The Commentariat -- Dec. 16, 2015

CW: Back on the road again, so again I leave the hard work up to readers. Thank you for all your help yesterday.

Robert Pear & David Herszenhorn of the New York Times: "Republican and Democratic negotiators in the House clinched a deal late Tuesday on a $1.1 trillion spending bill and a huge package of tax breaks. Legislative drafters, racing a midnight deadline, met the time limit for issuing the tax package but apparently missed it for the spending bill. That could push back a vote on the House floor by one day, until Friday.... Since the Republicans took back control of the House in 2011, a majority in the party has routinely opposed compromise budget and spending measures, forcing party leaders to rely on Democrats for votes to clear the bills. All signs indicate that the same dynamic is playing out now."

... Herszenhorn & Pear of the New York Times: (Dec. 15): "House Speaker Paul D. Ryan told the Republican Party's rank and file on Tuesday night that a deal had been reached on a $1.1 trillion spending measure, but Democrats said that negotiations on the bill had not been finished." ...

Presidential Race

Patrick Healy & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump came under sustained attack from Jeb Bush and other Republican presidential candidates on Tuesday night as they united against his plan to bar Muslims from entering the United States while tussling over who would be toughest in protecting Americans from terrorist threats. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida also faced his toughest moments of the race during the latest Republican debate as a top rival, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, repeatedly questioned his conservative credentials and his judgment on national security and immigration." ...

... Elizabeth Williamson of the New York Times: Jeb "Bush repeatedly stood up to Mr. Trump, who sounded like the playground bully he is as he struggled to respond when Mr. Bush called him a chaos candidate,' told him 'you're not going to be able to insult your way to the presidency,' and ... saying the reality star 'gets his foreign policy experience from the shows.' At one point, a flailing Mr. Trump was left sputtering the aforementioned insults and demanding an apology.... The enduring image was of Mr. Trump, grimacing and shrugging clownishly as he declined to call Mr. Cruz a 'maniac,' as he did last week, or to go after him in any substantive way." ...

... Frank Bruni is not too bad re: the debate. He begins, "Someone needs to explain carpets to Ted Cruz." And, as shallow as Bruni is, he gets that Trump is more so: "Bush more than anyone in any of these debates effectively called Trump out for his galling recklessness, and Trump's responses were as naked a display of his adolescent narcissism as he’s engaged in yet. That's saying something." ...

... Liar, Liar, Liar, Liar. The Washington Post fact-checks someof the candidates' claims. They really will say just anything. And, of course, the so-called moderators always let them get away with lies. I don't blame the moderators for not having facts & numbers at their fingertips, but they do have earbuds & a staff-full of helpers at the ready, some of whom could at least check & allow the moderators to call out the most outrageous claims. Maybe they couldn't do it in real time, but they could come close.

Beyond the Beltway

Adam Nagourney, et al., of the New York Times: "The nation's two largest school systems confronted threats of a terrorist attack on Tuesday and reacted in sharply different ways: New York City reviewed the warning and dismissed it as a hoax, but officials here abruptly shut down all public schools, upending the lives of parents, students and teachers."

Michelle Boorstein of the Washington Post: "High school debate coaches of some of the top Virginia teams are asking authorities to consider moving the sport's annual championship off the Liberty University campus due to recent comments by Liberty President Jerry Falwell Jr. that many saw as threatening to Muslims.... Concerns stem from Falwell's comments in a talk to students this month about terrorism, in which he urged students to arm themselves against 'those Muslims' who might come on campus and do harm. His comments set off enormous cheers among the thousands in attendance."

Tom Jackman of the Washington Post: "A Manassas City police detective, who was the lead investigator in a controversial teen 'sexting' case last year, shot and killed himself outside his home Tuesday morning as police tried to arrest him for allegedly molesting two boys he met while coaching youth hockey in Prince William County." And, yes, the cop "sexted" the young boys: "Police said they learned that [David] Abbott had sent inappropriate text messages and emails to a 13-year-old boy he met through the hockey program. By phone and social media, Abbott had been asking the boy for sex acts for more than two years, county police said." Oh, & the "controversial 'sexting'" case? It was a kid sending explicit videos to his girlfriend: the cops then took "a photo of the teen's erect penis, for comparison with the explicit video." Without knowing the facts -- like how receptive the girl was to receiving the videos -- it sounds as if the cops were far worse than the kid.

Way Beyond

Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "Saudi Arabia has announced the formation of an 'Islamic military alliance' to combat global terrorism, an effort to respond to Western assertions that it could do more in the fight against the Islamic State and to solidify its claim to leadership of the Sunni world against Shiite Iran.... The [Obama] administration said it welcomed the new alliance."

