said he believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin 'probably' has been involved in assassinations and poisonings, but he appeared to dismiss the gravity of those actions, noting that they have not taken place in the United States. 'Probably he is, yeah. Probably,' Trump told CBS's Lesley Stahl when asked during an interview on '60 Minutes' whether he thinks Putin is involved 'in assassinations, in poisonings.' 'But I rely on them; it's not in our country,' Trump added." In the interview, Trump also credited himself for getting Brett Kavanaugh across the finish line, which he claims he did by mocking Christine Blasey Ford at a campaign rally. He also claimed he didn't really make fun of her. Mrs. McC: Yes, actually, he did. ...
... Michael Shear & Thomas Gibbons-Neff of the New York Times: "President Trump, who once called Defense Secretary Jim Mattis 'one of the most effective generals that we've had in many, many decades,' has now affixed a more ominous label to the retired four-star Marine general: 'Democrat.' In a '60 Minutes' interview broadcast on CBS on Sunday night, Mr. Trump grouped his own defense secretary in with the political party that the president now describes at every turn as 'an angry, left-wing mob' bent on destroying the country. 'I think he's sort of a Democrat, if you want to know the truth,' Mr. Trump said. But the president added that he did not know whether Mr. Mattis would be the next major departure from his administration.... 'He may leave,' Mr. Trump said of Mr. Mattis, though he called him 'a good guy' and insisted that the two men still had 'a very good relationship.'" ...
... Video & a transcript of the interview is here. ...
Painting by Andy Thomas.... Maxwell Tani & Tracy Connor of the Daily Beast: "President Trump's latest addition to White House decor is a kitschy fantasy painting that shows him relaxing with Republican presidents of the past -- an update to a best-selling image commonly found in tourist gift shops and online galleries. The artwork, 'The Republican Club' by Andy Thomas, could be seen in the background of a photo tweeted by 60 Minutes, which aired an interview with Trump on Sunday night. It shows a slimmed-down Trump sandwiched between Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon, directly across from Abraham Lincoln. Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and both Bushes are also in the imaginary scene.... Some ... amateur art critics ... said it looked like the political version of the famous 'dogs playing poker' painting.... Thomas told The Daily Beast that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), a fan of the artist's work, gave the print to Trump. 'He had actually given a me real gracious call to tell me how much he liked it,' Thomas said of Trump. 'He was very complimentary. He made a comment that he'd seen a lot of paintings of himself and he rarely liked them.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Could be because "a lot of portrait artists" paint their subjects somewhat as they are, not 75 pounds lighter & sans the fake tan & white goggles. Note that President Tacky hung not a painting, as the report states, but a print of the painting. Presidents Grant, Taft, Hoover, Harding & Coolidge (and maybe others) appear in the background.
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man with orange hair.
I asked him please to let me pass,
But as I did he grabbed my ass.
I tried to slap him; this I swear,
Yet when I did, he wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today
I wish, I wish he'd go away...
-- With apologies to Hughes Mearns ...
... The Man Who Isn't There. Todd Purdum of The Atlantic: "It is a poignant paradox of Donald Trump's ubiquitous presidency -- all tweets, all the time -- that a leader who prides himself as omnipresent in digital public discourse is so often absent from national life in the hundred human ways in which the country has come to expect its presidents to perform.... But think about it: Have we ever seen Trump play catch with his own 12-year-old son, Barron? Without question, the president dotes on his children, especially his daughter, Ivanka. But he's an absentee father to the nation, or at least a majority of the nation.... This reality is striking, and sad: When it comes to those personal rituals of the modern presidency that Americans have long since taken for granted, Donald J. Trump is the man who isn't there.... Trump doesn't offer ready consolation in moments of national tragedy.... Trump is just as challenged in celebrating happy occasions." --s
Victoria Fleisher & Josh Israel of ThinkProgress: "Donald Trump does not like to be criticized. When he is attacked -- or even when he thinks he might have been attacked -- he tends to fire back in the same way each time: with smears and vague aspersions. On Thursday, his former chief economic adviser Gary Cohn was the latest recipient of his apparent defamation.... [When] told by his friends at Fox News during his latest Fox & Friends phone call that Cohn might have been a source of recent negative stories about his administration, Trump had nothing nice to say. 'It could have been. A lot of people have said that, you know, Gary Cohn. And I could tell stories about him like you wouldn't believe.'... The tactic of suggesting -- with no evidence -- that Trump has embarrassing stories to tell about someone in his crosshairs is one Trump uses a lot." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Where's Pompeo? Mrs. McCrabbie: The foreign ministers of the UK, France & Germany issued a joint statement expressing "grave concern" about the disappearance of journalist & dissident Jamal Khashoggi, & calling for a "credible investigation." Khashoggi is/was a U.S. resident who worked for the Washington Post. One would think our own "foreign minister" would be just as concerned as are our close allies. But no. ...
