The Commentariat -- August 23, 2017
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Sewell Chan & Nick Cumming-Bruce of the New York Times: "Without mentioning Mr. Trump by name, a body of United Nations experts on Wednesday denounced 'the failure at the highest political level of the United States of America to unequivocally reject and condemn' racist violence, saying it was 'deeply concerned by the example this failure could set for the rest of the world.'"
Rebecca Savransky of the Hill: "The science envoy for the State Department has resigned following President Trump's response to the violent clashes at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. Daniel Kammen announced his resignation in a letter addressed to Trump -- in which the first letter of every paragraph spelled out 'Impeach.'"
Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post CNN: Fact Checking the Phoenix Screed. The list of lies grows and grows. "President Donald Trump went to Arizona on Tuesday night and delivered what has now become a trademark speech: Full of invective, victimhood and fact-free retellings of recent historical events. I went through the transcript of Trump's speech -- all 77 minutes -- and picked out his 57 most outrageous lies, in chronological order. They're below." Some examples:
"The Secret Service tells me there aren't many protesters outside." There were thousands.
"The lying media won't show my beautiful, enormous crowd of supporters." They always do.
"Our movement is built on love!" Hahahahahaha....okay, that's all. It gets worse. -- Akhilleus
... Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post: "As with so much about President Trump, his Phoenix rally on Tuesday night was two contradictory things: both shocking and completely predictable. Shocking because it was the most sustained attack any president has made on the news media. ('It's time to expose the crooked-media deceptions and challenge the media for their role in fomenting divisions,' Trump ranted, as he charged that reporters invent sources and make up stories. 'They are trying to take away our history and our heritage.') And predictable because this is exactly what Trump does when he's in trouble. He finds an enemy and punches as hard as he can.... Under siege, Trump needs a foil more than ever, so these media attacks are only going to grow in intensity. It will be journalists' continued challenge not to take the bait...." ...
... Ben Carson shows up at Trump's Phoenix campaign rally & promptly violates federal law. Mrs. McC: Yesterday, what with the publication of Alec MacGillis' devastating profile of the HUD secretary (linked here yesterday) was not a good day for Dr. Ben. Ah, well, Trump will pardon him. Or at least tease a pardon. ...
... President Trump's Other Black Friend: "Michael the Black Man." Katie Mettler & Lindsey Bever of the Washington Post: "At a number of political rallies over the past year, [including the one in Phoenix yesterday,] a character calling himself 'Michael the Black Man' has appeared in the crowd directly behind Donald Trump, impossible to miss and prompting widespread fascination.... The radical fringe activist from Miami once belonged to a violent black supremacist religious cult, and he runs a handful of amateur, unintelligible conspiracy websites. He has called Barack Obama 'The Beast' and Hillary Clinton a Ku Klux Klan member. Oprah Winfrey, he says, is the devil. Most curiously, in the 1990s, he was charged, then acquitted, with conspiracy to commit two murders. It's unclear whether the White House or Trump's campaign officials are aware of Michael the Black Man's turbulent history or extreme political views." Mrs. McC: What is clear is that the Trump people don't give a flying fuck.
President Creep. Cleve Wootson and Amy B. Wang of the Washington Post. "Hillary Clinton said her 'skin crawled' as Donald Trump loomed behind her at a presidential debate in St. Louis, and added that she wished she could have pressed pause and asked America, 'Well, what would you do?' The words, Clinton's most detailed public comments about what happened during one of the campaign's more memorable moments, are included in her new book, 'What Happened,' which she called an attempt to 'pull back the curtain' on her losing bid for the presidency. Some of the moments during the campaign, she said, 'baffled' her. Others seemingly repulsed her: In recounting the October incident, she referred to Trump as a 'creep.' The book comes out Sept. 12, but audio excerpts, read by Clinton, were played Wednesday morning on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe.'" ...Akhilleus: Can't get more specific and truthful than that. "Creep" it is. ...
