The Commentariat -- July 20, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Axios: "St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner announced on Monday that she has charged Mark and Patricia McCloskey with felony unlawful use of a weapon after the couple pulled guns on anti-racism protesters outside of their mansion.... Photos of the McCloskeys, both personal injury attorneys in their 60s, went viral last month and have stirred a fiery partisan debate on social media. Missouri's Republican Gov. Mike Parson has said he would likely pardon the couple if they were charged, and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has called on the Justice Department to open a civil rights investigation into Gardner." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: As to why Hawley might be siccing DOJ on Gardner, this from the Guardian: "Gardner, the first African-American top prosecutor in St. Louis' history, was elected in 2016 as one of the country's new wave of progressive prosecutors, who aimed to reduce mass incarceration and address the stark racial disparities within America's criminal justice system. Since she announced her investigation into the McCloskeys, powerful white Republicans, including the president, Missouri's governor, and Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, have rallied behind the wealthy white couple, and made clear that they would oppose any attempt to charge them." ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Jim Salter of the AP: "St. Louis' top prosecutor on Monday charged a white husband and wife with felony unlawful use of a weapon for displaying guns during a racial injustice protest outside their mansion. Mark and Patricia McCloskey are both personal injury attorneys in their 60s. Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner told The Associated Press that their actions risked creating a violent situation during an otherwise nonviolent protest last month. 'It is illegal to wave weapons in a threatening manner -- that is unlawful in the city of St. Louis,' Gardner said."

Evan Perez, et al., of CNN: "The man suspected of shooting the husband and son of US District Judge Esther Salas on Sunday at her North Brunswick, New Jersey, home has been identified as Roy Den Hollander, the US Attorney's Office in New Jersey announced Monday afternoon. Den Hollander was a lawyer who once argued a case before Salas, according to court records. The FBI has called Den Hollander the 'primary subject,' and he is dead, the statement reads. Earlier, two law enforcement sources told CNN that the suspect died of what is believed to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.... A FedEx package addressed to Salas was found by officials investigating a vehicle associated with the suspect..." Mrs. McC: TV reports identify Den Hollander as a "men's rights advocate."

Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump on Monday signaled he may order federal agents to be deployed to Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia and other major cities as he threatens to crack down further on unrest across the country.... 'I'm going to do something -- that, I can tell you,' Trump said. 'Because we're not going to let New York and Chicago and Philadelphia and Detroit and Baltimore and all of these -- Oakland is a mess. We're not going to let this happen in our country. All run by liberal Democrats.'" ~~~

~~~ Gregory Pratt & Jeremy Gorner of the Chicago Tribune: "The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is crafting plans to deploy about 150 federal agents to Chicago this week, the Chicago Tribune has learned, a move that would come amid growing controversy nationally about federal force being used in American cities."

John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Georgia Democrats on Monday chose Nikema Williams, a state senator and chairwoman of the state party, to replace the late representative John Lewis (D) on the November ballot. Lewis, who died Friday at the age of 80 after a battle with pancreatic cancer, had won the June primary for the 5th Congressional District seat. Under state law, the Georgia Democratic Party was required to choose a replacement nominee on Monday, the first business day since Lewis's death.... The Democrat will face Republican Angela Stanton-King, an author and television personality. In February, President Trump pardoned Stanton-King for her role in a stolen vehicle ring in 2007, for which she served six months in home confinement.In 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton carried the district with 85 percent of the vote over Trump." The Hill's story is here.

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Monday are here: "Teachers unions sued Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on Monday over his emergency order pushing schools to fully reopen next month even as coronavirus cases in the state are surging. The suit, which appears to be the first of its kind across the country, sets up a confrontation between unions and politicians that could change the trajectory of school reopening over the coming weeks. In other parts of the country, including California and parts of Texas, many large school districts have concluded in recent days that it is not safe to hold in-person classes. But Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, has been pushing for things to be different in Florida, which is home to five of the country's 10 largest districts." ~~~

~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Monday are here.

John Kruzel of the Hill: "The Supreme Court on Monday denied a request by House Democrats to accelerate the timeline of remaining court battles over congressional subpoenas for President Trump's tax returns. The bid by lawmakers came in response to the court's landmark 7-2 ruling earlier this month to shield a trove of Trump's financial records from several Democratic-led House committees and return the dispute to lower courts for further litigation."

AP: "Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican and frequent Trump critic, has been approached and is expected to speak at the Democratic National Convention on [Joe] Biden's behalf next month, according to a person with direct knowledge of the plans who insisted on anonymity to discuss strategy. Kasich is among a handful of high-profile Republicans likely to become more active in supporting Biden in the fall. Trump, meanwhile, is doing virtually nothing to expand his appeal beyond his most loyal supporters. Some GOP operatives believe the suburbs are lost while a contingent of high-profile Republicans are openly questioning the president's reelection message."

Marissa Lang of the Washington Post: "Christopher David..., [a] 53-year-old Portland resident..., a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and former member of the Navy's Civil Engineer Corps..., came to the [Portland, Oregon,] protest ... [to ask] what the [federal] officers involved thought of the oath they had sworn to protect and defend the Constitution.... The federal officers ... rushed a line of protesters nearby, knocking them to the ground. David walked toward a gap in the line, calling out to the officers. 'Why are you not honoring your oath?' he bellowed.... An officer trained his weapon on David's chest as several agents pushed him, sending David stumbling backward. But he regained his center and tried again. Another agent raised his baton and began to beat David, who stood unwavering with his arms at his sides. Then another officer unloaded a canister of chemical irritant spray into David's face.... Unable to see from the chemicals burning his eyes and blurring his vision, David said, he stumbled into a cloud of gas that made him cough and retch. He found his way to a bench in the park, where a street medic aided him and eventually pulled him away from the advancing officers. At the hospital, he said, he learned his right hand had been broken in two places." The story also is available in the Seattle Times. ~~~

Wallace Trumps Trump. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Trump's interview with Fox's Chris Wallace was a painful affair from start to finish. Wallace is always a good and tough interviewer, unlike the Fox opinion hosts Trump frequents, and he is always prepared, but this was on another level. The interview wasn't overly adversarial; Wallace was perfectly willing to talk about the things Trump was interested in and to play ball when Trump responded in relatively good faith. It wasn't slanted; instead it merely raised the very factual counterpoints dealt with frequently in coverage of Trump. And it wasn't rushed, which meant that Wallace could dig into the points Trump was making without fear of neglecting other topics he wanted to touch on.... These were the kinds of things that have been pointed out ad nauseam outside the audience of the president; Wallace just had the venue and the wherewithal to actually press him on them. And the result was something unlike we’ve seen thus far in Trump's presidency."

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What happens when an interviewer challenges Trump's hoo-hah:

Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "An agitated President Trump offered a string of combative and often dubious assertions in an interview aired Sunday, defending his handling of the coronavirus with misleading evidence, attacking his own health experts, disputing polls showing him trailing in his re-election race and defending people who display the Confederate flag as victims of 'cancel culture.' The president's remarks, delivered in an interview on 'Fox News Sunday,' amounted to a contentious potpourri more commonly found on his Twitter feed and at his political rallies. The difference this time was a vigorous attempt by the host, Chris Wallace, to fact-check him, leading to several clashes between the two on matters ranging from the coronavirus response to whether Mr. Trump would accept the results of the election should he lose.... ~~~