... Loveday Morris of the Washington Post: "Saudi Arabia on Sunday said it rejects 'threats' and political pressure over the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi in its consulate in Istanbul, a day after President Trump said there would be 'severe punishment' if Saudi Arabia is found to have killed the Washington Post Global Opinions columnist. Threatening to impose economic sanctions and repeating 'false accusations' will not undermine the country's standing, said the statement on Saudi Arabia's official press agency, which quoted an 'official source.' The kingdom';s government and people are 'as glorious and steadfast as ever,' it said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post revisit the "carefully cultivated..., close partnership between [Jared Kushner and] Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom Kushner has championed as a reformer poised to usher the ultraconservative, oil-rich monarchy into modernity." Mrs. McC: So far MBS's big reform has been allowing Saudi women to drive, but that's not much of a big deal when you consider that he has jailed the activist women who petitioned the government for this & other fundamental human rights. ...
... Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post: "The murders [of journalists] are the consequence of the clash between a 21st century technological revolution, which has made it possible to obtain and spread information in new ways, and a 21st century offshore banking revolution, which has made it possible to steal money in new ways, to hide it in new ways and to use it to maintain power.... Often, it is journalists, especially investigative journalists, who are caught in the fault lines between them.... [Before the advent of the Internet, governments] could effectively silence a critic through censorship or exile.... Precisely because we now live in a global information network, the death of a single journalist could usefully frighten the rest -- not only in one country but around the world."
Stephen Stromberg of the Washington Post: "The top issue on every Sunday news show should have been -- but wasn't -- climate change. The United Nations released last Monday a report arguing that world leaders' pledge to keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius is too modest, and that they have about a decade to get on track.... 'I'm not denying any climate change issues,' White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Sunday's 'This Week' with George Stephanopoulos. Then he denied one of the most uncontroversial findings in climate science.... 'How much of it is man-made, how much of it is solar, how much of it is oceanic, how much of it is rainforest and other issues? I think we're still exploring all of that.' In fact, scientists have explored the question.... The answer continues to be an unequivocal 'no.'... Kudlow's real objection ... is that listening to the experts would force leaders to make changes that are 'way, way too difficult.'... So burn away, and enjoy the climate while it lasts! This fatalism is deeply immoral.... In the long term, the 71-year-old Kudlow will be dead, and the rest of us will suffer the consequences of the hard facts he and the rest of this administration refused to acknowledge." ...
... Feckless. Alex Ward of Vox: "The head of the US National Guard [Air Force Gen. Joseph Lengyel], one of the top military officers in charge of responding to hurricanes and other disasters affecting the United States, claims he does not know why the climate is changing. What's more, he has yet to discuss the threat climate change poses to Americans with President Donald Trump.... One of Lengyel's aides told me after the session that no one had prepared the general for questions about climate change beforehand." --safari (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)...
