WELCOME TO PMCARPENTER.COM

Thursday morning (the 11th) I'll be heading to SW Missouri, Trump country, to visit my mother and brother — valiant counterinsurgents. I have been a bad son; it's been a year since I dune seen me dear máthair. (Tonight I'm trying to get in the Gaelic swing of the original Ozarkian settlers.) I shall stay through the 15th. I hope to be writing a bit while there. Perhaps I'll send update alerts on the law-and-order party's 7th and 8th congressional districts' revolutionary support of a barefaced criminal. Cheers, —PM

Not sure this is satire

On the American right, there is no bottom

When driving to the Ozarks yesterday, at last I came within signal distance of Springfield, Missouri's KWTO radio, which used to air Rush Limbaugh, 11 a.m.-1 p.m.  As you'll recall, Rush is no more; his vileness finally throttled every lingering cell in his diseased brain. So in his place were two gentlemen whose voices I failed to recognize.

They appeared to be staging a kind of comedy show. "Everything Pelosi says is a lie." Everything. "Hunter Biden flew all the way across the country" — this was observed as some sort of rarity in America — "to meet President Biden in Washington, so that they could fly to South Carolina together" — and that, said one, was a "middle finger" to the public.

The humor went on. "Trump was celebrated as president for giving a middle finger to the establishment" — that, however, was a good thing. "Traditionally, presidents would deliver an address to the nation before taking their August vacation. President Biden did not" — something sinister there. There was much, much more. And this morning, I saw this:

Trump suggests FBI may have engaged in “planting information.” Are there any Trump defenders, enablers, excusers, or acquiescers who are willing to say right now that 1) this is nuts, and 2) it’s totally disqualifying for another run for the presidency? https://t.co/NpSaxvMDLU

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) August 12, 2022

The matter of "planted" evidence was taken seriously by these two voices I had been listening to for an hour. At the top of the next hour, I learned the voices were those of Clay Travis and Busk Sexton, whose radio program Trump has phoned into.

Thus it appears that "No" is the answer to Kristol's question about Trump defenders, enablers, excusers, or acquiescers declaring a Mar-a-Lago plant to be nuts and disqualifying. As has been noted many times, on the right, there is no bottom.

Another heartbreaking report on Afghanistan's oppression of women

I'm watching a revolting PBS "Frontline" story on the Taliban's ill treatment of women, although the words ill treatment fail to describe the real horrors confronting all women in the theoretically barbaric state of Afghanistan, run by inhumane, uncivilized, theocratically misogynistic men.

When the journalist narrator asked one male authority — a redundancy, there are no female authorities — why women should bear all the "wrongs" of the Taliban state, the man stared into space, evidently grasping that he had never given the matter any thought. Nor was he about to.

When asked the same, other authorities answered that women were never abused, and if they had committed no wrongs — all wrongs determined by the men — then they were released with no harm done.

Imprisoned women, many detained for "immoral behavior," explained otherwise to the woman journalist before a female guard could make her way to the detainee to scold and shut her up. The women hastily told the journalist they were beaten on arrest — allegations that male authorities simply said were untrue. And that was that.

If you missed my 9 August post, "For women and girls, life in Afghanistan is truly a fresh hell," I encourage you to take a look. Italian journalist Lorenzo Tugnoli tells a horrifying story.

Sometimes I wonder if we did the right and honorable thing in pulling out of Afghanistan. Other than tracking and killing militants in the country's revitalized al Qaeda, the tribal state for sure falls outside of U.S. national interests. But do the backward nation's brutalized women fall outside of this superpower's ethical responsibilities?    

Excellent, even stunning news from the Ukrainian fronts

Ukrainian forces have the Russians disoriented and more than little a bewildered. Ukraine's updated strategy is to halt or at least retard Russian forces in the east, the Donbas, while counterattacking in the southern Kherson region. This has left Putin's army having to guess where the Ukrainians might strike next — over there? or down here?  

As The NY Times summaries the vast battlefield, stretching nearly 600 miles from Luhansk to Odesa,  the Russia-Ukraine war "has become a period of feints and rare, public pronouncements of planned military operations."

Ukrainian forces credit their Fabian strategy in the east as a strategic challenge to Russian forces in the south. Do Putin's commanders reinforce their positions around Kherson? Or might that be an invitation to Ukraine for larger assaults in the east? 

So far, the Russian Army has been reinforcing the Kherson province. But at a cost: It's "allowing Ukraine to regain slivers of land" in the Donbas, reports the Times. Western analysts have confirmed that Russian artillery fire has diminished there, with Russian attacks taking place only in small, settled sections of the front.