~~~ "When told that Mr. Biden was chosen in the Fox poll as the more mentally sound candidate, Mr. Trump disputed that finding and defended his cognitive test results to Mr. Wallace, who said he had taken the same test that the president had bragged about acing this month. Mr. Wallace pointed out that one of the questions asked to identify an elephant. 'It's all misrepresentation,' Mr. Trump said. 'Because, yes, the first few questions are easy, but I'll bet you couldn't even answer the last five questions. I'll bet you couldn't. They get very hard, the last five questions.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: In case you're convinced the last five questions are so hard that Chris Wallace could not answer a one of them, the Las Vegas Sun has printed one version of the test (they're all similar). Here's one: "Repeat: 'The cat always hid under the couch when dogs were in the room.'" Earlier this month, Trump told Sean Hannity that Joe Biden could not pass the test, either. He also told Hannity, "I took it at Walter Reed Medical Center in front of doctors. And they were very surprised. They said, that's an unbelievable thing. Rarely does anybody do what you just did." IOW, Trump's cognitive abilities are so limited that he thinks that repeating a simple sentence is a task so difficult that only rarely can adults do it. ~~~

~~~ In fairness to Trump, it is possible he took some different test: "And I answered all 35 questions correctly." The MoCA test, by a layperson's generous count, has only 20 or so tasks. However, Wallace said, "...it's not the hardest test. They have a picture and it says 'what's that' and it's an elephant." Maybe after he did poorly on the first set of tasks, doctors gave him additional tasks, and that tuckered him out to the point that later questions seemed hard. We'll never know.

~~~ From the New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Sunday, which are here and linked below. "Mr. Trump said during [an] interview with Chris Wallace ... that Dr. Fauci had been against his decision to close the borders to travelers from China in January. That is not true.... Mr. Trump also said that Dr. Fauci had been against Americans wearing masks. Dr. Fauci has said that he does not regret urging Americans not to wear masks in the early days of the pandemic, referencing a severe shortage of protective gear for medical professionals.... Mr. Trump falsely claimed that the coronavirus rate in other countries was lower than in the United States because those nations did not engage in testing.... Mr. Trump said that he doubted whether Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the director of the C.D.C., was correct in predicting that the pandemic would be worse this fall.... He ... reiterated his earlier claim, unsupported by science, that the virus would suddenly cease one day. 'It's going to disappear and I'll be right,' Mr. Trump said. 'Because I've been right probably more than anybody else.'"

Derek Hawkins & Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "With coronavirus cases rising across the country and the U.S. death toll topping 137,000, President Trump on Sunday dismissed concerns about the spike in infections, telling Fox News that 'many of those cases shouldn't even be cases.... Many of those cases are young people that would heal in a day,' the president told Fox News host Chris Wallace in an interview. 'They have the sniffles and we put it down as a test.'... Trump's remarks came after another week of grim data highlighting the uncontrolled spread of the virus. Infections rose in states from every region of the country, with more than a dozen states on Saturday reaching record highs in their seven-day averages for new daily cases."(Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Morgan Chalfant of the Hill: "President Trump in a testy interview with Fox News's Chris Wallace downplayed recent surges in coronavirus cases, defended his stance on Confederate-named bases and sought to attack ... Joe Biden. Trump disputed polls showing him trailing Biden, eviscerating his Democratic opponent as 'not competent to be president' and controlled by the 'radical' progressive wing of the party. He also complained about his inability to hold rallies in some areas of the country due to the coronavirus, accusing 'Democrat-run states' of not allowing him to do so.... Trump also described Dr. Anthony Fauci ... as 'a little bit of an alarmist' while denying that the White House is involved in an effort to discredit him." The Guardian's report, by Martin Pengelly, is here. Mrs. McC: It's impossible for fact-checkers to keep up with this Big Fat Liar. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

A transcript of the interview is here.

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Sunday are here. The Washington Post's report, by Felicia Sonmez, is here.

