The Commentariat -- August 31, 2016
Afternoon Update:
New York Times Editors: "Apple and the United States are crying foul over the ruling in Europe that Apple received illegal tax breaks from Ireland and must hand over 13 million euros ($14.5 billion).... The money won't be repatriated and taxed ... if Europeans ... get their hands on it first. And that ... is why members of Congress and Treasury officials are so upset about the Apple ruling.... But Apple and the United States have only themselves to blame for the situation. Apple has engaged in increasingly aggressive tax avoidance for at least a decade, including stashing some $100 billion in Ireland without paying taxes on much of it anywhere in the world, according to a Senate investigation in 2013. In a display of arrogance, the company seemed to believe that its arrangements in a known tax haven like Ireland would never be deemed illegal -- even as European regulators cracked down in similar cases against ... multinational corporations.... Congress, for its part, has sat idly by as American corporations have indulged in increasingly intricate forms of tax avoidance.... The biggest tax dodge in need of reform involves deferral, in which American companies can defer paying taxes on foreign-held profits until those sums are repatriated." -- CW
Marina Lopes & Dom Phillips of the Washington Post: "Brazil's Senate ousted Dilma Rousseff as president Wednesday, voting overwhelmingly to impeach the leftist leader in the culmination of a protracted process that has divided the country. The vote to impeach Rousseff was 61 to 20." CW: This is an update of a story also linked below.
*****
Notre correspondant français est de retour! See also safari's comment below on Republican silence re: Russian hacking.
Congressional Races
Theodoric Meyer of Politico: "Republican Sen. John McCain won an easy victory over his primary challenger on Tuesday in Arizona, defeating former state Sen. Kelli Ward -- the most prominent anti-incumbent Senate primary challenger of 2016 -- by a double-digit margin. McCain had 55 percent of the GOP vote to Ward's 35 percent when The Associated Press called the race soon after it started tallying the votes. The Arizona Republic's election results page is here. At 11:00 pm ET, no results were posted." Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick had no primary challenger. -- CW
As of 9:20 pm ET Tuesday, "In the Democratic primary for [Florida Congressional] District 23, embattled incumbent Debbie Wasserman Schultz holds a 58 to 42 lead over Tim Canova," according to the Miami Herald. ...
... Update @ 9:40 pm ET Tuesday: The AP has called the race for Wasserman Schultz, according to the New York Times.
Marc Caputo of Politico: "Hours after a dominating primary win, Sen. Marco Rubio sent a Wednesday morning challenge to U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy: face off in six live televised debates, including one on Spanish-language TV." -- CW ...
... Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "Florida Sen. Marco Rubio won the Republican nomination for Senate on Tuesday night, a result that enhances Republicans chances of retaining that seat and the Senate majority. The former presidential candidate easily beat businessman Carlos Beruff in early GOP returns and will face Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy in November, according to Associated Press projections. Murphy dispatched fellow congressman Alan Grayson in the Democratic primary, the AP reported." -- CW ...
... Jeremy Wallace & Kristen Clark of the Miami Herald: "U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy defeated liberal firebrand Alan Grayson and three others to secure the Democratic nomination and set up a battle in November with U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio. It's the outcome that Democratic leaders have wanted for nearly 18 months. Shortly after the 33-year-old, two-term congressman declared his bid for U.S. Senate in March 2015, the party's establishment showered him with high-profile endorsements -- including one from President Barack Obama -- and lucrative financial support." -- CW ...
<>... Lisa Hagen of the Hill: "Dena Grayson is projected to lose the Democratic primary for her husband [Alan Grayson]'s seat in the House. State Sen. Darren Soto won a crowded primary in Florida's 9th District, beating out Grayson, a biomedical researcher and wife of Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.).With 91 percent of the vote counted, Soto had 36 percent, according to the Associated Press. Grayson and Susannah Randolph were tied for second with 28 percent." -- CWNolan McCaskill of Politico: "Marco Rubio on Monday refused to commit to serving a full six-year term in the Senate should he win reelection. And the former Republican presidential candidate subtly suggested that if he ran for the White House again, he would be prepared to leave politics behind if he lost. 'No one can make that commitment because you don't know what the future's gonna hold in your life personally or politically,' the Florida senator told CNN on Monday, opening the door for a presidential run when asked if he could commit to a full Senate term before seemingly slamming it shut in the next breath." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... MEANWHILE, in Another Senate Race. Nolan McCaskill: "Senate Republicans could relent on their hard-line stance in opposition to granting Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland a confirmation hearing this year, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley said Monday.... Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, however, has no intention of holding a hearing before Obama leaves office, his team told Politico on Tuesday." CW: McConnell is not up for re-election this year. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... CW Note to File: That scheming twit Rubio is more honest than Grassley.
Presidential Race
Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton plan to ... pause the campaigns ... for ... the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.... Both campaigns have confirmed they intend to halt television ads for the anniversary, keeping with a tradition of avoiding partisan presidential politics on Sept. 11 and. Pro-Clinton super PAC Priorities USA confirmed it will also go off the air." CW: Better confiscate Trump's phone.