The Commentariat -- Dec. 15, 2015

Internal links removed.

CW: You're on your own today. Don't forget to watch the GOP debate tonight. Let's hope Trump & Cruz -- who will be standing next to each other -- get into actual fisticuffs. Before you handicap the physical fight, better check out Trump's medical report, linked below. Meantime, do help out by using the Comments section to link to articles you find interesting. (Stick with politics, please.)

Ken Vogel of Politico: "The political operation created by the billionaire conservative mega-donors Charles and David Koch is quietly investing millions of dollars in programs to win over an unlikely demographic target for their brand of small-government conservatism ― poor people. The outreach includes everything from turkey giveaways, GED training and English-language instruction for Hispanic immigrants to community holiday meals and healthy living classes for predominantly African American groups to vocational training and couponing classes for the under-employed. The strategy, according to sources familiar with it and documents reviewed by POLITICO, calls for presenting a more compassionate side of the brothers' politics to new audiences, while fighting the perception that their groups are merely fronts for rich Republicans seeking to game the political process for personal gain."

Robert Pear of the New York Times: "In early November, President Obama challenged 20 communities around the country to compete with one another in signing up people [to the ACA] who were uninsured. The places were chosen because they had large numbers of uninsured residents or because people lacking coverage accounted for a large share of the population. A scoreboard prepared by the White House says that Milwaukee -- with a Democratic mayor who strongly supports the health law -- has made the most progress, followed by Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, Charlotte, N.C., and Atlanta. Oakland, Calif., Nashville, Tampa, Fla., and Salt Lake City were also in the top 10.... 'We are seeing unprecedented demand,' said Lori Lodes, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services...."

Eric Lipton & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "The Environmental Protection Agency engaged in 'covert propaganda' and violated federal law when it blitzed social media to urge the public to back an Obama administration rule intended to better protect the nation's streams and surface waters, congressional auditors have concluded.... Federal laws prohibit agencies from engaging in lobbying and propaganda."

Richard Oppel of the New York Times: "A top Army commander on Monday ordered that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl face a court-martial on charges of desertion and endangering troops stemming from his decision to leave his outpost in 2009, a move that prompted a huge manhunt in the wilds of eastern Afghanistan and landed him in nearly five years of harsh Taliban captivity."

Register Your Drones! Federal Aviation Administration: "The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) today announced a streamlined and user-friendly web-based aircraft registration process for owners of small unmanned aircraft (UAS) weighing more than 0.55 pounds (250 grams) and less than 55 pounds (approx. 25 kilograms) including payloads such as on-board cameras."

Presidential Race

Dan Balz & Scott Clement of the Washington Post: "Following his proposal to temporarily bar Muslims from entering the country, Donald Trump has increased his lead in the Republican primary to its largest margin yet, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll." ...

If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency. -- Harold Bornstein (reputedly), who says he is Trump's doctor ...

... Russell Saunders & Betsy Woodruff of the Daily Beast: "Donald Trump's doctor released a medical report so silly that when we asked the American Medical Association about its language, their spokesman started to laugh." ...

... Colin Campbell of Business Insider reproduces the "astonishingly excellent" letter from Trump's doctor. The medical doctors among you will be sure to want to read it to find out how you're really supposed to write reports. Sometimes, apparently, it's appropriate to let your patients "help" you write the reports.

James Downie of the Washington Post: Ted "Cruz is the one contender who understands the far right and whose conservative bona fides are impeccable. If he were to be the nominee, it would be good news for the Democrats in the short term and the country in the long term. His ideologically extreme positions would hand Hillary Clinton an edge in what the fundamentals still suggest is otherwise likely to be a close election. And a Cruz loss would be most likely to end the myth on the far right that 'Republicans lose presidential elections when they don't run far enough to the right.'"

Sahil Kapur of Bloomberg: "The divide over same-sex marriage encapsulates [Marco] Rubio's dilemma: he's a young face in a party dominated by older voters. The Pew poll found that while a majority of Americans want gay couples to be able to marry, just 32 percent of Republicans and 24 percent of white evangelical protestants support it.... Surveys indicate that [HIllary] Clinton is more in tune with younger generations than Rubio on issues such as raising the federal minimum wage, normalizing relations with Cuba and loosening marijuana laws."

Beyond the Beltway

Emily Yahr of the Washington Post: "Over the last year, more than three-dozen women have alleged they were sexually assaulted by Bill Cosby. On Monday, the comedian sued seven of the women, saying the 'malicious, opportunistic, false and defamatory accusations' are a mere play for money that has ruined his reputation.