Joel Achenbach, et al., of the Washington Post: "Six months after the coronavirus appeared in America, the nation has failed spectacularly to contain it. The country's ineffective response has shocked observers around the planet. Many countries have rigorously driven infection rates nearly to zero. In the United States, coronavirus transmission is out of control. The national response is fragmented, shot through with political rancor and culture-war divisiveness. Testing shortcomings that revealed themselves in March have become acute in July, with week-long waits for results leaving the country blind to real-time virus spread and rendering contact tracing nearly irrelevant.... The American coronavirus fiasco has exposed the country's incoherent leadership, self-defeating political polarization, a lack of investment in public health, and persistent socioeconomic and racial inequities that have left millions of people vulnerable to disease and death." ~~~

~~~ In case you missed it yesterday, New York Times reporters took a deep dive into how Trump administration officials made decisions that screwed up the nation's coronavirus response.

Alexander Burns, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump's failure to contain the coronavirus outbreak and his refusal to promote clear public-health guidelines have left many senior Republicans despairing that he will ever play a constructive role in addressing the crisis, with some concluding they must work around Mr. Trump and ignore or even contradict his pronouncements. In recent days, some of the most prominent figures in the G.O.P. outside the White House have broken with Mr. Trump over issues like the value of wearing a mask in public and heeding the advice of health experts.... They appear to be spurred by several overlapping forces, including deteriorating conditions in their own states, Mr. Trump's seeming indifference to the problem and the approach of a presidential election in which Mr. Trump is badly lagging his Democratic challenger, Joseph R. Biden Jr., in the polls."

Florida. Ye Shall Know Them by Their Masks. Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura of the New York Times: "... as cases [of the coronavirus] spike across Florida, the virus appears to have caught up with the residents of the Villages..., one of America's biggest retirement communities.... The Villages is a sprawling palm-tree-lined complex so big it has three ZIP codes, 12 golf courses and multiple libraries and movie theaters, drawing affluent retirees from all over the country.... Some steps have been taken to help slow infections. Crowds around the faux Spanish colonial buildings and fountains are smaller, theaters are closed and the bands have stopped playing. Yet, residents still congregate every day without wearing masks. They turn up the volume on a radio and dance in the squares. They crowd bars where songs by Elvis Presley and Bobby Sherman play. There are picnics and water aerobics classes.... About two-thirds of the residents are Republicans, according to local party chairs.... 'You can tell who is a Democrat, who is a Republican by their masks,' said Chris Stanley, the leader of the Villages Democratic Club."

Georgia. Governor Asks Court to Shut Up Atlanta Mayor. Michael King of WXIA Atlanta News: "Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms reacted strongly on social media late Sunday morning to Gov. Brian Kemp's request for an emergency injunction against the mayor. The injunction is part of a lawsuit filed last Thursday which seeks to block the mayor from enacting or enforcing any orders that are 'more or less restrictive' than his executive orders. 'In addition to being sued over a mask mandate and voluntary advisory guidelines on COVID-19, Gov. Kemp has asked for an emergency injunction to "restrain" me from issuing press statements and speaking to the press,' Bottoms said Sunday morning. 'Far more have sacrificed too much for me to be silent.'"

Bill Barr's Diabolical Long Game. Ryan Goodman & Danielle Schulkin of Just Security: "Attorney General Barr has been building his playbook for using federal forces against an unwilling state for decades. In an interview with the Miller Center in 2001, Barr explained his strategy for deploying federal troops to address unrest in the Virgin Islands after a major hurricane in 1989. At the time of the incident, Barr was an assistant attorney general and head of the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel. He boasted that during this time he found a way to deploy federal forces based on a legal justification that appears to now being played out in Portland: '... we finally decided that without Presidential authority we could send down law enforcement people to defend the federal function. That is, we said, "People are interfering with the operation of our courts" and so on. I said, "We can send people down to ... keep our courts open, and if they see any crime being committed in front of them, then..., they can make the arrest."...'... The White House's true concern in 1989 was not to defend the federal function of courts -- but to quell widespread looting and disorder across the Virgin Islands. Barr bragged in his 2001 interview that he had found a way to get the federal forces down there and then play it by ear' without having to declare martial law."

Alayna Treene & Stef Kight of Axios: "President Trump and top White House officials are privately considering a controversial strategy to act without legal authority to enact new federal policies -- starting with immigration, administration officials tell Axios.... The White House thinking is being heavily influenced by John Yoo, the lawyer who wrote the Bush administration's justification for waterboarding after 9/11. Yoo detailed the theory in a National Review article, spotted atop Trump's desk in the Oval Office, which argues that the Supreme Court's 5-4 DACA ruling last month 'makes it easy for presidents to violate the law.'"

Elections 2020

Florida. A Poll Tax for the Penniless. Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: "On the day before John Lewis died, the Supreme Court made clear that the life's work [link fixed] of the Democratic congressman from Georgia remained unfinished.... That cruel fact was brought home Thursday, when the justices rebuffed an effort to restore voting rights to nearly a million felons in Florida who have served their sentences and, under an amendment to the state constitution adopted in 2018, should have had their franchise restored.... Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan, stated the consequences clearly in the first sentence of their dissent: 'This Court's order prevents thousands of otherwise eligible voters from participating in Florida's primary election simply because they are poor.' This is even worse than it sounds. First, not only can most of those affected not afford to pay the required amount, the Florida system is so messed up that the state can't even tell people what they owe and won't even be able to begin to do so until 2026.?

Scott Neuman of NPR: "The son of U.S. District Court Judge Esther Salas was fatally shot and her husband critically wounded when a gunman dressed as a FedEx driver entered her home near North Brunswick, N.J., Sunday afternoon, according to local media. Salas herself was reportedly unharmed in the attack, the New Jersey Globe reports. Daniel Anderl, Salas' 20-year-old son, was killed. Her husband, Mark Anderl, a criminal defense attorney and former assistant Essex County prosecutor, reportedly underwent surgery at Robert Wood Johnson Hospital in New Brunswick, and is listed in critical but stable condition."

The Commentariat -- July 19, 2020

Afternoon Update:

Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "An agitated President Trump offered a string of combative and often dubious assertions in an interview aired Sunday, defending his handling of the coronavirus with misleading evidence, attacking his own health experts, disputing polls showing him trailing in his re-election race and defending people who display the Confederate flag as victims of 'cancel culture.' Th president's remarks, delivered in an interview on 'Fox News Sunday,' amounted to a contentious potpourri more commonly found on his Twitter feed and at his political rallies. The difference this time was a vigorous attempt by the host, Chris Wallace, to fact-check him, leading to several clashes between the two on matters ranging from the coronavirus response to whether Mr. Trump would accept the results of the election should he lose." ~~~

~~~ The Washington Post's report, by Felicia Sonmez, is here. The Guardian's report, by Martin Pengelly, is here. ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Hmm. Looks as if Fox "News" is enjoying this. Looks as if they're rebroadcasting the whole Wallace/Trump interview at 7 pm ET today (Sunday). I might just listen, if I can find Fox on the "dial."

~~~ The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Sunday are here. "Mr. Trump said during [an] interview with Chris Wallace ... that Dr. Fauci had been against his decision to close the borders to travelers from China in January. That is not true.... Mr. Trump also said that Dr. Fauci had been against Americans wearing masks. Dr. Fauci has said that he does not regret urging Americans not to wear masks in the early days of the pandemic, referencing a severe shortage of protective gear for medical professionals.... Mr. Trump falsely claimed that the coronavirus rate in other countries was lower than in the United States because those nations did not engage in testing.... Mr. Trump said that he doubted whether Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the director of the C.D.C., was correct in predicting that the pandemic would be worse this fall.... He ... reiterated his earlier claim, unsupported by science, that the virus would suddenly cease one day. 'It's going to disappear and I'll be right.... Because I've been right probably more than anybody else.'" ~~~

~~~ Derek Hawkins & Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "With coronavirus cases rising across the country and the U.S. death toll topping 137,000, President Trump on Sunday dismissed concerns about the spike in infections, telling Fox News that 'many of those cases shouldn't even be cases.... Many of those cases are young people that would heal in a day,' the president told Fox News host Chris Wallace in an interview. 'They have the sniffles and we put it down as a test.'... Trump's remarks came after another week of grim data highlighting the uncontrolled spread of the virus. Infections rose in states from every region of the country, with more than a dozen states on Saturday reaching record highs in their seven-day averages for new daily cases." ~~~

~~~ Morgan Chalfant of the Hill: "President Trump in a testy interview with Fox News's Chris Wallace downplayed recent surges in coronavirus cases, defended his stance on Confederate-named bases and sought to attack ... Joe Biden. Trump disputed polls showing him trailing Biden, eviscerating his Democratic opponent as 'not competent to be president' and controlled by the 'radical' progressive wing of the party. He also complained about his inability to hold rallies in some areas of the country due to the coronavirus, accusing 'Democrat-run states' of not allowing him to do so.... Trump also described Dr. Anthony Fauci ... as 'a little bit of an alarmist' while denying that the White House is involved in an effort to discredit him." Mrs. McC: Fact-checkers can't keep up with this Big Fat Liar.

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Morgan Gstalter of the Hill: "Former Vice President Joe Biden [Mrs. McC: and his wife Jill] on Saturday mourned the death of Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), saying the civil rights leader was 'truly a one-of-a-kind, a moral compass who always knew where to point us and which direction to march.... We are made in the image of God, and then there is John Lewis,' Biden wrote in a statement. 'How could someone in flesh and blood be so courageous, so full of hope and love in the face of so much hate, violence, and vengeance?'" ~~~

~~~ This ABC News story has the Bidens' statement as well as President Obama's statement and others. Vice President mike pence's statement was quite sweet. Here's the Bidens' full statement, posted in Medium. Speaker Nancy Pelosi's full statement is here.