Evan Perez of CNN: "The FBI expects to publicly release as soon as Wednesday the report the bureau sent to the Justice Department in July recommending no charges in the Hillary Clinton email server investigation, according to multiple law enforcement officials. The release is in response to numerous FOIA requests including from CNN. Also to be released is Hillary Clinton's 302, the FBI agent notes from Clinton's voluntary interview at FBI headquarters. The report is about 30 pages, and the 302 is about a dozen pages according to the officials.Not yet being released are additional notes from interviews of Clinton aides or other investigative materials that were sent to Congress." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Gardiner Harris of the New York Times: "One of President Obama's top priorities during his last months in office is to help make sure that Hillary Clinton succeeds him. To do so, the president will make at least a dozen campaign appearances in battleground states from now to Election Day on Nov. 8." -- CW
John Wagner of the Washington Post: "... Tim Kaine on Tuesday questioned whether a President Donald Trump would stand up to a Russian cyberattack aimed at destabilizing U.S. elections, citing questions about the Republican's foreign business dealings and the 'pro-Kremlin' views of some of his associates. 'He's encouraged Russia already to get in and screw around with our elections,' Kaine said during a rally [in Erie, Pennsylvania]. 'Donald Trump poses a unique threat to American democracy, unlike anything we've seen in any presidential election in my lifetime.' Kaine's pointed questions about Trump's coziness with Russia came amid a sweeping attack on the Republican candidate, whom Kaine lambasted for not making key records public related to his health, personal finances and overseas business interests." -- CW ...
... Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia ... challenged Donald J. Trump on Tuesday to be more forthcoming about his health, taking aim at Mr. Trump over an issue he has tried to use to undermine Mrs. Clinton. As part of a lengthy critique of Mr. Trump, Mr. Kaine mocked a four-paragraph letter signed last year by a doctor for Mr. Trump, which proclaimed the candidate's strength and stamina to be 'extraordinary'" and declared that he would be 'the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.'... 'Hillary Clinton has met every test of disclosure we expect of presidential candidates -- in many cases, has gone even further,' Mr. Kaine said. 'Donald Trump has failed all of these tests miserably.'" -- CW ...
... Here's the full speech. Kaine first mentions Trump at 11:08 min. in. He's quite a good "explainer":
Nick Gass of Politico: "Donald Trump's meeting in Mexico with President Enrique Peña Nieto ahead of his immigration speech Wednesday night in Phoenix will not change anything about what he has previously said about the country or its people, a top aide for Hillary Clinton's campaign said." -- CW
Kimberly Hefing & Michael Stratford of Politico: "Hillary Clinton has named a progressive with close ties to Elizabeth Warren to her transition team in a move that seems aimed at mollifying liberals unhappy with earlier choices.... Rohit Chopra, who battled for-profit colleges and loan servicers as the student loan ombudsman at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has joined the team. Chopra was an early hire at the consumer agency by Warren when she led it.... Bringing him onto the transition team may help quell liberals' criticism of the appointment of former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar as the director. Progressives have assailed Salazar's positions in favor of fracking and the Asia-Pacific trade deal." -- CW
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Charles Pierce: "I thought that [Maureen] Dowd's effort over the weekend -- which can be fairly summarized as 'The Republican presidential campaign is an obvious freak show but Hillary Rodham Clinton Still Has Cooties' -- might have been the height of the [NYT's style of Clinton coverage]. However, I had not reckoned with the paper's coverage of the unfortunate episode currently ongoing between Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner.... This is horrible. This is ghastly. This is cheap shot by deliberate imprecision." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Rebecca Traister of New York takes on the Washington Post, New York Times & other media outlets for trying to make a Clinton Disaster story out of Anthony Weiner's sexting while parenting: "We are still in the fairyland of false equivalence. Consider the contrasting situations: Donald Trump, who wants to be the president, recently hired a purveyor of white ethno-nationalism who had been accused by his wife of assault and who is alleged to have fired a woman suffering from MS while she was on maternity leave, as the CEO of his campaign. Hillary Clinton, who wants to be the president, has employed since the 1990s a woman who in 2010 married a guy who turns out to be really skeezy." -- CW
Donald Trump, Statesman, Ha Ha Ha. Nick Corasaniti & Azam Ahmed of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump will visit Mexico on Wednesday for a private meeting with President Enrique Peña Nieto -- a trip that will take him to a nation he has repeatedly scorned -- before quickly flying back for what is billed as a major immigration speech in Arizona. Mr. Peña Nieto's office said Tuesday night that the meeting would take place at the presidential palace in Mexico City, and Mr. Trump, on Twitter, said he looked 'very much forward' to the visit." -- CW
... Robert Costa & Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump is considering jetting to Mexico City on Wednesday for a meeting with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, just hours before he delivers a high-stakes speech in Arizona to clarify his views on immigration policy, according to people in the United States and Mexico familiar with the discussions.... Peña Nieto has extended an invitation for the businessman to come visit with him in Mexico to talk about various political and economic issues, the people said. Trump, sensing an opportunity, decided over the weekend to accept the invitation and push for a visit this week." CW: Trump will probably bring Peña Nieto a bill for the big, beautiful wall as his "opening bid" in "international negotiations." ...