Watch a succession of some of the most spineless, irresponsible politicians to ever occupy office, and the takeover of sanity by the oil lobby and its paid minions. --s
... Mrs. McCrabbie: I never copy an entire story I link, even when the story is short, as that would violate copyright laws. But there's an exception to every rule. Elizabeth Kolbert of the New Yorker, a Pulitzer Prize-winning commentator & elegant writer, has written an essay for this week's edition titled, "What's Is Donald Trump's Response to the U.N.'s Dire Climate Report." Here's her column in full: "undefined"
Phil Helsel of NBC News: "... Donald Trump suggested on Saturday that he believes the controversial policy of family separations could continue in the United States and that the practice could dissuade immigrants from entering the country illegally." Mrs. McC: As we've noted before, there is no evidence that harsh immigration policies deter immigrants. Moreover, most of those seeking asylum are not coming here "illegally." BTW, do see Sarah Stillman's New Yorker article, linked below, on how Trump's administration is coercing five-year-olds into signing away their legal rights. (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Making America Mean Again. E.J. Dionne: "In the madness of the Trump era, terrible things happen with almost no notice.... A good example is the administration's decision last month to slash the number of refugees who can be resettled in the United States next year to 30,000, down from the already shamefully low level of 45,000. The new figure is the lowest ceiling imposed on the refugee program since it was created in 1980.... In all circumstances, the move would be shortsighted, mean, politically opportunistic and embarrassingly out of line with what we have always claimed our values are. But it is even more cruel and wrongheaded now, as the world confronts what Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) called the 'worst refugee crisis since World War II.'... Trumpian Republicanism means turning away from basic decency in the name of politically motivated attacks on newcomers to our shores.... Can anyone honestly believe that this makes America great?"
White Power. Hannah Levintova of Mother Jones: "Under President Donald Trump's tax cuts, white Americans are the big winners, and the existing wealth gap between them and minority households will continue to grow. That's the conclusion of a new report released this week on the racial implications of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.... The report, from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) and the nonprofit Prosperity Now, is the first quantitative analysis of its kind.... [T]he authors conclude the law will 'supercharge' existing racial disparities in wealth 'to an alarming extent.'... The authors found that nearly 80 percent of the $275 billion in tax cuts to individual households will go to white families -- even though whites make up just two-thirds of taxpayers. In dollar terms, white families will get about $218 billion in tax cuts, while black households will see about $14 billion and Latinos about $18 billion." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
** White Power, Ctd. David Leonhardt of the New York Times: "The biggest racial preferences in this country ... have to do with political power. And they benefit white Americans, at the expense of black, Asian and Hispanic Americans. These racial preferences are the ones that dictate the makeup of the United States Senate.... The Senate gives considerably more representation to white citizens than to dark-skinned ones. It allows a minority of Americans -- white Americans -- to wield the power of a majority.... The states whose populations have grown the most over time ... are racially diverse. By contrast, the smallest states ... tend to be overwhelmingly white.... Right now, about four million American citizens have almost no congressional voting power.... Of these four million people -- these citizens denied representative democracy -- more than 90 percent are black or Hispanic. They are, of course, the residents of Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. Almost half of Washington's residents are black, and nearly all of Puerto Rico's are Hispanic. It's time fix this inequity and to make Washington and Puerto Rico the 51st and 52nd states, with full representation in the Senate and the House.... To do so, Congress would need to pass a bill, and the president would need to sign it."
Chief Crook-in-the-House. Paul Pringle & Adam Elmahrek of the Los Angeles Times: "A company owned by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy's in-laws won more than $7 million in no-bid and other federal contracts at U.S. military installations and other government properties in California based on a dubious claim of Native American identity by McCarthy's brother-in-law, a Times investigation has found. The prime contracts, awarded through a federal program designed to help disadvantaged minorities, were mostly for construction projects at the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake in McCarthy's Bakersfield-based district, and the Naval Air Station Lemoore in nearby Kings County.... [McCarthy's brother-in-law William] Wages says he is one-eighth Cherokee. An examination of government and tribal records by The Times and a leading Cherokee genealogist casts doubt on that claim, however. He is a member of a group called the Northern Cherokee Nation, which has no federal or state recognition as a legitimate tribe. It is considered a fraud by leaders of tribes that have federal recognition...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
George Packer of the New Yorker reports on a newly-released study of tribalism in American politics. Mrs. McC: His analysis of the steps of Republican "progress" toward extreme tribalism, BTW, is exactly the progression I would have described, with the exception of the Helms-Cruz continuum, which hadn't occurred to me & which I'm not sure is warranted. Whether Helms or DeLay or Jim Jordan, one is as awful as the next.
