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The Commentariat -- Dec. 10, 2015
Internal links removed.
Afternoon Update:
"A Christmas Miracle -- A Bipartisan Bill":
... Cory Turner of NPR: "... the bipartisan bill being signed was the Every Student Succeeds Act -- a long-overdue replacement of the unpopular federal education law known as No Child Left Behind. The new law changes much about the federal government's role in education, largely by scaling back Washington's influence. While ESSA keeps in place the basic testing requirements of No Child Left Behind, it strips away many of the high stakes that had been attached to student scores. The job of evaluating schools and deciding how to fix them will shift largely back to states. Gone too is the requirement, added several years ago by the Obama administration, that states use student scores to evaluate teachers. The new law, which passed the House and Senate with rare, resounding bipartisan support, would also expand access to high-quality preschool."
Elizabeth Harris of the New York Times: "Gov. Dannel P. Malloy [D] of Connecticut announced on Thursday that he would sign an executive order that would bar people on federal terrorism watch lists from buying firearms in the state. Mr. Malloy said Connecticut would become the first state in the nation to have such a measure."
Richard Oppel & John Koblin of the New York Times: "Sergeant [Beau] Bergdahl recounted his experience publicly for the first time in the premiere episode of the second season of the podcast 'Serial,' which was released at 6 a.m. Thursday. In interviews with the screenwriter Mark Boal, he explained in his own words why he had left his base in June 2009, an action that prompted a manhunt involving thousands of troops and led him to spend nearly five years in brutal captivity under the Taliban."
Jack Ewing of the New York Times: "Volkswagen said on Thursday that its emissions cheating scandal began in 2005 with a decision to heavily promote diesel engines in the United States and a realization that those engines could not meet clean air standards. What followed was a textbook example of what happens when ambition combines with weak internal controls and ethical standards, the company acknowledged as it presented a preliminary report of its investigation into the origins of the scandal."
The Washington Post is moving this weekend from its building on 15th St. NW. With video.
"Rahm Emanuel Is in Deep, Deep Trouble." Amber Phillips of the Washington Post: "Thanks in part to a series of missteps by the mayor after the shooting, exacerbated by a longer-term failure to address more systemic problems with Chicago's police department, Emanuel appears to have lost much of the city's trust. His approval rating has hit a record low of 18 percent, and 51 percent of residents think he should resign, according to a new poll from the Illinois Observer.... In every new twist and turn of the McDonald shooting, Emanuel has appeared to act only after he was backed into a corner by political pressure."
"Scalia Was Wrong." Sigal Alon in the Washington Post: In a comprehensive study, I found "that the beneficiaries of race-based affirmative action at elite American institutions are better integrated academically and socially by the end of their first years in college, compared to their counterparts from socioeconomically underprivileged backgrounds who attended less selective schools, and are more likely to complete their bachelor's studies.... The beneficiaries of preferential treatment in college admissions ... thrive at elite colleges. They would not be better off attending less selective colleges instead." ...
... Yanan Wang of the Washington Post: "Scalia was referring to a friend-of-the-court brief filed in the case, which details a notion popular among affirmative action opponents: the 'mismatch' theory.... The most prominent articulation of mismatch theory comes from Richard Sander.... [His] assertions have been widely disputed...." ...
... Andy Borowitz: "A new study conducted by legal scholars indicates that Justice Antonin Scalia would fare better if he served as a judge at a court that was 'less advanced' than the United States Supreme Court.... 'If Scalia were reassigned to a "slow track" institution such as a town traffic court, that would be better for everyone,' the study recommended."
*****
"Inequality Is Now Killing Middle America." Joe Stiglitz in the Guardian: "This week, Angus Deaton will receive the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics 'for his analysis of consumption, poverty, and welfare.' Deservedly so. Indeed, soon after the award was announced in October, Deaton published some startling work with Ann Case in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences -- research that is at least as newsworthy as the Nobel ceremony. Analysing a vast amount of data about health and deaths among Americans, Case and Deaton showed declining life expectancy and health for middle-aged white Americans, especially those with a high school education or less. Among the causes were suicide, drugs, and alcoholism."
