The Commentariat -- August 18, 2016
Afternoon Update:
J.K. Trotter of Gawker: "After nearly fourteen years of operation, Gawker.com will be shutting down next week. The decision to close Gawker comes days after Univision successfully bid $135 million for Gawker Media's six other websites, and four months after the Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel revealed his clandestine legal campaign against the company. Nick Denton, the company's outgoing CEO, informed current staffers of the site's fate on Thursday afternoon, just hours before a bankruptcy court in Manhattan will decide whether to approve Univision's bid for Gawker Media's other assets. Staffers will soon be assigned to other editorial roles, either at one of the other six sites or elsewhere within Univision." -- CW
Sez Who? Margaret Hartmann synthesizes the state-of-mind of the Trump camp. -- CW
Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department plans to end its use of private prisons after officials concluded the facilities are both less safe and less effective at providing correctional services than those run by the government. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates announced the decision on Thursday in a memo that instructs officials to either decline to renew the contracts for private prison operators when they expire or 'substantially reduce' the contracts' scope." -- CW
Dave Sheinin & Dom Phillips of the Washington Post: "While decorated American swimmer Ryan Lochte remained safely in the United States, his three American teammates, blocked from leaving Rio de Janeiro by Brazilian authorities, faced additional questioning Thursday as Lochte's harrowing story of an armed robbery at gunpoint Sunday morning began to unravel.... Several media outlets Thursday reported the existence of a surveillance video from a Rio de Janeiro gas station early Sunday showing Lochte and his teammates damaging property. The Daily Mail, a British news outlet, reported -- citing Brazilian police -- that Lochte and the other swimmers refused to pay for the damage until a security guard waved a gun at them and demanded payment. Brazilian news outlet O Globo reported, also citing police sources, that Lochte and his teammates urinated on the gas station's building and vandalized the property." -- CW
*****
Presidential Race
It ain't over till it's over. -- Yogi Berra, 1973
... Harry Enten of 538: "Hillary Clinton's chances of winning the presidency have held fairly steady in the FiveThirtyEight models over the past 10 days. The polls-only forecast currently gives her an 88 percent chance of winning.... There is precedent for a big enough share of the electorate to change its mind that Trump could come back. It certainly wouldn't be easy for Trump -- he's the overwhelming underdog, but it's not impossible for him to win." -- CW
Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "Hillary Clinton ... on Wednesday denounc[ed] Donald J. Trump's tax proposals as a boondoggle for billionaires. 'We're going to tax the wealthy who have made all of the income gains in the last 15 years,' Mrs. Clinton told a crowd in Cleveland. 'The superwealthy, corporations, Wall Street,' she declared emphatically, 'they're going to have to invest in education, in skills training, in infrastructure.' For months, Mrs. Clinton has attacked Mr. Trump's economic agenda in broad terms.... But Mr. Trump's release of his tax plans last week in Detroit allowed her to begin to criticize them more specifically.... Mrs. Clinton said that Mr. Trump's plan would benefit people in his own income bracket, declaring that he 'would pay a lower rate than middle-class families' if it were put into effect." -- CW
I am the only candidate who ran in either the Democratic or the Republican primary who said from the very beginning (that) I will not raise taxes on the middle class. -- Hillary Clinton, in Cleveland, yesterday
Fifteen of the 17 Republican presidential candidates signed pledges not to raise taxes on anyone, which includes the middle class. Thirteen of those candidates signed the vow last year; the other three inked such a pledge earlier in their careers. Trump wasn't one of them, but Clinton specifically mentioned the primary field. And that makes the claim both inaccurate and ridiculous.... We rated a similar claim by Clinton Pants on Fire in July. Our friends at the Washington Post Fact Checker gave the claim Four Pinocchios, its lowest rating. -- Lauren Carroll & Warren Fiske of PolitiFact
Back in the ole days, when Clinton and Trump and I were young and spry, candidates would change their bullshit lines when the media called them out. Not any more. -- Constant Weader
Rebecca Savransky of the Hill: "Former Gov. Ed Rendell (D-Pa.) says the Clinton Foundation should be disbanded if ... Hillary Clinton is elected to the White House. 'I definitely think if she wins the presidency they have to disband it. I know it'll be hard for President [Bill] Clinton because he cares very deeply about what the foundation has done,' Rendell, a Clinton ally, told the New York Daily News..... Rendell, who also served as a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said the Clinton Foundation would at the least need to go into a 'period of inactivity' during Clinton's time in office if she is elected." -- CW ...
