Sunday, June 30, 2019

But where are the TeeVee cameras?

Can't have a major story without TeeVee cameras.
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But the cameras were there!

Isn't that what REALLY matters?
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State TeeVee


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That's Gonna Leave a Mark

Just headline alone is bad. But the story makes it worse.
This is not going away soon.
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You missed the part...

...where he said Koreans were crying as he crossed the border.

Strong men cry in Trump's presence. It's a meme with him. Nobody's ever seen it, except him. Really shouldn't need saying, should it? Yup.
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"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"



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Speaking of North Korea


Adding: listening to Julian Castro on MTP talk about the U.S.-Mexico border and what he calls a new Marshall Plan to aid countries so people won't flee to America....

It occurs to me the DMZ in Korea is not just a military line if demarcation, but a Berlin Wall to keep people in North Korea. Something Trump might have mentioned to his "good friend."
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Saturday, June 29, 2019

What was your first clue?

What else could he possibly hope to accomplish?
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Fight the Future



Very true.  And applicable to right-wing Twitter as much as left-wing Twitter.
Anybody else remember how well Trump's appeal to racism and naked xenophobia worked last November?

It was pointed out on NPR this evening that Julian Castro sparked the immigration debate among Democrats, and pulled the conversation "to the left" by demanding repeal of Sec. 1325 of the Immigration Code.  OTOH, NPR also pointed out that 70% of Americans have, for years, supported a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants.  So where is the "left" and why can't the Democrats go there?
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And why doesn't he get a piece of that?



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23 Candidates

...and 14 months to the convention. Nobody said narrowing the field was gonna be pretty.

Besides, I remember what the GOP did to Jeb!, as well as public GOP discussions about "Little Mario" and Ted Cruz's connection to JFK's death, and hand size as a euphemism for male genitalia, so maybe you try to come to equity with clean hands next time, huh?

(Besides, my primary opposition is that Biden is too old, though he's only a few years older than me. Unlike Rick Wilson, I remember the busing controversy vividly. Biden was wrong then, and too old to say he's wrong now. (Trump is just fucking clueless.) Biden is also too conservative, something that doesn't bother Wilson, but IMHO Wilson hasn't gotten the memo (the times they are a'changin', thanks largely to Trump). And I'm just a die-hard progressive anyway.)
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Mission Accomplished!



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Democracy is not for the people, after all.

I understand in liberal cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco they let anybody in to the July 4th celebrations.

Can you imagine?

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The Stupidest Man on the Planet



Just to make the obvious well...obvious.


Honestly, res ipsa loquitor. Loudly and clearly:
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I Didn't Realize

...the Administration had jumped to the Supreme Court on the representation that June 30 was an absolute deadline. And now word is that Halloween would not be too late. Which explains why the trial court wants a hearing Monday on this question of deadlines.

And Roberts already said the government lied, and that's why they lost. So lie some more, and they win?

Like I said, some people don't seem to understand how the courts work.
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NOT the Onion

(or SNL)
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Friday, June 28, 2019

Somebody please take Joe's torch away

And his shovel. He's through with both.
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More Songs About Busing And Food

A) Biden IS Obama's Grandpa.

B) It is racist to think this busing contretemps is important to blacks only.

C) It ain't over 'til it's over. And since Biden is still talking about "voluntary busing" today, it ain't over.
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Really?

And that matters to who? Today?
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The Toddler has the Shotgun

Again.
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Really Time To Pass the Torch, Joe


What happened?  This happened:

Finally, Haake was able to ask a question on whether Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) misrepresented Biden’s position on segregation.

“Yes, she did,” Biden replied. “Yes, she did.”

“She mischaracterized it how?” Haake asked.

