The Commentariat -- July 23, 2018
Afternoon Update:
Julian Barnes of the New York Times: "President Trump is considering whether to revoke the security clearances of former national security and law enforcement officials who served in the Obama administration and have criticized Mr. Trump, particularly his pursuit of diplomacy with Russia, the White House said on Monday. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said Mr. Trump was looking to strip the clearances of John O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director; James B. Comey, fired by Mr. Trump as F.B.I. director last year; James R. Clapper Jr., the former director of national intelligence; and others.... She also said Mr. Trump is looking to strip the security clearance of Susan Rice, Mr. Obama's national security adviser, and Michael V. Hayden, the former head of the C.I.A. and National Security Agency during the George W. Bush administration.... She also singled out Andrew G. McCabe, the former deputy director of the F.B.I., who was fired this year.... Her surprising announcement amounted to an unusual politicization of the security clearance process. Security clearances allow former officials to work with companies on classified programs and provide advice to those firms and sometimes to government agencies. Stripping their clearances could harm their ability to work as consultants and advisers in Washington." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Sounds like a First-Amendment violation to me; the government can't discriminate against a person based upon her expressed opinions, unless those opinions are themselves unlawful. Until Susan Rice starts advocating for the overthrow of the government or putting up kiddie porn on her Facebook page, then she gets to keep her security clearance to the same extent other former high-level officials do.
Louis Nelson of Politico: "... Donald Trump renewed his complaints Monday about the Russia investigation overseen by special counsel Robert Mueller, and came even closer to instructing law enforcement officials to shut it down.... He has threatened to potentially intervene with the Justice Department, and on Monday, Trump came closer to making good on that threat by writing in a ... tweet that law enforcement officials 'should drop the discredited Mueller Witch Hunt now! The statement came as part of a series of tweets in which Trump quoted comments by Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, on 'Fox & Friends.'" ...
... Trump Does Full Walk-Back of Walk-Back. Eugene Scott of the Washington Post: "Six days ago, President Trump held a news conference to walk back comments he made suggesting that he did not believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin oversaw a plan to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.... On Sunday, he suggested that the investigation [into Russian election tampering] was 'all a big hoax.'... White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders sought to clarify the tweet during Monday's press briefing. 'The president is referencing the collusion component....'... Then, in a Monday tweet, he walked back his earlier attempt at a cleanup.... Trump falsely claimed that a dossier by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele 'was responsible for starting' the investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.' He went on to blast the dossier, calling it 'fake' and 'dirty' before declaring the investigation headed by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III a 'witch hunt.'"
Oops! Interior Department Accidentally Releases Incriminating E-Mails. Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "In a quest to shrink national monuments last year, senior Interior Department officials dismissed evidence these public lands boosted tourism and spurred archaeological discoveries, according to documents the department released this month and retracted a day later. The thousands of pages of email correspondence chart how Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and his aides instead tailored their survey of protected sites to emphasize the value of logging, ranching and energy development that would be unlocked if they were not designated as national monuments. Comments the department's Freedom of Information Act officers made in the documents show they sought to keep some of the references out of public view because they were 'revealing [the] strategy' behind the review.... 'It appears that we inadvertently posted an incorrect version of the files for the most recent National Monuments production,' officials wrote July 17. 'We are requesting that if you downloaded the files already to please delete those versions.'" ...
