The Commentariat -- Sept. 25, 2016
This Is Heartbreaking. Richard Fausset, et al., of the New York Times: "Under mounting pressure from politicians, community leaders and boisterous protesters who have brought this city's main business district to a near-standstill, the Charlotte police chief on Saturday released body and dashboard camera videos of the fatal police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott, a black resident here. While they do not show everything that happened at the scene, the two released videos appear to show Mr. Scott exiting a white sport-utility vehicle, and backing away from it with his hands at his sides. He did not appear to be acting in a threatening or erratic manner. The police said they had recovered a loaded gun with Mr. Scott's DNA on it, and that he wore an ankle holster. But they did not reveal where they recovered the gun. It was clear from the two angles that he had nothing in his right hand. It was unclear what, if anything, Mr. Scott, who was right-handed, had in his left hand. After Mr. Scott was shot multiple times and fell to the ground, his moans could be heard as officers handcuffed him." Includes video. ...
... CW: No wonder the police didn't want to release the video. This was an unwarranted, unjust killing at the hands of those whose duty it is to protect us.
*****
Presidential Race
Dan Balz & Scott Clement of the Washington Post: "Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will meet Monday night for their first debate in a virtual dead heat in the race for the White House, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.... Likely voters split 46 percent for Clinton and 44 percent for Trump, with Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson at 5 percent and Green Party nominee Jill Stein at 1 percent. Among registered voters, Clinton and Trump are tied at 41 percent, with Johnson at 7 percent and Stein at 2 percent.... Some other national polls currently show Clinton with a slightly larger lead, but on balance, the pre-debate survey averages show the margin in the race in low single digits." CW: The Post team led by Michael Kranish, in a report linked below, detail Trump's "dystopian views" of the state of the country. I too hold a "dystopian view." We live in a country where half the people are at the least ignorant & irresponsible, & at the worst horrible human beings. Until now, that's been a rumor or a "feeling"; now, it's a certainty.
Very "Presidential". David Ferguson of RawStory: "Gennifer Flowers -- a woman with whom former Pres. Bill Clinton had an extramarital affair -- has announced that she is accepting Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's invitation to sit in the front row of Monday night's presidential debate. BuzzFeed News reported Saturday that Trump posted on Twitter that he would like to see Ms. Flowers in the audience on Monday. Within hours, Flowers announced that she would be happy to be there. The move by the Trump team appears to indicate that Trump will be bringing up former Pres. Clinton's marital infidelities in an attempt to humiliate Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton at some point during the debate." --safari note: What to do when your candidate is a know-nothing, bombastic moron? Fight dirty. This moves reeks of an Ailes-Gingrich-Breitbert fever dream. How low can you go? We're about to see. ...
... Chas Danner of New York: "Trump threatened, via Twitter, to invite Gennifer Flowers to Monday night's presidential debate in response to the news that the Clinton campaign had invited billionaire and vocal Trump critic Mark Cuban.... The Trump campaign released a negative ad earlier this week featuring footage of the Clintons being interviewed about the affair with Flowers...." In his tweet, Trump misspelled Flowers' name but later revised it. CW: As safari wrote, "very 'presidential.'" ...
... Steve M.: "This is said to be all Hillary Clinton's fault: 'Remember, if you're grossed out by Trump inviting Gennifer Flowers to the debate: Clinton kicked off this bit of trolling by inviting Cuban' -- Edward-Isaac Dovere, [in a tweet].... Of course, Cuban and Flowers are not analogous -- Cuban did not have an affair with Trump's spouse. (As far as we know!).... The only risk is that idiot journalists -- the Chuck Todds, the Mark Halperins -- will think it's a good move.... But I don't think the public will respond well. And if it's just a matter of Flowers sitting mutely in the audience, and later giving an interview to Sean Hannity afterward that will be watched exclusively by people who are already certain to vote for Trump, it won't matter at all." -- CW ...
... Update. Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Mike Pence insisted Sunday that Gennifer Flowers ... would not be attending Monday's debate, despite Donald Trump's invitation." -- CW ...
