The Commentariat -- July 1, 2018

Late Morning Update:

Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump on Sunday refused to back down on his administration's tariffs against U.S. allies, arguing that the European Union is 'as bad as China' in its trade policies. Trump appeared on Fox News's 'Sunday Morning Futures,' where host Maria Bartiromo asked if he'd considered teaming up with U.S. allies to combat China's trade policies. 'The European Union is possibly as bad as China, just smaller. It's terrible what they do to us,' Trump said." ...

... Washington Post: "President Trump told Maria Bartiromo on Fox News that he wants to 'wait until after the election' to sign any new agreement with Canada and Mexico and seemed to indicate there won't be an end soon to the ongoing trade battle brewing between the United States and its neighbors."

Brett Samuels: "President Trump on Sunday blamed his opponents for the division in the country, warning that those who have spoken out against him should 'take it easy.'... 'Because some of the language used, some of the words used, even some of the radical ideas, I really think they're very bad for the country. I think they're actually dangerous for the country,' he added."

Ian Kullgren of Politico: "White House national security adviser John Bolton on Sunday downplayed reports suggesting that North Korea is trying to conceal parts of its nuclear weapons program.... 'We're very well aware of North Korea's patterns of behavior over decades of negotiating with the United States.'..."

Ron Nixon of the New York Times: "Ronald D. Vitiello, a senior Border Patrol official, will serve as acting director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, the Trump administration announced on Saturday, in a move that comes amid calls by some activists and politicians for the agency to be abolished.... He will replace Thomas D. Homan, the current acting head of ICE, who retired this month. The Senate must approve a full-time director for ICE, with Mr. Vitiello now viewed as the leading candidate."

Heather Long of the Washington Post: "Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a key swing vote on President Trump's next Supreme Court pick, said Sunday that she would not vote for any judge who wanted to end access to abortion in the United States by overturning Roe v. Wade. 'I would not support a nominee who demonstrated hostility to Roe v. Wade,' Collins said Sunday on CNN's 'State of the Union,' adding that Roe v. Wade established abortion as a 'constitutional right.' In another appearance, on ABC News's 'This Week,' Collins said that any judge who wants to overturn Roe has an 'activist agenda' that she thinks goes against the fundamental tenets of U.S. law and the Constitution." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Hear Susan talk. Hear Susan hem and haw. See Susan fold.

*****

Cass Sunstein, in the New York Review of Books, reviewed three books that recount life in Nazi Germany, two of which are first-hand reports. The title of Sunstein's review is "It Can Happen Here," and the writings he reviews makes that evident. But he hedges in his conclusion: "With our system of checks and balances, full-blown authoritarianism is unlikely to happen here, but it would be foolish to ignore the risks that Trump and his administration pose to established norms and institutions.... Those risks will grow if opposition to violations of long-standing norms is limited to Democrats, and if Republicans laugh, applaud, agree with, or make excuses for Trump -- if they howl with the wolf." Mrs. McC: At any rate, the content of the writings he cites is chilling, & I'm going with "it can happen here." Right now, our "system of checks and balances" seems to be limited to the press & to the people they write about in the next linked stories.

Brent Griffiths of Politico: "Protesters gathered in front of the White House and across the nation on Saturday slammed the Trump administration's separation of migrant families, the latest mass demonstration to push back on the president and his administration. Marchers chanted 'families belong together,' the name of the rally in Washington and in events that were scheduled to take place in more than 750 cities across the country. The protest was organized by the liberal organization MoveOn.Org, the Americans Civil Liberties Union, The Leadership Conference and National Domestic Workers Alliance." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... The New York Times story is here. Here's the Guardian's main story. The Guardian liveblogged protests around the U.S. (Liveblog also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Saturday opened a new front in the immigration debate, diverting attention away from his administration's treatment of undocumented immigrants to a broader fight over the federal agency charged with detaining and deporting them. In a pair of tweets from his private golf club in Bedminster, N.J., Trump forcefully defended the performance of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and lambasted Democrats as pushing a 'radical left' agenda to abolish it, even though only a handful have publicly supported doing so. 'To the great and brave men and women of ICE, do not worry or lose your spirit,' Trump wrote in one tweet. 'You are doing a fantastic job of keeping us safe by eradicating the worst criminal elements.' In an interview on Fox News set to air Sunday, Trump suggested that the issue would hurt Democrats in the midterm elections because ICE helps eradicate violent gangs. Trump's public support of ICE came as tens of thousands marched in cities across the country to protest a 'zero tolerance'...." ...

... Brent Griffiths: "... Donald Trump falsely claimed on Saturday that he never encouraged House Republicans to vote for an immigration bill, despite tweeting such an encouragement three days earlier [IN ALL CAPS]." ...

... ** Tal Kopan of CNN: "... newly reviewed court filings show that the byzantine system that has resulted in thousands of children separated for weeks and months from parents elsewhere in government custody ... was always the design.... A government attorney admitted in court just days before the border-wide initiative was unveiled in early May that there was never a plan for parents like her to be proactively reunited with their kids. And an analysis of the purported success of the pilot shows that the Department of Homeland Security's justification that the program worked as a deterrent was likely based on dubious data."