... E. A. Crunden of ThinkProgress (July 19th): "More than 10 federal investigations have now been opened into Secretary of the Interior Department Ryan Zinke's financial and ethical decisions during his tenure with the Trump administration. The agency's internal watchdog announced an eleventh investigation on Wednesday evening ... and in this case, his connections to one of the world's most powerful oil companies [Halliburton]." --safari
Lachlan Markay & Asawin Suebsaeng of The Daily Beast: "The Trump White House has moved quickly to force out a trio of staffers loyal to former scandal-plagued Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation.... According to sources with knowledge of the situation, Chief of Staff John Kelly gave the greenlight to the efforts to remove the three officials after Pruitt's resignation." --safari
Jonathan Watts of the Guardian: "Humanity is devouring our planet's resources in increasingly destructive volumes, according to a new study that reveals we have consumed a year's worth of carbon, food, water, fibre, land and timber in a record 212 days.... As a result, the Earth Overshoot Day -- which marks the point at which consumption exceeds the capacity of nature to regenerate -- has moved forward two days to 1 August, the earliest date ever recorded. To maintain our current appetite for resources, we would need the equivalent of 1.7 Earths." --safari
Kate Lamb of the Guardian: "In Indonesia -- which ranks among the top five users of Twitter and Facebook globally -- they are what are known as a 'buzzer teams' -- groups which amplify messages and creates a 'buzz' on social networks. While not all buzzer teams use fake accounts, some do.... The Jakarta election [in 2017]...churned up ugly religious and racial divisions.... Based on its study of the buzzer industry in Indonesia, researchers from the Center for Innovation and Policy Research (CIPG) say all candidates in the 2017 Jakarta election used buzzer teams." --safari
*****
The Traitor-in-Chief Is Baaack
Trump is having another Twittertantrum this morning; you can read the latest here. Here's a sample: "So we now find out that it was indeed the unverified and Fake Dirty Dossier, that was paid for by Crooked Hillary Clinton and the DNC, that was knowingly & falsely submitted to FISA and which was responsible for starting the totally conflicted and discredited Mueller Witch Hunt!" Mrs. McC: If you're wondering how some guilty people act when cornered by evidence against them, this is a case study. ...
... MEANWHILE, independent thinker & famed public policy analyst Sarah Sanders says the Mueller investigation is "a hoax and a waste of time." ...
... Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "After a week of tortuous statements, walk-backs and clarifications on whether he believes the U.S. intelligence community's conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential campaign, President Trump appeared to have come full circle on Sunday night, dismissing the issue as 'all a big hoax.' In an evening tweet shortly after taking off for Washington following a weekend spent at his golf club in New Jersey, Trump ... [tweeted], 'So President Obama knew about Russia before the Election. Why didn't he do something about it? Why didn't he tell our campaign?' Trump then went on to answer his own questions: 'Because it is all a big hoax, that's why, and he thought Crooked Hillary was going to win!!!'... Earlier Sunday, Trump also tweeted a defense of his broadly criticized one-on-one summit with Putin. 'I had a GREAT meeting with Putin and the Fake News used every bit of their energy to try and disparage it,' Trump said. 'So bad for our country!'" Mrs. McC: Yup, Trump still is mad that Obama didn't tell him he was colluding with Russians. That hostage video in which Trump half-admitted Russian interference -- "could be other people" -- was but a blip on the Trumpian widescreen. But you knew this would happen. ...
... E.J. Dionne: "... Trump really does have what you might call a special relationship with Putin and Russia, for reasons still not fully known. He views foreign policy not as a way of protecting the nation but as an extension of his own narrow, personal interests. He has no respect for our basic liberties, which is why he entertained turning over our country's former ambassador to Russia,Michael McFaul, and other Putin critics to the Russian dictator's mercies until widespread revulsion required Trump to back off. The focus and discipline necessary to run a government are so alien to him that most of his top lieutenants were left in the dark about what Vlad and Don were cooking up.... The vindication of those who saw Trump for who he is (a majority of the 2016 electorate, it's worth noting) provides little satisfaction because of the peril his presidency poses.... Trump's long-standing Republican apologists have lost all credibility." ...
Katie Rogers & Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "President Trump claimed without evidence on Sunday that his administration's release of top-secret documents related to the surveillance of a former campaign aide had confirmed that the Justice Department and the F.B.I. 'misled the courts' in the early stages of the Russia investigation. 'Looking more & more like the Trump Campaign for President was illegally being spied upon (surveillance) for the political gain of Crooked Hillary Clinton and the DNC,' Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter, referring to the Democratic National Committee. In a series of early-morning tweets, Mr. Trump left unmentioned how the documents laid out in stark detail why the F.B.I. was interested in the former campaign adviser, Carter Page[.]... In his tweets, Mr. Trump focused in part on the many redactions in the documents, seeming to take those as further proof that his campaign had been illegally surveilled.... The materials revealed that the judges who signed off on the wiretapping of Mr. Page were all appointed by Republican presidents.... The president also praised Judicial Watch, the conservative advocacy group known for its relentless legal pursuit of the Clintons, for obtaining the documents. But Mr. Trump disregarded the fact that the news organizations, including The Times, had sought release of the documents under several Freedom of Information Act lawsuits." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: I wouldn't say "without evidence"; I'd say "contra evidence." ...