Louis Nelson of Politico: "Actress Louise Linton, the wife of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, apologized Tuesday after she tangled with an Oregon woman in the comments section of her Instagram account.... On Tuesday afternoon, she issued an apology through her publicist. 'I apologize for my post on social media yesterday as well as my response. It was inappropriate and highly insensitive,' she said in the statement."
German Lopez of Vox: "We are now at the phase where the debate over Confederate statues has reached sports -- but this time, it's in a pretty dumb way. In the newest controversy, ESPN is under fire for pulling an Asian-American announcer from a September 2 University of Virginia football game because his name is Robert Lee -- which is similar to the name of the Civil War general who fought to dismantle the United States and maintain slavery. ESPN said it pulled Lee 'simply because of the coincidence of his name.'" ...
... Adam Raymond of New York: "In its haste to avoid becoming the target of dumb jokes by sports bloggers, ESPN has created a full-blown controversy for [blogger Clay] Travis, Matt Drudge, and Breitbart News, among other right-wing thought leaders. As for Deadspin, it's making fun of the network anyway." Mrs. McC: First time I ever realized Robert E. Lee was Korean.
*****
Man of a Thousand Lies. And Counting. Glenn Kessler & Michelle Yee of the Washington Post: "We have been tracking President Trump's false or misleading claims for more than seven months. Somewhere around Aug. 4 or Aug. 5, he broke 1,000 claims, and the tally now stands at 1,057."
Mark Landler & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump on Tuesday all but promised to pardon Joe Arpaio, the hard-line former sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., who became a national symbol of the campaign against undocumented immigrants, and whose round-'em-up raids have landed him in legal trouble. 'I'll make a prediction --I think he is going to be just fine,' an angry and defiant Mr. Trump told a campaign-style forum in Phoenix where he abandoned scripted remarks and launched into a half-hour tirade against the news media.... The president returned to peak campaign form, mocking the ABC News host George Stephanopoulos for being short, calling The New York Times 'fake news' and egging on a chant of 'CNN sucks.'" ...
... Mrs. McC: In case you were wondering what Trump means by "law & order," one part of the answer is "violate the rights of minorities (or people who look a little like minorities), hassle them, humiliate them, incarcerate them, etc.," followed by "keep that up, while serially defying a judge's order." No law, no order. ...
... New Lede: "President Trump, stung by days of criticism that he sowed racial division in the United States after deadly clashes in Charlottesville, Va., accused the news media on Tuesday of misrepresenting what he insisted was his prompt, unequivocal condemnation of bigotry and hatred. ...
... Mrs. McC: In case you were wondering what Trump meant when he took an oath to uphold the Constitution, he meant, in part, to embrace white supremacists, secessionists AND their agendas.
... John Wagner, et al., of the Washington Post: "Trump opened his rally by selectively recounting the series of statements he made in the days following the melee, arguing that he 'spoke out forcefully against hatred and bigotry and violence' but that the media -- whom he called 'sick people' -- refused to report it properly.... He later accused the media of giving a platform to the hate groups that were central to the violence in Charlottesville that led to three deaths." ...
... New Lede: "President Trump on Tuesday threatened to shut down the government over border wall funding, said the North American Free Trade Agreement is likely to be terminated and signaled that he was prepared to pardon former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who is anathema to the Latino community." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie "Fake news" is not just news that accurately interprets Trump's actions & remarks; it is also news that accurately reports Trump's stupid & unpopular actions & remarks. So when a news report reprints a Trump tweet -- word-for-word with no edits -- it is "fake news" if the tweet is stupid, unpopular or both; ergo, "Despite the constant negative press covfefe" is fake news.
... Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: During a 75-minute speech, "the president launched into one angry rant after another, repeatedly attacking the media and providing a lengthy defense of his response to the violent clashes in Charlottesville.... He threatened to shut down the government if he doesn't receive funding for a wall along the southern border, announced that he will 'probably' get rid of the North American Free Trade Agreement, attacked the state's two Republican senators, repeatedly referred to protesters as 'thugs' and coyly hinted that he will pardon Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa County who was convicted in July of criminal contempt in Arizona for ignoring a judge's order to stop detaining people because he merely suspected them of being undocumented immigrants.... As the night dragged on, many in the crowd lost interest in what the president was saying. Hundreds left early, while others ... scrolled through their social media feeds or started up a conversation with their neighbors. After waiting for hours in 107-degree heat to get into the rally hall -- where their water bottles were confiscated by security -- people were tired and dehydrated and the president just wasn't keeping their attention." ...
... Megan Cassidy of the Arizona Republic: "... Donald Trump will not pardon former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio while the president is in Phoenix, according to ... Sarah Huckabee Sanders." ...
... Leinz Vales of CNN: "James Clapper, former director of National Intelligence, said Wednesday morning he questioned President Donald Trump's fitness for office. 'I really question his ability to be -- his fitness to be -- in this office, and I also am beginning to wonder about his motivation for it,' Clapper told CNN's Don Lemon on 'CNN Tonight.' Hours after Trump delivered a defiant speech in Phoenix, Arizona, Clapper said he found the President's rally 'downright scary and disturbing.' Clapper denounced Trump's 'behavior and divisiveness and complete intellectual, moral and ethical void.' 'How much longer does the country have to, to borrow a phrase, endure this nightmare?'" ...
... Kurtis Lee & Jaweed Kaleem of the Los Angeles Times: "Thousands of protesters gathered Tuesday outside a campaign-style rally [in Phoenix] by President Trump, engaging his supporters in shouting matches over whether Trump harbors racist views. The demonstrations remained peaceful until the end of the rally, when some protesters tried to break through barricades near an entrance to the convention center where Trump was finishing his speech. Police, who said some protesters had thrown rocks and bottles at them, used tear gas to disperse the crowds.... The anti-Trump protests in Phoenix consisted of several marches downtown that converged at the convention center."
Susan Glaser of Politico Magazine: Trump "called his [Afghanistan] plan 'dramatically different.' It wasn't. The only thing that seemed a striking change from his two presidential predecessors' approach to the war ... was Trump's escalatory rhetoric.... But beyond the scathing language and an open-ended pledge to 'fight to win,' Trump offered few details about a plan that administration sources have said involves the sending of a few thousand more troops to Afghanistan.... In many ways, the target of much of his speech was neither al Qaeda nor the Taliban but Barack Obama. Trump went out of his way, for example, to criticize his successor for 'hastily and mistakenly' withdrawing from Iraq in 2011 -- without mentioning that he supported that move at the time. In his speech on Monday, he claimed that he now viewed it as a mistake so consequential it had shaped his own determination to fight on in Afghanistan." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... So Much Winning. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "In a classic case of Trump's big talk running into stubborn realities --almost immediately -- Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday afternoon played down the idea that the U.S. military would walk away from Afghanistan with a victory. He addressed the Taliban directly: 'You will not win a battlefield victory. We may not win one, but neither will you.'... 'We will always win,' [Trump] began one thought [during his speech].... This is Trump's mode, of course, and he apparently can't shake it. Everything is winning -- so much winning that people will get tired of winning." ...
... Salman Masood of the New York Times: "President Trump's appeal for India's help on Afghanistan set off alarm bells on Tuesday in Pakistan, where officials warned that the approach risked jolting a tumultuous relationship. They also expressed relief that Mr. Trump did not call for abrupt reductions in military aid to Pakistan, which the United States has long accused of going easy on militants."