Election 2018
North Dakota. Burgess Everett of Politico: "Republicans say they're on the cusp of delivering a knockout blow to North Dakota Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp -- and virtually ending Democrats' hopes of winning the Senate. Heitkamp is down in public polls by a significant margin, and most political handicappers think Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) is the favorite to beat her. If she goes down, Democrats would basically have to run the table in every other battleground race to take the chamber. Republicans have had Heitkamp losing by double digits in their private polling for weeks, according to a GOP strategist working on Senate races. Democrats argue the race is closer but acknowledge she is down even in their polling, after her vote against Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: If you live in North Dakota, please vote for Heitkamp, even though she is a DINO. Besides, Cramer has no redeeming qualities. At all.
Viriginia. Nathalie Baptiste of Mother Jones: "The Republican Party of Virginia just released a new attack ad claiming that Leslie Cockburn, the Democrat running for Congress in Virginia's 5th congressional district, 'hates America.'... It states that Cockburn 'hates' military veterans, Israel, and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal agency tasked with deportation and other immigration matters.... Cockburn, a former investigative journalist and producer on CBS'60 Minutes, is running against Republican Denver Riggleman, a veteran of the US Air Force and a business owner." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
** Iowa. Des Moines Register Editors: "Some have argued that this election should be a referendum on President Trump. We disagree. This is about Congress, which has abdicated much of its constitutional duty and has failed to provide a check and balance to the executive branch. Not only has the party failed to act as a check on the president, key Republicans have been complicit in trying to obstruct and undermine the investigation of a foreign power's interference in a U.S. election. And by their silence they have tacitly endorsed the president's racism, misogyny, white nationalism, divisiveness and crudity ... the party needs to be voted out of power[.] --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... ** In the paper's endorsement for J.D. Scholten [D] over Steve King [R-acist], it notes, "This one's a no-brainer for any Iowan who has cringed at eight-term incumbent King's increasing obsession with being a cultural provocateur. In his almost 16 years in Congress, King has passed exactly one bill as primary sponsor, redesignating a post office. He won't debate his opponent and rarely holds public town halls. Instead, he spends his time meeting with fascist leaders in Europe and retweeting neo-Nazis." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Arizona. Ronald Hansen of the Arizona Republic: "Republican U.S. Rep. Debbie Lesko has agreed to take down campaign signs falsely asserting her Democratic opponent, Hiral Tipirneni, is a 'fake doctor' after a medical group that backed Lesko pressed her on the issue. The reversal comes days after Tipirneni, a licensed physician and cancer-research advocate, strongly pushed back on the signs, calling Lesko's tactics 'despicable' in a meeting Thursday with the editorial board of The Arizona Republic. Lesko relented after ARMPAC, the Arizona Medical Political Action Committee, which has endorsed her, told Lesko in a meeting they viewed the 'campaign signs as an insult to the medical profession, discounting the education and training required of physicians to become licensed and credentialed.' The group said Lesko agreed to take down the signs afterward. ARMPAC maintained its Lesko endorsement." Mrs. McC: Really? The organization should rename itself the Arizona Medical Political Idiots Team, or ARMPIT. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Georgia. Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "An attempted conversation between a Georgia Tech student and Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) ended abruptly with the lawmaker snatching the student's cellphone away while he was being asked about possible voter suppression in the state. The senator's office has said the exchange ... was a misunderstanding. On Saturday, a student member of the Young Democratic Socialists of America at Georgia Tech approached Perdue, who was visiting the Atlanta campus to campaign for Brian Kemp. Kemp, a Republican and Georgia's secretary of state, is locked in a tight gubernatorial race with Democrat Stacey Abrams, a former state lawmaker. The race attracted additional scrutiny this week after the Associated Press reported that more than 53,000 voter registration applications were in limbo with Kemp's office; the overwhelming majority of those applications are for African American and other minority voters...." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: The First Amendment, among others, gets short shrift in Jim Crow's Georgia.