... Lies and Consequences -- A Savage Indictment of Trump, Nunes & Co. Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "... this past weekend, Mr. Trump's unprecedented decision [in February to declassify a House GOP memo], which he made over the objections of law enforcement and intelligence officials, had a consequence that revealed his gambit's shaky foundation. The government released the court documents in which the F.B.I. made its case for conducting the surveillance -- records that plainly demonstrated that key elements of Republicans' claims about the bureau's actions were misleading or false. On Sunday Mr. Trump nevertheless sought to declare victory.... But in respect after respect, the newly disclosed documents instead corroborated rebuttals by Democrats on the panel who had seen the top-secret materials and accused Republicans of mischaracterizing them to protect the president.The records again cast an unflattering light on Representative Devin Nunes...." Read on. Savage debunks the Trump/Nunes lies one-by-one, while supporting the Democrats' case. ...
... Martin Longman of Booman Tribune: "One thing that is clear from the [released] applications is that the FBI suspected Trump himself of changing his policies towards Russia during the campaign and was willing to suggest that the influence of advisers and campaign workers with Russian connections (including Carter Page) might be the explanation. Pretty much anyone who saw what just happened in Helsinki would have to agree that the FBI was certainly hot on the trail of something real." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Sad! Andrew Desiderio of the Daily Beast: Carter Page "said Sunday that a top-secret application to surveil him in 2016 was a 'complete joke,' even as most observers, including many Republicans, have called the surveillance justified.... This is so ridiculous, it's just beyond words,' Page said on CNN's State of the Union. 'It's literally a complete joke. And it only continues. It's just really sad.' Page denied that he was an 'agent of a foreign power' or that he ever advised the Kremlin, claiming instead that he only 'sat in on some meetings.' He also denied, as was stated in the FISA application, that he 'has been the subject of targeted recruitment by the Russian government.'" Emphasis added. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Update. That's Funny Because.... Eli Okun of Politico: "Former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page on Sunday called allegations that he was a Russian agent 'spin,' a 'ridiculous smear campaign' and 'literally a complete joke' -- but admitted that he had worked as an informal adviser to the Russian government. Page appeared on CNN's 'State of the Union'.... His comments dovetailed with angry tweets Sunday morning from Trump, who inveighed against 'the whole FISA scam which led to the rigged Mueller Witch Hunt' and insinuated that 'the Department of "Justice" and FBI misled the courts.'" Emphasis added. Mrs. McC: I guess it's way hard for spies to keep their stories straight.
Eli Okun of Politico: "Former Secretary of State John Kerry excoriated ... Donald Trump for his conciliatory news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week, calling it 'one of the most disgraceful, remarkable moments of kowtowing to a foreign leader by an American president that anyone has ever witnessed.' 'Here's why it's dangerous: because it sends a message to President Putin and to the rest of the world that the president of the United States, the leader of the free world, really doesn't have a handle on what he's doing,' Kerry added in an interview that aired Sunday on CBS' 'Face the Nation.' He also said of Trump: 'I don't buy his walkback one second.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Will Parsons & Quinn Scanlon of ABC News: "Responding to the way ... Donald Trump conducted himself during a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said Trump 'acts like he's compromised' by the Kremlin. In an interview on 'This Week,'... [Adam Schiff said,] '... it may very well be that he is compromised or it may very well be that he believes that he's compromised, that the Russians have information on him,' Schiff said. 'I think there's no ignoring the fact that, for whatever reason, this president acts like he's compromised. There is simply no other way to explain why he would side with this Kremlin, a former KGB officer, rather than his own intelligence agencies.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Vichy Regime, American Style. Nicholas Fandos & Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "In the nearly two years since Russia attacked the American democratic process, congressional Republicans have played conflicting roles in the drama: Some have pressed to impose sanctions on Russia and quietly pursue investigations, but they have been outshouted by Republicans who have obfuscated and undercut efforts to uncover the Kremlin's plot. Now, as they grapple with the political and foreign policy fallout from President Trump's summit meeting in Helsinki, Finland, with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, all Republicans, regardless of their stance so far, are facing a charge even from within their own party that goes beyond the White House: complicity.... Some Republicans have concluded that keeping their heads down without uttering much more than general statements about Russian hostility is the only safe course.... Speaker Paul D. Ryan has not participated in ... attacks [on the Mueller investigation] and has defended Mr. Mueller. But he has also given [Devin] Nunes and his allies wide latitude, and has defended him. ...