I'll See You a Deuce of Dreamers if You Raise Me a Border Wall. Anita Kumar of McClatchy News: "Donald Trump's top aides are pushing him to protect young people brought into the country illegally as children -- and then use the issue as a bargaining chip for a larger immigration deal -- despite the president's campaign vow to deport so-called Dreamers. The White House officials want Trump to strike an ambitious deal with Congress that offers Dreamers protection in exchange for legislation that pays for a border wall and more detention facilities, curbs legal immigration and implements E-verify, an online system that allows businesses to check immigration status, according to a half-dozen people familiar with situation, most involved with the negotiations." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Greg Sargent: "What will happen? Unfortunately, the plight of the dreamers appears precarious. Trump is under heavy pressure from the right to either kill DACA himself or have his attorney general decline to defend it in court. It is perfectly plausible that he could announce that the program is done and call on Congress to do something to protect the dreamers if its members are so inclined. The White House will demand border wall and deportation force funding as part of this deal, and if and when Congress fails to pass such a thing, Trump can excoriate Congress for it." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
House of Cons. Peter Robison & Michael Smith in Business Week: "Donald Jr., 39, and Eric, 33, present themselves as hard-working, toned-down versions of their father.... [President*] Trump's sons have each had more than a decade of experience working under their father, however. They've repeatedly pursued licensing arrangements in which they attach the family name to projects, generating cash without bearing much risk. They have a seemingly ad hoc, opportunistic style that's sometimes led to partnerships with questionable characters, including people barred for securities violations or sued for fraud. And they've walked away, leaving employees, customers, or business partners with the fallout.... The success of The Apprentice brought with it a wave of offers from shady partners that the Trumps couldn't resist."
David Fahrenthold & Drew Harwell of the Washington Post: "A Florida charity for children announced Tuesday that it was canceling plans to hold a fundraiser luncheon at President Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club next winter -- adding to an exodus of its high-paying charity clients in the days after his comments about violent protests in Charlottesville. The Unicorn Children's Foundation, based in Boca Raton, explained its decision with a statement saying 'We are not a political organization and do not condone hatred or bullying on any level.'... Another group, Gateway for Cancer Research, said late Tuesday it had decided to withdraw from Mar-a-Lago as a venue for its St. Patrick's Day event next March.... In all, 17 charities have now canceled events at Mar-a-Lago since Aug. 15, when President Trump said there were 'fine people' among those who came to Charlottesville to protest the planned removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee."
** Welcome to the New HUD, Where the Boss's Philosophy Is "Poverty Is a State of Mind." Alec McGillis, in New York, on how the Department of Housing & Urban Development is doing under the "leadership" of clueless Ben Carson (&, weirdly, his wife & son), budget slasher Mick Mulvaney & former rental-housing racial profiler Donald Trump. Mrs. McC: McGillis is a national treasure; the piece is long but the reading is easy. Thanks to Monoloco for the link. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Robin Givhan of the Washington Post: "Louise Linton has proved herself to be an exceptionally obnoxious human being.... In a single Instagram post, Linton managed to tap into elitism, narcissism, self-righteousness, incivility, apathy and blonde privilege -- all wrapped up in a designer package. Linton was so pleased with how chic she looked deplaning that she wanted to share that image on social media. The whole running-the-country thing was straight out of central casting.... But even the best actors will tell you that beautiful costumes can't compensate for a lousy narrative." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: I saw where quite a few pundits complained that Linton conveyed a "bad tone." I know what a bad tone is; it's my usual mode of communication. It isn't Linton's "tone" that's the problem; it's here 'tude. She let us know that the rich -- a group she herself did not belong to till she recently married into it -- are better than the rest of us, that their "giving" via taxes and "sacrifices" -- here I think she means taking high-profile government jobs to garner future payoffs -- and high-dollar, high-profile "lifestyles" are superior to yours & mine. There is no good "tone" for conveying this POV any more than there is a proper "tone" for embracing neo-Nazis & white supremacists. No matter how nicely or elegantly Trump & the Deplorables express their views, the views themselves are despicable.