“I don’t think she intended to, she mischaracterized it because I supported busing to eliminate de jure segregation,” Biden claimed, as he tried to ignore the reporter.
I remember the explosion of anger and violence in Boston when busing finally reached some neighborhoods of that city.  I remember being surprised because it was years after my East Texas (read:  Southern) town had closed the separate black schools and integrated the schools.  That was de jure segregation.  I know there was de facto segregation in many places, including northern cities:  it meant the schools were segregated because of neighborhoods (and redlining, and other racist tactics going back decades).  De jure segregation, but so removed from the actions of statutes or even laws (except where laws looked the other way) it as in fact, but not in law.  The distinction is and always was a spurious one; a way of denying responsibility while insisting "the way things are" shouldn't be disturbed because white people didn't want it disturbed.  And I'm not really surprised to find out Joe Biden thought thing as they are was just fine for his part of the country, since de jure segregation was much more associated with the South than the industrial North.

But why would you resurrect the all but forgotten distinction between de jure and de facto segregation? And worse, still insist that one should be corrected, while the other shouldn't?  This is not getting a lot of attention yet, but this is what Biden meant during the debate when he said he opposed busing ordered by the Department of Education.

If this gets any more attention, I don't think even being Obama's Grandpa (thanks, SNL!  Eternally!) is going to save him.  Because, frankly, this is indefensible; and yet he's trying to defend it.

ADDING:  ABC already has video of Joe denouncing forced busing, back when a lot of white people were tired of it.  He's making the argument he tried to defend last night:  that busing is good for schools where there is an "intent" to segregate.  That's not an argument he wants to be defending today.
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I really do have to ask


Is the Senator from Vermont aware of supplemental Medicare policies, for hospitalization and prescription drugs?  And private policies that replace traditional Medicare altogether?  Is he imagining removing even Medicare as it exists today root and branch, and starting the whole thing over from scratch?  Because even LBJ didn't roll out Medicare as we know it today in one stroke of the pen.

He is aware of that, right?
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Are We Trying to Decide Which Candidate to Vote For?


Or which candidate hates Trump the most?  Because, you know, if we don't at least stop and piss on Trump's name every once in a while, in public, on stage, in front of TeeVee cameras:

But the complete lack of discussion about Trump’s treatment of women — coming as it did hours after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi verbally shrugged when asked during a news conference about what she planned to do in response to Carroll’s allegation — also says something about how Trump’s misconduct has been normalized.
Or maybe what's not been normalized is bitching and moaning and whinging and griping about something you CAN'T DO A GODDAMNED THING ABOUT!  Because I'm pretty sure the electorate is looking to elect a President who will do something about the things a President can do, and not to be the National Scold about the current officeholder.

What's being "normalized" is the idea that any public figure we don't like must be called a dick, and worse, every time the red light on the camera is burning.  Feh. 
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Wait A Minute....



I've got something for this.

Oh, yeah; here it is:

Because, sure, that's how it works, right?
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When You're 94

Everybody's a young punk on your lawn. And telling the truth can't cost you anything.

Good to see Mr. Carter is not set in his ways, too.

Of course, prior to that, this happened:
So.....
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Last Night Wasn't That Exciting

Funny, these are all people on stage Thursday night. There were 10 other people Wednesday night, right?

I understand there are 11 more of these scheduled. "A patch of ice doth not a winter make," and all that.
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Thursday, June 27, 2019

Huh

These debates are doing their job.
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Let go of the torch, Joe

Biden on guns: our enemy us gun manufacturers, not the NRA.

Somebody want to tell Joe the NRA is imploding as we speak?

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Hmmmm...



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Not as good tonight

The best part of the first debate was the discussion of immigration.

Although Kamala Harris did a good job.
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Spare Me

Biden starts answering a question by reciting his Tragic Life Story. I really don't need to hear that ever again, much less ad nauseam for the next 18 months.
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And why they could afford

To say a bit more about Trump (the optics of Sanders shouting down Gillibrand and everyone being silenced by Harris (who IS talking about Trump) is...a lot of fun!)
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Democratic Debate: Round 2

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"The American People constantly question:


"Why aren't we doing a better job to protect the dignity and worth of the children, the children, the children?"