Putin's forces are more vulnerable anywhere west of the Dnipro River, which cuts along the city of Kherson's south side. In its latest assessment of the war, Britain's defense ministry said "Ukrainian forces are focusing their targeting on bridges, ammunition depots and rail links with growing frequency," adding that Russian reinforcements could possibly preempt Ukraine's counteroffensive with a counter-counteroffensive.

Stunning is what has occurred in the east, however. Mere weeks ago the news was all bad for Ukraine; the Russians were advancing slowly but effectively in the Donbas and there seemed no way for Ukraine to salvage its immense investment of men and war matétiel in the war's eastern theater. Yet soon conceived was the brilliant strategy of threatening Russian forces along the southern front, subtracting from Putin's aggression in the Donbas.

Yuriy Bereza, the commander of a National Guard unit fighting near the city of Sloviansk, tells the Times that "We have reached a situation of parity” on the eastern front. As noted — stunning.

Bereza also praised the arrival of U.S.-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, HIMARS. With their extraordinary range, they've been hitting Russian positions far behind the front, silencing much of Russia’s artillery. The HIMARS arrived on the eastern battlefields as Ukraine was gearing up for a counteroffensive in the south.

Said Berza, "The first time I heard a HIMARS launch it was like music to my ears. It is the most beautiful music for Ukrainian soldiers."

The delightfully articulate, very sophisticated Trumpian base

LISTEN to this death threat against my children. Since the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, Trump, McCarthy, and MAGA Republicans are stoking violent rhetoric against lawmakers and law enforcement. Someone is going to get killed. pic.twitter.com/k9tmmjzhtK

— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) August 10, 2022

I sense the gentleman is a trifle upset.

Trump gets a brand new bag

This morning, Trump issued an updated directive to his most celebrated crackpots in politics and, soon, broadcasting and print. 

"The FBI and others from the Federal Government would not let anyone, including my lawyers, be anywhere near the areas that were rummaged and otherwise looked at during the raid on Mar-a-Lago. Everyone was asked to leave the premises, they wanted to be left alone, without any witnesses to see what they were doing, taking or, hopefully not, 'planting.' Why did they STRONGLY insist on having nobody watching them, everybody out?"

Thus — and there's plenty more to come from every cranny in the Republican asylum ...

Newt Gingrich — who in 1978 told a gathering of College Republicans, "One of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don’t encourage you to be nasty" — may have been the genesis of this silliness, even for Trump. Yesterday The Atlantic reported that he "has gone so far as to suggest that federal agents planted evidence in Trump’s Florida manse."

Silly nastiness, I guess one might call it.

Come here sister, Papa's in the swing
He ain't too hip, about that new breed b.s.
He ain't no drag
Papa Trump's got a brand new bag.

Remind you of anyone?

Mandela Barnes is a former community organizer. Last night he won the Democratic nomination for a Senate seat. He is a clean, articulate, good-looking Black politician who is running against a whacko Republican whose approval rating is abysmal. Mr. Barnes, a progressive, must now cut to the center to win his Senate race. The presidential election will be held in two years. 

How will Fox News cover Trump's third presidential bid?

CNN's Oliver Darcy writes that "in private this year, the Fox Corp. chief executive" — Lachian Murdoch — "has freely criticized Trump, saying that he disagrees with much of the way the former President behaves, sources tell me. Murdoch has gone so far as to tell people that he believes if Trump were to run again, it would be bad for the country.

"But, the sources added, Murdoch has also noted that the Fox News audience continues to support Trump. Which is to say that Murdoch knows that supporting Trump is good for business -- and, more importantly, he knows that pillorying him is bad for business because it would alienate the channel's core audience."

Darcy also writes that "Patriarch Rupert Murdoch's low opinion of Trump has been endlessly covered. But, until now, the younger Murdoch's opinion has been somewhat of a mystery." I'd add that the mystery was mitigated when Lachian seated the Trump-detesting, former House speaker Paul Ryan on the board. That was what political journalists now obsessively, uniformly call a "tell" — an instant cliché.

The CNN reporter then contradicts himself on what he calls the sustaining "mystery" of Lachian's opinion, noting that in July the New York Times and Washington Post published news that the Murdochs "were quietly giving Trump the cold shoulder by emphasizing him less in coverage on Fox." (Do today's journalists read what they've written before sending it to press?)

Otherwise, Darcy is correct, further writing that the "reporting prompted some to wonder: Could the Murdochs finally be steering Fox in an anti-Trump direction?" However "the network's programming over the last 24 hours has shattered any such illusion."