Oliver Darcy & Jake Tapper of CNN: "A self-described 'email prankster' seemingly fooled top editors at Breitbart over the weekend into believing he was Steve Bannon.... In the emails, Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow pledged that he and several other top editors would do Bannon's 'dirty work' against White House aides. The emails were shared with CNN by the prankster. In other emails, Marlow suggested he could have Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump ousted from the White House 'by end of year' and shared a personal smear about their private lives, perhaps an indication of how low the website is willing to go to achieve its agenda."
Alexander Burns & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "The relationship between President Trump and Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, has disintegrated to the point that they have not spoken to each other in weeks, and Mr. McConnell has privately expressed uncertainty that Mr. Trump will be able to salvage his administration after a series of summer crises. What was once an uneasy governing alliance has curdled into a feud of mutual resentment and sometimes outright hostility, complicated by the position of Mr. McConnell's wife, Elaine L. Chao, in Mr. Trump's cabinet, according to more than a dozen people briefed on their imperiled partnership. Angry phone calls and private badmouthing have devolved into open conflict, with the president threatening to oppose Republican senators who cross him, and Mr. McConnell mobilizing to their defense." On August 9, "the president accused Mr. McConnell of bungling the health care issue. He was even more animated about what he intimated was the Senate leader's refusal to protect him from investigations of Russian interference in the 2016 election.... [Trump] berated [McConnell] in [the] phone call that quickly devolved into a profane shouting match." ...
... Andrew Prokop of Vox: "Yet again, it seems, the president of the United States is intimating in private conversations with other government officials that investigations that could incriminate him or his associates should be bottled up -- at a time when he's already reportedly under investigation for obstruction of justice." ...
... Flipping Paulie. Peter Stone of McClatchy News: Robert "Mueller's expanded focus on [Paul] Manafort's complicated financial picture is zeroing in on whether he may have evaded taxes or engaged in any money laundering schemes..., sources say, and the hunt for his financial records through a labyrinth of offshore bank and business accounts has become an important prong of the investigation.... Given his pro-Kremlin connections and his closeness to the campaign, Manafort was uniquely positioned to play a role in any collusion between the campaign and operatives working on behalf of the Russian government to help elect Trump.... 'Based on my experience with prosecutors, it would be typical that they're getting financial information to pressure Manafort to cooperate in a bigger case,' said former Justice Department prosecutor Barak Cohen..." ...
... Million-Dollar Dossier. Brian Ross, et al., of ABC News: "A key figure behind the so-called dossier featuring uncorroborated and salacious allegations about then-candidate Donald Trump's ties to Russia [was scheduled to be] questioned by investigators from the Senate Judiciary Committee [Tuesday] about the funding and sources for the document. During last year's heated Republican primary race, Fusion GPS, a private research firm founded by former Wall Street Journal reporter Glenn Simpson, was initially paid about a million dollars by wealthy Republicans and then later worked for Democrats, all of whom wanted to dig up dirt on Trump and plant negative news stories, according to political operatives. Simpson ... hired the former MI6 agent Christopher Steele to compile the now infamous dossier.... Republicans in Congress are stepping up their efforts to uncover the funders of and sources for that controversial document...."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Darlene Superville of the AP: "The White House on Tuesday renewed its request to the news media for privacy for ... Donald Trump's young son, Barron, after a conservative news and opinion website criticized the casual attire he wore home after the family's summer vacation.... Vince Coglianese, editorial director for The Daily Caller, defended [the story's author, Ford] Springer." Mrs. McC: Finally, I agree with the Trumps about something. Picking on an 11-year-old -- any 11-year-old -- for wearing neat summer clothes during, um, summer, is mean & stupid.
Jonathan Chait: On healthcare reform, Paul Ryan has gone from misleading the public to outright lying. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Sarah Lynch of Reuters: "The U.S. Justice Department is scaling back its request to obtain a broad swath of data in connection with an anti-Trump website, after critics accused the department of trampling the free speech rights of political dissidents. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia had previously issued a broader search warrant in July to DreamHost, a Los Angeles-based web hosting company, to obtain data about visitors to website disruptj20.org. Disruptj20 is home to a coalition of political activists who organized disruptive protests during ... Donald Trump's inauguration. DreamHost resisted the request, saying the scope of the warrant was too broad and trampled on the rights of 1.3 million visitors to the site, many of whom were simply exercising their First Amendment rights to express their political views." ...