Good question.  This is not the answer:


First, it's worth noting this bill passed the Senate 84-8.  Second, AOC's concerns are so far under the stitches she's wrapped herself around the core of the baseball.  I follow these matters fairly closely, and I have no idea what's going on here.  I'm not sure what the bill was the House passed, or what bill the Senate passed the House is now accepting. What do the American people know?  "For God's sakes, they're kids man!"  They know the photo of the father and his daughter, her little arm around his neck, drowned in the Rio Grande.  They know nobody is doing anything about this.  They don't know what it has to do with Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer or even AOC.  They don't know what the hell AOC is talking about.  They know: "For God's sakes, they're kids, man!"

Will Trump & Co., as AOC says, "keep hurting kids"?  Yes; he'll do that no matter what.  He'll find ways to do it, even if the law explicitly tells him not to.  He'll declare "absolute immunity" or do it with a double super-secret executive order, or just whisper down the line to let it continue.  You know he will.  I know he will.  We all know he will.  And no, there's nothing we can do about it.  But that doesn't mean we keep fighting over who has the real rule of law, and who doesn't, and insist we are doing it "for the kids".

I've seen that fight.  I want none of it.

We have to insist on helping the kids.  And when the kids still aren't helped, we try to help them again.  And when that doesn't work, we try to help them yet again.  And we keep trying.  We never stoop to the level of a Donald Trump, for whom these children don't even exist.  When a reporter asked him about that now infamous photograph, he expressed no regret, no emotion, no concern at all.  He blamed the Democrats.  The only thing the Democrats can do is not give him more excuses to lay that blame.

The asylum laws Trump rails against are, if I understand correctly, partly the product of international treaties.  It makes sense Trump would want to trample those laws; he wants to trample the entire post-WWII world of treaties and alliances, like the ignorant child he is.  Those asylum laws will not change because they cannot change; even the GOP understands that.  Trump will always insist on some new demand, always move the goal posts on the Democrats, because the cruelty is the point, and he won't give up on that cruelty (mostly because he has no compassion, no human feelings at all, except for himself and himself alone).  The Democrats cannot give him what he wants, so he will continue to be cruel.  But neither can the Democrats out-Trump Trump by being more intransigent, more intractable, more insistent on their side winning, than he is.  Trump will burn down the world and call himself victor.  The Democrats must be the adults in the room, the reasonable party that tries to end the nightmare.  "For God's sake, they're kids, man!"  If the Democrats forget that, there is no difference left between them and Trump, between them and the GOP.

The Democrats may have to lose, in order to win.  It may seem only a moral victory, but Donald Trump must be exposed for the amoral monster he is.  The only way to do that, is to act in the best interests of the children; or at least more plainly appear to be doing so than Trump is.  And maybe that will undermine Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, or other GOP senators in other states.  Maybe it will further undermine Trump, whose presidency already hangs by a thread, if it hangs by that much. Or maybe it won't lead directly to any political reckoning at all.  But we have to act for the children; or give up entirely on our own humanity.

*And AOC is insisting on arguing the political win/loss.  She never addresses the Speaker's point about the children.  Which says something about her argument, and something about why she's arguing it.  It's not a good look.
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Priorities

Instead we should refuse all aid for the children in order to stick it to the GOP (opposition).

Just like Trump's been doing....

(When I practiced family law, the ugliest cases involved children, who were inevitably the battleground for fights between the adults, each of whom had excellent reasons for using the children to punish the other adult.)
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More Fun with Numbers!


This seems like a sizable number; especially for a debate among so many otherwise unknown politicians.  There is this:

But the first Republican debate for the 2016 election was held on January 28, 2016; just before Iowa, IOW.  And voter turnout in 2016 was 138 million.  Viewership of the first Democratic debate almost 7 months before the first primary was over 10% of the turnout in 2016.


Yeah, I'd say the interest is intense.
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Not So Fast


And yes, it gets complicated fast, but no, this opinion by Kennerly doesn't strike me as sound.


The fate of a question about citizenship on the 2020 census remains up in the air today. Although the Trump administration had hoped that the Supreme Court would clear the way for it to include such a question, the justices instead sent the issue back to the Department of Commerce. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s four liberal justices in ruling that the justification that the government offered at the time for including the citizenship question was just a pretext. The decision left open the possibility that the Trump administration could try again to add the citizenship question, but the clock is ticking: The government has repeatedly told the justices, in urging them to resolve the case quickly, that it needs to finalize the census questionnaire by the end of this month.

