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The Commentariat -- January 15, 2016
Afternoon Update:
Jennifer Jacobs of the Des Moines Register: "Donald Trump has rented space at an Urbandale movie theater and will give Iowans free tickets to a showing of the Benghazi movie that critics of Hillary Clinton have been eagerly awaiting.... The movie depicts the terrorist raid on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11, 2012. It reportedly makes no mention of Clinton, then the U.S. Secretary of State, but has again raised the topic of the Democratic presidential candidate’s role in the tragedy...." ...
... Adam Goldman & Greg Miller of the Washington Post: The former CIA chief in Benghazi says a pivotal scene in the movie "13 Hours" is fictional: there was never a "stand-down order."
Birtherism 2.0. Laurel Calkins & Kevin Cirilli of Bloomberg: "Republican presidential contender Ted Cruz should be disqualified from the race because he isn't a 'natural-born citizen,' a fellow Texan claims in a 'birther' challenge filed against the senator in a U.S. court. The suit seeks a court definition of the term to clarify whether Cruz -- who was born in Canada to an American mother -- can or can't serve if elected. 'This 229-year question has never been pled, presented to or finally decided by or resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court,' Houston attorney Newton B. Schwartz Sr. said in his 28-page complaint. 'Only the U.S. Supreme Court can finally decide, determine judicially and settle this issue now.'... Schwartz, 85, said in a phone interview he isn't connected to any particular campaign, though he personally 'probably' supports Bernie Sanders...."
Adios, Arbusto! Anna Palmer & Ben White of Politico: "Politico talked to nearly two dozen major donors [to Jeb!'s campaign], and most say they are waiting for what one veteran Republican and former Bush 43 administration appointee described as the 'family hall pass' to jump to another campaign after the New Hampshire primary." ...
... AND Just in the Nick of Time. Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "Sen. Lindsey Graham on Friday endorsed Jeb Bush for president, a major get for the former Florida governor who has struggled to gain traction in the contest."
Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "The harshest and most antagonistic phase of the Republican presidential race began in earnest on Friday as the candidates departed the debate hall for the campaign trail, leaving behind any pretense of good will that might have remained.... Mr. Trump, appearing on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe,' accused Mr. Cruz of being 'inappropriate' in raising questions about whether Mr. Trump's mother's citizenship status -- she was born in Scotland -- disqualifies him from running for president. And Mr. Trump said the Texas senator's remark about his 'New York values,' a dig at the real estate mogul's perceived liberal tendencies, was 'disgraceful.'... Though he had pledged to stay above the Republican-on-Republican attacks, Mr. Rubio on Friday was even sharper in his questioning of Mr. Cruz's devotion to conservative principles than he was during the debate." ...
... Charles Pierce has some thoughts on the debaters. For the most part, one would not describe them as positive, although he did enjoy it when "He, Trump ... squash[ed] that demagogic bug [being Cruz] in just that way and, just for a second, I began to see the sense behind He, Trump's poll numbers." CW: I object when Pierce, or anyone, describes that turd Marco as "oily" & "oleaginous"; Pierce means "greaser," whether he realizes it or not, & it's decidedly not P.C. to use such a term when referring to a person of the Hispanic persuasion. Pierce should cut that out. But he won't. ...
... Dana Milbank: "Republicans like to blame Trump for hijacking the party, but equally to blame are the others in the race for letting it happen -- and continuing to do so, now just two weeks from the Iowa caucuses. Thursday night's debate was another depressing development: Any of four men on the stage -- Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie or John Kasich -- could have been a viable alternative to the fear and demagoguery offered by Trump and Ted Cruz. Instead, they cluttered the stage and quarreled among themselves, offering little beyond faint echoes of Trump's rage."
Stephen Losey of the Air Force Times: "Robins Air Force Base in Georgia has taken down a flyer advertising a 'Martin Luther King Jr. Fun Shoot' scheduled for the holiday honoring the slain civil rights leader. In a statement to Air Force Times, Robins apologized for the advertising tying the event to the holiday honoring King, who was shot by an assassin in Memphis in 1968." CW: As a result of criticisms lodged against the event, organizers announced they would reschedule the event to February 12 & rename it "Abe Lincoln Fun Shoot."