... Ms. McCrabbie: Visiting a Website certainly does not mean "expressing its political views." I often go to conservative sites to read some of the crap they espouse. And I was doing this well before I got my new job here. In the DreamHost case, those dingbat prosecutors would be violating the rights of their own staff who obviously visited Disruptj20 as part of their professional duties. Idiots.
Simon Denyer of the Washington Post: "China demanded the United States immediately withdraw a package of sanctions on companies and individuals trading with North Korea on Wednesday, and said the decision by the Trump administration will damage Sino-U.S. ties. The Treasury Department placed sanctions Tuesday on 10 companies and six individuals from China and Russia that it said had conducted business with North Korea in ways that advanced the country's missile and nuclear weapons program. But China's Foreign Ministry insisted its government had fully implemented U.N. Security Council resolutions on North Korea, and would punish anyone caught violating the Security Council sanctions under Chinese law."
Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "The Navy will relieve the admiral in charge of the service's 7th Fleet based in Japan in response to four embarrassing accidents this year, two of which killed sailors at sea, two U.S. officials said. Vice Adm. Joseph P. Aucoin will be removed from his job formally Wednesday, the officials said. The incidents include the deadly collision Monday of the destroyer USS John S. McCain with a much heavier oil tanker off Singapore, and a June 17 accident in which the destroyer USS Fitzgerald was ripped open by a larger Japanese container ship. Seven sailors were killed in the Fitzgerald disaster, and at least some of the 10 sailors reported missing from the McCain are dead, Adm. Scott Swift, the commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet, said Tuesday." ...
... New Lede: "The U.S. Navy on Wednesday relieved the admiral in charge of the service's 7th Fleet based in Japan due to 'loss of confidence' in his ability to command, it said in a statement."
Maxwell Tani of Business Insider: "Over the past several months, former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli has trolled journalists who have written or tweeted about him by purchasing the internet domains associated with their names. After sitting on the domain names for months, Shkreli appears to be customizing the sites, explicitly mocking reporters who have tweeted about him.... 'I wouldn't call these people "journalists." They are the unwitting recipients of liberalism subsidy from large media and telecom companies,' Shkreli said, saying they were 'only a few notches above the white supremacists we hear so much about these days.'" ...
... Mrs. McC: If anyone can make Donald Trump & Louise Linton look like amateurs, it's Shkreli. When has Trump compared journalists to Nazis? When will Linton knock the prêt-à-porter wardrobes of NYT reporters?
Beyond the Beltway
Mark Berman & Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post: "Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens (R) on Tuesday stayed the scheduled execution of Marcellus Williams, just hours before the death-row inmate was set to be put to death for the 1998 killing of a former newspaper reporter. Williams's looming lethal injection prompted scrutiny and a last-ditch appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court from his attorneys, who pointed to new DNA evidence in arguing that Missouri may have been on the verge of executing the wrong person. Greitens said he would appoint a board to look into the new DNA evidence and other factors before issuing a report about whether or not Williams should be granted clemency."
Way Beyond
Jeffrey Gettleman & Suhasini Raj of the New York Times: "India's highest court struck down a legal provision on Tuesday that allowed Muslim men to instantly divorce their wives, taking a stand against a practice increasingly deemed unacceptable in the Muslim world. In India, Muslim men have been able to end their marriages by saying the word 'talaq' -- Arabic for 'divorce' -- three times. They could do this in person, by letter or even over the phone. By contrast, a Muslim woman in India seeking a divorce must generally gain the permission of her husband, a cleric or other Islamic authorities. The method of divorce was available only to men, who in many cases ousted their wives from their homes without alimony or other financial support."
Share Article 