... Evan Osnos of the New Yorker: "This summer..., Donald Trump has upended the basis of American security — opening a trade war with China, chastising U.S. allies in Europe, and, at a press conference in Helsinki, following a two-hour private meeting with President Vladimir Putin, accepting his claim that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 election. The Times reported that U.S. intelligence officials had presented Trump with evidence that Putin himself had ordered cyberattacks in an attempt to affect the electoral outcome.... No one resigned from the Cabinet. No Republican senators took concrete steps to restrain or contain or censure the President.... The pattern is already visible for the historians of tomorrow. When Trump hailed neo-Nazis in Charlottesville as 'very fine people,' when he endorsed an accused child molester for the Senate, when he separated children from their parents at the Mexican border, the Republican Party, by and large, accepted it." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Voices from the Republican Wilderness. Daniel Cheslow & Michel Martin of NPR: "A GOP Congressman and former FBI agent says he thinks President Trump was manipulated by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Brian Fitzpatrick told NPR's Michel Martin ... that he drew that conclusion after the two leaders appeared in Helsinki.... Fitzpatrick sits on the House committees on Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security. In his previous role as an FBI special agent, he said he was assigned to Ukraine and worked on counterintelligence, collecting Russian propaganda reports. He told Martin he was 'frankly sickened by the exchange' between Trump and Putin. The congressman, who represents Pennsylvania's 8th District, said he shared his view with former CIA agent and fellow House Republican Will Hurd of Texas. Hurd wrote recently in The New York Times that Trump 'actively participated in a Russian disinformation campaign.'" ...
... AND, There's Trey Gowdy, Former Benghaaazi! Inquisitor, Who Is Retiring. Eli Okun: "House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy [R-SC] chastised Donald Trump for inviting Russian President Vladimir Putin to Washington, saying Sunday that some members of the president's administration should consider quitting if Trump won't listen to their advice. 'The fact that we have to talk to you about Syria or other matters is very different from issuing an invitation,' Gowdy said on 'Fox News Sunday' of the Putin invitation, which the White House confirmed last week would be extended for the fall. 'Those should be reserved for, I think, our allies.'... 'It can be proven beyond any evidentiary burden that Russia is not our friend and they tried to attack us in 2016,' Gowdy told host Bret Baier. 'So the president either needs to rely on the people that he has chosen to advise him, or those advisers need to reevaluate whether or not they can serve in this administration. But the disconnect cannot continue.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... BUT. Andrew O'Reilly of Fox "News": "Rep. Trey Gowdy said that Carter Page, the former campaign adviser to Donald Trump, was more bumbling detective than secret agent after the Justice Department on Saturday released a set of documents, once deemed top secret, relating to the wiretapping of Page. 'My take is that Carter Page is more like Inspector Gadget than Jason Bourne or James Bond,' Gowdy, R-S.C., said during an interview on 'Fox News Sunday.'" ...
Gowdy has a point.
... THEN AGAIN. Tim Hains of RealClearPolitics: "Rep. Trey Gowdy told FNC's Bret Baier on FOX News Sunday that while there are documents he has not seen, he knows that if there were any evidence that President Trump committed any crime with regard to Russia 'Adam Schiff would have leaked it.' Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said this week that President Trump is compromised by the Russians, offering possible recordings of his meeting with Putin as evidence. Later on Sunday morning, Schiff suggested Trump's businesses were Russian money laundering operations." Mrs. McC Hypocrisy Alert: Gowdy and/or his staff were notorious for their leaks of particulars re: the E-Mails!!!, a GOP propaganda bonanza that developed out of the Gowdy-led Benghaazi!!! investigation. ...
Christie Todd Whitman (R) in a Los Angeles Times op-ed: "President Trump's disgraceful performance in Helsinki, Finland, and in the days since is an indication that he is not fit to remain in office. Trump's 2016 'America First' platform might be more aptly named 'Russia First' after the disaster that occurred last week.... My Republican colleagues -- once rightfully critical of President Obama's engagement strategy with Russian leader Vladimir Putin -- have to end their willful ignorance of the damage Trump is doing both domestically and internationally. We must put aside the GOP label, as hard as that may be, and demonstrate the leadership our country needs by calling on the president to step down.... As a candidate and as president, [Trump] has constantly praised Putin just as he has constantly undercut the core institutions of our democracy -- the courts, the media and the FBI.... Republican voters, including those who supported Donald Trump, have the obligation to demand action from their elected officials."
Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "Maria Butina, the Russian woman charged in federal court last week with acting as an unregistered agent of her government, received financial support from Konstantin Nikolaev, a Russian billionaire with investments in U.S. energy and technology companies, according to a person familiar with testimony she gave Senate investigators. Butina told the Senate Intelligence Committee in April that Nikolaev provided funding for a gun rights group she represented, according to the person.... Nikolaev ... also sits on the board of American Ethane, a Houston ethane company that was showcased by President Trump at an event in China last year.... Nikolaev's son Andrey, who is studying in the United States, volunteered in the 2016 campaign in support of Trump's candidacy, according a person familiar with his activities. Nikolaev was spotted at the Trump International Hotel in Washington during Trump's inauguration in January 2017, according to two people aware of his presence." Mrs. McC: These are just coincidences! But another name to link to Trump in the massive TrumPutin connections diagram. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Sarah Lynch of Reuters: "Accused Russian agent Maria Butina had wider high-level contacts in Washington than previously known, taking part in 2015 meetings between a visiting Russian official and two senior officials at the U.S. Federal Reserve and Treasury Department. The meetings, revealed by several people familiar with the sessions and a report from a Washington think tank that arranged them, involved Stanley Fischer, Fed vice chairman at the time, and Nathan Sheets, then Treasury undersecretary for international affairs. Butina travelled to the United States in April 2015 with Alexander Torshin, then the Russian Central Bank deputy governor, and they took part in separate meetings with Fischer and Sheets to discuss U.S.-Russian economic relations during Democratic former President Barack Obama's administration. The two meetings, which have not been previously reported, reveal a wider circle of high-powered connections that Butina sought to cultivate with American political leaders and special interest groups." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Francis Wilkinson of Bloomberg: "Maria Butina is a Republican. Federal prosecutors might dispute that characterization. They jailed Butina last weekend on charges that she is a Russian agent who worked surreptitiously, on orders from a close crony of Vladimir Putin's, to subvert U.S. politics for Russia's benefit. But in the era of Trump, days after a summit in Helsinki, Finland, that forced the entire world to reckon with just how blatantly subservient the American president is to the Russian president, the distinction between Russian and Republican is not what it once was.... Putin is a thug, but for Trump, obviously, and for many of his conservative acolytes, increasingly, Putin is a thug to admire. Polls have shown rising Republican support for Putin's Russia..., [which] doubled from 2015 to 2017, from 17 percent to 34 percent. Like Trump, some Republicans have weighed Russia's attack on the Democratic Party in 2016 and concluded that they very much like what they saw.... Butina chose her targets well. The gun militants of the NRA and the Christian militants of the religious right are Trump's most unflinching supporters and pillars of the GOP's authoritarian-racial wing.... Dozens of Russians [including Butina] attended the most recent National Prayer Breakfast in February.... To the current leader of the Republican Party, and to millions of his followers, the Justice Department's description of Moscow's espionage doesn't read like an indictment. It reads like an agenda." ...
... Brian Beutler of Crooked: "... beneath [Republicans'] vestigial and opportunistic Russophobia was an obvious and natural affinity. The same Republicans who considered themselves foes of the Kremlin were also in thrall to many of the same illiberal forces that keep Putin in power: bigotry, propaganda, situational ethics, and contempt for democracy.... It is no coincidence at all that ... gun owners, evangelicals, and movement conservatives ... are the same constituencies the Russian spy Mariia Butina ... infiltrated easily -- the NRA, the National Prayer Breakfast, CPAC.... Her indictment ... paints a damning portrait of a political movement overrun with grifters, its doors wide open to unscrupulous operators who would happily cheat their way into power. Butina didn't hide her pro-Russian aims, she broadcasted them proudly, and seemingly none of the people she courted with appeals to gun rights and religion objected.... For now, the GOP's congressional leaders remain nominally committed to the western alliance, and to treating Russia as an adversary. But they will not check Trump as he advances the opposite view. Elite conservative opinion is already shifting on the Russia question, and should Trump ever convince a majority of Republican voters that he's right about Russia, the congressional leadership will follow suit." ...
