So Donald Trump gets ready for a sudden Mexican trip (feels like a John McCain-style suspension of the campaign to change the discussion on immigration, i.e. a publicity stunt. Didn’t work for him, either.) We’ll see if he gets back in time for his big immigration speech today. Meanwhile...
Digby:
Clinton strategist Paul Begala told the author, 'There was an ongoing effort to delegitimize him. Some on the right refused to call him President Clinton, called him "Mr Clinton" instead." He recalled that Congressman Dick Armey said on the floor of the House "he's your president."
And they used the fact that Clinton won with a plurality due to the Ross Perot candidacy as proof of his illegitimacy despite the fact that all the studies showed he took equally from both parties. On the day after the election Senator Bob Dole announced, "fifty-seven percent of the Americans who voted in the presidential elections voted against Bill Clinton and I intend to represent that majority on the floor of the US Senate." And so began the eight years of relentless investigations, scandal mongering, obstruction and finally impeachment.
This is how they operate when Democrats hold the White House.
Edward-Isaac Dovere/Politico:
The trick out of Brooklyn isn't just to make Hillary Clinton win but to make her win as something other than a brain-damaged crook who stole the election and will spend the next four years selling out the government from her deathbed.
The Clinton delegitimization project is now central to Donald Trump’s campaign and such a prime component of right-wing media that it’s already seeped beyond extremist chat rooms into “lock her up” chants on the convention floor, national news stories debating whether polls actually can be rigged, and voters puzzling over that photo they think they saw of her needing to be carried up the stairs.
Matthew Yglesias/Vox:
Colin Powell’s foundation and Hillary Clinton’s are treated very differently by the media
So what about the charity? Well, Powell’s wife, Alma Powell, took it over. And it kept raking in donations from corporate America. Ken Lay, the chair of Enron, was a big donor. He also backed a literacy-related charity that was founded by the then-president’s mother. The US Department of State, at the time Powell was secretary, went to bat for Enron in a dispute the company was having with the Indian government.
Did Lay or any other Enron official attempt to use their connections with Alma Powell (or Barbara Bush, for that matter) to help secure access to State Department personnel in order to voice these concerns? Did any other donors to America’s Promise? I have no idea, because to the best of my knowledge nobody in the media ever launched an extensive investigation into these matters. That’s the value of the presumption of innocence, something Hillary Clinton has never been able to enjoy during her time in the national spotlight.
Jeff Jarvis/Medium:
Here is AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll defending what I believe were a seriously flawed story and tweet about some of Clinton Foundation donors Hillary Clinton happened to meet with while Secretary of State.
Hey, are you actually interested in understanding the Clinton Foundation? Here’s two that will help.
Brian Mittendorf/Chronicle of Philanthropy:
How to Understand the Clinton Foundation
Do not expect the Clinton Foundation to behave like a private foundation.
Although it has "foundation" in its name, the Clinton Foundation is actually a public charity. In practical terms, this means both that it relies heavily on donations from the public and that it achieves its mission primarily by using those donations to conduct direct charitable activities, as opposed to providing grants from an endowment.
Failure to understand the difference led to the widespread claim (covered by the New York Post, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and others) that only a small portion of Clinton Foundation spending goes toward charity. While measuring charitable endeavors by the amount of grants awarded may be appropriate for many private foundations, it is not for an organization that acts as a direct service provider like the Clinton Foundation.
Thomas Lippman/LobeLog Foreign Policy:
The outrage, however, is misdirected. This is not just about who got face time with the secretary of state; it’s about the way Washington works all the time, regardless of who is president or who is secretary of any cabinet department. Access is to people in Washington what gold is to gold miners. It is what lobbyists and trade association executives are paid to develop; it is what enables think tanks to get their policy papers to the top of the inbox. It’s why government official X or Senator Y returns this phone call instead of that one. Rarely is there a specific trade-off. In this sense Washington is no different from Albany or Sacramento or any other state capital.
Is this corruption? Angry voters may think so because the system appears to favor some insiders over ordinary folk, but the U.S. Supreme Court didn’t agree, overturning the conviction of former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell in a gifts-for-access case. Absent a specific quid pro quo, the Court ruled, it’s not corruption, even if it doesn’t pass the smell test. Similarly, the court ruled in the Citizens Unitedcase that corporate contributions to political campaigns are free speech, not corrupt purchase of access.