Darcy's judgment is that Fox News may cover Trump sympathetically when sensationalisms such as Monday's night "raid" occur. "But when Trump is at the center of the news cycle" — when is he not? — "it puts Fox in an untenable business position: If the network condemns Trump, it loses its audience. So, in those moments, the default position will be to air supportive coverage of him."

The journalist concludes that if Trump runs again, "he'd have Fox back at his side — regardless of how the Murdochs actually feel about him."

Of that, I am skeptical. Unlike every man, woman and child in the Republican Party, my reason is reality-based. Gov. Ron DeSantis intends to take on Trump, and with the latter bleeding party support, the governor will make even further progress in competing with the wounded, relentlessly under-siege former president.

I expect DeSantis to win a delegate majority. (The one Trumpian countermove would be to monkey with the delegate-selection process. But DeSantis is more clever, organized and Machiavellian than Trump.)

Once the Murdoch muck-a-mucks understand that the Twice-Impeached Blight is thrice-and-then-more-so in a world of serious primary hurt, they'll begin pandering to their audience by cozying with Ron.

Fox News both follows and leads its viewership, just as the GOP does with the base. Its campaign coverage may be a bit muddled at times; eventually it will clear up, though, as DeSantis shines through.

Trump admired, praised, and desired his own Nazi generals

In Susan Glasser and Peter Baker's forthcoming book — The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021 — there is this exchange between Trump and then-chief of staff John Kelly:

Trump: "You f---ing generals, why can’t you be like the German generals?"

Kelly: "Which generals?"

Trump: "The German generals in World War II."  

Kelly: "You do know that they tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off?

Trump: "No, no, no, they were totally loyal to him."

The president remained impressed by Nazi generals' loyalty to Hitler — a telling disorder of his authoritarian personality.

He was also impressed by French President Emmanuel Macron's hosting of a military extravaganza held in Trump's honor in 2017. Period tanks propelled down the Champs-Élysées and fighter jets roared above. Macron knew of Trump's vainglory and love of overdone pageantry, as did a French general who had organized the parade. He turned to an American general in attendance and said, "You are going to be doing this next year.” The French general was half right.

Trump pushed for a July Fourth wingding full of martial displays — similar, he hoped, to France's innocuous spectacle and the German dictator's bellicose celebrations.

In a later meeting with his chief of staff and Paul Selva, vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Trump failed to understand Kelly's sarcasm about his July Fourth idea, asking Selva, "So, what do you think of the parade?” Replied the JCS vice-chair, "I didn’t grow up in the United States, I actually grew up in Portugal. Portugal was a dictatorship—and parades were about showing the people who had the guns. And in this country, we don’t do that. It’s not who we are."

Trump's dimwittedness endured. "So, you don’t like the idea?" he asked.

Writing in The Atlantic, former U.S. Naval War College professor Tom Nichol notes that Trump's admiration of Hitler's regime was as misperceived as it was commonly held. For example in a 1968 "Star Trek" episode, Spock commented that, in Nichol's words, "the Nazis ran the most efficient state in Earth’s history" — "which is historical nonsense."

The professor writes in the present tense, since the historical nonsense is still in popular fashion. I recall reading years ago a volume on the Nazis' true regime; its narrative was that Hitler's "government" harbored a collection of criminal misfits who routinely botched their duties.

Yet Americans' almost romantic, Godfatherlike and mythical notion of a smoothly efficient Nazi machine perseveres.

The husband-wide team of Glasser-Baker go on to observe that Trump’s otherwise juvenile adoration of what he called "my generals" was short-lived. The former president provided a typically self-contradictory statement for the author's New Yorker article, in which he related that he lost confidence in them: "These were very untalented people and once I realized it, I did not rely on them, I relied on the real generals and admirals within the system."

Writes the team: "It turned out that the generals had rules, standards, and expertise, not blind loyalty."

When Trump's 2018, soon-to-be Joint Chiefs chairman, Army Gen. Mark Milley, arrived at the White House, he asked Kelly what his thoughts were about his possible appointment. Answered Kelly: "You should go to Europe and just get the f--k out of D.C. Just get as far away as you can."

As for potential service to a United States president who had admired Nazi generals and was clueless about Pearl Harbor, Kelly's ignored advice was on the nose. Trump may no longer be enamored of "his" generals, but he is certainly attracted to Hitler's fascistic ideology and crude manner of rule.     