... Boston Globe Editors (Aug. 16): "Although the charity founded by former President Bill Clinton has done admirable work over the last 15 years, the Clinton Foundation is also clearly a liability for Hillary Clinton as she seeks the presidency.... The foundation should remove a political -- and actual -- distraction and stop accepting funding. If Clinton is elected, the foundation should be shut down.... The inherent conflict of interest was obvious when Hillary Clinton became secretary of state in 2009. She promised to maintain a separation between her official work and the foundation, but recently released emails written by staffers during her State Department tenure make clear that the supposed partition was far from impregnable. That was bad enough at State; if the Clinton Foundation continues to cash checks from foreign governments and other individuals seeking to ingratiate themselves with a President Hillary Clinton, it would be unacceptable." -- CW
Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "A 'substantial amount' of material that the FBI delivered to Congress about the Hillary Clinton email investigation -- including a summary of agents' interview with top aide Huma Abedin -- appears to be unclassified, which means it could possibly be released to the public. Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Charles E. Grassley is calling for Senate officials to separate the classified from the unclassified documents in order to turn over as much information to the public as possible.... I don't think we should have any trouble getting the ... unclassified stuff made public,' Grassley said. The FBI declined to comment for this story." ...
... CW: I'm not sure Chuck's plan squares with instructions the FBI sent Congress, though I think its directive is somewhat ambiguous: "... the FBI is providing certain relevant materials to appropriate congressional committees [to] assist them in their oversight responsibilities in this matter. The material contains classified and other sensitive information and is being provided with the expectation it will not be disseminated or disclosed without FBI concurrence." Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link. As she wrote to me, "Why would the FBI trust these idiots with this information? They have proven to be 'untrustable.'" Exactly.
Wherein Trump Proves It Is Possible to Whine about Nothing. Jesse Byrnes of the Hill: "Donald Trump is questioning the amount of work Hillary Clinton is putting into her campaign and said that her schedule is unfair. 'She doesn't really do that much. She'll give a speech on teleprompter, and then she'll disappear. I don't know if she goes home -- she goes home and goes to sleep, I think she sleeps,' Trump told host Sean Hannity.... 'I guess she takes a lot of weekends off. She takes a lot of time off,' Trump responded. 'Frankly, it's really not fair.'... Trump also claimed Clinton is being 'protected' by the government, mentioning the decision not to pursue charges over her private email use, as well as the media. 'When I say something about her, for instance, if I speak for an hour, and I talk about her for a half an hour, 45 minutes, nothing gets on television. They'll put something else on,' Trump said." -- CW ...
... As Cristiano Lima of Politico points out, this is part of Trump's "effort to sow doubts about Hillary Clinton's physical capacity to be president.... Trump, who is 70, also went on to question whether Clinton, who is 68, would be able to handle the physical demands of the presidency...." CW: This is one of the aspects of Trump's misogynist claim that a woman is not "fit" to hold high public office. He repeatedly calls Clinton "weak" and says she "doesn't look like a president," contrasting her own looks (old white guy) with hers. ...
... The other half of the joke, as P.D. Pepe points out in today's Comments, is that Clinton's doctor has given her a clean bill of health in a letter released to the public (I linked it in the Comments), while Trump forged a letter "from" his aged doctor in which he, Trump, claimed, he "will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency." If you haven't read Trump's "doctor's" letter, do so. It's hilarious. A more serious point is that the public has no idea whether or not Trump is physically healthy. Those who vote for Trump may be voting for pence, for all they know.
Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "The latest shake-up in Donald Trump's presidential campaign is rightly described as a move to 'let Trump be Trump.' In reality, the sudden changes highlight the fact that a politician whose instincts appeared so sure during the Republican primaries has lost his way as a general-election candidate. It remains questionable whether he can find the equilibrium and the discipline needed to turn his flailing campaign around.... Trump has been resistant to advice from so-called experts because he proved them wrong when they said he couldn't win the GOP nomination. But he began the general-election campaign with a distinct lack of understanding of the differences between it and the primaries." -- CW ...
... Ben Smith of BuzzFeed: "The effective merger of Donald Trump's campaign for president and the obstreperous, resilient media outlet Breitbart makes more sense than anything else that has happened so far this crazy year. Trump's campaign has always been, to a degree greater even than the usual model campaign, almost entirely a media product: Trump on TV, Trump at rallies, Trump yelling on Twitter. And Breitbart is an exemplar, to a far greater degree than even the old partisan journalism, of a pure and focused 'media activism,' in which the technical tools of journalism are turned to clear political ends." -- CW ...
... Ben Shapiro, a former Breitbart columnist & editor who left the online rag over the Lewandowski-Fields incident, in the Daily Wire: " Steve Bannon Turned Breitbart Into Trump Pravda For His Own Personal Gain.... Bannon Uses Celebrity Conservatives To Elevate His Personal Profile.... Bannon Took At Least One Major Breitbart Investor For A Serious Ride.... Under Bannon's Leadership, Breitbart Openly Embraced The White Supremacist Alt-Right.... Trump's Campaign Strategy Could Be The Launch Of A New Media Outlet.... Bannon Is A Legitimately Sinister Figure. Many former employees of Breitbart News are afraid of Steve Bannon. He is a vindictive, nasty figure, infamous for verbally abusing supposed friends and threatening enemies. Bannon is a smarter version of Trump: he's an aggressive self-promoter who name-drops to heighten his profile and woo bigger names, and then uses those bigger names as stepping stools to his next destination." CW: Otherwise, Bannon seems like a nice guy. ...