Just in: Trump has ordered the U.S. flag to be flown at half-staff at the White House and all federal buildings in honor of John Lewis.... for one day. Really, for half a day, since the order came out just past 11 a.m. The president's proclamation expires tonight. -- Philip Rucker of the Washington Post, in a tweet ~~~

~~~ Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "As the bipartisan tributes to Mr. Lewis's legacy began flowing late Friday evening and Saturday morning, President Trump opted to retweet a flurry of his older posts on Twitter largely focused on disparaging his enemies.... On Saturday afternoon, after issuing a boilerplate proclamation for flags to be flown Saturday at half-staff at the White House and public buildings, Mr. Trump published a perfunctory [Mrs. McC: and ungrammatical] message on the passing of one of his most prominent critics. 'Saddened to hear the news of civil rights hero John Lewis passing,' Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter after finishing a game of golf. 'Melania and I send our prayers to he and his family.'" A TPM story is here.

Remembering John Lewis Elijah Cummings. Christina Morales of the New York Times: "Like thousands of other Americans, Senators Marco Rubio and Dan Sullivan took to social media on Saturday to mourn the death of Representative John Lewis, a venerated figure of the civil rights movement.... Except the photo Mr. Rubio posted was not of Mr. Lewis, but of another congressman: Representative Elijah E. Cummings, who died in October. Mr. Rubio also used the photo of himself with Mr. Cummings as his Twitter profile picture for a brief time. Mr. Sullivan, Republican of Alaska, also memorialized Mr. Lewis with a photo of Mr. Cummings. In the picture he posted to his Facebook account, Mr. Sullivan is standing beside Mr. Cummings in front of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington." See commentary on Rubio's embarrassing mix-up in yesterday's thread.

Practical Matters. Greg Bluestein of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "Facing a tight legal deadline, Georgia Democrats are seeking online applications to succeed the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis. The state party said Saturday that potential contenders must complete an application by Sunday evening to be considered for the Atlanta-based seat held since 1987 by the civil rights hero. That's because state law gives the Democratic Party of Georgia until 4:30 p.m. on Monday to decide whether to replace Lewis' name on the November ballot for a full two-year term.... There also will be a separate special election to fill the remainder of the civil rights hero's term after his death Friday due to complications of pancreatic cancer. Gov. Brian Kemp has 10 days to schedule that vote to serve the rest of the Democrat's term, which expires in January."

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Saturday are here.

Trump Wants to Help Spread Coronavirus. Erica Werner & Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration is trying to block billions of dollars for states to conduct testing and contact tracing in the upcoming coronavirus relief bill, people involved in the talks said Saturday. The administration is also trying to block billions of dollars that GOP senators want to allocate for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and billions more for the Pentagon and State Department to address the pandemic at home and abroad, the people said.... Trump and other White House officials have been pushing for states to own more of the responsibility for testing and have objected to creating national standards, at times seeking to minimize the federal government's role.... The administration's posture has angered some GOP senators, the officials said, and some lawmakers are trying to push back and ensure that the money stays in the bill.... The negotiations center around a bill Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is preparing to unveil this coming week as part of negotiations with Democrats on what will likely be the last major coronavirus relief bill before the November election."

** Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: "Each morning at 8 as the coronavirus crisis was raging in April, Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, convened a small group of aides to steer the administration through what had become a public health, economic and political disaster.... They saw their immediate role as practical problem solvers.... But their ultimate goal was to shift responsibility for leading the fight against the pandemic from the White House to the states. They referred to this as 'state authority handoff,' and it was at the heart of what would become at once a catastrophic policy blunder and an attempt to escape blame for a crisis that had engulfed the country -- perhaps one of the greatest failures of presidential leadership in generations. Over a critical period beginning in mid-April, President Trump and his team convinced themselves that the outbreak was fading, that they had given state governments all the resources they needed to contain its remaining 'embers' and that it was time to ease up on the lockdown.... For scientific affirmation, they turned to Dr. Deborah L. Birx.... She was a constant source of upbeat news for the president and his aides, walking the halls with charts emphasizing that outbreaks were gradually easing." Emphasis added. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Almost everyone -- Trump, Meadows, Kushner, etc. -- comes off as a know-nothing nitwit in this story of how the administration failed the American people, but no one comes off worse than Debbie Birx, "the chief evangelist for the idea that the threat from the virus was fading." It's hard for me not to think of her jumping for joy, cheerleader-style, wearing one of those ridiculous flouncy skirts & flowing scarves she favors, her 1960s ponytail flying. ~~~

~~~ Scott Lemieux in LG&$: "Huge numbers of Americans will be dead, have permanent health issues, and/or be economically immiserated because the Trump administration's only significant COVID-19 focus was passing the buck and hoping things would go away[.]... [It's] it pretty clear [Trump is] not going to EMAILS! his way out of this one. Mass death and economic depression do tend to concentrate the mind."

Apoorva Mandavilli of the New York Times: "In the heated debate over reopening schools, one burning question has been whether and how efficiently children can spread the virus to others. A large new study from South Korea offers an answer: Children younger than 10 transmit to others much less often than adults do, but the risk is not zero. And those between the ages of 10 and 19 can spread the virus at least as well as adults do. The findings suggest that as schools reopen, communities will see clusters of infection take root that include children of all ages, several experts cautioned." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: This South Korean study offers one of those insights that should help us Americans curb the virus. But it won't. Because the POTUS* favors almost everything that spreads the virus: getting businesses back to normal, letting all the Christian congregations get together and sing, holding massive public events indoors and out, reopening schools. And although he is for handwashing, apparently something he does a lot himself, he is against requiring people to wear masks and social-distance. There is something very, very strange about this.

Maine. Shocking Stats. Maria Sachetti of the Washington Post: "Immigrants and refugees help power Maine, America's oldest and whitest state, by picking blueberries, packing meat and tending to the elderly far from the fancy resorts on Vacationland's rocky coast. But in a state that has one of the lowest rates of coronavirus infections, a pattern has emerged: Black Mainers -- many of them immigrants -- have been infected at disproportionate rates, accounting for approximately 23 percent of the cases in a state where they are less than 2 percent of the population.... The most recent state data show that at least 836 of more than 3,600 Mainers who have had the coronavirus are black."

