National

Yesterday was yet another example of the fascism that awaits us and the press/media should Trump be elected President. So when Trump decided to be a coward and avoid Megyn Kelly's questions in a January debate on Fox News, he held an alleged fundraiser on the same night for veterans. He said at the time that they raised around $6 million. Several months later, some reporters began looking into whether Trump actually had raised that amount, whether he donated any himself during the fundraiser as he boasted he had, and whether any money had actually been donated to any veteran group at all. The Washington Post published a story questioning the donations last week. The Associated Press reported that about half of the 41 organizations to which Trump’s campaign donated received checks in the past week, typically dated May 24, the day the Post’s story was published. So Donald Trump got caught defrauding Veterans and lying about it, and he lashed out at the press for daring to question him. He is a fascist dictator in the making. Frack that, he's already been made.

Rebecca Traitor at New York Magazine has a lengthy and fascinating profile of Hillary Clinton, that is well worth a full read. But here is an excerpt:

There are a lot of reasons — internal, external, historical — for the way Clinton deals with the public, and the way we respond to her. But there is something about the candidate that is getting lost in translation. The conviction that I was in the presence of a capable, charming politician who inspires tremendous excitement would fade and in fact clash dramatically with the impressions I’d get as soon as I left her circle: of a campaign imperiled, a message muddled, unfavorables scarily high. To be near her is to feel like the campaign is in steady hands; to be at any distance is to fear for the fate of the republic. [...] When I asked her why she thinks women’s ambition is regarded as dangerous, she posited that it was about “a fear that ambition will crowd out everything else — relationships, marriage, children, family, homemaking, all the other parts [of life] that are important to me and important to most women I know.” She also mentioned the unappealing stereotyping: “We’re so accustomed to think of women’s ambition being made manifest in ways that we don’t approve of, or that we find off-putting.”

Susia Cagle looks at the big problem with the story of Peter Thiel’s secret day in court and how the 0.1% are redefining the rules.

Last week Mr. Thiel revealed that he had funneled “in the ballpark” of $10 million to legal support for plaintiffs suing Gawker Media, most notably Terry Bollea, a.k.a. Hulk Hogan, who recently won a $140 million judgment against the company for defamation. Mr. Thiel made no secret of his grudge against Gawker, since the company’s Valleywag blog revealed his homosexuality in a 2007 post that lampooned the straight male culture of Silicon Valley more than Mr. Thiel himself. (Mr. Thiel is, notably, an investor in the tech site Pando, a media property that regularly insults him in more direct terms.) ... Portraying a $10 million investment in crushing one’s enemy as a charitable act of justice that will make the world a better place is galling. But students of history can hardly be shocked. Tech’s elite, lauded for their originality, are influencing media, politics and society at large with a kind of venture philanthropy, much as their industrial predecessors did more than 100 years ago.

This is for Jason, from Jonathan Chait, to calm some Trump fears:

Donald Trump’s election as president of the United States would pose an unprecedented threat to the health of American democracy and possibly world stability. There is, however, an upside: Trump’s campaign is an absolute garbage fire. By all accounts it is the most organizationally and strategically inept campaign for a successful major-party nominee in recorded history. Ashley Parker and Maggie Haberman round up many of the details, but the basic story that emerges from their reports and others is that Trump has absolutely no idea what he’s doing. [...] To the extent that running a competent campaign matters, it will hurt Trump very badly. Yes, he won the Republican primary by relying on a massive imbalance of media coverage and exploiting a divided, extremely large field that failed to coalesce against him. Yes, he tapped into deep strains of anger in the conservative base that fellow Republicans ignored. But he’s not a political savant, and he hasn’t abolished the rules of politics. He's a reality-television performer who tapped into a deep vein of cultural resentment that appeals to a decided minority of the electorate. Fortunately, many of the same qualities that would make Trump epically dangerous in the presidency — his impulsive ignorance, blustering arrogance, and contempt for data — also make him unlikely to obtain it.

Emphasis mine.