Margaret Sullivan/WaPo:
Tainted by Fox News scandals, Bill Shine now works for us all. No big deal, right?
For Trump’s base, stories pointing out the president’s outrages don’t matter — they amount to liberal hand-wringing, just another example, in their eyes, of the media trying to bring down their beloved, duly elected president.
And for others — including plenty of those with no love for Trump — it’s all too much.
And many journalists are worn down, too.
“Over the course of two years, he has dulled the senses of the people who cover him,” Rosenstiel said.
Trump’s hunger for constant attention keeps the craziness flowing all day every day, leaving journalists and the public overwhelmed and not always able to distinguish what is a real controversy and what is a manufactured one.
In Trump World, there is no weekend, there is no evening. The news cycle is perpetual.
As journalists, Rosenstiel said, “we’ve lost our own sense of proportion.”
That’s worrisome. It means that important developments don’t get the attention they deserve, that norms can be shredded with impunity.
It means that Bill Shine can emerge from reputational disaster at Fox News and be rewarded with a high-ranking job as what used to be called a public servant.
Whatever. Pass the mustard.
Joshua Zeitz/Politico:
Never Trumpers Will Want to Read This History Lesson
In the 1850s, disaffected Democrats made the wrenching choice to leave their party to save American democracy. Here’s what happened.
So too can Never Trumpers and Democrats in 2018 find common cause. Relative to other center-left political parties in the developed world, the U.S. Democratic Party is more center than left. It’s the only American political party that has seriously attempted to develop market-based policies to expand health care access (the Affordable Care Act), address climate change (cap and trade) or upgrade the nation’s deficient infrastructure (an infrastructure bank.
As recently as the 1990s and early 2000s—before their party devolved into a spirit of revanchism—center-right Republicans used to compromise with center-left Democrats to address systemic challenges like children’s health care, tax policy and environmental protection. There’s no reason they can’t do so again, within the framework of an enlarged and more ideologically diverse Democratic Party.
Remember, to post is not to endorse. But it’s an interesting read.
Many on the left view anti-Trump folks on the right with suspicion. Maybe they're right. Any anti-Trump conservative who supports Brett Kavenaugh, who will rubber-stamp EVERY Trump policy, is deserving of suspicion. Makes me think their objections to Trump are purely stylistic.
Personally, I am suspicious of anti-Trump conservatives who insist on remaining members of the Republican Party. In theory, there is a case for remaining inside to guide the party back to sanity. In practice, they are enabling the Trumpsters.…
like a parent who give their addict child money for food while knowing that it will almost certainly be used to buy drugs. ANY support for the GOP at this point gives aid and comfort to fascism. The only moral position is to leave the party…
and let it die a decent death. Only then can responsible people work to rebuild a center-right party that does not depend for victory on the votes of racists, radical extremists, bigots, fanatics and the other unsavory characters that Trump caters to and depends upon for power.
The third part is who the Americans are who will be indicted.
WaPo:
The Midwest eases its Trump swoon and flirts again with Democratic candidates
In Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota and Ohio, Democratic senators once thought to be endangered have rebounded and are in fairly safe positions. In House and gubernatorial races, Democrats have grown more competitive since the start of the year — especially in House districts drawn from suburbs that were thought to be safely Republican. In special elections held in the Midwest since Trump’s inauguration, Democrats have improved on their 2016 performance by an average of 11 points.
In Wisconsin, Republicans have lost two state Senate seats and a race for state Supreme Court; in Iowa, Michigan, and Minnesota, Democrats have held onto districts where voters had rejected Clinton.
Republicans in the region have been forced into a difficult choice. They can declare independence, like Balderson, who is running in a special election Aug. 7. Or they can side with a president whose actions, while popular among Republicans, are decidedly not so among other voters who will decide November’s elections.
Americans Think ‘Corruption’ Is Everywhere. Is That Why We Vote for It
I came from the Philippines, right?” the second woman said. “When corruption sets in, it doesn’t stop at the top. It goes down. Every appointee will be somebody that is corrupt or can be corrupted, can be silenced. Look at now. If you have a corrupt judicial system — I think the only thing that’s standing now in America that isn’t so very corrupted is the military.”
