Attention to the Unseen

CNN reports: Dialing in for his first interview since being hospitalized, President Donald Trump went on an hour-long ramble that devolved into vicious and sexist attacks on the Democrats running against him, desperate claims against old enemies and dangerous boasts about his own apparent recovery from coronavirus. Trump’s appearance did little to reverse impressions of a candidate in denial about the country’s health situation or lost in a web of old grievance and comes just weeks before a presidential election…

Read More Read More

CNN reports: As the United States continues its struggle with the pandemic-induced economic recession and a sputtering recovery, the country’s burgeoning debt is not anyone’s top concern these days. Even deficit hawks are urging a dysfunctional Washington and a chaotic White House to approve another round of badly needed stimulus to the tune of trillions. “The US federal budget is on an unsustainable path, has been for some time,” Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said this week. But, Powell added,…

Read More Read More

The New York Times reports: The White House that President Trump woke up in on Tuesday morning was in full-blown chaos, even by the standards of the havoc of the Trump era. Aides said the president’s voice was stronger after his return from the hospital Monday night, but at times he still sounded as if he was trying to catch air. The West Wing was mostly empty, cleared of advisers who were out sick with the coronavirus themselves or told…

Read More Read More

Politico reports: Donald Trump mounted an overnight Twitter blitz demanding to jail his political enemies and call out allies he says are failing to arrest his rivals swiftly enough. Trump twice amplified supporters’ criticisms of Attorney General William Barr, including one featuring a meme calling on him to “arrest somebody!” He wondered aloud why his rivals, like President Barack Obama, Democratic nominee Joe Biden and former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton hadn’t been imprisoned for launching a “coup” against his administration….

Read More Read More

Josh Rogin writes: As the election draws near, President Trump’s political appointees, private lawyers and GOP allies on Capitol Hill are escalating their campaign to help the Russians interfere in U.S. politics. Now they’re effectively asking Americans to side with Russian intelligence services over the U.S. intelligence community — and the president is going along. Over the past few months, Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, GOP senators, U.S. lobbyists and pro-Trump media organizations have been working with Russian intelligence…

Read More Read More

The New York Times reports: The five U.S. attorneys along the border with Mexico, including three appointed by President Trump, recoiled in May 2018 against an order to prosecute all undocumented immigrants even if it meant separating children from their parents. They told top Justice Department officials they were “deeply concerned” about the children’s welfare. But the attorney general at the time, Jeff Sessions, made it clear what Mr. Trump wanted on a conference call later that afternoon, according to…

Read More Read More

The Los Angeles Times reports: President Trump has alarmed Jewish leaders and others with remarks that appeared to endorse “racehorse theory” — the idea that selective breeding can improve a country’s performance, which American eugenicists and German Nazis used in the last century to buttress their goals of racial purity. “You have good genes, you know that, right?” Trump told a mostly white crowd of supporters in Bemidji, Minn., on Sept. 18. “You have good genes. A lot of it…

Read More Read More

The New York Times reports: Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, delivered a blunt message to Congress and the White House on Tuesday: Faced with a once-in-a-century pandemic that has inflicted economic pain on millions of households, go big. Hours later, President Trump delivered his own message: Forget it. In a series of conflicting tweets, the president said the economy was “doing very well” and coming back “in record numbers,” suggesting that no additional help was needed while also…

Read More Read More