... Amie Parnes of the Hill: "Hillary Clinton supporters see a double standard when it comes to Monday's presidential debate, which for the first time will feature a woman debating a man. Throughout the campaign, Clinton has faced questions and criticisms that would not be asked or made to a male candidate, her allies say. The jabs have come even Clinton surrogates such as former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell, who this week said he'd like to see Clinton 'smile more' in the debate. The comment left ClintonWorld shaking its collective head." -- CW ...
... Josh Marshall of TPM thinks Trump will have a hard time winning a two person debate, perhaps because he'll say something outrageous, but more likely because he can't answer policy questions in any convincing detail, & his one-line non-answers will reveal to viewers he's not up to the job he seeks. -- CW ...
... Marshall's view jibes with safari's commentary in today's thread (which safari wrote before I linked Marshall's post). Also see Kate M.'s suggestions today for Hillary's guest list.
Roger Angell of the New Yorker: "I am late weighing in on this election -- late in more ways than one. Monday brought my ninety-sixth birthday, and, come November, I will be casting my nineteenth ballot in a Presidential election.... My country faces a danger unmatched in our history since the Cuban missile crisis, in 1962, or perhaps since 1943, when the Axis powers held most of Continental Europe, and Imperial Japan controlled the Pacific rim, from the Aleutians to the Solomon Islands, with the outcome of that war still unknown...The first debate impends, and the odds that Donald Trump may be elected President appear to be narrowing. I will cast my own vote for Hillary Clinton with alacrity and confidence." Angell goes on to explain, through his historical experience, why Trump is so dangerous. Worth the read. -safari
** The New York Times Editors endorse Hillary Clinton for president: In any normal election year, we'd compare the two presidential candidates side by side on the issues. But this is not a normal election year. A comparison like that would be an empty exercise in a race where one candidate -- our choice, Hillary Clinton -- has a record of service and a raft of pragmatic ideas, and the other, Donald Trump, discloses nothing concrete about himself or his plans while promising the moon and offering the stars on layaway. (We will explain in a subsequent editorial why we believe Mr. Trump to be the worst nominee put forward by a major party in modern American history." CW: Read it.
By Driftglass.
Michael Kranish, et al., of the Washington Post: "An examination by The Washington Post of one week of Trump's speeches, tweets and interviews show a candidate who not only continues to rely heavily on thinly sourced or entirely unsubstantiated claims but also uses them to paint a strikingly bleak portrait of an impoverished America, overrun by illegal immigrants, criminals and terrorists -- all designed to set up his theme that he is specially suited to 'make America great again.'... Trump doubled down during the past week on some of his most controversial and debunked statements and made surprising new ones." The reporters detail a week of Trumpbull.-- CW
"A Week of Whoppers." Maggie Haberman & Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump has unleashed a blizzard of falsehoods, exaggerations and outright lies in the general election, peppering his speeches, interviews and Twitter posts with untruths so frequent that they can seem flighty or random — even compulsive. However, a closer examination, over the course of a week, revealed an unmistakable pattern: Virtually all of Mr. Trump's falsehoods directly bolstered a powerful and self-aggrandizing narrative depicting him as a heroic savior for a nation menaced from every direction. Mike Murphy, a Republican strategist, described the practice as creating 'an unreality bubble that he surrounds himself with.'" The reporters "assembled a list of his 31 biggest whoppers, many of them uttered repeatedly." -- CW
Michael Finnegan of the Los Angeles Times: "Never in modern presidential politics has a major candidate made false statements as routinely as Trump has. Over and over, independent researchers have examined what the Republican nominee says and concluded it was not the truth -- but 'pants on fire' (PolitiFact) or 'four Pinocchios' (Washington Post Fact Checker).... And he is dogged in refusing to stop saying things once they are proved untrue.... At a time of deep public mistrust of the news media, the arbitration of statements of fact, long seen as one of reporters' most basic duties, runs the risk of being perceived as partisan bias. But so does the shirking of that role." -- CW
Kyle Cheney, et al., of Politico: Politico "subjected every statement made by both the Republican and Democratic candidates -- in speeches, in interviews and on Twitter -- to our magazine's rigorous fact-checking process. The conclusion is inescapable: Trump's mishandling of facts and propensity for exaggeration so greatly exceed Clinton's as to make the comparison almost ludicrous.... According to Politico's five-day analysis Trump averaged about one falsehood every three minutes and 15 seconds over nearly five hours of remarks. In raw numbers, that's 87 erroneous statements in five days." -- CW
CW: These stories are all placed prominently on the sites' main pages.