That, however, barely tells the tale.  The Court remanded this case to the trial court (not really to the Commerce Department, but the ball is in their court) to reconsider the issue of the evidence for the decision.  As the Court's summary of the opinion puts it:

Several points, taken together, reveal a significant mismatch between the Secretary’s decision and the rationale he provided. 

That "mismatch" is what the trail court has to address (no, I'm not going into why and how; it's the status of the case I'm worried about).  Yes, the Supreme Court left the administration some "wiggle room," but the clock is ticking loudly.  In order to get the forms printed, Commerce has to decide on the questions by Monday.  Without court authority, they can't decide to do what they wanted to do before the suit was filed.  And if you think the trial court is doing to hear those arguments and decide the issue before the weekend, or the DOJ can even get a new injunction issued in this case by that trial court, then you really don't understand how courts function.


Things became even more interesting – and, for the justices, more complicated – earlier this week.  On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit sent another challenge to the use of the citizenship question back to a federal district court in Maryland so that the lower court could consider, in light of the new evidence, whether Ross had added the question because he intended to discriminate against Hispanics. In a concurring opinion, Judge James Wynn suggested that U.S. District Judge George Hazel might want to consider whether to temporarily block the government from including the citizenship question on the census questionnaire. The 4th Circuit’s order led to another flurry of last-minute filings in the Supreme Court. In a letter to the justices on Tuesday afternoon, the federal government again implored the justices to go ahead and resolve the dispute over the citizenship question now, including the question whether Ross had intended to discriminate against Hispanics. The government had addressed this issue in its brief in the Supreme Court, Solicitor General Noel Francisco stressed. And in any event, because the census questionnaire needs to be finalized by the end of June, the 4th Circuit’s order makes it likely that the justices will inevitably have to tackle this question one way or another, so it would be better to do so now in this case, instead of having to do it on an emergency basis in the Maryland case.

That case was not before the Supreme Court, and they did not rule on it.  If the trial court decides to block the citizenship question, that's a second block unaffected by the Supreme Court ruling, and certainly one that can't be resolved by the printing deadline.  Roberts may have left the door open to new legal arguments, but he didn't suspend the Constitution or the enabling legislation setting the date of the census while these questions are pondered.*

It's all over but the crying; or the tweeting, which ever comes first.


*Although, as Dahlia Lithwick just said, the Commerce Department may suddenly discover they have to decide the wording by October.  Who knows?  Either way, responding to this case is not responsive to the case in the 4th Circuit, so time still doesn't seem to be in the Administration's favor.
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"NO DO OVERS!"



Art. I, Sec. 2, U.S. Constitution:
The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.
Screw all that!  The POTUS doesn't like the decision of the Supreme Court!  Screw the law!  Everything stops until Trump gets what he wants!  He'll sue the Supreme Court!  Where's his Roy Cohn? 
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I know what to do!


Impeach Trump immediately so the Senate can refuse to remove him from office, and Trump can declare victory and continue to shout "NO DO OVERS!!!!!!!"

Yeah, that's satisfaction, right?
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Saving the World on Twitter

Anyway, how'd that work out?
Don't think he was talking about the flight.
And the best part of the debate was the segment on immigration. This issue is not sleeping.
Trump can blame the Democrats, but he's the head of government. He can't run away from that responsibility forever.
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Wednesday, June 26, 2019

First Review

Yeah, well:
And if this was/is the standard:
Elizabeth Warren is already out. Rick Wilson's description of the night:
That's the memory I carry away from tonight. Chaos erupting on the stage over and over (what did you expect?) and the Senator from Massachusetts disappearing from view and attention.

Anybody expect her to do better against Trump on the same stage? She made a fine case for staying in the Senate. Castro and Booker, on the other hand, moved out of the shadows into the spotlight. That's really what these debates are for.
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That's Entertainment!

The Nameless Rabble on stage are entertaining because they are throwing shit at the fan and tub-thumping with a passion that hasn't been seen lately (and needs to be), but frankly, Julian Castro is the rising star of this night. (JMM is saying Booker, so there's room to debate that, too. But where is Warren?)
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Is Elizabeth Warren Still On The Stage?