The Commentariat -- Dec. 14, 2015

Internal links & defunct video removed.

CW: I"m on the road again, so updates will be sparse. I'll try to get at least a skeletal Commentariat up each day, but I'm not sure I'll be successful.

Afternoon Update:

Tom Vanden Brook & Gregory Korte of USA Today: "President Obama said he's dispatching Secretary of Defense Ash Carter to the Middle East to help secure more help to fight the Islamic State, promising that his administration is 'moving forward with a great sense of urgency' against the terrorist group."

*****

Jim Fallows of the Atlantic: "... after the climate agreement in Paris, it would be wrong not to note three big things that have happened during [Barack Obama's] presidency that in all probability would not have happened without him:

• The climate deal itself, as explained in a NYT piece just now, and in unbelievable contrast to the utter collapse of the Copenhagen negotiations early in Obama's term;
• The rapprochement with Cuba, marking the beginning of the end of the single stupidest (but hardest to change) aberration in modern U.S. foreign policy; and
• The international agreement with Iran, which in the short term offers (as I have argued at length) the best prospects for keeping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, and in the long run has the potential of beginning to end Iran's destructive estrangement from the international order."

Sewell Chan & Melissa Eddy of the New York Times: "With nearly every nation on earth having now pledged to gradually reduce emissions of the heat-trapping gases that are warming the planet -- a universal commitment that had eluded negotiators and activists since the first Earth Day summit meeting, in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 — much of the burden for maintaining the momentum now shifts back to the countries to figure out, and put in place, the concrete steps needed to deliver on their pledges. The task may prove most challenging for India, which is struggling to lift more than half of its population of 1.25 billion out of poverty and to provide basic electricity to 300 million of them. Rich countries are intent that India not get stuck on a coal-dependent development path." ...

... Clifford Krauss & Keith Bradsher of the New York Times: "If nothing else, analysts and experts say, the accord is a signal to businesses and investors that the era of carbon reduction has arrived. It will spur banks and investment funds to shift their loan and stock portfolios from coal and oil to the growing industries of renewable energy like wind and solar. Utilities themselves will have to reduce their reliance on coal and more aggressively adopt renewable sources of energy." ...

... Joby Warrick of the Washington Post: "The formal adoption of the accord late Saturday was greeted with applause and cheers by thousands of weary delegates to the climate talks here. But the happy conclusion was preceded by days and weeks of tough bargaining, along with occasional flashes of drama." ...

... Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "In a stark display of the partisan divide in the United States over climate change, the Republican presidential candidates have said almost nothing about the Paris Agreement, even though whoever succeeds Mr. Obama will be tasked with carrying it out. Of the nine who will participate in Tuesday's prime-time debate on CNN, only Gov. John Kasich of Ohio would provide an assessment of the deal when asked on Sunday. The near-silence among Republicans is a striking illustration of the vastly different roles that climate change is playing in the presidential primaries for the two major parties." ...

... Paul Krugman: "Republican attitudes haven't changed, except for the worse: the G.O.P. is spiraling ever deeper into a black hole of denial and anti-science conspiracy theorizing. The game-changing news is that this may not matter as much as we thought.... New technology has fundamentally changed the rules.... Costs of solar and wind power have fallen dramatically, to the point where they are close to competitive with fossil fuels even without special incentives -- and progress on energy storage has made their prospects even better. Renewable energy has also become a big employer, much bigger these days than the coal industry.... Maybe we're not doomed after all."

Brian Ross, et al., of ABC News: "Fearing a civil liberties backlash and 'bad public relations' for the Obama administration, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson refused in early 2014 to end a secret U.S. policy that prohibited immigration officials from reviewing the social media messages of all foreign citizens applying for U.S. visas, a former senior department official said.... A spokesperson for the DHS, Marsha Catron, told ABC News that months after [the official, John] Cohen left, in the fall of 2014, the Department began three pilot programs to include social media in vetting, but current officials say that it is still not a widespread policy. A review of the broader policy is already underway, the DHS said. The revelation comes as members of Congress question why U.S. officials failed to review the social media posts of San Bernardino terrorist Tashfeen Malik. She received a U.S. visa in May 2014, despite what the FBI said were extensive social media messages about jihad and martyrdom."