Julie Davis of the New York Times: "President Obama on Wednesday called for Americans to reject 'bigotry in all its forms' and keep pressing for equality 'no matter what ugliness might bubble up,' appearing to use the 150th anniversary of the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery to challenge the incendiary anti-Muslim politics espoused by Donald J. Trump. At a ceremony at the Capitol attended by congressional leaders and civil rights activists, Mr. Obama sought to place the end of slavery in the broader context of the nation's troubled history, saying the issue 'was never simply about civil rights; it was about the meaning of America, the kind of country we wanted to be'":
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "A majority of the Supreme Court justices seemed unpersuaded on Wednesday that an affirmative action plan at the University of Texas was constitutional. But the member of the Supreme Court who almost certainly holds the crucial vote, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, devoted almost all of his questions to exploring whether the case should be returned to the trial court to allow the university to submit more evidence to justify its use of race in deciding which students to admit. By the end of the unusually long and tense argument, Justice Kennedy indicated that the Supreme Court might have all the evidence needed to decide the case. That could mean that the Texas admissions plan is in peril and that affirmative action at colleges and universities around the nation may be in trouble as well." ...
... Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court on Wednesday once again displayed its deep divide over when race can be considered in college admission decisions, in a contentious hour and a half of oral arguments about a limited race-conscious plan used by the University of Texas at Austin. There seemed little doubt that the decision would come down to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. He has never voted to uphold an affirmative action program but seemed less convinced than the court's other conservatives that he had all the information needed to pass judgment on UT's program." ...
... ** Amanda Marcotte, in Salon: "This is a case that should have been laughed out of court years ago, but instead, this is the second time -- second time! -- it's being presented in front of the Supreme Court.... Instead of telling her where to shove it, the Supreme Court sent Fisher's case back to the appeals court. Now she and her lawyers are back again. This time, they've tweaked their argument a bit, trying to argue that diversity itself is an illegitimate goal for schools and, to add a bit of extra nastiness sauce to it, they're claiming that diversity is bad for students of color." ...
... Black Kids Are Stupid, Says Kindly Justice. Tierney Sneed of TPM: "In the oral arguments Wednesday ..., Justice Antonin Scalia -- a well known critic of affirmative action -- suggested that the policy was hurting minority students by sending them to schools too academically challenging for them. Referencing an unidentified amicus brief, Scalia said that there were people who would contend that 'it does not benefit African-Americans to -- to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a less -- a slower-track school where they do well.... Most of the black scientists in this country don't come from schools like the University of Texas. They come from lesser schools where they do not feel that they're -- that they're being pushed ahead in -- in classes that are too -- too fast for them,'..." ...
... CW: This is the first time in decades, as far as I'm aware, that a Supreme Court justice has overtly embraced a racist rationale for his opinion, tho I suppose the record may show that Scalia has said stuff like this before. Scalia, the son of Italian immigrants, attended two elite private schools: Georgetown & Harvard. Maybe those schools should have turned him down & suggested he go to CCNY, where he'd do better mingling with his "ethnic friends." ...
... Update: The Times editors, in the editorial linked below also note that Scalia's premise "has not gotten such a full airing at the Supreme Court since the 1950s." It is of course ironic that Scalia's paternalistic, racist notion was articulated during a hearing on a suit brought against a program that attempts to reduce built-in racial disparities. Just amazing. And a fine argument for term-limiting justices & judges. ...
... Charles Pierce: "And, right there beside Scalia, Justice Clarence Thomas (Holy Cross '71) sat, and said nothing." ...
... Separate But Inferior. A Perfect Response to Alito & Scalia. Frankly, I don't think the solution to the problems with student body diversity can be to set up a system in which not only are minorities going to separate schools, they're going to inferior schools. -- Gregory Garre, attorney for the University of Texas
... New York Times Editors: "Justice Scalia and the other conservative justices may prefer to ignore the systemic effects of racism and segregation in America, but they do not disappear that easily. The University of Texas, like countless other schools around the country, is already extremely restricted in what it can to counteract those effects. The court should not make the job even harder." ...
... Scott Lemieux in the Guardian: "If the US supreme court rules otherwise in the Fisher, not only will 'lesser schools', as Scalia termed them, not benefit from increased African American admissions, schools like UT and African American students will both suffer -- and the Fishers of the world won't win either. They'll just lose their last excuse for their own mediocrity."