*****
Presidential Race
Jonathan Martin & Patrick Healy of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas sharply attacked each other on Thursday night over the Canadian-born Mr. Cruz's eligibility to be president and Mr. Trump's 'New York values,' shedding any semblance of cordiality as they dominated a Republican debate less than three weeks before the Iowa caucuses.... In many ways, it was the darkest debate of the campaign, as the Republicans tried to paint the grimmest possible portrait of an America in decline economically, despite rapid job growth, and militarily, though they praised service members.... Neither Mr. Rubio, who spent most of the debate delivering rehearsed lines that seemed to come out of speeches, nor the other four Republicans on the debate stage left nearly as big an impression during the night as Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz." ...
... The Washington Post story, by Karen Tumulty & Philip Rucker, is here. ...
... Margaret Hartmann of New York on what you (and I!) missed by not watching the debate. ...
... Driftglass provides an excellent transcript of the debate, although it appears a few citations may be paraphrases.
... Here's the birther exchange:
Here's the Trump-Cruz exchange on "New York values." Trump's response starts at about 1:45 min. in:
... Stephen Stromberg of the Washington Post: "The Republican presidential candidates responded in Thursday's GOP debate by painting an even more dismal and dangerous picture than they had in the past. The president is a traitor. The military is a shell of a fighting force. The economy is a shambles. Average families are in grave danger. If Democrats win, the country is lost.... Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) 'won' the latest round of this increasingly disgusting show, with Donald Trump and Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) coming in second. But being the most effective at exaggerating the dangers the country faces and preying on voter anger is not an achievement; it is a moral failure." ...
... Ed Kilgore: "In the end, the domination of the endless debate time by everything other than the basic economic issues you might expect from a business network showed how far into the fever swamps the GOP contest has strayed. When Donald Trump responded to the attack from host-state governor Nikki Haley on 'the angriest voices' by saying 'I will gladly welcome the mantle of anger,' he did not stand out at all. And after all the talk about the Republican field and the party Establishment conspiring to stop Trump, that's the irony: they are increasingly the party of Trumpism With or Without Trump -- plus John Kasich." ...
... Jonathan Chait: "... those of us who believed Republican elites would kill Trump's candidacy out of self-preservation have to face the increasingly plausible prospect that, for whatever reason, they may lay down their arms before a shot has been fired.
Mark Murray of NBC News: "Donald Trump has more than doubled his national lead in the Republican presidential race ahead of Thursday night's GOP debate here, according to the results from a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Trump is the first choice of 33 percent of national Republican primary voters - his highest percentage in the poll. He's followed by Ted Cruz at 20 percent, Marco Rubio at 13 percent and Ben Carson at 12 percent. Chris Christie and Jeb Bush are tied at five percent. No other Republican presidential candidate gets more than 3 percent." CW: Remember that national polls don't mean much, especially now, when most of the country isn't concentrating on the presidential race. ...
... Kevin Cirilli of Bloomberg: "... Donald Trump said he's building a movement bigger than that of former President Ronald Reagan. 'I think that the closest thing I can think of is Reagan, but I don't think it's the intensity that we have,' the billionaire told Mark Halperin and John Heilemann of Bloomberg's With All Due Respect just minutes after he finished a rousing speech to a capacity crowd of 10,000 inside a Pensacola, Florida, arena on Wednesday night. 'Now, Reagan had a little bit of this, but I don't think to the same extent -- but he also won,' Trump said."
Birtherism 3.0. Ben Kamisar of the Hill: "Marco Rubio's lawyers are defending his eligibility to run for president in a quixotic legal challenge that alleges he isn't a natural-born citizen. A Florida voter filed the suit, which claims that the senator isn't a true 'natural-born citizen' under the Constitution because his parents were not both U.S. citizens at his birth in Miami."
Caitlin MacNeal of TPM: "When asked about the federal government's role in addressing tension between the police and minority communities during a meeting with the Des Moines Register editorial board on Wednesday, Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush brought up black-on-black shooting rates.... 'Putting aside a police officer shooting a black man, most of the crimes are black on black in the communities. Most by far,' Bush added. 'The police shooting of unarmed black males, which is what the conversation is about as I understand it, is very small.'" CW: It's as if Jeb! & his rivals all went to the top Right Wing World Brain Surgeon to get him to implant one of his recordings in each of their tiny brains, & every time someone asks a question, the record fast-forwards to a related stereotype, & the words comes out. ...
... Oh, speaking of Right Wing World brain surgeons ...
... Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Ben Carson's national finance chairman Dean Parker resigned Thursday morning amid questions about his use of campaign fund and criticism from Carson allies and donors."
Jeffrey Sparshott of the Wall Street Journal: "The head of the nation's biggest business lobby inveighed against presidential candidates singling out immigrants, ethnic or religious groups, highlighting divisions among supporters of the Republican establishment and the party's leading candidate Donald Trump. 'There are the voices, sometimes very loud voices, who talk about walling off America from talent and trade and who are attacking whole groups of people based not on their conduct but on their ethnicity or religion,' Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in a speech on Thursday. 'This is morally wrong and politically stupid.'"
... Greg Sargent: "Interestingly, the ad doesn't name Hillary Clinton.... The Sanders argument is that nothing we've seen during the Obama years -- and nothing we've heard proposed from the Hillary Clinton campaign -- comes close to the sort of far-reaching, deep structural changes to the economy that will be required to seriously combat the soaring inequality and wage stagnation of the moment." ...
... CW: Also interestingly, I just saw Clinton's campaign strategist complaining to Tuck Chodd that the Sanders spot breaks Sanders' campaign pledge not to run negative ads. Clinton, of course, takes the ad personally, but as Sargent points out, Sanders is challenging the entire Democratic approach to economic policy. And of course the Clinton campaign's complaining about negative ads is pretty hilarious after the last week or so of her and her proxies going after Sanders, both fairly & unfairly. ...
... Update: Jesse Byrnes of the Hill: "Hillary Clinton's campaign on Thursday decried what it called an attack ad from Democratic presidential rival Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Clinton's aides claimed Sanders had broken his pledge to never run a negative advertisement by releasing his 30-second campaign spot on 'two Democratic visions for regulating Wall Street.'...Sanders's campaign insisted that the ad wasn't 'directed at Secretary Clinton exclusively.' 'It's about people in the Democratic establishment who believe you can take Wall Street's money and then somehow turn around and rein in the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior,' Sanders campaign spokesman Michael Briggs said in a statement shared with The Hill. 'Obviously she is part of the establishment that Wall Street has showered with financial support. Bernie is not,' Briggs added...." ...
... Charles Pierce: "Bernie Sanders is where he is because the positions and the policies he has been championing all his career have come back somewhat into favor ever since some grifters broke the world economy and then made off with the rubble. That is why he's different from Donald Trump and that is why Hillary Rodham Clinton is noticing that things in the rear-view window are closer than they appear." ...
... Gene Robinson: "Any Clinton supporters looking for a reason to panic should consider the way the campaign attacked Sanders on health care this week, [which began with Chelsea Clinton's charges against Sanders' proposals for single-payer insurance].... Such careful and misleading parsing of language can only be called Clintonesque and only be read as a danger sign. I can't help but recall how Bill Clinton invited a backlash in 2008 by calling the Obama candidacy a 'fairy tale.' Maybe Hillary Clinton should try leaving the family at home.... The Clinton campaign has a fight on its hands -- and anything smacking of politics-as-usual is more likely to lose votes than win them." ...
... Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "Hillary Clinton's national lead is slipping faster in 2016 than it did in 2008."
Marlow Stern of the Daily Beast interviews Bill Maher on the candidates -- entertaining, & politically correct.
Real News
Okay, real-ish:
Tim Egan: "... on the mastery of changing hearts and minds, the 'ability to astonish and inspire,' [President Obama] falls short. His presidency, as of now, has not been transformational. He has 370 more days, or thereabouts, to make a dent in a hard history." ...
... CW: I disagree with Egan. I don't think anyone can blame the President for the vicious antics of Republican "leaders." Last night's debate was the 10,000th illustration of that -- two days after Obama chastised them for behaving badly, they behaved worse. I don't think any one of them, with the possible exception of Kasich, has a whit of common decency (and his ideology is counterproductive); their entire case is built on a foundation of lies, smears & scorn. One individual is not responsible for the immorality of an entire corrupt power structure. In my lifetime, the Republican party always has appealed to Americans' worst instincts. It has never done so more forcefully than now.
** Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "The Obama administration will announce on Friday a halt to new coal mining leases on public lands as it considers an overhaul of the program that could lead to increased costs for energy companies and a slowdown in extraction, according to an administration official. The move would represent a significant setback for the coal industry, effectively freezing new coal production on federal lands and sending a signal to energy markets that could turn investors away from an already flailing industry. President Obama telegraphed the step in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, saying, 'I'm going to push to change the way we manage our oil and coal resources so that they better reflect the costs they impose on taxpayers and our planet.'"
Bill Vlasic of the New York Times: "With automakers and technology companies rushing to develop self-driving cars, the Obama administration on Thursday pledged to expedite regulatory guidelines for autonomous vehicles and invest in research to help bring them to market. Until now, the federal government has taken a hands-off approach to regulating new technology that allows vehicles to operate independently and without an actual driver."
Sarah Ferris of the Hill: "Planned Parenthood on Thursday filed a long-awaited federal lawsuit against the anti-abortion activists who have targeted the group with undercover videos for the last year. The formal complaint marks the first time that Planned Parenthood has taken legal action against the group, the Center for Medical Progress. The national organization, along with its California affiliate, is accusing the Center for Medical Progress and its organizer David Daleiden for unlawful behavior ranging from secret taping to trespassing. The group said the Center for Medical Progress has violated the laws of three states as well as federal law." ...
... Nina Liss-Schultz of Mother Jones: "The federal lawsuit accuses CMP of racketeering, illegally creating and using fake driver's licenses, invading the privacy of and illegally recording Planned Parenthood officials and staff. The suit describes CMP as a 'complex criminal enterprise conceived and executed by anti-abortion extremists,' and says that 'the aim of the fake enterprise -- which stretched over years and involved fake companies, fake identifications, and large-scale illegal taping, was to demonize Planned Parenthood.'" The complaint is embedded in the story.
Paul Krugman: "... given the reality that wealth often reflects either luck or power, there's a strong case to be made for collecting some of that wealth in taxes and using it to make society as a whole stronger, as long as it doesn't destroy the incentive to keep creating more wealth. And there's no reason to believe that it would. Historically, America achieved its most rapid growth and technological progress ever during the 1950s and 1960s, despite much higher top tax rates and much lower inequality than it has today.... The rich don't have to be as rich as they are. Inequality is inevitable; the vast inequality of America today isn't."
Matthew Goldstein of the New York Times: "More than seven years after the worst of the financial crisis, Goldman Sachs is again paying a price for the role it played. The Wall Street firm said on Thursday it had agreed to a civil settlement of up to $5 billion with federal prosecutors and regulators to resolve claims stemming from the marketing and selling of faulty mortgage securities to investors.... The agreement in principle requires Goldman to pay $2.385 billion in civil penalties and $875 million in cash and provide up to $1.8 billion in relief to consumers."
Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. CW: I don't know why public universities don't dispense with classrooms & professors & students studying literature & physics and all when they could more easily concentrate on being excellent sports enterprises. Go, Bucks! O H I O!
W. J. Hennigan & Tracy Wilkinson of the Los Angeles Times: "How U.S. sailors almost started a crisis with Iran." The vessels were a mile inside Iranian waters. "The situation became only more complicated when a U.S. aircraft carrier task force led by the Harry S. Truman, on patrol in the gulf, quickly launched search helicopters into Iranian airspace. That served to further alarm Tehran, even as U.S. officials began considering a possible rescue operation.... [The incident] also raises questions of whether Iran violated international law by using the detainees for propaganda purposes."
Hey, Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), America's Stupidest Senator is still America's stupidest senator: Christopher Massie of BuzzFeed: "Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson inaccurately described South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley as an immigrant while praising her response to President Obama's State of the Union address on Tuesday night.... '... And Governor Haley is an immigrant. She has powerful stories of being an immigrant....'" ...
... CW: Here's a clue, Ron. As even you must know, Republicans are chattering about Haley as a possible vice-presidential candidate. But, see, the vice president can't be an immigrant. S/he has to be a "natural-born citizen," something that even you also should know by now, since the topic has been in the news all week. Sheesh!
Laurie After 13 years of rancor over conflicting views on homosexuality, the archbishops of the Anglican Communion have voted to impose sanctions for three years on the Episcopal Church, the American branch of the Communion, for its decision last summer to allow clergy to perform same-sex marriages, church officials said Thursday. News of the archbishops' decision to discipline the American church leaked out near the end of a weeklong meeting in England called by the Most Rev. Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury. He had summoned the archbishops to Canterbury in an effort to break the bitter impasse that has divided the Anglican Communion since the Episcopal Church consecrated an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire in 2003.... The Anglican Church of Canada, which has allowed some clergy members to perform same-sex marriages but has not adopted a policy for the entire province, escaped sanctions. But the archbishops' resolution fell short of the demands of conservative primates to evict the Americans and the Canadians from the Communion." ...
