Trump takes some questions today about the Kavanaugh investigation.

Trump delivers a virtuoso performance here (I've clipped the Kavanaugh-related part):



The best part is when the reporter (Kaitlan Collins) pushes Trump to answer the question whether he will pull the nomination if the FBI investigation shows Kavanaugh lied about drinking, and Trump offers a great nonanswer:

I don’t think he did. Look, here’s what — I’m just saying, I’m not a drinker. I can honestly say I never had a beer in my life. It's one of my only good traits. I don't drink. Whenever they're looking for something, I’m going to say I’ve never had a glass of alcohol. I have never had alcohol. You know, for whatever reason. Can you imagine if I had, what a mess I would be? I would be the world's worst, but I never drank. I never drank, okay? But I can tell you I watched that hearing, and I watched a man saying that he did have difficulty as a young man with drink. The one question I didn't ask is how about the last 20 years, have you had difficulty the last 20 years? Because nobody said anything bad about him in many, many years. They go back to high school.

You've got to watch the whole clip, because it's funny when Trump uses the phrase "You've had enough" to try (playfully) to cut off Collins. She isn't really cut off. She gets loads of time.

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Slate — at the behest of my son John — corrects a false accusation that Kavanaugh lied.

Here's a link to the tweet.

Here's the follow-up correction tweet:

On 9/12 I criticized @thinkprogress for a headline claiming that Kavanaugh "said" he'd overturn Roe. On Friday I made the same mistake, writing that Kavanaugh "claimed" he was legal to drink in HS. Thanks to @jaltcoh for catching my error.

That thanks @jaltcoh (my son) and links to the correction at Slate, where the article is still called "Kavanaugh Lied to the Judiciary Committee—Repeatedly."

Update, Sept. 30, 2018: This article originally said that Kavanaugh “claimed that his beer consumption in high school was legal because the drinking age in Maryland was 18.” Kavanaugh’s exact words were: “The drinking age, as I noted, was 18, so the seniors were legal, senior year in high school, people were legal to drink, and we—yeah, we drank beer.” These words could imply that his beer drinking at age 18 was legal, which would be false, since the drinking age in Maryland was raised to 21 before he turned 18. Alternatively, they could imply that his drinking at age 17 was understandable, if he was with 18-year-old seniors who were legal at the time. In keeping with the standard applied to others, it’s incorrect to report that Kavanaugh “claimed” his beer consumption that summer was legal. Therefore, the sentences have been removed.

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Brewers vs. Cubs.

A place to talk, in case you, like us, are watching the game.

UPDATE: Win!

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The outside prosecutor Rachel Mitchell opines that the evidence would not justify bringing criminal charges and does not even meet a preponderance-of-the-evidence standard.

According to the 5-page memo she sent to the Judiciary Committee Republicans, which WaPo got its hands on. The basis of the opinion is what a lot of Kavanaugh proponents have observed:

In the memo, Mitchell argued that Ford has not offered a consistent account of the alleged assault, including when exactly it occurred. Mitchell also noted that Ford did not identify Kavanaugh by name as her attacker in key pieces of evidence, including notes from sessions with her therapist — records that Ford’s lawyers declined to provide to the Senate Judiciary Committee....

[I]n the memo, Mitchell also argued that Ford “has no memory of key details of the night in question — details that could help corroborate her account,” nor has Ford given a consistent account of the alleged assault. Noting that Ford did not remember in what house the incident allegedly occurred, or how she left the gathering and got back home, Mitchell said “her inability to remember this detail raises significant questions.”

Mitchell also stressed that nobody who Ford has identified as having attended the gathering — including Mark Judge, Patrick Smyth and Leland (Ingham) Keyser — has been able to directly corroborate Ford’s allegations....

Mitchell notes that "There is no clear standard of proof for allegations made during the Senate’s confirmation process," but she is a prosecutor and she can only give an opinion from her point of view, from "the legal world, not the political world."

It is, of course, only her legal opinion, not The Legal Opinion in some grand sense, and she was chosen by the Republican Senators, who have their political goals and needs, even if she has none. And, really, we can't know if what she calls a legal opinion is really just that. She could be lying or unwittingly swayed by political or personal beliefs. We never know whether purported legal minds are really operating in some purely legal way (if such a thing is even possible).

The nominee, in the initial phase of the hearings, performed the usual theater of presenting himself as a judge who does nothing but decide cases according to the law. We in the audience of that theater may not really believe all that but think it's nevertheless close enough to get by, and it's only what every other nominee does, so we must suspend disbelief if we're going to have judges at all.