Another Borowitz keeper

For women and girls, life in Afghanistan is truly a fresh hell

Writing later for The Washington Post, the Pultizer Prize-winning photojournalist Lorenzo Tugnoli revisited Afghanistan. He was absent on 15 August 2021, when Kabul fell to the Taliban and ended the Western-supported government. His story is immensely disheartening to read, beginning with:

"I had done embeds with the group in 2019 and 2020, when I photographed its commanders and fighters.... Their takeover was difficult for me to process. For the losing side, the long years of death, pain and struggle now seemed pointless; the U.S. promises of democracy and civil rights, particularly for women, rang hollow, as the old order and its institutions were quickly swept away."

On his return in September, he saw that men were now wearing traditional Afghan clothing and growing beards. Women were scarcer in view: "many had lost their jobs, especially in the public sector. The Ministry of Women’s Affairs was shut down, and its building now housed the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice — the religious police who enforce the Taliban version of sharia law."

The Afghan economy, notes Tugnoli, is in trouble. He witnessed families trying to sell their appliances in exchange for whatever gettable cash. Others stood in bank lines waiting to grab their savings. "In the main currency exchange market, traders counted bundles of Afghan bank notes that were quickly losing value."

Many Taliban fighters were pleased to speak with Tugnoli, although on one occasion a commander in the Haqqani network — "a splinter group of the Taliban known for kidnappings and terrorist attacks against U.S. forces" — asked that he leave.

The Italian photojournalist remarks that following Kabul's collapse, the Taliban have had a hard time converting from "an irregular militia to a functioning government." He writes that hospitals in the capital city are groaning with "malnourished children, many of whom were sent home with packets of therapeutic food because of the lack of beds."

As heartbreaking as that is, the lives of Afghan women and girls are ones of pure wretchedness. In a 27 July research study titled "Death in Slow Motion," the human-rights group Amnesty International reported that "in less than a year, the Taliban ... have violated women’s and girls’ rights to education, work and free movement; demolished the system of support for women and girls fleeing domestic violence; arbitrarily detained women and girls for infractions of the Taliban’s discriminatory rules; and contributed to a surge in the rates of child, early and forced marriage."

(Photos by Tugmoli: Outside beauty parlors, women's images have been painted over.)

Amnesty further wrote that "Women who peacefully protested against these restrictions and policies have been harassed, threatened, arrested, forcibly disappeared, arbitrarily detained and tortured. Taken together, these policies form a system of repression that discriminates against women and girls in almost every aspect of their lives." Perhaps in dreams they are happy and free, although I imagine their nights are nightmarish hells, too.

The human-rights watchdog then more appropriately omitted "almost" in its description of women and girls' mere existence: "Every daily detail – whether they go to school, if and how they work, if and how they leave the house – is controlled and heavily restricted," and "this suffocating crackdown against Afghanistan’s female population is increasing day-by-day."

Amnesty called for the world to "urgently demand" that women and girls' rights be respected and protected by the Taliban. The organization overlooked international demands' abundance. The Taliban don't care. Perhaps they will with great reluctance at some point down their increasingly troubled, isolated road. For now, the ancient religious mutterings of an illiterate and probably schizophrenic Arab merchant command their mind, emotions, and misogynistic behavior. Allah 'Akbar! — right?

The FBI should release information on the Mar-a-Lago bust. Plus a note on Republicans, 2023.

That the Justice Department's national security division — doubtless with Attorney General Merrick Garland's approval — persuaded a federal judge that probable cause existed in searching Trump's Florida home suggests that the agency wielded a sense of urgency. 

I disagree with Washington Post reporter Rosalind Helderman's tweet just moments ago: "Search warrant served at Mar-a-Lago indicated agents were investigating possible violations of laws governing the handling of classified material, the President Records Act." No such hastened and startling search would have been conducted to investigate mere violations of the toothless Records Act.

Perhaps the Justice Department is weighing whether to indict Trump on more serious charges, which I re-noted earlier today; crimes that entail prison time for anyone who "willfully injures or commits any depredation against any property of the United States" and anyone who "willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates or destroys" government documents. Or something of even greater criminal exposure, related perhaps to his Jan. 6th felonies.  

Excepting Republicans, we all agree that fair is fair. In that light, it seems to me the Department of Justice should reveal to the public at least its realm of investigation in last night's Trump quest. After all, its then-FBI Director James Comey revealed his law-enforcement explorations into presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's activities — and during the general election season to boot.  