This is the bunker scene in Downfall, only the Trump crowd won't tell Hitler the truth. It's utter madness. Trump is a nut, and he likes to surround himself with nuts. It's a disaster for the Republican Party. -- Stuart Stevens, Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign manager, on the latest Trump campaign "leadership" team ...
... CW: In this scene, the Trump crowd does tell Hitler the truth. The subtitle "translations" are quite good:
... See Akhilleus's comment on the video. He has it exactly right, IMO.
... E.J. Dionne: "If you thought the old Donald Trump campaign was wild and crazy, just wait for the new Trump campaign now that Breitbart's Steve Bannon has taken over as chief executive. The new leadership -- with Bannon and pollster Kellyanne Conway displacing Paul Manafort of the Ukrainian Connection at the top of the heap -- is likely to steer Trump even more in the direction of the European far right.... Bannon is close to Nigel Farage, the former head of the right-wing U.K. Independence Party.... Judging from Bannon's history, Trump's campaign will become even harsher in its attacks on Hillary Clinton and work hard to insinuate anti-Clinton stories into the mainstream media....Bannon could thus speed the defection of longtime GOP officeholders, while Senate and House campaigns are likely to become even more distant from Trump...." -- CW ...
... Dionne links to Joshua Green's 2015 profile of Bannon, which Akhilleus also linked in yesterday's Comments. -- CW ...
... Joshua Green (today): "The shake-up is an ominous development for Republican elected officials alarmed at Trump's collapse and the effect he could have on down-ballot races across the country. In recent years, Breitbart News has bedeviled Republican leaders, helping to drive out former House Speaker John Boehner and, more recently, making life difficult for his successor, Paul Ryan." -- CW
... Michael Barbaro & Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times profile Bannon, too: "a polished corporate dealmaker who once devised $10 billion mergers on Wall Street [turned] a purveyor of scorched-earth right-wing media who dwells in the darker corners of American politics.... The website he runs, Breitbart News, recently accused President Obama of 'importing more hating Muslims'; compared Planned Parenthood's work to the Holocaust; called Bill Kristol, the conservative commentator, a 'renegade Jew'; and advised female victims of online harassment to 'just log off' and stop 'screwing up the internet for men,' illustrating that point with a picture of a crying child. With its provocative content, bare-knuckle style and populist message, Breitbart is, in many ways, a mirror of Mr. Trump's presidential campaign." -- CW
... Karen Tumulty & Dave Weigel of the Washington Post also profile Bannon: "Moviemaking has been one of the many chapters of Bannon's career, which had previously included four years aboard a Navy destroyer, a post-MBA stint with Goldman Sachs, and founding an investment firm specializing in media.... Along the way, he developed a worldview remarkably in tune with what is now regarded as Trumpism: suspicious of free trade and liberal immigration policies, wary of military adventurism, and contemptuous of the old order.... When Trump became a candidate for president, the relationship [between Trump & Bannon] deepened, and the billionaire frequently made himself available to break news on his race." -- CW ...
... Betsy Woodruff & Gideon Resnick of the Daily Beast: "Donald Trump's campaign is under new management -- and his white nationalist fanboys love it. The campaign's new chief executive, Stephen Bannon, joins from Breitbart News -- where he helped mainstream the ideas of white nationalists and resuscitate the reputations of anti-immigrant fear-mongers.... [Among others,] Richard Spencer, who heads the white supremacist think tank National Policy Institute..., said Breitbart and Bannon have helped Alt Right ideas gain legitimacy -- and ... exponentially expand their audiences.... Breitbart frequently highlights the work of Jason Richwine, who resigned from the conservative Heritage Foundation when news broke that his Harvard dissertation argued in part that Hispanics have lower IQs than non-Hispanic whites. Bannon loves Richwine.... Bannon heaps praise on Pamela Geller, an activist in the counter-Jihad movement who warns about 'creeping Sharia.'... Kurt Bardella, who had the site as a client until quitting this year, said Bannon regularly made racist comments during internal meetings." -- CW
** Maxim Tucker of the Times (of London) on Paul Manafort's Ukraine Connection. Beginning with the same secret "black ledger" that was the basis of the NYT story linked here Aug. 15, Tucker publishes more of Ukraine officials' observations & speculations, which are stunning: "Officers believe the money [to be paid to Manafort] was taken from a clandestine cash reserve made up of bribes paid to party officials, but have yet to prove their theory.... Documents disclosed by the US Department of Justice appear to confirm ... [Manafort] has never declared his work for the Ukrainian government or [Viktor] Yanukovych's party, as would be required by US legislation.... [Manafort] sabotaged US interests in Ukraine and encouraged Russian nationalism in Crimea, a prosecutor investigating the Republican strategist alleges in a damning memo written last year.... Mr Yanukovych [with Manafort's assistance] laid the groundwork for Russia's annexation of the peninsula, which Donald Trump has now suggested he would recognise." -- CW ...