Chris Rukan, in the Washington Post, tests Donald Trump's performance against many of George Washington's 110 rules of civility (which he copied as a boy from a late-16th-century list of rules compiled by Jesuits). Here's the compleat list.

Peter Berman, in a New York Times op-ed: "... there is another reason to withhold confirmation [of a new Supreme Court justice] that both Republicans and Democrats should be able to agree on: People under the cloud of investigation do not get to pick the judges who may preside over their cases. By this logic, President Trump should not be permitted to appoint a new Supreme Court justice until after the special counsel investigation is over, and we know for sure whether there is evidence of wrongdoing. True, that point is unlikely to stop Mr. McConnell or his colleagues. But it highlights the real risk involved in letting a deeply compromised president shape a court that may one day stand between him and impeachment." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: There's an obvious problem with this argument: any time there's Republican Congress & a Democratic president when a Supreme Court vacancy arises, Republicans will open up an "investigation" of the president (if they didn't already have several such "investigations" going) & claim they can't possibly confirm a new justice who might have to rule on issues relating to what they perceive as presidential misconduct.

Stanley Reed & Mihir Zaveri of the New York Times: "President Trump tweeted on Saturday that he had once again leaned on Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, to increase production by as much as 2 million barrels a day. Since May, Mr. Trump has put pressure on the Saudis and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to increase supplies through tweets and other messages.... In recent weeks, worries about declining oil exports from Iran have been pushing up oil prices. Analysts say that Saudi help in making up for lost Iranian crude oil will be crucial to Mr. Trump's efforts to put pressure on the government of Iran while not forcing prices up too high to cause political damage in the United States." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Nahal Toosi of Politico: "The Trump administration is barreling ahead in its high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with North Korea even though it lacks a full-time envoy to oversee the negotiations. Currently, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is serving as the point man on the administration's effort to convince North Korea to give up its atomic arsenal. But some lawmakers and former officials are urging ... Donald Trump to put a special representative in charge, arguing that Pompeo can't give the topic the explicit, sustained attention it requires. The calls for an envoy come as Trump aides remain coy about details of their strategy to deal with the isolated Asian country. There have been no formal talks announced since Trump held a much-ballyhooed June 12 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.

Trump Is Working Overtime to Destabilize Western Alliances. Josh Rogin of the Washington Post: "During a private meeting at the White House in late April, Trump was discussing trade with French President Emmanuel Macron. At one point, he asked Macron, 'Why don't you leave the E.U.?' and said that if France exited the union, Trump would offer it a bilateral trade deal with better terms than the E.U. as a whole gets from the United States, according to two European officials. The White House did not dispute the officials' account, but declined to comment.... This is an instance of the president of the United States offering an incentive to dismantle an organization of America's allies, against stated U.S. government policy. Trump has been publicly trashing the E.U. and NATO since his campaign, but the pace and viciousness of his attacks have increased.... Of course, Trump's opinions closely track those of Putin, including on the status of Crimea, aid to Ukraine and Russia's interference in the U.S. elections. Overall, Trump's attack on the E.U. and the U.S.-Europe relationship is a huge strategic windfall for Russia." ...

Margaret Talev & Toluse Olorunnipa of Bloomberg: "... Donald Trump left the door open to recognizing Russia's annexation of Crimea, telling reporters that such a move would be up for discussion when he meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin next month. 'We're going to have to see,' Trump told reporters Friday on Air Force One when asked if the U.S. would accept Russia's claim on the territory it seized from Ukraine in 2014.... 'I'll talk to him about everything,' Trump told reporters when asked if he would speak with Putin about Crimea. 'We're going to be talking about Ukraine, we're going to be talking about Syria, we'll be talking about elections, and we don't want anybody tampering with elections.'" ...

... Chris Riotta of the (U.K.) Independent: "Russia's state-owned television shows have mocked the outcry over the country's alleged hacking of the US 2016 presidential election ahead of an upcoming summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.... A Russia 24 ... analyst ... [said] Americans viewed the alleged hacking as 'aggression against the country' and believed the Russian government 'caused some trouble there.' 'What trouble did we cause?' he asked. 'We just elected Trump, that's all.'" ...

... Jonathan Chait: "The more we learn, the more clearly the pattern of behavior in the [U.S. & U.K.] becomes similar, and the more suspicious the denials of Putin's partners grows. In both countries, the right-wing pro-Russian populists indignantly insist there is no more incriminating information to be found beyond what was known at any given moment, even as the bounds of what is known at any moment continues to expand.... At this point, it seems virtually certain that Russia did use [British financier Arron] Banks ... as a pass through to covertly finance the Brexit referendum."

Julianne Smith & former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) in a Hill opinion piece: "Two years after the Russian government attempted to undermine the 2016 presidential election, the United States still does not have a comprehensive strategy to address the threat posed by foreign interference in our democracy. Successive U.S. administrations of both parties and Congress have neglected this threat and left Americans exposed to foreign manipulation."