** Allyson Hobbs in the New Yorker: "... the scenes in 'The Birth of a Nation' from 1915 eerily reflect the deeply troubling realities of race in America in 2015.... Many of the stereotypes that fill the film persist; and, as we've learned over and over and over and over again, this is a still a country where people, and police, need to be reminded that black lives really do matter.... It isn't hard to see the themes of the film echoed in the current Presidential race, particularly in the words of Donald Trump, who has sounded a call for the birth of a new nation, one that he will 'make great again.'... For some Americans, President Barack Obama's two terms in office appear to resemble the period of misrule portrayed in 'The Birth of a Nation.'"

Mike Brunker & Polly Defrank of NBC News: Since Sandy Hook, an American child "has died by a gun every other day." CW: Yes, and Republicans are so afraid you'll find this out that they won't authorize the CDC to do research on gun violence.

Fred Barbash of the Washington Post: "Twitter has warned an undetermined number of users that their accounts may have been 'targeted by state-sponsored actors,' according to news reports and some users who received the notifications.... The targeting may have been aimed at obtaining information such as email addresses, IP addresses and/or phone numbers; Twitter added that it had no evidence at this point that the hackers had obtained account information.... The email [from Twitter] did not specify which government or 'state sponsor' might be behind the targeting...."

Presidential Race

AP: "CNN is inviting Gov. Chris Christie back to prime-time in the upcoming Republican presidential debate. The New Jersey governor, who had been dropped from the main stage during the last debate, is one of nine Republican presidential candidates to qualify for the network's prime-time event on Tuesday. Also among them: Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who was 'on the bubble' of qualifying late last week, the network said. Front-runner Donald Trump will appear at center stage, flanked by retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and Sen. Ted Cruz, who is surging in Iowa. Other GOP hopefuls who qualified for the main stage include Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and Ohio Gov. John Kasich." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... We Can All Breate a Sigh of Relief. Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky will retain his place on the main stage when the Republican presidential candidates debate on Tuesday, CNN said on Sunday, sparing Mr. Paul from what could have been a setback for his campaign. On Saturday, aides to Mr. Paul had indicated they would fight any decision by CNN to drop the senator to the so-called undercard debate when the candidates gather on Tuesday in Las Vegas. Mr. Paul was at risk of falling out of the main event because of his low poll numbers." (Also linked yesterday.)

It Ain't Over Till It's Over. Al Hunt of Bloomberg in the New York Times: "Voters can choose either party's primary in New Hampshire, and knowledgeable Republicans suggest that a heavy influx of independents could help push a mainstream conservative to the top spot. There is no movement yet, and it's possible that this vote could split rather evenly, with no candidate breaking out." ...

... Ted Cruz, Uniter! Brian Beutler: "If you believe Trump's robust lead both nationally and in every early primary state suggests he can actually win the nomination, none of [the jostling among other candidates] matters. But if you believe he will ultimately give way and his send his supporters defecting to the next-best thing, then Cruz is the guy to watch -- both on the debate stage Tuesday and as the debates give way to actual statewide contests just over a month from now."

Pity the Poor Billionaire. Gabriel Sherman of New York: "... the most important lesson the billionaires are learning this year is that they aren't much better at politics than Karl Rove. Well, not true. There is one billionaire who seems to have contemporary Republican politics figured out": Donald Trump.

Ambassador-at-Large Daniel Benjamin & Steven Simon in a Politico Magazine opinion piece: "In their jockeying for the Republican presidential nomination, GOP contenders -- Donald Trump above all -- have managed to exacerbate dramatically the two U.S. weaknesses most likely to erode our country's safety: fear and Islamophobia."

Kevin Robillard of Politico: "Donald Trump seemingly laid fault for the rise of ISIL and the Syrian civil war directly at the feet of ... Hillary Clinton on Sunday, claiming the former secretary of state 'killed hundreds of thousands of people with her stupidity.' Trump, appearing on "Fox News Sunday," shocked host Chris Wallace with his comments. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump sharpened his criticism of Republican presidential rival Ted Cruz in television interviews broadcast Sunday morning, lambasting Cruz's approach to the Senate and expressing doubts about whether the senator's "temperament" is fit for the presidency.... 'I don't think he has the right temperament,' Trump said of Cruz on 'Fox News Sunday.' 'I don't think he's got the right judgment.'" CW: Because Trump is the picture of tranquility & discernment. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Bradford Richardson of the Hill: "... Donald Trump says he does not agree with comments from Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia questioning the efficacy of affirmative action." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Benjamin Wallace-Wells in the New Yorker: Donald "Trump undoes the modern presidential campaign.... There's probably no organizing genius to the Trump campaign. But maybe there's a kind of accidental genius. That Trump had opted out of the machinery of the modern campaign freed him to chase a group of voters who were traditionally hard to reach. With no need for donors, he could go all in on economic nationalism; with no inclination to woo party élites, he could simply decline to assemble policy proposals; and with no aspirations ever to run again, he could demonize multiple minority groups." ...