"Philanthropy" Trump style: in name only. John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "Trump's charitable giving has now become a campaign issue, largely due to a series of Post articles written by David Fahrenthold and his colleagues.... So what is the bottom line? Even including the $1 million Trump donated to veterans earlier this year (after prodding from Fahrenthold), the public records indicate that, over the past quarter of a century, he has given away less than $5 million of his own money. According to his own estimate, he is worth in excess of $10 billion. If we take him at his word, that means his charitable contributions come to about 0.05 per cent of his fortune, or five cents for every $100...Trump likes to portray of himself as a great philanthropist, and the numbers simply don't justify that image." --safari
Rebecca Morin of Politico: "Before Donald Trump mocked Hillary Clinton's postponement of a planned trip to Charlotte, the GOP nominee had nixed his own initial plans to visit the North Carolina city beset by protests after a fatal police shooting of an African-American man. Trump's visit was in 'preliminary stages' when he spoke with North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory on Thursday and they agreed to delay the visit, according to a GOP party official." CW: As Politico reported (see yesterday's Commentariat), "Donald Trump ... accus[ed] his opponent of trying to 'grandstand' and call[ed] her initial decision to go to Charlotte 'dumb.'" So he did what she did, but when she did it, it was "grandstanding" & "dumb."
From a 5-part piece by Der Spiegel: "Whoever emerges victorious in the election on Nov. 8 will likely be the president-elect with the least amount of popular support since World War II. The loser will presumably speak of a conspiracy and complain of the numerous untruths that poisoned the campaign. The phenomenon of Donald Trump, who can trace his roots back 131 years ago to the village of Kallstadt, near Mannheim, will certainly not be the end of this toxic development. He likely won't even be its apex.
Liars, after all, are no longer on the political fringe." -- unwashed
Other News & Views
Elise Viebeck of the Washington Post: "Republican lawmakers are under increasing fire for racially insensitive comments after the fatal police shootings of black men sparked unrest in two states. Remarks by Reps. Robert Pittenger (N.C.), Tim Huelskamp (Kan.), Steve King (Iowa) and ex-Rep. Mike Pence (Ind.), the GOP's vice-presidential nominee, underscored to some observers Republicans' tone-deafness on issues of race in a year of unprecedented attention to police bias against African-Americans.... [Pence said] that it is offensive to police to talk about 'institutional racism and institutional bias' after fatal shootings. Donald Trump and I believe there's been far too much of this talk,' Pence said while campaigning in Colorado. Trump's campaign has become increasingly identified with racially divisive comments." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Beyond the Beltway
Paige Cornwell, et al., of the Seattle Times: "The search continued Saturday morning for the gunman who fatally shot five people Friday night in the Cascade Mall in Burlington.... The victims[four of them female,] identities have not been released, but authorities say they ranged from a teen to seniors. The suspect was described as a Hispanic male in his late teens to mid-20s with a close-shaved haircut. He used a long gun similar to a hunting rifle.... This marks Washington's seventh mass shooting with at least four people shot this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Most recently, three people were shot dead at a house party in Mukilteo n July." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Update. Jessica Lee, et al., of the Seattle Times: "Tips and surveillance video led to the arrest of a 20-year-old Oak Harbor man in connection with Friday's deadly shooting at the Cascade Mall, authorities said Saturday night. The suspect, identified as Arcan Cetin, was arrested Saturday evening as he walked along a street in Oak Harbor. Cetin will be turned over to the Skagit County Sheriff's Office, according to Island County authorities." -- CW
Way Beyond