... Howard Fineman of the Huffington Post: Donald Trump "has not stepped forward publicly to defend Manafort, and it's not clear whether Trump knew that Manafort's work might have had an unregistered (and therefore, potentially illegal) U.S. lobbying component.... [Manafort] overestimated his own skill set and Donald Trump's sanity -- and underestimated his enemies and the political danger of his Ukraine ties.... Trump remains unmanageable, especially when advised to rein in his pugilistic, if not deliberately offensive, campaign style...." CW: Read the part about the Taco Bowl Incident; Trump thinks insulting people is hilarious. He's a sadist.
Sez Who? Apparently nobody told Donald Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen that Trump was losing:
... Update: Sez He. Wherein Trump's Lawyer Demonstrates How to Bluster Your Way out of a Disaster. Hunter Walker of Yahoo! News: "In a conversation with Yahoo News shortly after the conversation aired, Michael Cohen, an executive vice president and attorney at the Trump Organization, said he believed he 'controlled the interview' with Brianna Keilar. 'I think I unraveled her,' Cohen boasted."
Sometimes "Klinton" Comes out "Killer." (And "Hillary" Sounds Like "Lying.") Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "Former Arizona Governor Jan Brewer says she suffered a 'stumble of the tongue' on Tuesday when she seemed to call Hillary Clinton a 'lying killer' during a radio interview. 'People want a fighter. They're tired of the lying killer, uh, Hillary Clinton and Bill Clintons of the world,' Brewer told Mac & Gaydos on KTAR News.... Brewer said she just mispronounced Clinton's name. 'I was trying to say Hillary Clinton,' Brewer said. 'It was a stumble of the tongue.'" CW: It's true that "Hillary Klinten" is practically an anagram for "Lyin' Killer." So an easy mistake to make.
** Michael Crowley of Politico on how Vladimir Putin played former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi (and other European leaders) & how Berlusconi rewarded Putin. "'The parallels with Trump are a little too disturbing,' says a U.S. government analyst who closely tracked Russia's relationship with Europe.... 'Putin is very strategic. He would focus on people's vulnerabilities -- whether their vanity or greed or financial needs.'" -- CW
Other News & Views
Robert Pear & Reed Abelson of the New York Times: "... the Obama administration is preparing a major push to enroll new participants into public marketplaces under the Affordable Care Act. The administration is eyeing an advertising campaign featuring testimonials from newly insured consumers, as well as direct appeals to young people hit by tax penalties this year for failing to enroll. But as many insurers continue to lose money on the exchanges, they say the administration's response is too late and too weak.... And the uneasy truce between the government and insurers, which followed adoption of the health care law, appears to be fraying...." CW: Excuse me, those greedy bastards can't do their own damned advertising?? More corporate welfare for the poor, pitiful health insurance industry. Where's my tiny violin? ...
... Jonathan Cohn & Jeffrey Young of the Huffington Post: "The big health care news this week came from Aetna, which announced on Monday it was dramatically scaling back participation in the Affordable Care Act.... Aetna officials said the pullout was necessary because of Obamacare's problems ― specifically, deep losses the insurer was incurring in the law’s health insurance exchanges. But the move also was directly related to a Department of Justice decision to block the insurer's potentially lucrative merger with Humana, according to a letter from Aetna's CEO.... In [the] letter to the Department of Justice, Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini ... made a clear threat: If President Barack Obama's administration refused to allow the merger to proceed, he wrote, Aetna would be in worse financial position and would have to withdraw from most of its Obamacare markets, and quite likely all of them." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "Federal inmates made thousands of defective combat helmets for the U.S. military at a prison facility that was rife with problems, including the use of degraded armor and the submission of preselected helmets for inspection to make sure they would get approved, according to a newly released investigative report.... Overall, 126,052 Army helmets were recalled, and monetary losses and costs to the government totaled nearly $19.1 million, according to [a GAO] report.... Federal prosecutors decided not to press charges against anyone involved, either at ArmorSource[, a private general contractor,] or at the FPI [Federal Prison Industries, a government-owned subcontractor,] plant in Texas, the report said....The Justice Department said in March that information in the case emerged when two whistleblowers who worked for FPI, Melessa Ponzio and Sharon Clubb, filed complaints." -- CW
Missy Ryan of the Washington Post: "The United States and its allies can't figure out what to do about Khalifa Hifter, the Libyan general whose refusal to support a fragile unity government has jeopardized hopes for stability in a country plagued by conflict.... He's a grandfather and longtime Washington suburbanite who now commands a powerful fighting force in northern Africa. He's also a former CIA asset and anti-Islamist warrior who stands in the way of peace in Libya." -- CW
Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Procedures allowing Michigan voters to easily cast straight-ticket ballots look likely to remain in place for this fall's election after a federal appeals court refused to restore a law that would have ended the practice. A three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion Wednesday declining the state's request to overturn a judge's order finding that the straight-ticket voting option was heavily relied on by African-Americans and that the state's attempt to ban it appears to violate both the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... ** Linda Greenhouse: "Against [a] background [of cases in which the courts have refused to judge the motives of legislators], it's worth stopping to observe a notable development this summer. In the face of spurious explanations for public policies that would foreseeably inflict real damage on identifiable groups of people, judges and justices are abandoning the traditional diffidence of the judicial role and expressing a new willingness to call out legislatures for what they are really doing, not just what they say they are doing.... Something has happened this summer that matters. Legislators, perhaps assuming they had friends in high judicial places, had taken bold, even flagrant steps to suppress the black vote and restrict women's access to abortion. Judges responded, and ... these decisions mark a departure and make a difference." -- CW ...