Emily Gillespie & Rachel Siegel of the Washington Post: "The Oregon attorney general filed a lawsuit late Friday night alleging that the federal government had violated Oregonians' civil rights by seizing and detaining them without probable cause during protests against police brutality in the past week. The legal action comes after days of intensifying clashes between the Trump administration and Portland officials, who have accused federal agencies of heavy-handed tactics that inflame unrest and threaten citizens. Department of Homeland Security agents have swarmed the city in recent days, arguing that they are needed to restore order after nearly two months of demonstrations. But local officials, including Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler (D), have implored the agency to step down, with the mayor calling the police force President Trump's 'personal army' and suggesting its tactics are only making things worse." ~~~

     ~~~ Conrad Wilson, et al., of Oregon Public Broadcasting: "The Oregon Department of Justice is suing several federal agencies for civil rights abuses, and state prosecutors will potentially pursue criminal charges against a federal officer who seriously injured a protester. The federal lawsuit names the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Marshals Service, the United States Customs and Border Protection and the Federal Protective Service, agencies that have had a role in stepped-up force used against protesters since early July."

~~~ Sergio Olmos, et al., of the New York Times: "The federal agents facing a growing backlash for their militarized approach to weeks of unrest in Portland were not specifically trained in riot control or mass demonstrations, an internal Department of Homeland Security memo warned this week. The message, dated Thursday, was prepared by the agency for Chad F. Wolf, the acting secretary of Homeland Security.... The tactical agents deployed by Homeland Security include officials from a group known as BORTAC, the Border Patrol's equivalent of a S.W.A.T. team, a highly trained group that normally is tasked with investigating drug smuggling organizations, as opposed to protesters in cities.... The pushback against the militarized federal deployment involving officers in fatigues and tactical gear has also extended to the streets, where the presence of those federal agents has rejuvenated a movement that had shown signs of finally slowing down after weeks of protest against police violence and militarization." The Hill has a summary report here. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Knowing what he knew did not stop Chad Wolf from going on "Hannity" Thursday night and boasting that "brave law enforcement officers" were going to stop the "siege" of Portland by "lawless anarchists." ~~~

~~~ Dan Nexon of LG&$: "... it's ... clear that Trump's little green men aren't being deployed in a good faith way. People are being grabbed and detained as they walk home from protests. Even if legal, the totality of behavior is authoritarian by disposition. If normalized, it invites worse to come.... I don't think we can put the genie back in the bottle. The best hope remains a decisive electoral thrashing of Trump and the GOP, one that leaves the Mitt Romneys and Larry Hogans of the party vindicated. Still, recent developments underscore the need for major measures to prevent current abuses, as well as to make it harder to maintain and expand pockets of authoritarianism. One such measure is the abolition, or at least the partial dismemberment, of the Department of Homeland Security. DHS is a Frankenstein's monster, drawn on the back of a napkin and pursued for short-term political gain. It somehow manages to combine gross inefficiencies with dangerous concentrations of power. In other words, it's kind of Soviet."

Priscilla Alvarez of CNN: "The Trump administration must begin accepting new applications for the Obama-era program that shields undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children from deportation, a federal judge ruled Friday. The order comes nearly a month since the Supreme Court blocked the Trump administration's attempt to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. That ruling emphasized that the administration failed to provide an adequate reason to justify scrapping DACA. Judge Paul Grimm of the US District Court for the District of Maryland said Friday that the program is to be restored to its 'pre-September 5, 2017 status,' meaning the status quo before ... Donald Trump tried to terminate it, thereby giving hundreds of thousands of DACA-eligible immigrants the opportunity to apply."

Presidential Election

Mrs. McCrabbie: Headlines like this one get me: "Pandemic surge damages Trump, boosting Biden's White House bid: POLL." First, I hate the idea that death and severe illness are reduced to horse-race terms. Second, I'm horrified at what the poll numbers mean: that before tens of thousands of Americans died of Covid-19, millions of people thought, the racist, misogynistic, lying, narcissistic, corrupt, incompetent, cruel guy "is a pretty good president*. I'll vote for him again."

The Commentariat -- July 18, 2020

USA Today: "Rep. John R. Lewis, the civil rights icon whose fight for racial justice began in the Jim Crow south and ended in the halls of Congress, died Friday night.... The son of Alabama sharecroppers, Lewis served in Congress for more than three decades, pushing the causes he championed as an original Freedom Rider challenging segregation, discrimination and injustice in the Deep South -- issues reverberating today in the Black Lives Matter movement. He was an organizer of the March on Washington in 1963 along with Martin Luther King Jr., a seminal moment in the Civil Rights movement that led to the passage of voting rights for Blacks two years later. He became a community activist and member of the Atlanta City Council before winning a seat in Congress in 1986. He would go on to become a best-selling author and was awarded the nation's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, by President Barack Obama, the nation's first Black president. Lewis was elected to his 17th term in November 2018."

~~~ Rep. Lewis's New York Times obituary is here. The Washington Post's obituary is here. ~~~