Jonathan Watts & Sibylla Brodzinsky of the Guardian: "In their 52-year fight against the Colombian state, Farc rebels used assault rifles, shrapnel-filled gas canisters, homemade landmines and mortar shells.... Those weapons are now set to be silenced forever as part of a historic peace deal with the government, to be signed on Monday...Like many other Marxist and Maoist followers of the 'armed struggle', the Farc were inspired by the audacious exploits of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara...In the 1960s and 70s, guerrilla groups sprang up in every country in the region except Costa Rica...[M]any turned to the ballot box after the restoration of democracy in much of Latin America in the 1980s took away much of their raison d’etre...The longest-enduring groups, however, are in Peru, and Colombia -- all countries that are not coincidentally centres of drug production and smuggling, which is a source of funds and guns." Includes good historical review of Latin American guerilla movements and the holdouts still active today. --safari
Capitalism is Awesome, Ctd. Ashifa Kassam of the Guardian: "A small town in Ontario, Canada, has prompted fresh scrutiny of the bottled-water industry after its attempt secure a long-term water supply through the purchase of a well was outbid by the food and drinks multinational Nestlé.... Nestlé Canada currently has permits that allow it to extract up to 4.7m litres of water a day from sources in Ontario.... Last month, after a severe drought triggered questions about the millions of litres a day of water being sold to bottled-water companies in the province, Kathleen Wynne, Ontario's premier, promised a government review into the practice." --safari
Alejandro Dávil Fragoso of ThinkProgress: "Dozens of native tribes from Canada and the United Stateshave joined forces against Alberta's tar sands crude oil transport with the signing of a treaty Thursday. Calling for a clean and sustainable economy, tribes said any further pipeline or rail development for Canadian tar sands puts indigenous territories and waterways at serious risk to toxic spills." --safari
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Reader Comments (14)
Can we now count on the Times for a fair evaluation of the debate?
From the NYT:
...."Donald J. Trump threatened on Saturday to invite Gennifer Flowers, the woman whose claims of an affair with Bill Clinton imperiled his 1992 presidential campaign, to sit in the audience Monday night for Mr. Trump’s first debate with Hillary Clinton.
After Mr. Trump posted his threat on Twitter, Ms. Flowers said she would attend the debate, at Hofstra University on Long Island. “Yes I will be there,” she wrote in a text message to The New York Times."
I hereby suggest that Ms. Clinton invite Trump's two ex-wives, and the 13 year old girl he reportedly raped aboard Jeffrey Epstein's sex plane. She should offer them tickets in the front row--and give them bouquets of flowers to throw at the despicable Ass Hat (7th grade bully, who never left 7th grade), who will be shitting his pants!
As a colleague asked on Friday, and as many have asked here in the past: Where is the NRA??? Why is the NRA not supporting the late Mr. Scott's right to possess a gun? Where are the open carry advocates? There are a lot of grey areas in law enforcement, but this one is clearly Black and White.
The desire to ridicule the donald is so strong, it's going to take some serious restraint from Hillary not to lay it on too thick. I sincerely hope she has been practicing some well-timed zingers in the flavor of Obama's "well, yes, we also have less bayonets and horses" remark to Romney. Well-placed sarcasm goes so much farther with Americans in general than direct insults which will certainly flow from the underdeveloped child brain of Drumpf.
The Confederates desire direct poop shoots because they require zero thinking and they appeal to their deepest desires being so unfairly repressed by "political correctness" (once known as "common decency"). Drumpf will deliver on this, without a doubt. Just look at his pre-debate chess moves bringing some woman from the historical dust bin and putting her center stage in the debate dynamics. Clinton must, once again, rise above the Confederate fetid swamp and bring her A game.
She knows what's at stake (everything she's fought for her whole life), and she knows how close she is to getting what she's always wanted, with one last racist demagogue trying to block her path. The pressure is obviously high, but I think she's got this.
"C.W. We live in a country where half the people are at the least ignorant & irresponsible, & at the worst horrible human beings. Until now, that's been a rumor or a "feeling"; now, it's a certainty. "
This sentence chills me to the bone: not that it surprises me or even shocks me, it's that it's accurate and depressing and so terribly sad.