... CW: Oh, they're primates, all right. I believe I'll head down to St. Andrews this Sunday.
Beyond the Beltway
Daniel Bethencourt of the Detroit Free Press: "Since Flint switched its water source to the Flint River, officials have seen a spike in the number of cases of a severe form of pneumonia, called Legionnaires' disease -- but officials say they're still looking for the cause. There have been 87 cases in Genesee County from June 2014 to November 2015 -- and 10 of those cases resulted in death, said Dr. Eden Wells, chief medical executive with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, or MDHHS.... While state officials said they couldn't make a connection between the water and the spike in disease, [Marc Edwards of Virginia Tech,] a drinking water expert who studied Flint, said the rise in cases was 'dramatic,' and added there's a 'very strong likelihood' the river's water played a role." CW: So much for killing them softly with lead poisoning.
Carol Marin & Don Moseley of NBC Chicago: "Senior members of Rahm Emanuel's administration received and sent emails about the video of the police shooting of Laquan McDonald long before the mayor said he was fully briefed, emails obtained by NBC5 News show. The emails were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request and show that the mayor's chief of staff, deputy chief of staff and top press aides were included in email chains." ...
... Mark Guarino, et al., of the Washington Post: Rahm Emanuel "faced renewed questions Thursday about whether he had known earlier than he had previously said that police accounts of the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald conflicted with a dashboard-camera video of the 2014 incident. Early in the day, a federal judge ordered the release of video footage in another case, from 2013, that shows police fatally shooting an unarmed black teenager. The city had long opposed the release, but reversed itself this week and asked a court to make the video public. It was released hours after the ruling."
Patrick Whittle of the AP: "Critics of Maine Gov. Paul LePage failed to muster support for a vote Thursday on an independent investigation that could have led to impeachment for alleged abuse of power. LePage responded by calling the impeachment effort 'nonsense' and 'foolishness.'"
Elliot Njus of the Oregonian: "As the armed occupation of a Harney County wildlife refuge drags into its 13th day, protesters are sending mixed signals about their plans." ...
... Sam Levin of the Guardian: "Leaders of the armed militia occupying federal lands in eastern Oregon could face hefty fines and more than 10 years behind bars if government officials decide to prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law, legal experts say. Ammon Bundy and his crew of rightwing anti-government followers -- who have refused to leave the Malheur national wildlife refuge since they took over its headquarters on 2 January -- appear to have violated a number of laws that prohibit the unauthorized use and destruction of public property.... Tim Colahan, Harney County district attorney, said in an email that he is working with county, state and federal law enforcement agencies and is discussing the possibility of criminal prosecution." CW: I'll believe these guys might do time when I see a criminal complaint. Meanwhile, Papa Bundy is still out there grazing his cattle on our land & refusing to pay more than $1MM in fees he owes us.
News Ledes
CNN: "The Dow dropped another 391 points on Friday, leaving the index down an incredible 1,437 points in just the first two weeks of the year. The S&P 500 lost 2.3% and the Nasdaq plunged 2.7% to its lowest level since October 2014."
AP: "Two Marine helicopters carrying 12 crew members collided off the Hawaiian island of Oahu during a nighttime training mission, and rescuers are searching a debris field in choppy waters Friday, military officials said. There was no immediate word on what caused the crash or if any survivors have been found."
AP: "A Tennessee man pulled a folded Powerball ticket from the front pocket of his shirt and told a national television audience Friday that he held one of three winners of the world-record $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot. 'Now I'll be nervous because everybody knows,' said John Robinson, who appeared in the New York studios of NBC's 'Today' show alongside his wife Lisa, their daughter and their lawyer. The Associated Press could not immediately verify the Robinsons' claim."
Los Angeles Times: "The California Public Utilities Commission agreed Thursday with a judge's recommendation to fine Uber $7.6 million for failing to meet data reporting requirements in 2014. Uber will appeal the decision, but has agreed to pay the fine to avoid a 30-day suspension of its license in its home state."
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