Linda Greenhouse: "Over the dissenting votes of Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, the court let stand a lower court's ruling that [a] ban [on assault weapons], adopted in 2013 by the city of Highland Park, was consistent with the right to gun ownership under the Second Amendment, as interpreted by the Supreme Court.... It's too soon to conclude that the Supreme Court's unwelcome transformation of the Second Amendment has reached a pivotal moment.... But what happened this week does underscore something important about the court's current dynamic: the chasm on the conservative flank between, on the one hand, two justices who embrace all-out judicial activism and, on the other, those who are willing to wait and see."
George Aisch & Josh Keller of the New York Times: "Fear of gun-buying restrictions has been the main driver of spikes in gun sales, far surpassing the effects of mass shootings and terrorist attacks alone, according to federal background-check data analyzed by The New York Times. When a man shot and killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., gun sales did not set records until five days later, after President Obama called for banning assault rifles and high-capacity magazines.... 'President Obama has actually been the best salesman for firearms,' said Brian W. Ruttenbur, an analyst with BB&T Capital Markets, a financial services firm." ...
... CW: Now I know for sure I'm not a "normal" American. Nothing in President Obama's speeches has compelled me (or even made me think) to rush out to get my hands on the last assault rifle on the shelf.
Mark Mazzetti & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "As American intelligence agencies grapple with the expansion of the Islamic State beyond its headquarters in Syria, the Pentagon has proposed a new plan to the White House to build up a string of military bases in Africa, Southwest Asia and the Middle East. The bases could be used for collecting intelligence and carrying out strikes against the terrorist group's far-flung affiliates."
FBI Director James Comey, at a Senate hearing Wednesday, on the San Bernardino killers. See also yesterday's Commentariat:
... Adam Goldman & Mark Berman of the Washington Post: "Comey was critical of anti-Muslim rhetoric, saying that it is not helpful when law enforcement officials are trying to work with communities in the United States to combat terrorism. He said that for the Islamic State and other terrorist organizations, it is part of their strategy to convince Muslims that the United States is hostile to them.... The FBI is trying to determine whether there is any connection between an earlier potential plot by Farook and his former neighbor, Enrique Marquez, and the arrests in 2012 of four men in Riverside, Calif. The men were charged with plotting to kill Americans in Afghanistan."
... Yes, this guy might be a terrorist. Nancy Dillon & Larry McShane of the New York Daily News have more details on Enrique Marquez, a long-time friend of Syed Farook: "Enrique Marquez, 24, remained a free man Wednesday as the investigation into the ISIS-inspired slaughter continued -- but it appeared he faced imminent arrest, a source told The News. 'Looks like it,' said the source, saying there was no indication that the transfers ... [were] done with the legally required paperwork."
Richard Fausset of the New York Times: "Robert L. Dear Jr. was charged with 179 counts on Wednesday, including first-degree murder, in connection with the deadly shooting rampage last month at a Planned Parenthood clinic. Bearded, unkempt and cuffed at the legs and arms, Mr. Dear frequently disrupted the proceedings in state court here, shouting out declarations of anger and defiance. 'I'm guilty. There's no trial. I'm a warrior for the babies,' he yelled at one point. 'Let it all come out. The truth!' he yelled at another. As Judge Gilbert A. Martinez discussed a pretrial publicity order, Mr. Dear shouted: 'Could you add the babies that were supposed to be aborted that day? Could you add that to the list?'"
Jamiles Lartey of the Guardian: "The risk of being killed during a police incident is 16 times greater for individuals with untreated mental illness than other civilians, according to a new report by the Treatment Advocacy Center (Tac). The report suggests that a variety of institutional and policy failures have often left law enforcement as the only available resource to deal with people in mental health crisis, sometimes with fatal results."
Presidential Race
Julian Hattem of the Hill: "President Obama does not receive briefings about the FBI's investigation into the personal email setup Hillary Clinton used as secretary of State, bureau Director James Comey said on Wednesday" at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
Gail Collins: "... when you think of Missouri, give a fond mental shout-out to [State Rep.] Stacey Newman. And remember her lesson -- when it comes to civil liberties, there's currently far more concern in this country over the right to buy weapons than there is over a woman's right to control her own body. All the major Republican candidates for president are pretty much on the same page when it comes to firearms.... All the major candidates are also opposed to giving women any rights whatsoever when it comes to terminating a pregnancy.... The current debate on the Republican side has slid so far to the right that the moderates are people who do not want to force rape victims to carry the fetus to full term."