Which brings me to the experience I had last night watching the first part of the brilliant documentary, " O.J. Made In America." Watching scenes of the racial unrest during the turbulent sixties and seventies––the Rodney King beating, the twisted racist history of the LAPD, and the violent protests, it was if no time had passed, that we, as a nation had not moved at all––had not learned anything.
Simpson is a symbol of America's nightmare––his story is our story, the one America has been telling itself for decades.
Kate, great idea. Not just because it exposes an evangelical Christian named Trump but it also exposes three other things.
A women is somehow responsible for the actions of her husband and shame on her for not getting a divorce. And of course since it is a women this is a major political issue.
Trump is the realty TV clown who wants to change the topic from, you know, international politics, the economy etc.
America is the land of idiots. America can't tell the difference between serious leadership and the Kardashians.
In the rest of the true world, the presence of Trump's guest would destroy his chances.
Roger Angell, 96, a senior editor and staff writer for the New Yorker since 1944 tells us why this is "The Election of a Life Time."
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/my-nineteenth-presidential-election-and-the-most-important
Greetings, NiskyGuy.
You have posed most relevant questions:
"Where is the NRA??? Why is the NRA not supporting the late Mr. Scott's right to possess a gun? Where are the open carry advocates?"
And have also offered the following truth:
"There are a lot of grey areas in law enforcement, but this one is clearly Black and White."
I believe William C. Anderson may address both within his "Charged With Being Alive: Terrence Crutcher and Keith Lamont Scott"
". . . Being Black rules out all reason, rules, regulations and laws . . . "
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/37743-charged-with-being-alive-terence-crutcher-and-keith-lamont-scott
Best to all -
Regardless of the importance of a situation, issue or problem, the current culture turns on the "moment." Everything demands analysis of the most superficial and lightening speed. A fart in a crowd could be a terrorist act or hilariously comedic. No nuance, no critical thinking just back to the really important stuff like the latest Kardashian outfit or boyfriend.
I think the current culture makes the debate on Monday completely unpredictable and will hinge on a moment in time. A person who has a minimal amount of humanity or intelligence could never vote for Trump. We have been shown there's a large group who are anti humanity. Therefore, it rests with the news media's analysis after the debate. I have little confidence that their 11th hour truth telling will turn the tide. My last hope is that Clinton can make some TV splash out of Trump's ignorant, narcissistic nonsense that will catch the collective eye of the media. If that is the case, you can bet that will be Trump's last debate.
Abe Lincoln is wondering if he made the wrong decision to welcome the southern states back into the Union. Can't help but think he would be weeping at the country's vicious regression.
"Liars, after all, are no longer on the political fringe."
Unwashed's observation is dramatically understated. The fact is that liars are all that's left on the right. The fringe, on the right, may have been thought to have lived miles away from those in the mainstream, but it's clear that the crazies now live right next door to Mitchy McConnell, Paul Ryan, and anyone else you care to think of as "mainstream Republican". Lying is the only way these people communicate now.
But the biggest surprise? The mainstream neighborhood has not been invaded by fringe creeps. It's the other way around. So-called responsible, Very Serious People, like Ryan and McConnell are the ones who have moved. They moved to be closer to the nuts so as to save their asses from evisceration from within. They're not afraid of Democrats. They're afraid of the crazies in their own party and so they moved. Now they live right next door to them. They can hear the skinheads and white supremacists and secessionists screaming out in their backyards as they spit invective and hatred as barbecue sauce and whiskey spill down the front of their White Power wifebeater t-shirts. They can smell cordite and see the bandoliers and catch the whiff of unbridled hatred and ignorance when they wander out to the front porch in their robes to pick up the morning edition of the Washington Times. And if any of that bothers them, you'd never know it.
Because they know that the only sure way they can keep their cushy do-nothing VIP jobs is to do what they did to get elected, what they've always done: lie.
On the fringe? It's right in the front hall. Welcome to the monkey house.
Diane: Bill Mauldin did an excellent editorial cartoon of Lincoln with his head in his hands weeping after the Kennedy assassination. I have no idea what would be involved in bringing it back as a commentary on todays politics, but it would be appropriate.