... The story has been updated. New Lede: "Donald Trump will travel to Mexico City on Wednesday for a meeting with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, just hours before he delivers a high-stakes speech in Arizona to clarify his views on immigration policy." -- CW ...
... Mark Hensch of the Hill: "Current and former Mexican lawmakers angrily denounced reports late Tuesday that Donald Trump was planning to meet Mexico's president Wednesday. 'There is no turning back, Trump, your offenses towards Mexicans, Muslims and more, have led you to the pit where you are today. Goodbye, Trump!' former Mexican President Vicente Fox tweeted. 'Now you should quit out of dignity for yourself, get back to your "business,"' Fox added." -- CW ...
... Nick Gass: "Donald Trump may have accepted the invitation of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto for a Wednesday meeting in Mexico City, but the Republican presidential nominee is getting the cold shoulder in a country where public views of its own president are already abysmally low. Within minutes of Trump announcing that he would travel to Mexico City on Wednesday before his speech laying out his immigration stance in Phoenix, reaction was fast and furious among those in the Mexican political cognoscenti." -- CW ...
... Eli Stokols of Politico: "Conflicting advice from Trump's remade inner circle of advisers -- including former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, newly installed campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and campaign CEO Steve Bannon -- and the outside counsel of conservative mega-donor Sheldon Adelson have led to a series of muddled statements that have left Trump sounding at times like President Barack Obama and his former GOP rivals on immigration.... Bannon ... who has long cheered and defended Trump's immigration policy, 'would never' urge Trump to go soft on the issue, according to a source close to the controversial adviser. 'He's still a bomb-thrower,' said another campaign source. 'But he knows that a few things need to be done to win this race.' According to that source, there is 'broad agreement' among the inner circle that winning the election will require Trump to put a more humane gloss on his immigration proposals without significantly watering them down." CW: That "humane gloss" is otherwise known as a con. ...
... Josh Marshall of TPM: "This is such an outlandish idea it is not easy to make sense of it or predict its outcome.... It's a general rule of politics not to enter into unpredictable situations or cede control of an event or happening to someone who wants to hurt you. President Nieto definitely does not want Donald Trump to become President.... He has zero interest in appearing in any way accommodating or helpful.... Peña Nieto will need to build a relationship with Hillary Clinton.... Trump is apparently traveling to Mexico with Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Jeff Sessions as his minders. People with the political nimbleness and cultural awareness to manage and massage a good outcome? I should say not. They're also traveling on one or two days notice. It will show." -- CW ...
... Greg Sargent: Trump is pulling this Hail Mary pass because he's losing. A person who's ahead doesn't do risky stuff. CW: Not sure that I agree. Trump is so cocky he pulls stunts like this for the fun of it. ...
... Judd Legum of ThinkProgress: "The meeting could also be a bit awkward. In a March interview with Excelsior, a Mexico City newspaper, Nieto compared Trump with Hitler and Mussolini." --safari ...
.. Steve M.: "I think there's a bizarre belief in Trump World that he can be sold as a statesman.... They think we'll believe that Trump the trash talker is now a mature, thoughtful man we'd be proud to have as president. Then again, the mainstream media -- the Chuck Todds and Chris Cillizzas -- will probably swallow this BS. So maybe it's not so crazy." -- CW ...
... Anne Laurie of Balloon Juice: "Seeing [Steve] Bannon's greasy fingerprints convinces me, yes, it's all another publicity stunt to promote The Grift. Because even Deadbeat Don must have a dim idea by now that he's not gonna win the election, but he's got two months and counting of free media for his long con(s). And an all-networks tantrum about how he -- all True 'Mericans! -- have now been disrespected!!!! by a bunch of ingrate dark-skinned foreigners!!! -- is priceless advertising for mid-November's upcoming Trump-Breitbart News Network launch announcement." -- CW ...
... Washington Post Editors: "If it's Wednesday (or Friday, or Monday), it must be pivot day. Demanding consistency of Mr. Trump is like demanding it of the weather.... Yet is it really so pious to expect that a candidate for president might know his own mind with sufficient clarity to present it coherently for the American public?... According to Mr. Trump's (latest) campaign manager, his position on a deportation force is 'to be determined,' as is, well, just about everything else involving his views.... He has pandered so extravagantly, flip-flopped so brazenly and now pirouettes so audaciously that to guess his actual intentions, or even pretend that he knows them himself, is a fool's game. His rhetoric on immigration has been loathsome; it's been smarmy; it's been ambiguous." -- CW
By Driftglass.Harper Neidig of the Hill: "Donald Trump on Tuesday called the Democratic Party the 'party of slavery,' blaming them for oppressing African Americans. Speaking at a rally in Everett, Wash., Trump blasted Hillary Clinton and her party for taking black voters for granted. 'Remember .. the Republican Party is the party of Abraham Lincoln. Not bad,' Trump said. 'It's also the party of freedom equality and opportunity -- people have forgotten it so long now. It is the Democratic Party that is the party of slavery, the party of Jim Crow and the party of opposition.'" -- CW ...
