Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of eighty-one. Sunrise is 6:06 AM and sunset 7:49 PM, for 13h 42m 51s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 6.7% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}two hundred eighty-third day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}
On this day in 2004, Google’s initial public offering (IPO) takes place: “the company offered 19,605,052 shares at a price of $85 per share.[27][28] Shares were sold in an online auction format using a system built by Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, underwriters for the deal.[29][30] The sale of $1.67 bn (billion) gave Google a market capitalization of more than $23bn.[31] By January 2014, its market capitalization had grown to $397bn.[32] The vast majority of the 271 million shares remained under the control of Google, and many Google employees became instant paper millionaires.” On this day in 1812, the USS Constitution defeats the British frigate HMS Guerriere off Nova Scotia during the War of 1812, earning the nickname “Old Ironsides.”
Recommended for reading in full —
Anthony Breznican observes that “[t]hey should teach this interview in journalism schools to show how you stop someone from lying on live TV“:
They should teach this interview in journalism schools to show how you stop someone from lying on live TV. pic.twitter.com/VZ6TgjM3wa
— Anthony Breznican (@Breznican) August 18, 2017
(As Trump lies with abandon, so do his surrogates. As an autocrat he assumes that no will challenge his lies, and his surrogates make the same arrogant mistake.)
David Graham observes that Bannon’s Exit Leaves Trump Untethered (“As the president cuts ties with establishment staffers, and forces out his populist firebrand, what’s left of Trumpism other than white identity politics?”):
….The one view that seems likely to persist, even without Bannon around, is Trump’s embrace of the politics of white resentment and racially divisive rhetoric. In a sense, Trump is right that Bannon was a newcomer: Trump has flirted with racism for decades. He first made headlines when the Justice Department prosecuted him for trying to keep black tenants out of Trump Organization apartments. He later called for the execution of the Central Park Five, who were eventually exonerated.
Trump’s peculiar statement on Tuesday, endorsing some forms of white identity politics and white pride, while trying to separate them from neo-Nazis and white nationalism, was among his clearest and most cogent statements so far. And while Bannon said he was “proud” of the comments, they came with Bannon already on the outs. Those comments from the president created a major split with the business establishment, which he had leaned on to deliver manufacturing jobs—along with white identity politics, the core of his pitch for the presidency. With Bannon gone, the GOP establishment out, and the business community treating Trump as toxic, white identity politics might be the only remaining strongly held view that Trump has.
Of course, it’s unclear whether that matters. Kelly has proven that he can help push out staffers he dislikes, but he has also had little luck in reining in the president, who has horrified advisers with comments on North Korea and Charlottesville in the last week alone. He is now left with a team of advisers with few ideological commitments and less political experience. Pushing Priebus out seems to have done little to arrest Trump’s slide into chaos. Will Bannon’s ouster really change things any more? Commentary about Trump has tended to obsess over who his staffers are, but the important fact remains who the president is. That hasn’t changed.
Jennifer Rubin cautions Don’t fall for the White House spin on Stephen Bannon’s ouster:
Maybe Bannon appealed to Trump’s worst instincts, but honestly, does the president have any good ones? It is said that Bannon’s pro-Russian views made for constant tension with hawkish advisers, but does anyone think Trump is not compromised in some fashion when it comes to Russian President Vladimir Putin? Bannon was the faux intellectual giving direction and form to Trump’s views, but Trump’s deeply warped views, glaring ignorance and defective character are the root of the problem. Trump will still talk to allies harboring the same worldview, will still tweet impulsively, will still repeat discredited hoaxes and will still be unfit for the presidency. And most ominously, the Russia investigation will still grind on, and Trump will no doubt lash out at both the special prosecutor and the media. This personnel move may buy him a brief pause in the chaos, but his presidency is living on borrowed time.
How will we know that Bannon’s departure is more than another staff shuffle? Look to see if Trump continues to campaign against Republican incumbents, obsess over news coverage, treat Russia with kid gloves, saber-rattle over North Korea and stoke racial tension.
Patrick Radden Keefe writes of Carl Icahn’s Failed Raid on Washington (“Was President Trump’s richest adviser focussed on helping the country—or his own bottom line?”):
….In the months after the election, the stock price of CVR, Icahn’s refiner, nearly doubled—a surge that is difficult to explain without acknowledging the appointment of the company’s lead shareholder to a White House position. The rally meant a personal benefit for Icahn, at least on paper, of half a billion dollars. There was an expectation in the market—an expectation created, in part, by Icahn’s own remarks—that, with Trump in the White House and Icahn playing consigliere, the rules were about to change, and not just at the E.P.A. Icahn’s empire ranges across many economic sectors, from energy to pharmaceuticals to auto supplies to mining, and all of them are governed by the types of regulations about which he would now potentially be advising Trump.
Janet McCabe, who left the E.P.A. in January, and now works at the Environmental Law and Policy Center, told me, “I’m not naïve. People in business try to influence the government. But the job of the government is to serve the American people, not the specific business interests of the President’s friends. To think that you have somebody with that kind of agenda bending the President’s ear is troubling.”
Conflicts of interest have been a defining trait of the Trump Administration. The President has not only refused to release his tax returns; he has declined to divest from his companies, instead putting them in a trust managed by his children. Questions have emerged about the ongoing business ties of his daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who, since Trump took office, have reaped nearly two hundred million dollars from the Trump hotel in Washington, D.C., and from other investments. Although Trump promised to “drain the swamp,” he has assembled a Cabinet of ultra-rich Americans, including two billionaires: Betsy DeVos, the Secretary of Education, and Wilbur Ross, the Secretary of Commerce….
This train could hit 200 mph on just air power (perhaps…):