... TO WIT. Alexandra Hutzler of Newsweek: "The League of The South, an organization described by analysts as a neo-confederate hate group, has launched a Russian language page on their website to explore shared ideas on 'Southern nationalism.' 'We understand that the Russian people and Southerners are natural allies in blood, culture, and religion,' Michael Hill, the league's president, wrote in a letter addressed to 'our Russian friends.' The note was published online on July 17 - a day after ... Donald Trump met with, and praised, Russian leader Vladimir Putin...." ...
... ** Jeff Seldin of the Voice of America: "Unlike in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, officials say so far there has been no frenzy of hacks, phishing attacks or use of ads and false news stories to penetrate voting systems.... Some have suggested the slowdown is the result of better preparation and better cyber tools.... But among Western intelligence agencies, there is also concern that Russia may not be relying on bots and trolls because they have real people who can do the work instead. 'We [Estonian intelligence] have detected a network of politicians, journalists, diplomats, business people who are actually Russian influence agents and who are doing what they are told to do,' Mikk Marran, the director general of Estonia's Foreign Intelligence Service said Friday, speaking of Moscow's efforts in the West. 'We see clearly that those people are pushing Russia's agenda,' Marran told an audience at the annual Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, Colorado." At Aspen, Bill Browder said he believed Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) "is on the payroll of Russia," although he didn't "have the bank transfers to prove it."
Washington Post Editors: "A central pillar of Vladimir Putin's political strategy is the propagation of false equivalences. The Kremlin tries to convince Russians, and the world, that there is really no difference between its autocratic and frequently murderous practices and the practices of the democratic world. Sadly, President Trump has been a major contributor to this poisonous propaganda.... Since late last year, the Putin regime has required these U.S.-funded media outlets to register as 'foreign agents' under a hastily passed law that has been applied only to American organizations. The Russians claimed they were reciprocating for the Justice Department's requirement that the U.S. branch of RT, the Kremlin's propaganda arm, register under a law governing foreign government lobbyists.... As a judge fined RFE/RL for supposedly failing to comply with the law, the Russian parliament prepared new legislation that would require individual journalists to register as foreign agents -- an onerous and menacing new requirement.... RFE/RL and VOA are no more comparable to RT than Russian military hackers are to former ambassador Michael McFaul." ...
... Mike Allen of Axios: "In 35 days -- through five meetings, from Singapore to Helsinki -- Trump has rattled and reordered the world, throwing decades of order and common assumptions into chaos.... 'America First is now as much a reality as it is a slogan.' CFR President Richard Haass tells me.... Check out Haass' catalog of our upside-down, looking-glass world: "Allies are adversaries and adversaries are friends. Autocrats are preferred to democrats. Unstructured summits with foes go more smoothly than organized summits with friends. A vague promise to get rid of North Korea's nuclear weapons is acceptable while a specific agreement that precludes Iran's nuclear weapons is not. It is acceptable for others to interfere with the politics of America's democracy, as the president is increasingly prepared to interfere in the politics of other democracies. Protectionism has replaced free trade. Unilateralism is favored over multilateralism."
Oliver Laughland of the Guardian & agencies: "Donald Trump has threatened Iran will 'suffer the consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before' in a late night tweet all in capital letters that threatened to further imperil relations between the United States and the Iranian government. The post, sent at 11:24 pm ET on Sunday night, came after Iranian president Hassan Rouhani warned the US earlier in the day about pursuing hostile policy against his government, suggesting that 'war with Iran is the mother of all wars'. Rouhani had also not ruled out peace, according to comments reported by the Iranian state news agency, IRNA. [The] US president ... addressed his tweet directly to Rouhani, warning the president to 'NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN'. The message continued: 'WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!'" Mrs. McC: I wonder if Rouhani is skeert of all caps.