Election 2020. Matt Viser of the Washington Post: "During the past six months, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has built a shadow war room designed to elect Democrats across the country in the midterm elections, overtaking some of the traditional duties of Democratic Party campaign committees and further positioning herself for an all-but-certain 2020 presidential bid. Her effort, which goes far beyond the fundraising and endorsement speeches in which prospective presidential candidates typically engage, has encompassed work in all 50 states and close coordination with more than 150 campaigns. The result is a wide-ranging network.... It is unmistakably aimed at some of the early-primary states that Warren would need to contest in a presidential campaign. She has deployed staffers to all four early primary states -- two to New Hampshire and one each to Iowa, South Carolina, and Nevada -- as well as to traditional powerhouses such as Ohio, Florida, Michigan and Wisconsin." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Please, can we not have another preordained Democratic nominee for president? The last one was a disaster. ...
... CBS/AP: "Senator Elizabeth Warren has released the results of a DNA test reportedly showing she does have Native American ancestry, increasing speculation she may run for president in 2020. The analysis was done by Stanford University professor Carlos Bustamante, who is an expert in the field. It shows most of Warren's ancestry is European, but a Native American relative appears in her family tree 6 to 10 generations ago." Mrs. McC: This part of the report is inaccurate: "Warren’s has said that her great-great-great-grandmother, O.C. Sarah Smith, was at least partially Native American. That would make Warren 1/32nd Native American. But if her ancestor is 10 generations back, that could mean she's just 1/512th Native American, according to the report." Actually, no, you lunkheads. If, as Warren has said, O.C. Sarah Smith was "at least partially Native American," then Warren would be up to 1/32nd Native American. But any dilution in Smith's Native American heritage would pass to Warren; that is, if Smith were, say, half-Native American, Warren would be 1/64th Native American. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: One of the most disgusting things about Republicans (and there are so many!) is the way in which they demand Democrats defend not just their policies past & present or their past behavior, but also who they are. So despite all the evidence that President Obama was born in Hawaii -- his own statements, his short-form birth certificate, a 1961 birth announcement in the Honolulu Advertiser, etc. -- he still had to provide an extraordinary long-form birth certificate, & even that didn't shut up the stupidest, most virulent birthers (like Trump). However, never before has a potential candidate had to produce a DNA test to prove who she was.
Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Michael Corkery of the New York Times: "Sears, which more than a century ago pioneered the strategy of selling everything to everyone, filed for bankruptcy protection early on Monday. The company had long ago given up its mantle as a retail innovator. It was overtaken first by big box retailers like Walmart and Home Depot and then, by Amazon as the go-to shopping destinations for clothing, tools and appliances. In the last decade, Sears had been run by a hedge fund manager, Edward S. Lampert, who sold off many of the company's valuable properties and brands but failed to develop a winning strategy to entice consumers who increasingly shopped online. The result has been a long painful decline. A decade ago, the company employed 302,000. Today, there are about 68,000 people working at Sears and Kmart, which Mr. Lampert also runs." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: The sad part is that Sears pioneered all of the elements that work for Amazon & the big box stores. They have an online presence today, analogous to their famous catalogs. And, even better than Amazon (but like WalMart & Home Depot), customers can pick up their online purchases at Sears retail stores. I've done it. Recently.
Tracy Connor of The Daily Beast: "In her second day on the job, the new head of USA Gymnastics apologized for a month-old tweet that angered the sport's biggest star, Simone Biles. 'I regret the post,' former congresswoman Mary Bono [R-Calif.] said late Saturday as the sports federation was plunged into yet another round of turmoil that pitted athletes against executives. The tweet in question showed Bono using a marker to cover up the swoosh on her golf shoes a few days after Nike launched an advertising campaign that featured ex-NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick.... Nike was a sponsor of the 2016 Summer Games, where Biles won four gold medals and earned her reputation as the greatest gymnast in history.... It did not escape notice that Bono's September tweet was apparently taking a swipe at an athlete who chose to express his views -- and that the gymnasts have complained they were silenced when they spoke up about abuse." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Beyond the Beltway
Ashley Southall & Tyler Pager of the New York Times: "A brawl outside a Republican club in Manhattan involving a far-right group and anti-fascist activists spurred calls over the weekend for an investigation into the violence and whether the police handled it properly. Some Democratic politicians, including Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, also criticized the club for inviting the founder of the far-right group, the Proud Boys. Mr. Cuomo said he has asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation to look into the violence that accompanied Friday's appearance at the Metropolitan Republican Club by Gavin McInnes, a right-wing provocateur. He also assigned a State Police hate crimes unit to assist with the New York Police Department's investigation of the fighting, which he linked to President Trump." ...