... BTW, notice the difference between Justice Breyer's Cartesian employment of "common sense" and the Trumpian version, which embraces ignorance as a virtue: "I'm speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I've said a lot of things."
Beyond the Beltway
Ray Sanchez of CNN: "Sylville Smith and the Milwaukee police officer who fatally shot him had crossed paths before a lethal encounter that led to days of unrest, according to Smith's relatives and friends.... Smith's sister, Sherelle, said her brother and the officer attended the same school at one time.... 'He didn't like my brother. The officer had a career, but my brother was more popular. He used to harass Sylville.'" -- CW ...
... Ashley Luthern & Ellen Gabler of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "The unrest in [Milwaukee's] Sherman Park after a fatal police shooting Saturday appears to have mostly abated, but the social media communication that helped fuel it has, if anything, intensified and focused on the officer. As of Tuesday, at least 3,000 people have shared a Facebook photo of the 24-year-old Milwaukee patrolman who fatally shot 23-year-old Sylville Smith -- some of them adding furious and threatening comments. 'Now y'all see his face if he's seen anywhere in the city drop him,' read one post. Another called for a gun so the person could 'shoot him right in his head. The posters gave the officer's name, Dominique Heaggan, and some included his home address. The Journal Sentinel has independently confirmed his identity, which has not been released by the Police Department." -- CW
Way Beyond
Tim Arango & Ceylan Yeginsu of the New York Times: "Turkey said on Wednesday that it would empty its prisons of tens of thousands of criminals to make room for the wave of journalists, teachers, lawyers and judges rounded up in connection with last month's failed coup. The startling decision to put so many criminals convicted of nonviolent offenses back on the streets is a measure of the strains on the state as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expands a wide-ranging purge of those suspected of being enemies of the government. The efforts have created gaping holes in government institutions, the judiciary, schools, the news media and countless other professions." -- CW
Jonathan Katz of the New York Times: "For the first time since a cholera epidemic believed to be imported by United Nations peacekeepers began killing thousands of Haitians nearly six years ago, the office of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has acknowledged that the United Nations played a role in the initial outbreak and that a 'significant new set of U.N. actions' will be needed to respond to the crisis." -- CW
Anthony Faiola of the Washington Post: "The second in command of North Korea's embassy in London defected to South Korea with his family, officials in Seoul said on Wednesday, making him one of the most senior officials to seek asylum there from Pyongyang's diplomatic corps. Defections of senior North Korea officials are relatively rare, and the flight of Thae Yong Ho to South Korea marked an embarrassing blow to the authoritarian government of Kim Jong Un." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Here's a weird follow-up to a story I linked a few days ago. Simon Romero of the New York Times: "A Brazilian judge on Wednesday issued an order to prevent Ryan Lochte and James Feigen, two of the American swimmers who claimed they were robbed at gunpoint ... by men who identified themselves as police officers ... during the Olympic Games, from leaving the country.... But Mr. Lochte, a 12-time Olympic medalist, had already left Brazil before the judge issued the order.... Now, questions about the Americans' testimony to the police are turning that embarrassment into anger, with many Brazilians wondering whether the athletes lied about the episode and smeared their country's reputation.... Investigators have not found evidence corroborating the account, according to local news reports...." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... New Lede (with Michael Schmidt added to byline): "Two American swimmers were pulled off their flight to the United States by the Brazilian authorities, Olympic officials said Wednesday night, the latest indication that the police were skeptical of the swimmers' claims that they had been held up at gunpoint during the Rio Games. 'We can confirm that Jack Conger and Gunnar Bentz were removed from their flight to the United States by Brazilian authorities,' a spokesman for the United States Olympic Committee said. 'We are gathering further information.'" -- CW ...