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GOP Adversary.The GOP Sustained Attack on Earth, Ctd. Coral Davenport & Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: "The Endangered Species Act, which for 45 years has safeguarded fragile wildlife while blocking ranching, logging and oil drilling on protected habitats, is coming under attack from lawmakers, the White House and industry on a scale not seen in decades, driven partly by fears that the Republicans will lose ground in November's midterm elections. In the past two weeks, more than two dozen pieces of legislation, policy initiatives and amendments designed to weaken the law have been either introduced or voted on in Congress or proposed by the Trump administration." Mrs. McC: Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" was so scary that some people panicked when they heard the radio show. Well, "War of the Worlds" is no longer fictional: the real invaders come, not from Mars, as in the story, but from Right Wing World.
Loose-Lips Kavanaugh. Josh Gerstein of Politico: "... Donald Trump has waged war on leakers -- but in nominating Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court, the president has picked someone well-versed in the swampy art of off-the-record briefings and anonymous quotes. Kavanaugh spent nearly four years working for Kenneth Starr's independent counsel probe of President Bill Clinton two decades ago. A sampling of the Starr office's internal files available at the National Archives indicate Kavanaugh helped craft aspects of Starr's communications strategy and interacted directly with the news media himself.... Writer and businessman Steven Brill, who set off a firestorm in 1998 with a cover story in his magazine, Brill's Content, on Starr's alleged leaks to the press, said Kavanaugh needs to offer a more detailed account of his interactions with reporters during the Whitewater probe. 'If what he did was not improper, why didn't he do it on the record? The point is they all knew it violated rule 6(e),' Brill said, referring to a federal court rule protecting grand jury secrets. 'Brett was involved.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Attacking Reagan No Longer GOP Heresy. Tom Boggioni of the Raw Story: "Appearing on Fox News late Friday night, Rev. Robert Jeffress -- one of Donald Trump's favorite clergymen and staunchest defenders -- blew off the president's ongoing history of having affairs with Playboy playmates and adult film stars by throwing Republican icon Ronald Reagan under the bus as a 'known womanizer.'... Jeffress ... [said on Fox 'News'] that the Christian community is less concerned with sin than with presidential policies. 'This is not an unusual thing. We've been here before,' Jeffress told the Fox host. 'Back in 1980, evangelicals chose to support a twice-married Hollywood actor who was a known womanizer in Hollywood. His name was Ronald Reagan. They chose to support him over Jimmy Carter, with a born-again Baptist Sunday school teacher who had been faithfully married to one woman.'"
Presidential Election 2020. She Persists. Rebecca Traister of New York: "In the absence of a clear favorite to challenge Trump and the Republicans, [Elizabeth] Warren has emerged in just the past few weeks as the de facto leader of the Democratic Party, and accordingly, the candidate-of-the-moment for 2020."
Michelle Boorstein & Julie Zauzmer of the Washington Post: "A month after the Vatican suspended Cardinal Theodore McCarrick from ministry, saying the prominent former D.C. archbishop had been credibly accused of sexually abusing a teenager decades ago, four additional complaints about sexual misconduct by the cardinal have surfaced.... In the most recent allegation, a Virginia man accused McCarrick of abusing him for nearly 20 years, beginning when he was about 11 years old. The man filed a police report on July 17 with the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office.... Three other allegations have also surfaced against McCarrick, from men who said he sexually harassed or abused them early in their religious careers decades ago when they were young adults. Two were seminarians and one was a young priest at the time." Mrs. McC: For people who believe sex is a sin except for purposes of procreation, Roman Catholics sure have a lot of sexual dalliances. You might suspect the taboos heighten excitement, which renders their dogma particularly stupid.
Beyond the Beltway
Matt Wilstein of the Daily Beast: "This past week, Jason Spencer, a Republican state representative from Georgia,revealed that Sacha Baron Cohen had tricked him into shouting 'provocative language' during what he thought was a real anti-terrorism training video. Now we know that 'provocative language' was the N-word.... After losing his primary election, the Republican lawmaker is already on his way out of the Georgia legislature. But following his performance on Sunday night's episode, will he really be allowed to serve out the rest of his term?" Mrs. McC: You'll have to read the piece to find out how horrible Spencer's enthusiastic performance was.
News Lede
Toronto Star: "A 10-year-old girl ... and an 18-year-old Toronto woman are the two people killed in the shooting rampage Sunday night on the Danforth, police say. During a brief update Monday, police said 16 people were shot in total, including the gunman. Of the 15 victims, eight were female. The victims range in age from 10 to 59 years old. The 29-year-old gunman was also killed. Police would not speculate on a motive for the shooting."
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