Asking for a friend....
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That Same Evening....

The debate on immigration was, IMHO, the best part of the night. Not everyone agrees:
Meanwhile, on the way to Japan...


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Pro Tip

People will not be talking about Warren tomorrow morning. They'll be talking about the people you don't recognize, the ones  throwing raw meat to the crowd and slamming Trump every time they speak.

They are stealing Warren's momentum, which was almost predictable. When you're #1, the only way to go is down.
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What a Shit-Show (First Impressions)

He's going to resign?

I'm not gonna "live-blog" it, but this "debate" is nothing but 10 people spouting talking points like automatons. It's individual interviews with a stage full of people.

I hate the way we pick Presidents. The smoke-filled room fills me with nostalgic longing. And it's not just because I remember smoke-filled rooms.

Although....

All these people you've never heard if/from are going so balls-out they make Sen. Warren and Sen. Sanders sound like ossified Republicans.

And that's kinda fun!
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One of those "sh*thole countries," right?



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Seems Like Old Times

Or not:*


(*And some people say, if frogs had wings, they wouldn't bump their ass every time they jumped.)


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Or A Thousand Words


This father was frustrated by being forced to wait in Mexico to apply for asylum, something that is his legal right under U.S. law.  He finally decided to cross the Rio Grande with his family.  When his daughter went into the river, he tried to save her.

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You hear that, Mitch McConnell?


Trump wants the Democrats to stop him from doing what he's doing.
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Defeat from the jaws of victory


Got no comment on who the "likely nominee" will be (WAY too early to make that call.  Can we wait until people start voting, huh?).  But the faction of voters not on Twitter is actually the majority of voters.  Case in point:

In a HuffPost/YouGov survey conducted Friday night and Saturday, just 11% of Americans said they’d heard a lot about Carroll’s allegations. About half those polled, 53%, hadn’t heard anything at all. (Because survey respondents tend to be more politically engaged, these numbers are, if anything, probably a little high.) 

We can bewail such ignorance later.  Let the data sink in:  most people aren't paying attention to whatever outrages Twitter last.  The internet is an outrage machine:  we all run to it every morning to find out what that outrage du jour is; and then on to the outrages of the morning, the afternoon, the hour, etc.

Most of America doesn't live this way.  Which is to say most of the Democratic primary voters probably aren't all that aware of "the performative wokeness of certain factions of the left," either.  And may not be as obsessed with "electability" as the pundits and journalists are.  But the simple fact is, the first debate among the Democratic wannabes is tonight.  The first vote on those wannabes is on February 3, 2020.  Until then, nobody really knows anything and the only thing that will shake out potentials is money.  Maybe.  Right now, Bernie's campaign is "sinking" because other campaigns are rising.  Remember when Beto was the hot ticket?  And Mayor Pete?

Everybody's gonna get their 15 minutes in the next 7 months, even Gabbard and Klobuchar and that guy from...wherever.  Some of them will probably last until well into the next year.  And frankly, the enthusiasm for running proves how terribly weak an opponent Donald Trump is.  He's got the incumbency, he's got the "bully pulpit," he's got the executive branch at this fingertips:  and yet nobody sees him as formidable.  Not formidable enough not to add to the list of candidates now so long nobody can really remember them all.  In the meantime, Digby said it so I don't have to:  we don't need advice from Republicans on how to lose a Presidential election.  The facts of 2016 are:  Hillary was a spectacularly bad campaigner; and too many voters are aptly summed up by the description in this tweet:

But mostly:  Hillary was a terrible campaigner.  As bad as Dukakis or Kerry or Gore.  If nothing else, the winnowing process this time should produce someone who can actually appeal to voters (and I'm not forgetting Biden's terrible track record on that score.  I don't think he survives to next summer, myself.), not just take the nomination because no one else would try (and no, Bernie was never a Democrat, and he isn't now).