... MEANWHILE. Sean Ingle of the Guardian: "A member of the British Olympic team in Rio has been held up at gunpoint while enjoying a night on the town. The news has caused deep shock among British athletes and officials – many of whom were looking forward to enjoying Rio’s nightlife after finishing their competitions. It has also led to an unprecedented warning to Team GB members that it is 'not worth the risk' to leave the athletes village because of fears they might be targeted if they are seen wearing a British kit." -- CW
News Lede
New York Times: "Harry Briggs Jr., whose parents originated the pivotal lawsuit that struck down public school segregation in 1954, but whose name was relegated by fate to a forgotten legal footnote, died on Aug. 9 in the Bronx. He was 75.... Mr. Briggs's parents were furious that 8-year-old Harry and his fellow black students in Clarendon County, S.C., were forced to walk as far as 10 miles to attend classes while whites were bused at public expense to their own segregated school. With Harry Briggs Sr. listed alphabetically as the lead plaintiff, the local chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. filed suit in 1949 against the school district in a case argued by Thurgood Marshall, who would become the first black justice of the United States Supreme Court. When it reached the Supreme Court, Briggs v. Elliott was merged with four similar cases and became known collectively as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kan. The N.A.A.C.P. lawyers argued that segregation itself, and the concept of 'separate but equal' schools for blacks and whites, violated the 14th Amendment’s 'equal protection' guarantee." -- CW
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Reader Comments (20)
Human dung heap and Coddler of the very tiny Trump testicles, Sean Hannity, is now breathlessly declaring to the cave people that Hillary Clinton, based on some jokey moves she made for reporters, has seizures!!! OMG!
The fact that Fox liars get away with so much on a daily basis has not dissuaded Kurt Eichenwald, an epileptic who actually does have seizures, from blistering Hannity's lying face with a blowtorch for using a serious medical condition that affects many Americans, as the latest scary, shiny object with which to frighten the children who watch his Punch n Judy bullshit, slack jawed and stupid.
http://www.newsweek.com/sean-hannity-lies-hillary-clinton-health-490469
This is the best takedown I've read in a long time of Confederate perfidy.
Looks like the Donald loves being a star, and becoming more outre than Fox! For him, it's the perfect ending.
Eric Levitz New York mag (adding more re Michael Moore's view, see comment yesterday on CNBC): "Donald Trump’s New Strategy Makes Perfect Sense — If He Wants to..." " Launch a Cable New Network" next year.
... After 14 months as a candidate, you’ve realized that you can’t win in November but that you can attract an audience of conservative news consumers who are looking for an alternative to Fox News..
Afterall, who wants to be President when you can be a TeeVee star?
HRC should accept the compliment if she is to be compared with Chancellor Angela Merkel.
No organised political party, so I am worried that the Dems are not ready for the invective about to be flung at them, I was going to say, like chimps throwing faeces, but that is a measure of intelligence, and there sure ain't no sign of that. The poo flingers are good communicators, to other chimps, which is my worry, as there are seemingly plenty of chimps out there. Poo seems to be an easily understood medium and tells them all they need to know. Sorry if it's too early in the morning!
Akhilleus, the post was really good. I mean Newsweek let him use the F word! But here is reality. No one who watches FOX 'news' reads Newsweek. Trump's complaint about the NYT is not relevant. Very few Trumpists read the Times. Here is my estimate of reality.
75% of Trump supporters read nothing. 25% are the Republicans like Mitch and Paul who vote Republican- period.
The good news is that the number of Trump votes are totally unrelated to news, facts or any other form of reality. The Trump campaign is making one good move- no TV ads. A waste of money.
My dream is that this election is done. There is no way for Trump to get one vote from the other voter group. Those that always vote Democrat and those that actually read.
@AK: Hillary's doctor of long standing has put out an extensive medical report on her patient whose health is in very good shape. I wanted to post the report a few days ago, but it's a PDF and I can't link it. In the report it presents the brain scans Clinton has undertaken and they show no indication of any brain abnormality. Hannity, the half wit, hangs onto stupid stuff because....
Having just watched the CNN interview with thug lawyer, Michael Cohen, I come away with mouth agape. He, with straight face, is telling us that Donald Trump is color blind––he does not see black or white or polka dot people–-he sees a United States of America––now where have I heard that before. His client, by George, has gotten such a bum rap by the "disgusting liberal media." And with his tough thug voice he tells us in no uncertain terms that he has advised Trump NOT to release his tax returns until the audit is over which is, of course bogus.