*** 

An aside. For 24 hours now, House Republicans have been broadcasting that they'll be doing nothing about the abominable condition of President Biden's booming, full-employment economy in which inflation is subsiding. They won't have time. Republicans have been loud and unmistakable about what they'll be doing instead: a committee investigation of the 6 Jan. committee, an investigation into the "rigged" 2020 election, an investigation into the solely Biden-created Afghanistan Affair, an investigation into the Biden-created baby formula shortage — pardon me while I catch my breath ...

an investigation into the Biden-created "border crisis," an investigation into the Biden-created Department of Homeland's "disinformation" board, investigations into Biden's Securities and Exchange Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an investigation of Twitter for being mean to Elon Musk, and an investigation into everything Hunter Biden, which A.G. Garland is already investigating. 

The only joy we'll get from a Republican House is watching Speaker McCarthy wrench his already malfunctioning brain and put his floppy foot in his lying mouth every morning.

Trumpers' craziest idea

ffThere is no statute, state or federal, no constitutional provision, not even an executive order by Trump himself when he blackened the White House for any entity to retract Electoral Votes cast in a presidential election — especially two years later. And yet many Wisconsin voters are demanding that their next governor do just that.  

Former lt. gov. Rebecca Kleefisch also knows just that. So she's been waging a battle in her gubernatorial campaign, trying to convince Wisconsin's Republicans to accept this one disappointing reality — although at first she acknowledged that President Biden was legitimate, which she then re-acknowledged was a mistake. She reversed and agreed with the whackos that the election had been "rigged." 

She will not, however, agree to the base's absurdity that Wisconsin's results in favor of Biden can somehow be clawed back. "And for that," writes the Times's Reid Epstein, "she is taking grief from voters egged on by one of her opponents, Tim Ramthun." He's the state’s most outspoken advocate of absurdity, "held in high regard by the state’s most devoted conspiracy theorists." He's also a Christian nationalist who presents himself as "a messianic figure." Said Ramthun last night in a debate, "I’m what you’ve been looking for for decades." Oookay.  

An April Marquette University Law School poll — rated A/B by 538 — found that nearly 40% of Wisconsin's Republicans supported decertifying the 2020 presidential election. Notes Epstein, "Since then, momentum for decertification has built." He interviewed Republican voters and activists throughout the state who affirmed their demand that legislators simply take it back, so to speak.

Said one blinkered voter, "Everybody that I’ve talked to voted for Trump. He should be reinstated and resume the position, because he never surrendered it." Who knew retaining the presidency could be so easy? For that matter, why should any first-term president even bother with a second-term campaign? He or she could merely say, "I do not surrender." And that would be that. Be advised, Joe Biden.

The Messiah is trailing Kleefisch and billoinare Tim Michels, the Trump-endorsed candidate who said in an earlier debate that to decertify would be a lower priority for him, which of course was a huge mistake. He quickly backtracked, saying he was actually "very, very fired up about this election integrity issue," promising to sign a decertification bill if the legislature passed one.

Last night he blundered again. Would Michels support another Trump run? He answered, "I’m focused on this election right now. I have made no commitments to any candidates in 2024." The gubernatorial candidate had forgotten that his very highest priority lay in seeing to Trump's welfare. Today: "The day President Trump announces that he’s going to run for president in 2024, if he does, I will support him and I will endorse him." Good boy. 

Kleefisch, meanwhile, is left with one truth a partial ethic. "The idea that you can disavow the Constitution and statutes and do things that are not articulated anywhere in law is a lost cause.... It’s irresponsible to pander." Yet that she did by agreeing about the "rigged" election thing.   

Ukraine hits ... Crimea!

It's a major victory for Ukrainian forces. Today they struck an airbase on the Russian-occupied Crimea, delivering unto the world these beautifully disastrous pictures of Vladimir Putin's first Eastern European playground.

In July, a drone dropped what the press called a small "device" — which is what the U.S. called China's first atomic bomb — on Sevastopol, home of Russia's Black Sea Fleet off the Crimean Peninsula. It caused only minor damage. Russia blamed Ukraine and Ukraine denied it — with a wink, no doubt.

This time, no Russian blame ensued, embarrassed by Ukraine's stunning attack. The head of Crimea's occupation government appeared at the scene of destruction, declaring that a three-mile perimeter had been formed to keep locals away, and pleaded, "I asked you to believe only official information." In brief, lies.

Russia's defense ministry issued the Kremlin's lie that a detonation of ordnance has caused the explosion, further saying in lie #2 that nothing, neither people nor more aircraft, had been harmed. It's likely that Ukraine used a U.S.-supplied long-range rocket to strike Crimea. 

Putin must be smoking as much as his airbase. Ukraine's bombing is yet another humiliation of his imperial persona. One imagines he soon plotted with his generals to see if his incompetent forces can execute an even bigger strike somewhere in Ukraine. For now, though, President Zelensky can sit back and smile.