Gregory Krieg of CNN: "Facing harsh criticism for his proposal to temporarily halt Muslim immigration to the U.S., Donald Trump on Wednesday said he was acting in the Islamic community's best interests. 'I'm doing good for the Muslims,' Trump told Don Lemon in an interview for 'CNN Tonight.' 'Many Muslim friends of mine are in agreement with me. They say, "Donald, you brought something up to the fore that is so brilliant and so fantastic.'"... Trump said he was not likely to wage a third-party candidacy, but the billionaire businessman would not rule it out."
Jerusalem Post: "... Donald Trump is planning a visit to the Temple Mount when he comes to Israel for the first time at the end of the month.... A security source said Trump would probably not be allowed to visit the Temple Mount, the Post's sister publication Ma'ariv reported. The source said that when the current wave of terrorism began, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu banned all politicians from visiting the site. The source added that Trump's visit is meant to be a provocation, so security forces are likely to bar him from ascending the mount. Netanyahu on Wednesday rejected Trump's remarks regarding Muslims, but officials suggested his December 28 meeting with Trump would go ahead as planned." ...
... Marissa Newman & Raphael Ahren of the Times of Israel: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to meet Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on December 28, amid calls by a growing number of lawmakers to block the GOP front-runner from entering the Knesset or the country. The meeting was scheduled two weeks ago, prior to Trump's widely criticized proposal of a blanket ban on Muslims entering the United States...." ...
... UPDATE. Peter Beaumont of the Guardian: "Donald Trump has said he will 'postpone' a trip to Israel and a meeting with the country's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, until 'after I become president of the US'.... The cancellation is a blow to Trump with Israel treated as a regular campaign stop for many US presidential candidates." The cancellation comes after 37 MPs signed a letter asking that Trump be barred from entry & Netanyahu further distanced himself from Trump's remarks about Muslims. CW: Also, based on the Jerusalem Post piece above, it looks as if Trump would not have been able to make good on his announced plan to visit the Temple Mount. ...
... CW: Funny, because wasn't it just last week that Trump was boasting to Republican Jews that he was a great negotiator just like all of them? So when a few, mostly opposition, MPs say they want to nix a Trump visit, he just folds. Maybe Trump is running a disciplined campaign, as Schwartzman & Johnson of the WashPo claim in an article linked below, but he sure looks like a cardboard cowboy. If he can't even negotiate himself into Israel, where the Prime Minister agreed to meet with him, how is he going to negotiate with Congress, much less the U.S.'s traditional foreign foes? Sorry, Trumpbots, your guy (who also couldn't best those awesome CNN "negotiators" who refused to pay his $5mm ransom demand) is not a "strongman." ...
... Reuters: "... Donald Trump's anti-Muslim comments cost him business in the Middle East on Wednesday, with a major chain of department stores halting sales of his glitzy 'Trump Home' line of lamps, mirrors and jewellery boxes." ...
... Damien Gayle, et al., of the Guardian: "Meanwhile, Nicola Sturgeon[, First Minister of Scotland,] has moved to sever all Scottish government business links with Donald Trump. The first minister withdrew Trump's membership of the GlobalScot business network, run by Scottish Enterprise, with immediate effect." On the bright side, he can still travel to Britain, over the objections of tens of thousands of Brits. ...
... "So What? They're Muslim." Caitlin MacNeal of TPM: "While defending Donald Trump's proposed ban on Muslims visiting the United States during a debate with CNN's S.E. Cupp, Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson dismissed Cupp's assertion that a ban on all Muslims goes too far.... Pierson [said] ... that 'never in United States history have we allowed insurgents to come across these borders.' 'No one's talking about allowing insurgents,' Cupp hit back. 'You're talking about not allowing regular Muslims. That's what you're talking about.' 'Yes, from Arab nations,' Pierson replied. 'You know what? So what? They're Muslim.'" ...
... John McCormick of Bloomberg News: "Almost two-thirds of likely 2016 Republican primary voters favor Donald Trump's call to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the U.S., while more than a third say it makes them more likely to vote for him. Those are some of the findings from a Bloomberg Politics/Purple Strategies PulsePoll, an online survey conducted Tuesday, that shows support at 37 percent among all likely general-election voters for the controversial proposal put forward by the Republican front-runner." ...