Really, I'm convinced political prognostications and analysis mostly make people stupid; and incapable of making an argument that doesn't implode by its own internal logic (or lack thereof).
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Word Salad

It's not just for breakfast anymore.
The World is a mirror, and it all reflects Trump.
Because sure, why not?  Trump is running Camp Run-A-Muck, after all. At least the GOP seems content to see it that way.
It was only a matter of time until the Convergence.
And besides, they aren't "our" kids. When he finally comes to it, he will deny any responsibility for his actions.
It's Obama's fault.
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Tuesday, June 25, 2019

First Two Guesses Don't Count

Four House Democrats voted with the minority on the funding bill for DHS and the Border Patrol. Three GOP House members voted with the majority to pass the bill, which still has to be reconciled with the Senate bill, and faces a veto threat. Which party is in "disarray"?
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Subject To A Presidential Claim

of absolute, world-wide, universal, for all time and all places, King's X, no take backs, pinky swear, stick a pin in yourveyr/hope to die, totally conflicted, NO COLLUSION!,  blood oath double super secret immunity.
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Why I'm Looking Forward To The Next Two Nights

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Oh, Good Grief


Words that need to be heard and read.  And literally the very first response to that tweet was:
Tell me again why Jerry Falwell, Jr. is designated a "religious leader"?  Like Donald Trump, all he did was be born into the lucky sperm club and inherit everything he has from his father.  He built nothing from scratch, and has no authority to speak on this subject at all, v. Dr. Moore who speaks as a Christian and the head of a Christian group of churches.  Falwell is a "sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal."  Moore doesn't always speak for me, but in this case he speaks with love, and I stand with his words.

The old wisdom I heard in my ministry was that when the Spirit starts moving, the Devil gets busy.  This is a case in point.

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Two Stories, One Picture


 
Is this the point where we repost that comment from "Fox & Friends" about these kids not being from the U.S.?

No, I don't think so.
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Is this a representative government?

Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) speaks:

You know what? There’s not a lock on the door. Any child is free to leave at any time, but they don’t. You know why? Because they are well taken care of.

The problem is, every word he says is a lie, including "and" and "the":

For what it’s worth, Burgess was speaking specifically about a different child detention facility that he’d visited in Brownsville, Texas—but, also for what it’s worth, other reports have said that the facility he referred to (which houses boys as young as 10) does have locks, that when children have left similar compounds they’ve done so by climbing over fences, and that when they do so law enforcement authorities are alerted. Also, as far as respecting children’s wishes, the reason they’re in U.S. government custody in the first place is that they were involuntarily separated them from their parents or relatives. (You can see an explanation here of why some family separations are still happening.) They didn’t just wander into Texas and ask for a spot in the nearest lice-ridden nightmare cage.

There's a sign at the southern border now that reads:  "Welcome to America.  Go to hell." And then we provide the hell.

"For God's sake they're kids, man!"
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“For God’s sake, they’re kids, man.”

Bug? Or feature?


The correct answer is:  "Feature"
And refusal of donations is not a decision made at the local level.
And as for the government response to exposure of this horror show:
Well, let's not confuse "relocation" for "shuffling":
Refusal of donations is not the action of a local band of Border Patrol agents.  And complete lack of sanitation is not being caused by the number of immigrants crossing the border.

Incentives, amirite?

And this can't go unnoticed:

 
When Democrats finally agree to amend asylum laws, right?  Because actually treating people humanely RIGHT NOW! is not on the table, right?
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Monday, June 24, 2019

Making America Stupid Again

Besides that, they apparently apply to a dead man:
What's the reality TeeVee show where the protagonist is an ignorant clod?
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Thou hast committed fornication

"But that was in another country/and besides, the wench is dead."
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Good Night, and Good Luck

You're gonna need it.

I love this kind of analysis, because it's simultaneously insightful and self-defeating.  It posits a problem, and proposes a solution, but in positing the problem it takes that solution away.

The problem:

Very early in his life, Trump learned that if you claimed to be a billionaire, and acted like a billionaire, that everyone, including the morons in the news media, would believe you and even treat you like one. At the very least, the vast majority of people are afraid to call bullshit, mostly out of fear of being wrong about such a serious charge, while also ending any hope that they might be able to get some money from you.