** Jamelle Bouie on what black voters hear when Donald Trump talks to about them: "The central issue is that Trump portrays black Americans not as able citizens who need to be convinced, but as mindless followers of a failed regime.... In [Trump's] narrative [which is similar to the "plantation" story described by other Republicans], black Americans are mere objects -- means to a partisan end.... [What Republicans don't get is that ]in much of the modern-day South, black Americans are the Democratic Party.... To understand [Northern cities] in terms of party affiliation -- neglecting the effects of deindustrialization, racism, and capital flight is to show profound ignorance of urban politics and problems. Beyond incoherent, the ideas underlying Trump's narrative are racist, full stop.... And if there's anything that defines the GOP in the present age for black voters, it's the outsized disrespect for [President] Obama...." ...
... CW: Now, isn't that odd. Republicans -- and especially Trump -- have spent eight years delegitimizing, disrespecting & diminishing our first black president, and black voters take it personally. Heads up, GOP. Your sexist attacks on Hillary Clinton aren't going over well with women, either.
Lisa Desjardins & Daniel Bush of NPR: "As the presidential election marathon breaks into a final sprint, the Trump campaign faces a jaw-dropping gap in the ground game: Hillary Clinton currently has more than three times the number of campaign offices in critical states than does Donald Trump.... As of Aug. 30, Hillary Clinton has 291 offices in those 15 battlegrounds. Donald Trump has 88.... Take three make-or-break states. Pennsylvania has two Trump offices right now. North Carolina, one. Florida, the biggest swing state prize, also has just one -- Trump's Sarasota headquarters. Those four Trump offices cover 165,000 square miles of critical election territory. Clinton has 100 offices in the same space." CW: Desjardins & Bush fail to mention that this isn't Trump's fault. With the school year beginning, Trump has had trouble finding enough 12-year-olds to run his field offices.
Donald Trump calls on Hillary to shut down her foundation. Meanwhile, we're all still begging him to choose a more natural color for his. -- Bette Midler, in a tweet
Stuart Rothenberg in the Washington Post: "For months, Donald Trump and members of his political team promised to put reliably Democratic states like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Oregon into play. But now, with only two months until Election Day, it's clear that those promises were empty boasts.... Trump said in January, 'We are going to win New Jersey.' In May, he asserted, 'We are going to focus on New York.' He also promised, 'We're going to play heavy as an example in California,' along with, 'I put so many states in play: Michigan being one. Illinois.'" -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
** James West of Mother Jones: "[Trump's] New York modeling agency, Trump Model Management, has profited from using foreign models who came to the United States on tourist visas that did not permit them to work here, according to three former Trump models, all noncitizens, who shared their stories with Mother Jones.... Two of the former Trump models said Trump's agency encouraged them to deceive customs officials about why they were visiting the United States and told them to lie on customs forms about where they intended to live." A long read. --safari ...
... CW: The models allegedly also had to pay higher-than-market rents & other fees, plus Trump took 20 percent in commissions & charged the models additional "mysterious" agency fees. They said they felt they were treated like slaves. Donald Trump took "an active role" in the modeling agency.
Get to Know Your Trump Surrogates. David Edwards of RawStory: "Wayne Allen Root, who has spoken at presidential rallies with Donald Trump, this week called for stripping voting rights from welfare recipients and women who use 'free contraception' provided by the Affordable Care Act. During a discussion with radio host Rob Schilling on Monday, Root explained that conservatives would 'win every single election' if people who received government services were barred from voting. 'So if the people who paid the taxes were the only ones allowed to vote, we'd have landslide victories,' Root told Schilling. 'This explains everything! People with conflict of interest shouldn't be allowed to vote.'" --safari
Callum Brochers of the Washington Post: "After posting a cartoon Monday that depicts Hillary Clinton in blackface, pastor Mark Burns, a Donald Trump surrogate, quickly deleted the image from his Twitter account and apologized for spreading it. But the cartoonist who drew it, Tony Branco, is standing by his caricature.... 'I was just trying to point out in my way that she was pandering to black people, trying to fit in with black people.'... The media, Branco said, is 'trying to twist it into "Trump is a racist.'" That's how the mainstream press operates, he believes.'" CW: Branco sounds like a wonderful, sensitive guy.
Erik Wemple of the Washington Post: In her suit against Fox "News," former host Andrea Tantaros names a number of men, including former Sen. Scott Brown & correspondent John Roberts, as men who harassed her. She also names Bill O'Reilly in her complaint: O'Reilly "started sexually harassing her by, inter alia, (a) asking her to come to stay with him on Long Island where it would be 'very private,' and (b) telling her on more than one occasion that he could 'see [her] as a wild girl,' and that he believed that she had a 'wild side.'" In its motion responding to Tantaros' allegations, the network's attorneys rebut the allegations against Ailes and other non-defendants, like Brown, but they do not do so for O'Reilly. "Fox News left its meal ticket, the host of cable news’ leading program for years, dangling in the margins of a damaging lawsuit."