~~~ "The Conscience of the Congress": ~~~

~~~ Barack Obama, in Medium, on the passing of John Lewis: "It's fitting that the last time John and I shared a public forum was at a virtual town hall with a gathering of young activists who were helping to lead this summer's demonstrations in the wake of George Floyd's death. Afterwards, I spoke to him privately, and he could not have been prouder of their efforts -- of a new generation standing up for freedom and equality, a new generation intent on voting and protecting the right to vote, a new generation running for political office."

Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper effectively banned displays of the Confederate battle flag on U.S. military installations, saying in a memo Friday that the 'flags we fly must accord with the military imperatives of good order and discipline, treating all our people with dignity and respect, and rejecting divisive symbols.' The memo does not explicitly mention Confederate banners but states that the American flag is the 'principal flag we are authorized and encouraged to display.'... A defense official..., speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the White House is aware of the new policy. It was not immediately clear if President Trump supports it.... Esper's new policy does not address the base-naming issue. An amendment in the new defense spending bill would require the Pentagon to change the names as well as remove other Confederate references, symbols and paraphernalia from installations within three years. Trump has threatened to veto the bill if the amendment is included." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Must Not Upset Trump. Lolita Baldor of the AP: "The [Confederate flag-ban] policy, laid out in a memo released Friday, was described by officials as a creative way to bar the flag's display without openly contradicting or angering ... Donald Trump, who has defended people's rights to display it." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Drumpf's Stasi

Erik Ortiz, et al., of NBC News: "Democratic members of Oregon's congressional delegation said Friday they will demand a federal investigation into the deployment of federal officers in Portland, where local leaders say their presence outside federal buildings has inflamed tensions during nightly protests and led to violent confrontations in recent weeks. The lawmakers want the inspectors general of the departments of Homeland Security and Justice to review the 'unrequested presence and violent actions' of 'paramilitary forces with no identification indicating who they are or who they work for.' A spokesman for Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, said she remains concerned about allegations that federal officers under the direction of ... Donald Trump may be arresting people in violation of their constitutional rights. Her office has asked the Department of Homeland Security to stand down its officers, spokesman Charles Boyle said, but 'federal law enforcement agencies are not communicating with us about their activities.... Governor Brown has called for Trump's federal officers to leave Portland and stay off our streets.'"

Emily Gillespie, et al., of the Washington Post: Portland, Oregon, "city officials on Friday demanded the Trump administration remove what they called a heavy-handed army of federal agents who have been grabbing protesters off the streets -- tactics that federal officials defended as legal and necessary to quell ongoing unrest.... One widely shared video showed two men in military garb on the street at night taking a young man wearing all black into custody.... The fight between the White House and the left-leaning city government intensified Friday amid videos and firsthand accounts of mysterious federal agents driving around in unmarked rental minivans and detaining protesters. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler referred to the federal agents as Trump's 'personal army' and said they should leave the city.... Acting secretary of homeland security Chad Wolf traveled to Portland this week to supervise the federal actions there, and he sharply criticized local law enforcement for not getting tough with 'violent anarchists.' Wolf told Fox News on Thursday night that he offered law enforcement assistance to the mayor and local leaders but was asked to 'pack up and go home,' which he said is 'just not going to happen on my watch.'"

** Ryan Haas & Conrad Wilson of Oregon Public Broadcasting: "U.S. Attorney Billy Williams said Friday he wants an investigation into actions of federal officers who have pulled Portland protesters off the street and into unmarked vehicles. Federal officers with U.S. Customs and Border Protection have come under significant scrutiny after OPB first reported Thursday that they were involved in constitutionally questionable arrests in Portland.... 'Based on news accounts circulating that allege federal law enforcement detained two protesters without probable cause, I have requested the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General to open a separate investigation directed specifically at the actions of DHS personnel,' Williams said in his statement. At least one officer with the Marshals Service is under investigation for severely injuring a Portland protester July 11 by shooting him in the face with an impact munition round." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Unless Williams' investigation turns out to be an "investigation," this is a big deal. The U.S. attorney works for Bill Barr, and Donald Trump nominated him. As Trump likes to say, we'll see what happens.

Sergio Olmos, et al., of the New York Times: "Federal agents dressed in camouflage and tactical gear have taken to the streets of Portland, unleashing tear gas, bloodying protesters and pulling some people into unmarked vans in what Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon has called 'a blatant abuse of power.' The extraordinary use of federal force in recent days, billed as an attempt to tamp down persistent unrest and protect government property, has infuriated local leaders who say the agents have stoked tensions.... Late Friday night, Oregon's attorney general said the office had opened a criminal investigation into how a protester was injured near a federal courthouse.... One Portland demonstrator, Mark Pettibone, 29, said he had been part of the protests before four people in camouflage jumped out of an unmarked van around 2 a.m. Wednesday. They had no obvious markings or identification, he said, and he had no idea who they were.... Mr. Pettibone said that he was terrified -- protesters in the city have in the past clashed with far-right militia groups also wearing camouflage and tactical gear -- and that at no point was he told why he was arrested or detained, or what agency the officers were with. He said he was held for about two hours before being released."; A related AP story is here.

Josh Marshall of TPM: "When asked about calls for an investigation into DHS police tactics in Portland, Oregon, Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli tells NPR not only are they not going to stop but they want to take the tactics nationwide."

This is terrifying and outrageous. Secret police are the purview of authoritarians. Trump is doing this months away from the election because he thinks it helps him. But imagine what happens if he gets four more years. -- Vanita Gupta of the Leadership conference on Civil & Human Rights, in a tweet

Charles Pierce of Esquire: "A major American city is being softly Pinochet'ed in broad daylight. And, if we know one thing, if this president* and his administration* get away with this, it will only get worse. You'd have to be out of your mind -- or comatose since the Fall of 2016 -- not to suspect that this could be a dry run for the kind of general urban mobilization at which the president* has been hinting since this summer's protests began.... Portland may be a dumbshow for dummies, but it also looks like a dress rehearsal. This is not an 'authoritarian impulse.' This is authoritarian government -- straight, no chaser. And this administration has a powerful thirst for it. It will do anything if it thinks it can get away with it in order to benefit a president* who wants to bring the Republic down on his head. Unmarked vehicles, disappearing people off the streets? We need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission now, before the dress rehearsal becomes a road show."

Even Ruth Marcus, the Washington Post's official handwringer, is exercised. She writes, "This is not America." Mrs. McC: Yeah, actually it is. Millions of Americans voted for just this very thing -- because there was not a chance in hell that those particular voters would be caught protesting for civil rights and swept into unmarked vans for their trouble.

Tessa Duvall & Darcy Costello of the Louisville Courier Journal: "Just after midnight March 13, three Louisville police officers fired more than 20 bullets into Breonna Taylor's apartment, striking her five times. But she was still alive -- at least briefly. For at least five minutes, she was coughing as she struggled to breathe, according to her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, who told investigators she was alive as he called her mom and yelled for help.... The Jefferson County coroner disputes that account, telling The Courier Journal that Taylor likely died within a minute of being shot and couldn't have been saved.... Records show that no effort was made to save her. For more than 20 minutes after Taylor was fatally shot at approximately 12:43 a.m. by Louisville officers, the 26-year-old emergency room technician lay where she fell in her hallway, receiving no medical attention, according to dispatch logs."

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates for coronavirus developments Friday are here: "As clashes over face-covering mandates and school reopening plans intensified throughout the United States, the country shattered its single-day record for new cases on Thursday -- more than 75,600, according to a New York Times database. This was the 11th time in the past month that the record had been broken. The previous single-day record, 68,241 cases, was announced last Friday. The number of daily cases has more than doubled since June 24, when the country registered 37,014 cases after a lull in the outbreak had kept the previous record, 36,738, standing for two months." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Friday are here: "The nine largest brick-and-mortar retail companies, which the National Retail Federation ranks based on global sales, have adopted new policies to require customers to wear masks inside U.S. stores. Costco began enforcing masks on May 4, but two months passed before other top retailers followed suit. Walmart, Inc. seemed to have triggered a corporate landslide this week with its announcement on Wednesday that masks would be required in its namesake stores and Sam's Club locations. Seven more of the largest brick-and-mortar retailers in the U.S. announced similar policies within two days: Kroger, CVS Health, Walgreens, Target, Albertsons Companies (which owns Safeway, Tom Thumb, and Acme, among other brands). Lowe's and Home Depot both announced mask requirements Friday."

Griff Witte & Ben Guarino of the Washington Post: "For weeks this summer, it was a seeming paradox of the coronavirus pandemic: cases in the United States were rising but deaths were falling. To the Trump administration, this was evidence that its strategy for combating covid-19 was working. To medical experts, it was only a matter of time before the trajectory changed. And now it has. Nationwide, deaths have begun to rise again. In some of the worst-hit states, especially across the South and the West, new death records are being set daily. As a virus-scarred summer wears on, public health specialists say the numbers are almost certain to continue to climb.... That grim assessment came as the United States on Friday set another record for total cases, with more than 76,000 -- including a new high of nearly 15,000 in Texas alone. More than 900 people died, matching a death count of recent days that has consistently hovered just below 1,000."