And then we have the lovely Kellyanne Conway––the name alone has such a tingle, don't it? Here's the scoop on this woman along with her lawyer husband who was heavily involved in the Paula Jones/ Clinton scandals. Having heard her speak many times––she was for Cruz––her fast paced rhetoric sounds formulaic and at times scary, but she flashes a smile and shows those shiny teeth and assures you that she's right about whatever and whomever and whatever and whomever is gonna make this country great again.
http://heavy.com/news/2016/08/kellyanne-conway-donald-trump-campaign-shakeup-manager-2016-presidential-polls-manafort-stephen-steve-bannon-breitbart/
And with Bannon on board, what could possibly go more right. Ah, the entertainment business has just gotten upped another notch on the old Vaudeville circuit line. Will the hook be wide enough to catch them all?
OK, let's evaluate the condition of the candidate whose health was described as 'exceptionally perfect'.
Obese (I am trying to be polite)
Very poor eating habits
Sleep deprived
Extreme stress
High cholesterol ( note he takes a statin, also note that it only works for some people).
This list consists of the almost perfect group that produces a high risk of heart disease.
@PD Pepe: You can link pdfs. I do so all the time. If you read a pdf online, you got there via a URL, just like the ones for other Web pages. Just copy & paste the URL.
Not sure if this letter is the "report" you're talking about, but it's a pdf of a letter from Hillary doctor.
(I'll admit I don't know how to create a Webpage from a pdf somebody sends me as an e-mail attachment. Maybe I could figure it out with a little help from the Internets. Maybe not.)
Marie
@ Marie: Yes, that's exactly the report I was referring to sent to me by email that try as I did could not link here nor could I copy and paste the contents. Tenjooberrymuds!
@Gloria,
The chimps are said to fling as a sign of intelligence, which we all know does not exist in confederate minds.
Their's are more like this red-assed baboon using it as a weapon in anger.
If only we could get it to wear a dead fox on its head.
Years ago, I was at the San Diego Zoo, & a crowd of maybe 150 people had gathered in front of the gorilla habitat. Among us, a small group of teen-aged boys was making fun of the top male gorilla. The boys were making what they thought were "monkey noises," laughing at the gorilla & shouting insults of some kind. The gorilla flung dung at them, not at the other people (he was a good shot, but the glass between the boys & him caught the crap). He definitely knew what was going on.
Trump, on the other hand, flings dung indiscriminately.
Marie
This one's for you, Marvin...
Kids, you may recall the hysterically funny "doctor's note" that Trump paraded around a while back purporting to declare him the most yuuuugely in best shape ever of all time of any president, like ever.
Kurt Eichenwald, of Newsweek, whose blowtorching of anal grub worm Sean Hannity is linked above, takes a magnifying glass to this letter. The results are, well, Trumpian.
First, the letterhead appears to be fake. The doctor who supposedly performed the physical is a gastroenterologist, not an internist. And although the letter states that Donaldo has no problems whatever, and don't even think of any problems, please, he's been seeing this doctor for 35 years.
Seeing a gastroenterologist for 35 years but he has no health issues?
And a website connected to this GI guy sends you to a site asking if you want to buy this domain. So, another scam. Eichenwald also notes the distinct lack of actual medical information including the use of, shall we say, non-standard, terminology which one would never see in any patient workup, such as health being "extraordinarily excellent". In addition to no test information, there is no family history. And, as Eichenwald points out, there may be a good reason for this. Trump's daddy suffered from Alzheimers, a hereditary condition which is often detectable by Trump's age. He points out that "...behaviors of Trump’s that are consistent with Alzheimer’s: meandering speech, poor self-control, not properly responding to questions that are asked, erratic behavior."
So there.
Anyway, a fun read. That Trump, he's a funny guy. Remember how he used to answer the phone under a different name and put on a phony voice to say things like "Oh Donald Trump? Sure I know him. Great guy. Best in the world. Trustworthy? Sure he's trustworthy! Like you read about." Well now it appears that he may be writing his own doctor's notes. Would you put it past him? And he leaves plenty of evidence that this is not a genuine health report.
My brother, who taught high school for many years, once got a phone call from a student pretending to be his dad claiming that he was sick and wouldn't be in school that day and would be, unfortunately, missing a big test. My brother picked up the phone. The kid began "Hello, Mr.----? This is my father. Bobby won't be in today. He's sick." My brother said "Bobby, if your butt's not in your chair by 8:15 I'm gonna flunk you."
Trump is just shy of saying "Hello? This is my doctor...Donnie is in great health. Please, no more questions about that shit, okay?"
Yeah. Okay. heh-heh.
Oh boy, Sean Hannity really does his best to turn the "News" of Fox News into a four-letter-word with his "Questions are swirling about Hillary Clinton's health..." episode cited above. That really seems to be the motivation of the whole network, to diminish the credibility of all news sources so they (Fox) can say whatever they want, unchecked.
