Business Insider:
The Huffington Post will no longer cover Donald Trump's presidential campaign in its politics section. In a post published on the site Friday, Huffington Post Washington bureau chief Ryan Grim and editorial director Danny Shea said they would be moving all coverage of Trump, who has starred in multiple reality-television shows, to the entertainment section.
"Our reason is simple: Trump's campaign is a sideshow," they wrote. "We won't take the bait. If you are interested in what The Donald has to say, you'll find it next to our stories on the Kardashians and The Bachelorette." ...
In a conversation with Business Insider over Twitter direct messages, Grim explained the rationale behind the decision, described how coverage of Trump would look going forward, and addressed potential criticism of the decision.
"Yes, that's us passing judgment, but I'd argue it's still objective, as he is objectively a clownshow," Grim said of Trump.
Business Insider:
Donald Trump's campaign dismissed the Huffington Post as a "glorified blog" in a statement on Friday evening.
Trump's attack on the website came after the Huffington Post announced it would cover Trump's presidential campaign on its entertainment page rather than in its politics section. Huffington Post Washington bureau chief Ryan Grim also dismissed Trump as "a clownshow" in an interview about the decision with Business Insider.
"The only clown show in this scenario is the Huffington Post pretending to be a legitimate news source," the Trump campaign statement said.
Politico:
A quick fact-check: 1. Huffington Post is taking the bait, because they're continuing to cover Trump and will continue to benefit from the clicks. 2. Trump's campaign isn't a sideshow. He's leading the field, and is therefore a daily preoccupation for other candidates. (Hours after posting its note, Huffington Post sent an email clarifying that "the impact [Trump is] having on the Republican Party and the immigration debate is itself a real thing," which it will cover "as substance, but anything that tumbles out of his mouth will land on the Entertainment page.")
Politico, of course, is not happy at the implied criticism of the breathless way
they cover Trump.
More politics and policy below the fold.
Todd Purdum:
“Obama may be singular as a president, not only because of his striking background,” says Kenneth Adelman, who was Ronald Reagan’s arms control negotiator with the Soviets three decades ago, and who has his doubts about the Iran deal. “It may turn out that unlike virtually any other president, his second term is actually better than his first.” ...
“It’s an unfinished chapter,” says presidential historian Richard Norton Smith, who is writing a new biography of Gerald Ford. “But he has already defied the second-term curse and the wisdom of just six months ago. ‘What can a president do if he doesn’t have either house of Congress?’ Well, guess what, he can reverse a 50, 60-year-old policy toward Cuba. But, more than that, he can still, even without the traditional televised Oval Office version of the bully pulpit, to a large degree set the terms of the national debate.”
George Zornick:
When Senator Elizabeth Warren took the stage at Netroots Nation in Phoenix on Friday, many of the assembled activists hoped she would be coming to them as a presidential candidate—in fact, more than a few of them operated campaigns to convince her to run.
It didn’t work, but the various Draft Warren campaigns, in concert with the Massachusetts senator’s rapid rise in the party, leave her in a unique position to influence the direction of the presidential primary debate. Warren cashed in some of those chips during her speech Friday, issuing a direct challenge to presidential candidates (read: Hillary Clinton) to support specific legislation that would curb some of the financial sector’s influence at federal regulatory agencies.
Atlantic:
Is There a Viable Alternative to the Iran Deal?
Three Atlantic writers debate the merits of the nuclear agreement.
All of whom were for the invasion of Iraq.
WaPo on what skeptics think about the deal. But note the last part:
Although the agreement says sanctions can be “snapped back” into place if Iran is caught cheating, that would effectively end the agreement, because Iran then has the right to stop complying. It’s a clause Dubowitz calls the “nuclear snapback.”
“For Iran, it’s just a question of when do they play that card,” he said.
But Kelsey Davenport, head of nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, said that is not an easy out for Iran.
“The cost for that abandonment will be extremely high,” she said. “The international community will remain united trying to prevent Iran trying to run back down a path to nuclear weapons development. In a cost-benefit analysis, there really are few benefits to Iran if the deal dissolves under that sort of scenario.”
Harry Enten:
As Donald Trump rises in the polls, another loud-mouthed northeasterner continues to flounder: Chris Christie. The New Jersey governor officially jumped into the Republican presidential race June 30, but his poll numbers didn’t move (other candidates received a post-announcement bounce). Christie is now in danger of missing the first GOP debate, on Aug. 6.
Christie averaged just 2.7 percent of the vote in the three live-interview Republican primary surveys taken in July. That’s very slightly worse than the 3 percent he averaged in the three live-interview polls taken just before he entered the campaign. And when I last looked at the debate standings, in early June, Christie seemed safely on the invite list. But Trump is sucking up all the oxygen; Christie has received comparatively little media attention, and the little post-announcement spike in attention that Christie did receive has abated.
Toast, my man. Toast.
Politico:
Republicans' crush on Silicon Valley not returned
The tech industry’s elite favors the Democratic frontrunner, even as Republicans try to make inroads.
Dana Milbank:
What we need, for one thing, is the sentencing reforms [Obama] spoke about this week. As more nonviolent drug offenders (often black) have been put away, the United States now has 5 percent of the world’s population but 25 percent of its prisoners. The issue has Republican support, which raises the possibility of rare late-term legislative achievement.
Nobody thinks such a law will erase racism. But, as Obama said this week, “If we keep taking steps toward a more perfect union, and close the gaps between who we are and who we want to be, America will move forward.”
It’s the perfect response to the Confederate flag wavers.
Christopher Dickey:
Confederate Madness Then and Now
A British consul witnessed the cynical process that plunged the United States into civil war in the 1860s. His observations can teach us a lot today.
A thoughtful read.