But when we see ourselves in this predicament, what can we do when we don't like the way the nominee leans? We could just accept the power of the President to make a nomination and demand that the Senate confirm as long as the nominee performs well in the usual theater of acting like a proper judge. The President won the election after all. That's a fact. But why defer there unless it's what you already want to do? Those who don't want a staunch conservative in the swing-vote-Kennedy seat want to resist. Trump didn't legitimately win, they might say — or: Obama didn't get deference when the Scalia seat opened up during his term.

Here's another thing that can be done when we don't like the leaning of a presidential nominee who adequately performs the Neutral Judge act in the initial political theater: Bring in something unrelated to his judicial work, something that makes him unacceptable, and allegations about something that happened in private long ago could do the trick.

But how good do these allegations need to be before they work? Rachel Mitchell can only say she has no idea. And if we are honest, shouldn't we admit that we're all drawn to the standard that gets us to the result we wanted before we ever heard about Christine Blasey Ford? I'd say no. There is one other factor: The short- and long-term interests of the 2 political parties. Republicans may fear that backing Kavanaugh now will hurt them. They might ruthlessly cut loose the damaged goods. Similarly, Democrats may see that voting Kavanaugh down will mollify their voters and energize conservatives in the midterm elections.

Maybe everyone's hoping that the FBI investigation will produce some very clear indications that Christine Blasey Ford is either lying or mistaken and the intensity of the partisan energy will dissipate. I don't think the FBI will save them. All the Senators have is one more week to worry about how to extricate themselves from this horrible trap they're caught in.

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Mapping the American Dream

The American Dream is based on the idea that everyone in the USA has the same opportunities to achieve prosperity and success. No matter where you are born, no matter who your parents are, with hard work, ambition and determination you can achieve wealth and success.

A new interactive map from Opportunity Insights visualizes the average outcomes in adulthood for people in every census tract in

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Where Temperatures are Rising the Fastest

Temperatures are rising faster in the Swedish town of Kiruna than anywhere else in Europe. So far this century temperatures have risen 3.4° C above the 20th Century average for the Swedish town. The town with the second highest rise in temperature in Europe is Fredrickstad in Norway, where temperatures have risen by 3.0° C.

Der Spiegel has mapped out where temperatures have risen this century

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"Governor Jerry Brown virtually admits it's a bad idea even while signing it: 'I don’t minimize the potential flaws that indeed may prove fatal to its ultimate implementation.'"

"A terrible law, which will be bad for women and men. Laws and economics are not zero-sum; we can all lose," writes my son John, facebooking "California becomes first state to require women on corporate boards" (NBC).

Brown's statement continued: "Nevertheless, recent events in Washington, D.C. — and beyond — make it crystal clear that many are not getting the message." Is he talking about the Kavanaugh hearings?? Crystal clear. It's not even crystal clear what he's referring to. Spare me your California crystals.

Who will challenge this thing in court? What's the argument that it doesn't violate equal protection? It won't matter if no one sues. It seems easier to just put a woman on the board than to fight the law.

ADDED: A challenge could occur if the state tries to enforce the requirement against a company, and it's put in the defensive position. Maybe a flaw that is "fatal to [the law's] ultimate implementation" is that the state will never enforce it because then it would need to defend the law in court, and it can't. Passing the law is for show, and the law makes a show of requiring that corporations do something for show. And the corporations will probably put on the show, and that's how it's intended to work.

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"Has anyone else seen the political cartoon depicting Judge Kavanaugh's child praying for her father. It's really despicable."

Asks Andrew in the comments to yesterday's café. He adds: "The Democrats are crossing one line after another. I can only hope they rue the day." His link goes to a Rod Dreher post at The American Conservative, "When They Came For Kavanaugh’s Kid," which shows this cartoon by Chris Britt that was published in the Illinois Times:



Dreher asks: "How can a man do this to another man’s child? How can editors allow this to pass? What corrupt and wicked hearts they have." Dreher has to update and expresses puzzlement:

For some reason, this image is being passed around to some people as if I approved of its message. If you’re going to send it around, please point out that I *abhor* this image.

I think I can help Dreher with his puzzlement, because when I first saw the cartoon — fully knowing that Andrew thought it was despicable — I thought of asking the question: Which way does this cartoon cut? You can go 2 ways:

1. Kavanaugh is presumed to be an angry, lying, alcoholic man who really did sexually assault Ford, and the daughter knows it and asks God to forgive him.