Other News & Views
Sarah Wheaton & Josh Gerstein of Politico: "President Barack Obama commuted the sentences of 111 federal prisoners on Tuesday, bringing his total to 673 as the administration tries to ramp up relief for nonviolent felons hit by decades-old sentencing requirements. Obama has granted 235 commutations in August alone, more than any other president in a single month, and he has granted more clemencies than the previous 10 presidents combined." -- CW
Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: "Thousands of employees who review patents for the federal government potentially cheated taxpayers out of at least $18.3 million as they billed the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for almost 300,000 hours they never worked, according to a new investigation. The investigation scheduled for release Wednesday by the independent watchdog for the Commerce Department, the patent office's parent agency, determined that the real scale of fraud is probably double those numbers.... The hours not worked could have helped the patent office whittle down a [huge] backlog it has struggled for years to shrink, the report said.... The watchdog's findings will not result in repercussions for any no-show employees.... The report faults agency leaders for failing to give managers crucial tools to prevent and detect time and attendance abuse despite ample evidence that it occurs." -- CW
Abby Goodnough of the New York Times: "... residents of the West Calumet Housing Complex [in East Chicago, Indiana,] learned recently that much of the soil outside their homes contained staggering levels of lead, one of the worst possible threats to children's health.... About 1,100 ... poor, largely black residents of West Calumet, including 670 children, [are] ... scrambling to find ... new home[s] after Mayor Anthony Copeland of East Chicago announced last month that the residents had to move out and the complex would be demolished.... [Residents] are asking why neither the state nor the federal Environmental Protection Agency told them just how toxic their soil was much sooner, and a timeline is emerging that suggests a painfully slow government process of confronting the problem.... People in this heavily industrialized city just south of Chicago are also asking why their governor, Mike Pence ... visited flood victims in Baton Rouge, La., this month while campaigning with Donald J. Trump, but has not found time to come to East Chicago." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Scott Bland of Politico: Billionaire financier George Soros "has channeled more than $3 million into seven local district-attorney campaigns in six states over the past year -- a sum that exceeds the total spent on the 2016 presidential campaign by all but a handful of rival super-donors. His money has supported African-American and Hispanic candidates for these powerful local roles, all of whom ran on platforms sharing major goals of Soros', like reducing racial disparities in sentencing and directing some drug offenders to diversion programs instead of to trial. It is by far the most tangible action in a progressive push to find, prepare and finance criminal justice reform-oriented candidates for jobs that have been held by longtime incumbents and serve as pipelines to the federal courts -- and it has inspired fury among opponents angry about the outside influence in local elections." CW: Yeah, because it's terrible to want to put the "justice" back in "criminal justice system."
Frances Robles of the New York Times: "The first scheduled passenger jet service in history from the United States to Cuba will take off Wednesday morning from Fort Lauderdale, another important step toward normalized relations between two former Cold War foes. It has been so long since an airline in the United States flew a regularly scheduled flight to the island that the last time it happened, the passengers flew on a propeller plane, said Marty St. George, the executive vice president of JetBlue. JetBlue ... is expected to become the first American airline to fly scheduled service to Cuba in more than 50 years. The 9:45 a.m. flight will land in Santa Clara, about 175 miles east of Havana. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx will be on board." -- CW
Sam Thielman of the Guardian: "... Apple told shareholders it did not consider the European commission's decision to collect $14.5bn in back taxes final on Tuesday and was 'confident that it will be overturned', but analysts warned the picture was more complex. In a note posted to the company's investor relations page, the company said it did 'not expect any near-term impact on our financial results' and that it was prepared to pursue the matter in court for years to come." -- CW ...
... Silicon Valley Tax Evaders Have a Sad. Olivia Solon: "The reaction in Silicon Valley -- which has long used creative accounting to outsmart the tax man -- as well as the wider tech community has been one of shock and disappointment." -- CW
Lloyd Grove of the Daily Beast: "Facing multiple allegations of sexually harassing female employees along with lawsuits from two of his accusers, to say nothing of advising Donald Trump on presidential debate prep, ousted Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes apparently still has time to plot the downfall of perceived foes.... In what seemed timed as a preemptive strike [against Gabe Sherman, whose expose' of Ailes will be published in the upcoming issue of New York], two of Ailes's attorneys -- Susan Estrich ... and Mark Mukasey -- contacted The Daily Beast in the past day to attack the journalist in slashing, nasty, and deeply personal terms." -- CW
Beyond the Beltway
Michael Wines of the New York Times: "... a federal appeals court overturned much of North Carolina's sweeping 2013 election law last month, saying it had been deliberately intended to discourage African-Americans from voting.... In each of the state's 100 counties, local elections boards scheduled new hearings and last week filed the last of their new election rules with the state. Now, critics are accusing some of the boards, all of which are controlled by Republicans, of staging an end run around a court ruling they are supposed to carry out. Like the law that was struck down, say voting rights advocacy groups and some Democrats who are contesting the rewritten election plans, many election plans have been intentionally written to suppress the black vote.... In [one] county where Democrats outnumber Republicans by better than two to one, and four in 10 voters are black, the election plan limits voting to a single weekend day, and on weekdays demands that residents, including those who are poor and do not own cars, make long trips to cast a ballot." -- CW
Frank Main & Fran Spielman of the Chicago Sun-Times: "The Chicago Police Department formally moved Tuesday to fire five Chicago Police officers in the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald -- including Officer Jason Van Dyke, who fired at the knife-wielding teen 16 times -- and four other officers who allegedly lied in their accounts of what happened. The Chicago Police Board, which metes out discipline in cases of alleged officer misconduct, received administrative charges seeking the firings of Van Dyke, Sgt. Stephen Franko and Officers Daphne Sebastian, Janet Mondragon and Ricardo Viramontes." -- CW ...