“And you think Trump can stop that?” I asked.
“I will take him,” she replied. “Because I know what Hillary did already.” ...
What is incredible about this is not just that so many Americans now accept the sort of drastic rhetoric that usually only flies in countries with actual, existential corruption problems. It’s the fact that so many people accept it from, of all people, Donald Trump. “The Democrat I.T. scandal is key to much of the corruption we see today,” he tweeted on June 7. This was a week before New York’s attorney general filed a lawsuit seeking to disband Trump’s philanthropic foundation following a two-year investigation, alleging extensive campaign-law violations and extravagant self-dealing. (Trump blamed the lawsuit on “sleazy New York Democrats,” but the state’s evidence included a note in Trump’s own handwriting diverting foundation funds to his personal legal expenses.)
This is my Mueller’s report can change minds. Nothing focuses you like indictments.
This, from a campaign veteran, is a key point. There’s GOTV (your own) but also Keep in the Vote (the opposition’s). And Trump targeted Clinton soft voters using Clinton’s own data that identified who they were — stolen data. That’s how it was done. Not by changing vote counts at the machines, but by using stolen analytics. And when Mueller reveals who the Americans were who helped, it will get even more interesting.
Will Bunch/Philly Inquirer:
The 2 ways Russia may have helped Trump steal the election aren't what you think
The Russia-interference-was-no-big-deal crowd also clings to the fact there’s no evidence of the greatest fear when it comes to election stealing — that hackers accessed electronic voting systems on election night and changed vote totals to hand the contest to Trump.
And yet — buried beneath the headlines on Friday’s indictments — were two largely new revelations that dramatically elevated the possibility that Russian meddling wasn’t just morally and criminally wrong but actually went a long way toward snatching victory away from Clinton and handed it to Trump on Election Day.
Josh Marshall/TPM:
Israel Pushed Heavily for Trump to Meet with Putin
But Israel’s focus is to keep Iranian forces or Iranian proxies several tens of miles back from Israel’s borders at a minimum (50-60 kilometers, this article says). The other just as critical goal is to keep Iranian missiles and air defense systems from anywhere on Syrian soil.
To achieve these aims, Israel needs Russia. Entous’s article argued that UAE, Saudi Arabia and Israel each want a rapprochment between the US and Russia because only that will make possible or give Russia an interest in pushing back or restraining Iran, most specifically in Syria. Europeans fear, apparently correctly, that the idea is to trade Russian assistance with Iran for regularizing Russia’s gains in Ukraine and ending sanctions.
Whether such deals are possible, for the ‘why is this summit happening’ question, there’s one clear answer: the de facto alliance of Israel, UAE and Saudi Arabia have been pushing for it heavily.
WaPo:
Immigrant kids held in shelters: ‘They told us to behave, or we’d be here forever’
When the 8-year-old stepped off a plane here earlier this month with freshly cut bangs and a shelter-issued sweatsuit, she was met by crowds and television cameras and finally, in a carpeted airport conference room, by the mother who had been taken from her two months earlier at the border.
But now, a day after that joyous reunion, the girl from Guatemala was shoving a toddler who had tried to give her a hug and a kiss at a welcoming party in the suburbs. Now she was screaming and crying and telling the boy to stay away.
This is what two months in a Texas shelter had taught Sandy Gonzalez.
“They always kept the boys and the girls separate,” the second-grader explained last week. “And they punished us if we went near each other.”
Tragic.
Carlos Lozado/WaPo:
Can truth survive this president? An honest investigation.
If you track some of Trump’s most notorious lies, you’ll recognize the steps, Carpenter explains. Step 1: “Stake a claim” on a fringe issue that few people want to touch. Step 2: “Advance and deny” — that is, put the falsehood into circulation, but don’t own it. (This is Trump’s “people are saying” phase.) Third, “create suspense” by promising new evidence or revelations, even if they never appear. Fourth, “discredit the opponent” with attacks on motive or character. And fifth, just win — “Trump declares victory, no matter the circumstances.” McIntyre provides one more step: Suggest that the press cannot be trusted to deliver the truth on the matter, thus redefining the lie as “controversial” and empowering people to privilege beliefs that fit their personal biases.