... Nidhi Prakash & Tanya Chen of BuzzFeed News: "Leaders of a Manhattan political club that was once the archetype of moderate Republicanism say they stand behind the decision to invite the founder of a far-right men’s group as police investigate violence by and against his group after his speech at their clubhouse Friday night. The Metropolitan Republican Club advertised Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes’s appearance as an opportunity to see McInnes reenact the samurai sword assassination of Japanese socialist leader Inejiro Asanuma. In a Facebook post, the club called the Proud Boys founder the 'Godfather of the Hipster Movement [who] has taken on and exposed the Deep State Socialists and stood up for Western Values.'... Friday's events offer a microcosm of the disorienting speed of change inside the Republican Party in the age of Trump, as emboldened extremist groups take traditional Republican and American political institutions by storm." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Excuse me? You invite the founder of a hate group to glorify the assassination of a politician & you find that defensible? "'... we are staunch supporters of the 1st Amendment,' club officials said in a statement on Sunday night. 'We want to foster civil discussion, but never endorse violence. Gavin’s talk on Friday night, while at times was politically incorrect and a bit edgy, was certainly not inciting violence.'" The First Amendment, you dimwits, guarantees that the government cannot abridge free speech (except in certain circumstances, um, like incitement to violence), not that private organizations -- such as political clubs -- must let every insane voice be heard. And to say that someone who was extolling the murder of a political figure was "not inciting violence" is absurd. You advertised his incitement to violence, for pete's sake. If McInnes had tried this same stunt in the public square, he would have been arrested. Your club protected McInnes from the consequences of his bad act, an act that exemplifies a First Amendment exception. Idiots!
Built for the Big One. Patricia Mazzei of the New York Times: The fury of Hurricane Michael spared only one house on a beachfront block of Mexico Beach, Florida: a house built last year to construction standards far higher than Florida's building code requires.
Way Beyond
Anna Jean Kaiser of the Guardian: "Over the course of a 30-year political career, [Jair] Bolsonaro has earned notoriety from his sexist remarks, once telling a fellow lawmaker she didn't even 'deserve' being raped and more recently saying he wouldn't pay women the same salary as men. In 2013, he called the secretary of women's policy a 'big dyke'. During the impeachment of the country's first female president, he dedicated his vote to the dictatorship colonel who had overseen her torture.... Many pollsters had presumed that Bolsonaro's misogyny had created a natural limit to his share of the women's vote, but in the final stages of the campaign, that expectation has shattered.... According to polls before the fragmented first round of 13 candidates, Bolsonaro was the most popular candidate among women, with 27% of the vote. The latest poll for the runoff election says he has roughly 42% of the female electorate." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Juan Cole: "An appeals court in the Netherlands has upheld a 2015 lower court ruling in a class action case that the Dutch government needs to do more to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to 25% below 1990 levels by 2020. So far the Netherlands has only reduced 13% from 1990 levels. The court appealed to the principle that the government must attend to the welfare of citizens, enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights." --s (Also linked yesterday.)
Reuters: "City authorities in Turkey’s capital, Ankara, have renamed the street where the new US embassy is being built 'Malcolm X Avenue', after the civil rights leader, state media reported. The move coincides with a period of fraught relations between Turkey and the US and comes after other politically charged name changes to streets in Ankara.... Malcolm X remains a divisive figure in US history and Ankara's move will likely be received negatively by critics who say he stirred racist and anti-American sentiment." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
News Lede
CNBC: "Microsoft Co-Founder Paul Allen has died from complications of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, Vulcan Inc. said Monday on behalf of his family. Allen passed away Monday afternoon in Seattle at 65 years old, Vulcan said." ...
... Allen's New York Times obituary is here.
Share Article 