... digby: "Being fearful of lunatics with guns randomly shooting people [is] completely rational. These things happen with terrifying frequency in our country. What isn't rational is that these Trump people are only afraid of this when a Muslim is on the other side of the semi-automatic weapon. Otherwise it's just the price of freedom. This is nuts. But then these Republican voters have been working themselves into a frenzy for quite some time." ...
... Paul Schwartzman & Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "... while it may seem like a lurching, chaotic campaign, Trump is, for the most part, a disciplined and methodical candidate, according to a Washington Post review of the businessman's speeches, interviews and thousands of tweets and retweets over the past six months." ...
... ** Kareem Abdul-Jabar of Time: Donald "Trump is ISIS's greatest triumph: the perfect Manchurian Candidate who, instead of offering specific and realistic policies, preys on the fears of the public, doing ISIS's job for them.... While Trump is not slaughtering innocent people, he is exploiting such acts of violence to create terror here to coerce support." Abdul-Jabbar is one of those Muslim-American sports figures Trump claims he never heard of, even tho he's met them & posed for photos with them. ...
... New York Times Editors: "The Republican rivals rushing to distance themselves from his latest inflammatory proposal -- a faith-based wall around the country — have been peddling their own nativist policies for months or years. They have been harshening their campaign speeches and immigration proposals in response to the Trump effect. Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush want to allow only Christian refugees from Syria to enter the country, and Mr. Cruz has introduced legislation to allow states to opt out of refugee resettlement.... The racism behind the agenda of the right wing on immigrants and foreigners has long been plain as day." ...
... He's a Jerk, But He's Our Jerk. Paul Waldman in the Washington Post: "... as his statements grow more repellent and his opponents slowly become more willing to criticize him (very slowly in some cases), 'Will you support Donald Trump if he is the GOP nominee?' is the question every Republican is getting.... If you're saying on one hand that he's 'entirely unsuited to lead the United States' (John Kasich), or that his plan to ban Muslims from coming to the country 'is not what this party stands for. And, more importantly, it's not what this country stands for' (Paul Ryan), or that he's 'unhinged' (Jeb Bush), or that he's 'a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot' (Lindsey Graham), then it's awfully hard to say on the other hand that if he's your party's nominee for president, you'll be right at his side. Yet that's exactly what Republicans are saying, even if not in so many words." ...
... Kasie Hunt & Jordan Frasier of NBC News: "Jeb Bush on Wednesday called Donald Trump "Barack Obama - the other version of it," as he campaigned in New Hampshire with a surrogate who's said he'd vote for Hillary Clinton over Trump.... He was making the point Obama has divided the country in a way that's similar to Trump." CW: Or at least that was the reporters' best guess. ...
... OR. Driftglass: "Jeb(!) reduced to saying random words."
... Steve Benen: "Jeb Bush told MSNBC's Chuck Todd yesterday that the Trump campaign is relying on 'dog-whistle proposals to prey on people's fears.' That's half-right -- Trump is clearly preying on people's fears, but these aren't 'dog-whistle proposals'; they're the exact opposite. The whole point of dog-whistle politics is subtlety and coded language. Trump's racism, however, is explicit and overt. 'So what? They're Muslim' is less of a dog whistle and more of a bullhorn." ...
... Jesse Byrnes of the Hill: Conspiracy theorist "Jeb Bush on Tuesday questioned whether GOP presidential rival Donald Trump made a deal with ... Hillary Clinton to get elected to the White House. 'Maybe Donald negotiated a deal with his buddy @HillaryClinton. Continuing this path will put her in the White House,' the former Florida governor tweeted. trump, however, has repeatedly dismissed those charges, noting that he has attacked Hillary Clinton hard throughout his campaign."
I used to think [guns] needed to be registered, but if you register them they just come and find you and take your guns. -- Conspiracy theorist Ben Carson (via Gail Collins)
Beyond the Beltway
Margaret Hartmann of New York has a summary of the latest news from Chicago, which includes the initiation of a recall effort to oust Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
Way Beyond
Brian Murphy of the Washington Post: For the first time in Saudi Arabia, women are allowed to run for political office, & this Saturday, to vote. The government still bars women from driving cars.
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