... Mark Berman of the Washington Post: "The Chicago police superintendent [Eddie Johnson] on Tuesday recommended firing the officer who shot and killed Laquan McDonald, the black teenager whose death in 2014 continues to reverberate through the country's second-biggest local police force. The move comes not long after Chicago police officials said they would recommend firing officers for lying about McDonald's death, a decision that followed an inspector general's report calling for them to be dismissed. These officers had been relieved of policing powers this month after being accused of delivering false reports, a spokesman said.... The city's top police officer also called for firing four other officers whom he accused of lying about the fatal shooting" -- CW
Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "Expanding the definition of what it means to be a parent, especially for same-sex couples, the New York State Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday that a caretaker who is not related to, or the adoptive guardian of, a child could still be permitted to ask for custody and visitation rights. The ruling emerged from a dispute between a gay couple from Chautauqua County, known in court papers only as Brooke S.B. and Elizabeth A. C.C." -- CW
Boing Boing. Eric Russell of the Portland (Maine) Press Herald: "Gov. Paul LePage [R-Nuts] sent sharply conflicting signals Tuesday about how he would respond to mounting pressure from Democrats and members of his own party to amend for his recent actions. In a morning radio interview, LePage raised the possibility that he may not finish his second term. But six hours later, in a tweet posted from his Twitter account, he discounted that possibility." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Scott Thistle of the Portland (Maine) Press Herald: "The [Maine] House Republicans decided they would stand by the governor Tuesday following a more than two-hour private meeting where they discussed recent racially charged comments LePage has made at series of public meetings and an obscenity-laced voice mail the governor left for a Democratic lawmaker last week." CW: IOW, Maine Republican "leaders" are okay with describing minorities as "the enemy" and threatening a legislator. Voters may want to keep this in mind.
David Edwards of RawStory: "Tennessee state officials confirmed this week that state Rep. Jeremy Durham (R), who has been accused of sexual misdeeds with 22 women, invested campaign funds in a company owned by a top Republican donor.... Earlier this year, a report from the state attorney accused Durham of sexual misdeeds with 22 women, including sexual harassment allegations and sexual intercourse with a 20-year-old college student in his legislative office.... Although the personal use of campaign funds is against the law in Tennessee, [State Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance Executive Director Drew] Rawlins said that the bureau had not determined if the investments were illegal." --safari
Cleve Wootson of the Washington Post: "The FBI thinks that Lyle Jeffs, the polygamist religious leader accused in a multimillion-dollar food stamp scheme, disappeared from house arrest this summer by coating his ankle monitor in olive oil and sliding it off.... But in court documents filed last week, Jeffs's attorney has put forth a divine reason for his disappearance -- the miracle of rapture.... The FBI isn't buying the heavenly intervention angle. The organization issued a wanted poster for Jeffs...." CW: You can see why people don't trust the government: the feds are a bunch of heathens!
Way Beyond
Marina Lopes & Dom Phillips of the Washington Post: "Brazil's Senate is expected to vote Wednesday on whether to permanently remove President Dilma Rousseff from power, in the final act of an impeachment process that has divided the country. If a two-thirds majority of senators -- 54 out of 81 -- votes to oust Rousseff, as is widely anticipated, she will be dismissed." -- CW
Anne Barnard &> Douglas Schorzman of the New York Times: "The Islamic State;s spokesman and overseer of external terrorist operations, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, was killed in the Syrian province of Aleppo, the group's news outlet reported on Tuesday. A founding member of the group, Mr. Adnani, a 39-year-old Syrian, was its chief propagandist, running an operation that put out slickly produced videos of beheadings and massacres that shocked the world and sent a rush of recruits running to join the group in Syria." -- CW
Emily Rauhala of the Washington Post: "An American consultant who has been detained in China for more than a year has been formally charged with spying, news that could further complicate U.S.-China ties ahead of President Obama's trip to Asia. Sandy Phan-Gillis, 56, of Houston, was arrested in March 2015 while traveling in southern China with a trade delegation and has been held without charge since." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
CW: The photo below relates to a comment by Ophelia M., below. I cropped it, a lot.
He shoulda worn a burkini.
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"On The Sidewalks Of New York" / A Human Interest Offering
My dear friend, a gifted photographer (yet armed this day only with cell phone), was able to capture the following New York Moment.
I find it both hilarious & riveting: This young man - a very handsome young man - was casually walking along Lexington Ave in his nakedness (but for flip-flops & eyeglasses), entirely unselfconscious among the throngs of fully clothed Manhattanites.