Washington Post: According to Trump punker John Melendez, the Secret Service came calling at his home after Melendez's call to President* Trump, a call in which he posed as Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.). The Post still has not verified the call. The podcast is here; the actual conversation with the president, president* or "president" is about 7/8ths of the way in.

Eric Lipton of the New York Times: "The chief ethics officer of the Environmental Protection Agency -- the official whose main job is to help agency staffers obey government ethics laws -- has been working behind the scenes to push for a series of independent investigations into possible improprieties by Scott Pruitt, the agency's administrator, a letter sent this week says. The letter is the first public acknowledgment that Kevin S. Minoli, who has frequently defended Mr. Pruitt's actions since he took over the agency in February 2017, is now openly questioning whether Mr. Pruitt violated federal ethics rules."

Congressional Races

Maureen Dowd discusses the primary win of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Mrs. McC: I supposed this was my favorite graf: "The Democrats wandered the capital, looking stunned. It finally seemed to be sinking in that if you insist on putting up presidential candidates who leave voters cold, really bad things can happen." I've been saying this for a long time, but no one seems to be able to convince the Democratic leadership that "boring" & "ethically-compromised" are not compelling attributes for presidential candidates. This is all the more mystifying inasmuch as the last Democrat to win the top job was exciting & about as honorable as a politician can be. Rather, Democratric leadership in 2016 copied exactly the same playbook that had failed in 2008: backing the very same boring, ethically-compromised candidate.

Patrick Svitek of the Dallas Morning News: "Despite nine candidates on the ballot, Republican Michael Cloud drew enough support to win Saturday's special election to fill former U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold's seat, sparing the GOP a runoff in the 27th District. With all precincts reporting, Cloud led Democrat Eric Holguin 55 percent to 32 percent, according to unofficial returns. Cloud, a former chairman of the Victoria County GOP, needed to finish above 50 percen to avert a runoff later this summer. The special election determined who finishes Farenthold's term, which ends in January. Both Cloud and Holguin are their party's nominees in November for the full term that starts after that." Mrs. McC: Pajama Boy never will be truly replaced.

Everton Bailey of the Oregonian: "A Portland man fatally shot early Friday outside a sports bar near Portland State University by campus police officers was a U.S. postal worker and father of three daughters who served in the Navy and married his high school sweetheart, friends say. They identified the man as Jason E. Washington, 45.... [Two witnesses] said Washington wasn't involved in the fight and was trying to break it up. A[nother] witness also told Oregon Public Broadcasting that the man wasn't fighting and was shot after a holstered handgun he was carrying fell onto the ground and he appeared to be trying to pick it up. After the officers yelled that there was a gun, there was no apparent hesitation before the gunfire, the witness said." Mrs. McC: Washington was black; both officers appear to be white.

Comments

[Rockygirl]

Exactly right about Susan Collins. She will oppose Trump all the up to - but not including - the point where she actually would have to vote against him.

[Ken Winkes]

Another Sunday, another sermon in the form of a LTTE:

At this point it’s almost a yawner. Just last month our president managed one hundred three false or misleading statements in one week (thestar.com), a new record for lying even by him--and it barely qualifies as news.

Add to the constant lying more than a year of White House disorganization, abrupt changes of course on trade, attacks on traditional allies, public praise of democracy’s avowed enemies, cruel immigration actions and friendly nods to white supremacists--added together, this presidency presents quite a head scratcher.

But no more of a puzzle than the thousands who attend Mr. Trump’s rallies and cheer loudly as they’re lied to, which raises the natural question: why are they so happy to be gulled?

A liar’s motives aren’t hard to figure. People occasionally lie to ease hurt in others, but most lies are selfishly motivated. We lie to ease our way out of a bad situation or for purely personal gain. And because we live in a digital world, which has made lying easier and harder to detect, lying is more prevalent than ever. Students have greater access to and less fear of copying other’s work (plagiarism.org), so there’s more plagiarism; the marketplace rewards businesses for making misleading claims about their product’s benefits or lying about the harm they cause; and though our president recently denied it once again (nytimes.com), our politics is infested with lies generated far beyond our borders against which we apparently have little interest in building a wall.

But why such a willing audience? Simply because it’s easier to swallow the lies than to face and deal with uncomfortable facts about demographic shifts, about inequality, about climate change, and about our democracy’s serious shortcomings.

Lies are our mental and moral opioid of choice, a potion we swill to keep reality at bay.

[Patrick]

From above: 'I would not support a nominee who demonstrated hostility to Roe v. Wade,' Collins said ..."

Not to worry, none of the conservative nominees will state in their testimony that they would vote against Roe, and the potential candidates for years have been coached not to state that in other venues.

"Demonstrated hostility" will be like "quid quo pro corruption," never observed but oboy is it there.

And Collins only voted for the tax bill after getting a promise about health care. Which she could not redeem.

"Roe" probably won't be overturned, it is too valuable a rallying cry to the Rs. They'll just keep hedging it and making it harder for poor women. Women with money can always buy plane tickets.