And speaking of news sources, Steve Bannon of Breitbart should be chained to every sitting Republican at this point. Note that in spelling, and even more-so in verbal pronunciation, Bannon is very close to Benen of Maddowblog, and yet a complete world apart. I just saw this delicious gem that pop up:
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/john-yoo-courts-arent-good-enough-reason-elect-trump
That's right! Torture Memo dude says trump would be bad news for the country and the world!
Clinton's "Pants on Fire" tax pronouncement reminds me of the "I did not have sex with that woman" that someone uttered oh, so long ago.
Misleading on the surface, but does depend on what you mean.
Did the R's who signed the required no new taxes pledge recently or earlier actually "say" it?
Did HRC foolishly embed her remark about middle class taxes in a sentence of more than five words, like "I'm the only candidate who has said.....but will surely raise them on the more privileged, upper classes?"
As we know, sentences with more than five words are often too much for the media, and always too much for the R's.
Just as we know, because it's so confusing, context seldom matters.
But for someone with a trust problem, real and manufactured, it does seem dumb and HRC--along with the rest of us--can't afford dumb.
On a more sober note (few things connected to Trump can be called sober, but this one is), from the Picture's Worth a Thousand Words Dept, here's one that depicts the work of Trump's buddy Putin, or Putin's other BFF, the vicious dictator Assad.
With Trump and Putin in charge of the world, we could expect to see many, many more pictures of children like this.
Here's the story behind the picture.
Marie,
Love the Hitler clip. There are tons of these "Hitler finds out..." things on youtube: Hitler finds out Obama won a second term, Hitler finds out there is no Santa, Hitler finds out Americans are calling each other Nazis is particularly funny. You can even make your own Hitler finds out video (Hitler finds out Paul Manafort is working for Trump now?).
Mostly they're funny because of the absurdity of things like Hitler blowing a gasket because he's been lied to all these years about Santa Claus. But in this one, there is a frightening ring of truth to the idea that white supremacists, haters, and conspiracy theorists would prefer Trump to Hitler, that Trump out-Hitlers Hitler.
Okay, he doesn't really, but the fact that a joke video like this seems to be so close to the truth--about a PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE!!!--is in itself immensely disturbing.
The idea that Donaldo surrounds himself with jamokes, liars, and nuts who inhabit an alternative universe where up is down, is borne out by the video of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen who, after being thoroughly humiliated on-air by CNN's Brianna Keiler, afterward had the astounding chutzpah to declare himself the winner of that encounter.
It would be like one of Muhammad Ali's challengers, like Chuck Wepner, face looking like a swollen punching bag, telling reporters after the fight that he really stuck it to the champ and that he, in fact, was the actual victor.
These guys don't live in the real world.
Buried beneath the quotidian rubble of more Trumpiana is the rather alarming news that the Orange Headed Bigot received his first intelligence briefing yesterday.
Who knows what he'll do with information sensitive to US national security. His typical response when handed information few other people are privy to is to find a way he can use it to benefit himself.
With that in mind, I'm hoping US intelligence officials (if they're intelligent) passed on things like "...and over here is Asia. Lots of people live in Asia. Down there is Micronesia. Lots of coral and stuff. Then we spin the globe and stop here. That.....is Europe. Cathedrals, old buildings, Roman ruins here and there, and a few countries where our operatives have to learn to drive on the other side of the road. Very dangerous. Excuse me? What's that country? Oh...er...that is the United States. I know, it looks different from up high. Well, that's about it. Thanks for coming in."
The expression on the face of Michael Cohen in that priceless TV interview reminds me of how some kids behave on the playground
(or how lawyers react when confronted with an irrevocable fact).
Deny! Deny! Deny!
"Hey, Mikey" yells one 6-year old, "hahaha...you peed your pants!"
"Did not."
"Did, too."
"Did not."
"Did, too."
"Did not."
"Did, too."
"Did not."
"Sez who?" retorted Mikey (with an obviously wet crotch that extended down the inner pants leg).
Here's an interesting article from the New Yorker on Ivanka and Jared's power play: It's long but so much fun to read––you'll come across lots of familiar faces.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/22/ivanka-trump-and-jared-kushners-power-play
By the way, the greeting on the letterhead of Trump's doctor's so called health status on his patient is "To Whom it Me concerns." How perfect!
:
The tang-dyed candidate says he is "too honest". I know we don't involve ourselves in ad hominem talk, but candidate frump is not only so effete, but so ugly. Those little pink eyes, tangerine, blotchy skin, and so fat body, on someone who can afford to eat well and exercise. He is addicted to "beautiful people", thuggish types and tawdry displays of wealth that he mistakenly thinks confers status. Someone so desperate about their own inadequacies is dangerous indeed.