I so enjoy the amused expression of the one cop, as the other finds me wondering what has so captured his focus. And then there's that bright smile on this fellow's face, breaking ranks with his lovely chocolate attire.
I find striking (and refreshing) these cops' gentle "enforcement" of The Law, as it violates expectations of the far too frequent scenarios of brutality inflicted by (usually) White cops onto Black "perps". Perhaps nudity is the antidote?
Ophelia M.
Photo: Lisa Cohen
Passerby: Heading Home With Her Own Cell-Pic
OOPS! Guess I cannot insert a photo here. Will email to Marie & see if she is able - and so inclined - to post it.
I find this a most interesting - and thought provoking - image.
Cheers, One & All -
Ophelia M.
Merci beaucoup pour le message Marie ! Et vive le burkini !!!
On a more serious note, I've been following the Russian hacking of state voting systems story, and I'm amazed that in nearly every article I read, the voices of the GOP were mostly absent from the entire story. The people quoted in the articles came almost wholly (in reality, I didn't see a single Confederate step up, but I surely didn't read all of the related articles so I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt...) from the security/intelligence community, or Democrats.
Who would've known that voter fraud was a uniquely Democratic party issue???
Our politics have become so fractured, that the party of freeeedom and American arrogance in foreign affairs is turning a blind eye to Russian hackers potentially trying to meddle in our cherished democratic process. Our claim of the birth of Democracy means nothing to these treasonous cowards who are seemingly, through their intentioned silence, giving a wink and a nod to Reagan's "Evil Empire". Putin must be revelling in our spinelessness.
Welcome back safari. "Our politics have become so fractured" you wrote and that adjective suits perfectly. To keep one from going off the deep end these days, it helps to be able to laugh. As outrageous as looney LePage has been acting, so terrible for the Maine populace (although since he was voted in twice there must be a sizable group that thinks he's just hunky dory) we have to guffaw at his antics and and marvel that such a man could ever rise to become a governor. Now that sentence might have made sense decades ago, but today it appears it's business as usual.
And business as usual is what Fox is continuing to yammer about, pecking at Hillary like hungry ducks. Soon they will accuse her of secretly selling drugs to rich Afghans in exchange for $$ to fill the coffers of her Foundation. At the present they are concentrating on the emails. Here is Lanny Davis, a former council to Bill Clinton , who gives us three facts that prove Hillary was NOT careless with her emails.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/13/three-facts-that-prove-clinton-wasnt-careless-with-her-emails-commentary.html
I wonder how Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto will respond when only Rudy Giuliani and Jeff Sessions are allowed to speak?
He won't be totally surprised when he sees the duct tape over Trump's mouth.
A Postscript
Thank you, Marie, for posting (and wisely cropping) the photo.
Missing from my original submission (along with the image) is the following.
As written, I've conveyed humor - perhaps, even worse, amusement - and nothing of the "human" aspect of the "interest" in my heading, which was my intention.
I believe this man is likely one of the many, many mentally ill who roam the streets of NYC (and across this USofA). He is fortunate to have been displaying only his manhood in public, rather than a knife (or a popsicle stick mistaken for such). Otherwise, it's most certain he'd not have been handled by Law Enforcement as kindly as he was. And, thankfully, he was.
Cheers, One & All
Paul LePage is Trump without the penthouse or the "smooth manners".
Which, of course means that Trump is LePage with the penthouse. I guess I misspoke about that smooth manners thing. Never mind.
Ophelia,
Many years ago when I was young and stupid, I was walking out of Central Park toward the Plaza. I noticed something strange. People near me were being hit by rocks. Then I spotted a guy with a handful of stones across the street, firing them into a crowd. I yelled at him and he took off, with me after him. I caught up to him after a block or so and waved down a cop. The cop came over and I explained to him what happened. He said "Kid, this guy is a nut." To which I replied, "Well aren't you gonna do something? I mean, he hit a bunch of people in the head with rocks." The cop gave me that look reserved for small children and the mentally deficient. "Kid, do you know how many nuts are walking around this city every day? If we tried to do something about them we wouldn't have time to do anything else." And then he said, "Besides, you can't chase a guy and grab hold of him like that. He could sue you."
The real world is not the best coddler of youthful idealism.
And now we have one of those Manhattan nuts running for president and going abroad so he can throw rocks at the people in Mexico City. I'm guessing he won't be arrested there either. He'd sue the whole country.
Traveled through Everett, WA, yesterday afternoon before the Trump rally and didn't have the heart to read the account in this morning's paper.
Doesn't mean, though, that I've managed to banish from my mind all thought of what Trumpism means.
This morning's conclusion: Since his candidacy is is erected on a scaffold of name-calling and empty claims, is almost entirely absent of policy, his occasional forays into any policy at all (taxes) in constant flux, his one absolute promise (build a wall) fading to vapor, there is no sense to be found in it. Anywhere.
But there were those thousands in Everett, eager to hear more of it. And as reported recently, many whom one would think would be disturbed by Trump's "softening" on key parts of his immigration "plan," the promise that attracted them in the first place, aren't bothered at all. That makes no sense either.
