From one perspective we should ignore it. But from a deeper perspective it’s important to notch each step the President makes in the direction of cheap neighborhood gangsters and would be tyrants. His latest attack on the Mueller Special Counsel’s office refers to them as “angry Democrat thugs.” It goes to the point I made last week. We know Trump is guilty, as civic and public matter if not a narrowly legal one. We’re just having a hard time coming to grips with the fact.
Some of us are blessed to live several lives in a single lifetime. Longevity is usually a prerequisite. But it goes far beyond that. Uri Avnery, Irgun fighter, tabloid publisher, peace activist, was one of those people. He’s died at the age of 94. Here’s his obituary in Ha’aretz. If you’re not familiar with him, it’s a life worth learning about.
If you find yourself wondering where the “truth isn’t truth” meme started …
President's lawyer yells "Truth isn't truth." Things get more meta from there. pic.twitter.com/JZ2AYyMnAK
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) August 19, 2018
Interested in voting rights? The ugly and comic history of right wing fables about “voter fraud”. Here’s Rick Perlstein and Livia Gershon on how the GOP has been weaponizing “voter fraud” myths for decades to target minority voting. It’s Part 2 of of 2018 series on Democracy and Voting Rights.
Manafort jury asks to go home early today. Deliberations will continue the rest of this afternoon and resume Monday. Here’s the latest.
A new note from the jury in the Manafort trial. We’re waiting to hear more …
Reports of the new note came shortly after a hearing on news orgs’ request to unseal records in the case, including the names of jurors. Alice Ollstein reports.
The greatest conceit in public life today is the notion that we don’t already know President Trump is guilty. Guilty of what? Conspiring, by whatever level of directness, with a foreign power to win the Presidency and then continuing to cater to that foreign power either as payback for the assistance or out of fear of being exposed. In other words, collusion, a national betrayal that may break some statute laws but which far transcends them and isn’t in the past but is rather on-going. Read More
The Pentagon announcement: “We originally targeted November 10, 2018 for this event [the parade] but have now agreed to explore opportunities in 2019.”
On its face that’s a postponement. But exploring opportunities next year sounds vague to the point of possibly not even happening at all.
One of Paul Manafort’s lawyers is anxiously pacing around a hotel lobby. The other is charging his phone. Reporters are sitting around the same hotel or circulating in and out of the courthouse. After a three-week-long period of daily action during Paul Manafort’s financial crimes trial, now the lawyers, reporters and spectators are stuck in Alexandria, Virginia, with nothing to do but wait as the jury deliberates. It could take hours, or it could take days. Read Caitlin MacNeal’s reporter’s notebook (Prime access) with the latest →
The GOP nominee for Governor in California compares the Holocaust to long lines at the DMV. “You know, I met a Holocaust survivor in Long Beach. He survived concentration camps, and he said this was worse. He’s 90 years old and he had to wait four hours down in Long Beach. Can you imagine that?” Story here.