Josh Katz, et al., of the New York Times have produced a detailed interactive map of where people say they are wearing masks when they expect to come into contact with others. "Our data comes from a large number of interviews conducted by the global data and survey firm Dynata at the request of The New York Times." Mrs. McC: My area is doing poorly, although I can say that when I do my 6 am grocery shopping, mask-wearers are 100% of the early birds. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

S.N.A.F.U. Dara Lind of ProPublica: "As hospitals across the United States brace for a difficult six months -- with the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic still raging and concerns about a second wave in the fall -- some are acutely short-staffed because of ... a proclamation issued by ... Donald Trump on June 22, barring the entry of most immigrants on work visas.... Hundreds of young doctors were unable to start their residencies on time.... The proclamation stated that doctors 'involved with the provision of medical care to individuals who have contracted COVID-19 and are currently hospitalized' should be exempt from the ban, but it delegated the issuing of guidance to the departments of State and Homeland Security. That guidance has been slow and inconsistent." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Dareh Gregorian of NBC News: "... Donald Trump on Friday continued muddying his administration's messaging on the use of masks to combat the spread of the coronavirus, saying he disagreed with his CDC director about how effective they would be in stopping COVID-19.... In [an] interview [with Chris Wallace]..., Wallace referred to recent comments from ... [CDC] head Robert Redfield that 'If we could get everybody to wear a mask right now, I really do think over the next four, six, eight weeks, we could bring this epidemic under control.'... [Trump told Wallace,] "... I want people to have a certain freedom, and I don't believe in that, no.... And I don't agree with the statement that if everybody would wear a mask, everything disappears.... Hey, Dr. (Anthony) Fauci said "don't wear a mask"; our Surgeon General -- terrific guy -- said don't wear a mask.... All of a sudden, everybody's got to wear a mask, and as you know, masks cause problems too. With that being said, I'm a believer in masks. I think masks are good," he continued."

Bianca Quilantan of Politico: "The White House is blocking CDC officials from testifying next week at a hearing on reopening schools, the House Education and Labor Committee told Politico on Friday. Separately, the CDC confirmed that more guidance for opening schools won't be released until later this month. Committee Chair Bobby Scott had invited CDC Director Robert Redfield, or a designee, to testify before the Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education Subcommittee on July 23 at a hearing on safely reopening schools. The chair asked Redfield to discuss the immediate needs of K-12 public schools as many districts look to reopen in the fall."

John Hudson & Nate Jones of the Washington Post: "The State Department has released an internal cable from 2018 detailing the concerns of U.S. Embassy officials in China about a lack of adequately trained personnel at a virology lab in Wuhan, the city that later became the epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak. Leaked contents of the cable sparked unproven speculation from senior U.S. officials beginning in April that the outbreak occurred as a result of an accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In May, President Trump said he had seen evidence that gave him a 'high degree of confidence' that the coronavirus originated in a Chinese lab. When asked why he was confident, Trump said, 'I can't tell you that. I'm not allowed to tell you that.'... The Washington Post filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for the records. The Post sued in April after the State Department failed to produce the records in the time period required by the law. The full cable does not strengthen the claim that an accident at the lab caused the virus to escape, nor does it exclude the possibility. However, in recent months, skepticism of the accident theory has increased in the scientific community because the genetic sequences of isolates from the bat coronaviruses known to be under research at the lab do not match those of covid-19."

Mrs. McCrabbie: The monologue below is the most concise proof I've seen that Donald Trump cares nothing and knows nothing about governance. It's an amazing, unwitting admission he is clueless about what, if anything, his administration is doing and a four-alarm signal of his cognitive decline:

President* Trump on His Agenda -- White House Remarks, July 16

So we have many exciting things that we'll be announcing over the next eight weeks, I would say. Things that nobody has even contemplated, thought about, thought possible, and things that we're going to get done and we have gotten done -- and we've started in most cases. But it's going to be a very exciting eight weeks, a eight weeks, like I prob- -- I think, Mike, we can honestly say nobody has ever going to see eight weeks like we're going to have. Because we really have -- we have -- we're taking on immigration, taking on education, we're taking on so many aspects of things that people were hopelessly tied up in knots in Congress. They can't -- they've been working on some of these things for 25, 30 years. It wasn't happening. But you'll see levels of detail, and you'll see levels of thought that a lot of people believed very strongly we didn't have in this country. We're going to get things done. We're going to get things done that they've wanted to see done for a long, long time. So I think we'll start sometime on Tuesday. We'll be discussing our one plan on suburbia, but that's one of many, many different plans. Then we're going into the immigration -- the world of immigration, the world of education. We're going into the world of healthcare -- very complete healthcare. And we have a lot of very exciting things to discuss. But cutting of regulation has been really something that I felt we could do, and we could do fairly easily. Nothing is easy in this country. We had statutory requirements where we'd do phase one, and then we'd have to wait 90 days. We'd do phase two, and we'd have to wait 60 days. You'd do phase three, and we're set -- 'Let's do phase four, sir.' 'I'm sorry you have to wait one year.' But we were able to do things that nobody has ever been able to do, or even close, on deregulation.

Source: White House transcript, unedited. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Matthew Choi of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Friday broke his silence on a tell-all book [by his niece Mary Trump].... 'Mary Trump, a seldom seen niece who knows little about me, says untruthful things about my wonderful parents (who couldn't stand her!) and me, and violated her NDA,' Trump wrote on Twitter. 'She's a mess!...'... Speaking with CNN's Chris Cuomo hours after Trump's tweet, Mary Trump echoed previous comments in which she described her uncle as a racist.... Though she conceded it was difficult to maintain relations after her grandfather's death due to an intra-family lawsuit, Mary Trump pointed out that the president had requested she ghost write his second book. She also added that she and her grandmother were 'very close.... My grandfather didn't really have positive feelings for anybody except perhaps Donald,' she said. In response to the president calling her a 'mess,' Mary Trump replied: 'I think it's just an attack he hurls predominately at women and honestly, I'm in very good company. I believe he's said the same thing about Nancy Pelosi and I'm fine with that.'"

Jeff Zeleny & Kevin Liptak of CNN: "The official portraits of former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were removed from the Grand Foyer of the White House within the last week, aides told CNN, and replaced by those of two Republican presidents who served more than a century ago. White House tradition calls for portraits of the most recent American presidents to be given the most prominent placement, in the entrance of the executive mansion, visible to guests during official events.... The Clinton and Bush portraits were moved into the Old Family Dining Room, a small, rarely used room that is not seen by most visitors."

A Binder Full of Lies. Reed Richardson of Mediaite: "A Reuters photograph of White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany's vast briefing binder offered a peek behind the curtain of the Trump administration's messaging priorities. Taken from the side of the White House briefing room podium, the photograph catches McEnany opening the book, exposing dozens of alphabetized tabs with short category names. During her tenure, McEnany has developed a reputation for flipping open her briefing book after a particularly confrontational question and reading verbatim from pre-written responses, which often included canned attacks on the press or praise from allies.... McEnany's tabs include a number evergreen topics, but several recent ones as well.... But many of the tabs spoke to this White House's favorite boogeymen, with categories such as 'Media,' 'Lies,' 'China,' 'BLM,' 'Privil' suggesting white privilege, and one simply labeled 'Absurd.'... Notably, one tab was labeled 'Karl,' which might be an oppo brief against ABC News White House correspondent Jon Karl, who has frequently clashed with Trump at press conferences."

Elections 2020

Will Weissert of the AP: "Joe Biden said Friday night that he’s begun receiving intelligence briefings as he warned that Russia, China and other adversaries were attempting to undermine the upcoming U.S. election in November.... [Biden] wasn't specific and offered no evidence while addressing a virtual fundraiser with more than 200 attendees. But, in the process, he confirmed receiving classified briefings after saying as recently as late last month that he wasn't getting them but might request one about reports of Russian bounties being offered on U.S. troops in Afghanistan." The Washington Post's story is here.

Brett Samuels of the Hill: "'Fox News Sunday' anchor Chris Wallace in a new interview shut down President Trump's claim that ... Joe Biden is in favor of defunding the police. The president blamed a recent rise in violence in ... major cities on Democratic leadership, saying urban centers are 'stupidly run.' When Wallace noted that Democrats have led cities for decades, Trump ... [said,] 'It's gotten totally out of control and it's really because they want to defund the police, and Biden wants to defund the police.'... 'Sir, he does not,' Wallace interjected. 'Look, he signed a charter with Bernie Sanders,' Trump shot back, referencing a lengthy unity platform unveiled by Biden and the Vermont senator that offers a number of progressive policy proposals. 'And it says nothing about defunding the police,' Wallace said. 'Oh really? It says abolish, it says defund. Let's go. Get me the charter, please,' Trump said, turning to staff off camera. Wallace recounted ... that Trump ... '... couldn't find any indication -- because there isn't any -- that Joe Biden has sought to defund and abolish the police.'... Biden has explicitly and repeatedly said that he does not support defunding or abolishing the police." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: In the exchange, Wallace struck a serious blow to Trump's re-election campaign inasmuch as Trump, in a leap of unintentional irony, is portraying himself as the law-and-order candidate and Biden as a presidential hopeful who would create chaos in America. ~~~