Except for this equivalent. Where else do thousands flock to hear fantasy, arrant nonsense and descriptions of the world that obviously don't match reality? Churches, of course.
Trumpism is more religion than political movement, yesterday Everett, WA, just the latest stop on his Make America Great Again revival tour.
America has always welcomed mountebanks with open arms.
SOME GOOD NEWS:
Angela Corey's defeat in Florida signals a change in "that being the toughest prosecutor on the block no longer ensures victory even in a Republican primary." Ms Corey sounds like someone who eats nails for breakfast. She'd be an interesting case study for budding psych students.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/angela-corey-florida-election_us_57c63538e4b0e60d31dc1f6e?section=&
@Marvin Schwalb: I understand Trump to be 6ft+ tall. How do you tape his mouth while busy kissing his ass?
Talk, today, about mentally disturbed people and those need of a psych eval, brings us around, naturally, to Donaldo Trumpado.
What in the hell is up with this Mexico trip? It's like Torquemada accepting an invitation to have a nice little chat with a group of atheists, or maybe a visit to the local ADL by Heinrich Himmler for a pleasant lunch.
Trump is not going to convince anyone that he's anything other than a rock-ribbed racist douchebag. Does he think he's going to spin some deal with Peña Nieto, who has already likened the Orange Headed Bigot to Hitler and Mussolini, and give him a chance to pay for The Wall with a reduced rate (one time only offer!)? Does he think the citizens of Mexico City will come out and greet him with flowers because they wish the Great Donaldo were their leader? Does his even more racist campaign CEO think this will fool anyone? It's a colossal waste of time. Plus, he's going there with brain dead Giuliani and Confederate General of the Great Slave Empire of the Old South, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, III, the man who once prosecuted civil rights workers for fraud because they were working to help black residents in Alabama register to vote. Voting by blacks is considered fraudulent behavior in Jeff Sessions' world. But never mind that now, here he is, off to Mexico wearing his snappy Civil War outfit. The three of them will make quite a sight.
And what's the point?
This thing has been a Potemkin campaign from the get go. No one has a fucking clue what Trumpado stands for except himself and his "brand", such as it is. If that brand hasn't been completely sullied for everyone but club wielding, knuckledragging cave people, then no corporate brand should ever suffer from the most unappealing scandal.
And for what?
Does it matter? For a short while, I was concerned. I still am, because this Russian hacking designed to help Trumpskayev is no laughing matter. Putin wants to sow chaos, but no one is better at that than Donaldavich himself. But he's really caught in the whirlpool now, spinning uncontrollably into the ether, because no one in his camp has a fucking clue what to do. They're trying anything just to keep his sallow puss in the news. Any day now, he'll be meeting with aliens, or maybe that guy in Ophelia's picture. Why? Because, that's why. Because he's mentally disabled and that's why he'll be beaten.
In the novel "The Red Dragon" there's a scene in which the FBI agent, Will Graham, meets with the serial killer he caught several years previously, Hannibal Lecter. Lecter, at one point, bristles at the reminder of this, asking Graham if he thinks he's the smarter man because of this achievement. Graham says no, he's not. "But you had a handicap, Dr. Lecter" he says. "You're insane."
Yeah. And now he's running for president. Goodie for us.
@Akhilleus: How infaaaair! Trump would only eat your liver with fava beans if there was some monetary reward for it. But, in general, cannibalism? He wouldn't have any moral objection to it, as long as the Specialty of the House had no other utility to him.
Marie
P.S. I'm not serious. Even Trump probably would balk at eating human parts, although nobody knows what the mystery meat was in that taco bowl. (I just can't help it).
The Trump trip to Mexico is a conundrum, especially on the Pena Nieto side. He's already allowed Trump to bully him in order to control the timing of the visit. Based on Nieto's contradicting back to back tweets (he's not coming, he's coming) late last night, he's not calling the shots. A head of state who is in control of the situation would not allow a spur of the moment flyby, especially as he is preparing for his State of the Union address.
After reading all the analysis, I want to believe the outcome that seems most rational to me - the Josh Marshall TPM take, suggesting its a wash for both Nieto and Trump. However, Trump is anything but rational. Given Bannon is the driver, I think there's the potential for Trump to give a vague report (vague in Trump vernacular) that he made a deal with Nieto to renegotiate US trade agreements with Mexico. Nieto can deny, but he already looks weak to his citizens. Trump left the press at home for a reason. Normally, he'd be soliciting wall to wall cameras.
And nobody is going to arrest Trump under the Logan Act. Its likely he doesn't even know what the Logan Act is nor does he care.
On DJT's possibilities as a cannibal -- Matt Taibbi wrote one of the greatest characterizations of the campaign, when he described DJT as someone who would eat a child in a lifeboat. So funny it's not even gruesome.
PD,
Hear, hear, on the defeat of Confederate prosecutor Angela Corey. Only a Republican brags about how many people they put to death, whether the accused deserved it or not, but then she lets a murderer like George Zimmerman walk. Lucky for him he didn't murder a nice white boy.
A horrible person.