... E. J. Dionne: "... most Americans would reject Trumpism when they finally got to have their say in a voting booth -- perhaps in the Republican primaries and certainly in the general election. Yet to ignore his ability both to win a following and to mesmerize the media is to wish away what is a real threat to democratic tolerance across the world's free nations.... For the first time in decades, the word 'fascism' is being used seriously by non-hyperbolic people in countries with a history of temperate politics."

Kevin Robillard: "Florida Sen. Marco Rubio repeated his concerns about Donald Trump's fitness to be commander-in-chief during an interview airing Sunday on NBC's 'Meet The Press.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... New York Times Editors: "Senator Marco Rubio of Florida is boasting about his efforts to sabotage a program intended to keep health insurance markets stable and premiums low during the start-up years of the Affordable Care Act.... The big losers [in Rubio's sabotage efforts] were small insurers without ample reserves. More than a dozen nonprofit cooperatives that were new to the business have closed or soon will, in part, some of them say, because the government provided less money than they were counting on.... This has left hundreds of thousands of consumers scrambling to pick other plans.... His riders will benefit big insurers by driving out their smaller competitors. They could also drive up premiums for some people, as insurers try to recoup early losses or replenish their reserves. The Senate should block his new rider and find other sources of funds to pay companies what they were promised." ...

... Judd Legum of Think Progress: "... after numerous deflections, [Marco] Rubio [told Chuck Todd] he would simply appoint new Supreme Court justices who would overturn Obergefell," [the landmark marriage equality decision]. ...

... CW: As I wrote yesterday, there's no need to slime Rubio with his tenuous connection to a drug ring for which he bears no responsibility. He is plenty slimy in his own right.

Bradford Richardson: "Ben Carson doubled down on his stance that he will leave the GOP if party elite are planning to mount a floor fight at the nominating convention. 'Well, one of the reasons that I got into this is because I heard the frustration in the people who are so tired of back-room deals, of subterfuge, of dishonesty,' Carson said on ABC's 'This Week' on Sunday. 'And, you know, if that is the case, then you know I'm out of here.'"

Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune in Real Clear Politics: Ted Cruz's "patented formula is a mix of repellent ingredients: misrepresentation of facts, baseless smears, exaggerated sincerity and pretended solidarity with the average person. If Cruz tells you it's raining, you can leave your umbrella at home." CW: I'm not familiar with Steve Chapman, but he's been on the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune for a long time, so I'm guessing he's a conservative. Thanks to Citizen 625 for the link. ...

... CW: The topic of Cruz's discussion with Steve Inskeep of NPR was climate change. So to bolster his creds, Cruz set at the outset, "I believe that public policy should follow the science and follow the data. I am the son of two mathematicians and computer programmers and scientists." His upbringing gives Teddy a real interest in facts, doesn't it? So I thought I'd check to see what kind of "mathematicians, computer programmers & scientists" his parents were. Why, they worked in the oil & gas industry. As for young Ted, he works in the snake oil industry.

Beyond the Beltway

Michael Miller of the Washington Post: A "spate of anti-Islam vandalism comes as Muslims in southern California have rallied in support of the victims of the San Bernardino attack.... Southern California's simmering cauldron boiled over on Friday when a blaze erupted at the Islamic Society of the Coachella Valley.... Friday evening, authorities arrested Carl James Dial Jr. for arson, hate crime, and burglary." ...

... Margaret Hartmann of New York: "The FBI and police in Southern California opened a hate-crime investigation into the vandalism of two mosques in Hawthorne, California."

Ian Lovett & Adam Nagourney of the New York Times: "A man who was killed by sheriff’s deputies in a hail of 30 bullets in front of a gas station here was brandishing a gun at officers and passers-by, and he apparently fired it into the air at least six times during the encounter, the police said Sunday. The man, identified as Nicholas Robertson, 28, of Lynwood, was seen carrying a gun during the entire encounter on Saturday, the police said, displaying photographs and videos in which the gun was clearly visible in the suspect's hand. They said he had been acting erratically and had ignored the instructions of deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office to drop his weapon, which officials described as a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun."

Raw Story: Sparta, Missouri, "Police Chief Andrew Spencer resigned this week after it was revealed that he shot and killed an innocent dog that was in a cage and meant no one any harm. To make matters even worse, he took the puppy to a firing range and killed it there because he did not want to deal with finding its home."