Trump, a classic conman, has clearly mastered this form of manipulation, particularly now that he is president of the United States and the threshold for the “elite” news media calling him a blatant liar has been pushed even further to his benefit. Since he knows well just how pathetically tiny the attention spans of the media and the public are, he is safe knowing that he can easily finish a short race without ever being forced into a landmine that might actually cause him some real political damage.
The latest examples are the Stephanapolous interview and the Todd interview.   And here is the cause to that effect:

The fundamental vulnerability in the way everyone tries to interview Trump is that they cave into two antiquated concepts. The first is that the president of the United States must be treated with extreme respect. The second is that, because it happens so rarely, their network’s interview must cover a large number of very diverse topics.

But the real problem, the one buried in that identification, is the way we do "news" in this country.  Notice that "second" issue:  "their network's interview must cover a large number of very diverse topics."  Why?

Right there, if the interview is a 100-yard dash, Trump is already 50 yards ahead before the starting gun has been even fired. Trump knows that all he has to do is lie, deflect, obfuscate, and change the subject (maybe even by telling a new bald-faced lie) and the interviewer will soon move on to another question, fearful that they will be seen as badgering the president, while also not being able to provide enough varied content to feed their network’s news monster.
Competition, in a word.  Interviewers of the stature of Todd and Stephanopolous have no choice but to plow on with their questions, getting as many soundbites as they can ("Meet the Press" didn't run the whole Trump interview, and ABC said they spent 30 hours with the President.  Anybody expecting a broadcast of all 30 of those hours?  Besides, how many internet articles have you seen about the MTP interview, covering portions of it?  You don't get that coverage if Todd sticks to one subject until Trump cries or leaves the room.).  And what's the solution?  First:  collaborate, rather than compete; second:  go after the President (see item one above:  "Fearful they will be seen as badgering the president."  Which they would be.)

If, instead of playing this game they cannot win, the news media was disciplined and patient enough (it would help a lot of they could work in tandem on this) to drill on just one subject with him until they finally struck pay-dirt, Trump would be in real trouble. The media needs to create new “Trump Rules,” where when the president tells a clear lie the interview does NOT move on until either he is forced to admit to that lie, or he walks out of the interview like the immature man-child that he is.  
There's a scene in "Good Night, and Good Luck" where Ed Paley, head of CBS, calls Ed Murrow into his office to berate him about trying to do a story on Sen. McCarthy, a story Paley considers too thinly sourced to justify airing.  McCarthy is a U.S. Senator, after all; and Paley doesn't want to poke that bear without sound evidence, which he thinks Murrow doesn't have.  Granted, the movie is fictionalized history, but who doubts that's the way corporations operate?  They don't want to offend power, they want to assuage it.  I think this is how BBC gets away with it:  the Queen is the "real power," so PM's and MP's are fodder for criticism.  You aren't disrespecting the monarchy by challenging the competence of the PM or an MP.  But that's not the way it works in America, nor the way it's ever going to work.

So the solution is:  there is no solution.  This is "wish in one hand, spit in the other, see which fills up faster" analysis.  Sure, if pigs had wings they could fly, and if journalists were truly interested in "the truth," they'd drill into Trump like a gang of wildcatters.  But the market forces that incentivize wildcatters in oil fields (or used to, before market forces turned those fields into corporate fiefdoms) are the same forces that force interviewers to jump from topic to topic.  It's not that they don't know Trump is violating all the rules; it's that they have no other rules under which to function.  They literally don't know what else to do.  Having been put in a round room and told to sit in the corner, they just keep running around and around the room, desperately trying to follow orders.

Murrow finally got Paley to let him follow his information, but Murrow didn't bring McCarthy down:  public opinion did, guided more by public hearings than Murrow's journalism.  A handful of people in the country read the Washington Post articles by Woodward and Bernstein; it was the public hearings that did Nixon in.  Most of us still think of Woodstein as Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, and we know their story from that movie.  Journalists are never going to collapse Trump; especially not TV interviewers.

They have far too much interest in protecting the status quo.
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