~~~ Trump told the same lie about Biden in the Rose Garden Tuesday: Louis Jacobson of Politifact: "Trump said that a Biden-Sanders 'unity' policy document shows that 'They now want to abolish our police departments. They want to abolish our prisons, I guess.' The document does not say anything about abolishing police departments or getting rid of all prisons."

What Happened to Honor Among Thieves? Sarah Rumpf of Mediaite: “Days after Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale was demoted, he may have new troubles.... A detailed report by Business Insider describes an internal audit the campaign is conducting of 'spending irregularities' during his time helming the president's reelection efforts. The new campaign manager, Bill Stepien, denied that Parscale was being audited but other sources for the story contradicted that. As the Business Insider report details, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner brought in Jeff DeWit, an accountant and former chief financial officer of NASA, to join the campaign as its new chief operating officer. In an interview Friday, DeWit confirmed that he was 'reviewing all campaign contracts and examining all spending,' BI reports. DeWit denied that the audit was 'targeting' anyone specific, but other Republican sources familiar with the campaign's operations identified Parscale as a likely focus because 'he controlled all campaign spending, from polling and advertising to voter surveys, during a tenure that started in January 2017.'" ~~~

~~~ Grifters Grifting Grifters. Scott Lemieux in LG&$: "The last months of Trump are going to involve a lot of grifters stealing anything that isn't nailed down, which would be funny if the American people weren't going to be among the frequent targets."

Jesse McKinley of the New York Times: "Jamaal Bowman has scored a stunning victory over Representative Eliot L. Engel of New York in a Democratic primary, defeating the 16-term incumbent and overcoming the efforts of the Democratic establishment in a profound show of progressive political power. Mr. Bowman, a middle school principal from Yonkers, was declared the winner on Friday, after a count of absentee ballots verified what seemed clear on Primary Night, when he emerged with a commanding lead over Mr. Engel, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.... In the closing weeks of the campaign, as Mr. Bowman gained momentum and prominent backers, members of the Democratic old guard tried to salvage Mr. Engel's flagging campaign.... The Black Lives Matter movement ... gave a powerful talking point for Mr. Bowman, who is African-American and said he had been physically attacked by police as a child. The Black Lives Matter movement also served as backdrop for a cringe-inducing moment for Mr. Engel. At a news conference in the Bronx in early June, the congressman was caught on microphone suggesting that he was only there because of his contested race. 'If I didn't have a primary,' he said, 'I wouldn't care.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie Note to Donald Trump: "I really don't care" turns out not to be the best campaign message. And two-thirds of the country already knows that's your message, whether or not your wife has it painted on the back of her jacket.

Horrible News for Many Reasons. Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg announced Friday that she is being treated for a recurrence of cancer, this time on her liver, but says she remains able to do her work on the Supreme Court. 'I have often said I would remain a member of the court as long as I can do the job full steam,' Ginsburg said in a written statement. 'I remain fully able to do that.' Ginsburg, 87, and the court's oldest member, has battled cancer four times and has had other health concerns." An AP story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Beyond the Beltway

Wow! Deborah Yetter of the Louisville Courier Journal: "Jerry Lundergan, a former Kentucky Democratic Party chairman and the father of former Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, was sentenced Thursday to 21 months in federal prison for election finance violations related to his daughter's unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Kentucky. Lundergan, 73, of Lexington, was convicted last year along with Dale Emmons, of Richmond, for being part of a scheme to funnel more than $200,000 in illegal campaign donations to the Senate campaign in which Grimes, a Democrat, in 2014 ran unsuccessfully against Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell. Emmons, a campaign consultant hired by Lundergan, was sentenced to nine months in a halfway house, three years of supervised release and fined $50,000. Lundergan also was sentenced to two years of supervised release and fined $150,000." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Way Beyond

Israel. Mitch Prothero of Business Insider: "Israel is involved in an extended campaign to pressure or damage Iran before President Donald Trump can be voted out of office in the November election, a former Israeli defense official and a current European Union intelligence official told Insider.... These attacks have put the country on edge, with nearly daily reports of fires, explosions, and other mishaps treated as potential foreign sabotage.... The attacks appear to be part of a campaign of 'maximum pressure, minimal strategy,' said the EU intelligence official.... With a broad belief among America's allies that Trump is unlikely to win reelection, Israel's apparent shift in tactics toward high-pressure 'kinetic' operations seem to reflect a belief that under a Biden administration, there would be a move to save the 2015 nuclear deal that had been scuttled by Trump." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

~~~ As Hattie wrote in yesterday's thread: "Praying for RBG. Dancing for Sir Tom."