2. Kavanaugh's daughter has heard what is being said about her father, believes it, and asks God to forgive him.

In the second reading, the cartoonist would be criticizing the politicians and the press for going after Kavanaugh in a way that hurt that child, destroying her understanding of him as a good man, and the child turning to God to help her in her devastation.

Look again at Dreher's question, "How can a man do this to another man's child?" What was done to the child and who did it? In interpretation #2, we see a child to whom the attack on Kavanaugh has done something terrible, and the cartoonist is showing us that. That message is the same one Kavanaugh himself delivered: You have destroyed my family. Look what you did, you fiends! Kavanaugh also said that his child was so wise that she knew, in her religion, that she should pray for "the woman." That same sincere religious belief would bring her to pray for her father, if she thought he was all those things people were saying. The cartoon shows the child possessed of that belief and still following her religion.

Understanding the cartoon in those terms, Dreher's readers could think he approved of it. Since the first interpretation is the easier one to make, I can see why he doesn't want to be associated in a positive way with the cartoon, but with a bit more reflection, he might see how the second interpretation, though harder to reach, is really more sound. And I'm saying that even though I would guess that the cartoonist had the first interpretation in mind.

On the subject of using children in politics, Dreher's question is also complex: "How can a man do this to another man's child?" I'd like to keep children out of politics, but does that mean images of children don't belong in cartoons? The child isn't the intended audience for this cartoon. We, the adults, are seeing an image of a child and it may move us, because children draw out emotion. They represent innocence and vulnerability. That's why the second interpretation jumped out at me. I feel protective of the child whose tender, impressionable mind has been invaded by ugly images of her father.

Dreher seems to be tapping into some old rule: Don't attack the children! But the cartoon isn't an attack on the child. It's a flip of the way Kavanaugh himself used the child: She's so beautiful and valuable that she prayed for the woman who is accusing her own father. If Kavanaugh can use his child that way, and a cartoonist may not counter that with another point of view, it's a lot like the way Christine Blasely Ford was able to make her accusations and escape cross-examination. Don't attack the woman!

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"Canada agrees to join trade accord with U.S. and Mexico, sending new NAFTA deal to Congress."

WaPo headline. First 2 sentences of the article:

Canada agreed late Sunday to join the trade deal that the United States and Mexico reached last month, meeting negotiators’ self-imposed midnight deadline designed to allow the current Mexican president to sign the accord on his final day in office and giving President Trump a big win on trade.

The new treaty, preserving the three-country format of the original North American Free Trade Agreement favored by business groups and congressional Republicans, is expected to be signed by Trump and his Canadian and Mexican counterparts in 60 days, with Congress likely to act on it next year.

NYT headline: "U.S. and Canada Reach Trade Deal to Salvage Nafta." First 2 sentences of the article:

The United States and Canada reached a last-minute deal to salvage the North American Free Trade Agreement on Sunday, overcoming deep divisions to keep the 25-year-old trilateral pact intact.

The deal came after a weekend of frantic talks to try and preserve a trade agreement that has stitched together the economies of Mexico, Canada and the United States but that was on the verge of collapsing. 

In WaPo, it sounds like a new deal. In the NYT, it sounds like what we're getting is the preservation of the old deal.  The NYT makes it seem like a close call with disaster, and WaPo says the deadline is self-imposed and designed to make Trump look like he has a big win.

I suspect that both newspapers wanted to make Trump look like less of a success and they chose different approaches to diminishing him.

WaPo credits Trump with a "big win" in the first sentence. The NYT forefronts the stress. In the first few paragraphs: "a year of tense talks and strained relations," "frenetic Sunday." You'll have to wait for paragraph 6 to see "a win" for Trump:

The deal represents a win for President Trump, who has derided Nafta for years and threatened to pull the United States from the pact if it was not rewritten in America’s favor. Overhauling trade deals has been one of Mr. Trump’s top priorities as president and he has used tariffs and other threats to try and force trading partners to rewrite agreements in America’s favor. 

It's a "win" not a "big win," and maybe the Times isn't even conceding that it's a win. It only "represents a win." And Trump created all the disorder and threat on his own. He didn't critique NAFTA for any real problems. He "derided" it.

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Inside the Houses of Parliament

CNN has created an interactive tour of the Palace of Westminster or, as its more commonly called. the Houses of Parliament. The tour consists of a number of custom 'Street Views' of the building comprising of annotated 360 degree panoramic videos and images of the building's most famous rooms.

CNN's Houses of Parliament tour allows you to take a guided tour around one of the world's most iconic

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