So Gennifer Flowers will not be there? Or will she? The latest word from the Monkey House is that they just said that to "make a point". What's the point? That they're assholes? That they don't really care about a serious debate? Or that they just want to show that they can fuck with anything they feel like and get away with it?
So far they're right. And they've been right for a long time, to Trump's never diminishing monkey glee. It doesn't matter how unethical, immoral, despicable, disgusting, or mendacious Trump and his monkeys behave. The media loves it. They LOVE it. He gets away with everything. And he knows he can do it. In that respect, he's got it all over Clinton who has never been able to get away with as much as a parking ticket without millions piling on and screaming at and about her and her family. Trump hangs out with mobsters but if someone is married to someone who works for Clinton and they behave stupidly, Hillary is clearly an evil person.
This weekend we've been bingeing our way through "The People vs. OJ" and it strikes me that Clinton is in much the same position as Marcia Clark was. First, because she's a woman, it's open season on her, without a hint of remorse or irony or fairness. OJ had a record of 62 domestic abuse calls, some of which resulted in Nicole Brown Simpson being beaten to a pulp. He got nearly a complete pass for that in the press. Marcia Clark changed her hairstyle and she was treated like Typhoid Mary. Simpson jumps in a car and heads for the border with disguises, a passport, and thousands in cash, in a clear effort to run from justice, but he's a hero, like a wild west desperado. He even gets to dictate the terms of his surrender AFTER hours of hundreds of law enforcement personnel tied up in pursuit. An old photo of a topless Marcia Clark--with her HUSBAND on vacation--appears in the middle of the trial and she's a no-good slut who needs to change her evil ways.
But most damaging of all was Clark's own misreading of the tea leaves. She had Simpson dead to rights. Dead. But she trusted to rationality and the almost incontrovertible evidence. It wasn't enough. Not by a long shot. Simpson's dream team, much like Trump's thugs, came up with a strategy that disallowed evidence, that challenged every obvious truth. It's more complicated than this, surely, because they were counting on decades, generations, of clear racism within the LAPD--systemic and viral--to try the cops instead of Simpson, and that's how they won. They won on emotion.
And this is what Trump and his gang of liars are counting on as well. They're counting on the fact that their ignorant, racist, misogynistic supporters and many who might support them don't care about truth, don't care about evidence. They care that a foot stomping big ape is sticking it to an uppity broad who is nothing but a lying, mouthy bitch.
And it doesn't matter that the grievances they nurse are not in any way close to those of black Angelenos in 1995 (or '85 or '75, or '65, or...). It only matters that they think they are much more put on than any black or Hispanic, than any woman or gay, than any other group, ever. Because Trump assures them of this. They are the put upon whites. The only Real 'mericans. And that bitch Hillary is not going to sway them with truth or evidence or reality.
And Trump knows that. But Hillary seems not to. She seems like she is still at the mercy of the Evil Dream Team who are one step ahead of her because they know that truth doesn't matter. Only the pretense. Only the anger. Only the hate. Only what they throw the crowd. And the threat of Gennifer Flowers in attendance is just another con in a long line of them.
So Trump's lies, his scams, his ignorance, his bigotry, none of it matters and Trump will never be convicted in their court of awe. If the lie fits, they will acquit.
Anyone have a doggie? Or a feral cat? Or Cerberus tied up in the basement or out in the garage?
How about this for their debate enjoyment?
As you sit there yelling at the screen as a grinning Trump is allowed to lie with impunity while the moderator points out that the 31st question about Benghazi is entirely appropriate, your dog may be pondering the best way to assuage your (and his or her) anxiety. Here's the answer.
I don't think I'll be able to get one for my dog in time for the first debate, but at least I'll be able to take some satisfaction that someone, anyone, besides the media, will be taking a piece out of the Orange Headed Clown.
Hell, I may have to get one for myself.
@Bobby Lee. I looked up the Maudlin cartoon and it would be a great visual for the travesty that Trump has made of our democracy. I was reminded of the picture Obama painted in Saturday's African American Museum opening speech. He talked about the feeling he will miss when seeing the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial at night from Marine One.