To those who seek it, the avenue by which access is gained is less important than the fact of access itself.
Greg Sargent/WaPo:
One of Trump’s biggest lies is falling apart. So naturally, he’s blaming the media for it.
The Grand Trumpian Immigration Follies of 2016 are set to take another turn: Donald Trump has now announced that he will give a major speech (does any Trump speech fail to merit that label?) on the issue on Wednesday, in which he is expected to finally clarify his stance on mass deportations. Trump veep candidate Mike Pence promised yesterday that Trump would clarify it.
But it is more likely that instead of clarifying his stance on mass deportations, Trump will instead try to shift the subject away from them entirely. That’s because Trump’s big lie about mass deportations — i.e., that he would carry them out swiftly and humanely, thus Making America Great Again — is falling apart. And he’s now trying to replace that lie by foregrounding another lie.
Michael Tomasky/Daily Beast:
Nobody’s Buying Donald Trump’s Immigration Lies
The words and positions Trump used to win over the enraged white people who put him over the top in the GOP primary aren’t flying with Americans now.
Here’s what really made [the first Obama-Romney debate] scary, though, and why it’s relevant today: You had the feeling while watching it that Romney was finally saying what he believed. He was always a moderate-to-conservative man who wasn’t consumed with rage and who was obviously just saying that crap about “self deportation” and being a “severely conservative governor” to get on the good side of the red-hots. He seemed free. Finally, he seemed to be thinking, this is who I am, who I’ve wanted to be all along. I can say what I actually think, and it’s even good for me politically.
And it most certainly did work. It was the only moment in the race when he pulled ahead of Obama for a short period.
Now, with Trump, it’s just the opposite. He meant what he was saying then. Mexican rapists, deport them all, waterboard their asses...he quite obviously meant every coarse, sleazy, greasy, flatulent, and unconstitutional syllable. So now he’s lying, and now, unlike Romney, he looks miserable, not free. Just the way his face contorts when he’s forced to utter a word like “humane”…it’sobviously painful for him. And he’s fooling no one.
Except he is, perhaps, exasperating his base. Actually, you can read whatever you want to about that. Here’s one report on how his base voters are upset.Here’s another arguing that his base voters don’t seem to care.
Stu Rothenberg:
Trump said he could put several blue states in play. It’s clear he can’t.
For months, Donald Trump and members of his political team promised to put reliably Democratic states like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Oregon into play. But now, with only two months until Election Day, it’s clear that those promises were empty boasts.
The presidential electoral map shows Trump losing key swing states and barely holding on in some GOP bastions. Given the current numbers, the major question is the size of Hillary Clinton’s electoral-vote victory.
Hey, speaking of white people (and I know a few. In fact, some of my best friends are white people. Believe me):
J.D. Vance (Hillbilly Elegy)/NRO with a fascinating essay on the parallel worlds of poor blacks and poor whites:
Why Race Relations Got Worse
In the face of these pressures, the two groups took different approaches to politics. The white poor, unencumbered by legal discrimination, focused on a politics of class. From Jackson to Truman, they voted their pocketbook, taught their children to mistrust the rich man, and hated the elites who looked down on them. As Martin Luther King Jr. observed shortly before his death, they benefited psychologically from the caste system in the South. Black people, meanwhile, understandably voted the color of their skin, putting their trust in whoever promised to tear down the most legal barriers. Sometimes, as with Lyndon Baines Johnson, these interests aligned, delivering supermajorities in the process. But those moments were largely the product of chance.
The Root:
Jackie Robinson in 1972: ‘I Cannot Stand and Sing the Anthem; I Cannot Salute the Flag’
As fury around Colin Kaepernick's principled stance continues to rise, let's look back at Robinson, the barrier-breaking athlete and activist who wrote that he was a "black man in a white world."
Everything wrong with beltway journos:
He’s normalizing unfitness for the presidency, fact-less and policy-free campaigns and repelling minority voters. Nice job, Reince.
Oliver Darcy/Business Insider:
Hannity rants against Glenn Beck, Ted Cruz, and the Never Trump movement: 'I'll blame you' if Clinton wins!
Losing his mind, one radio show at a time.