The Commentariat -- Nov. 13, 2015
Internal links & defunct videos removed.
Afternoon Update:
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a challenge to a Texas law that would leave the state with about 10 abortion clinics, down from more than 40. The court has not heard a major abortion case since 2007, and the new case has the potential to affect millions of women and to revise the constitutional principles governing abortion rights."
Sandhya Somashekhar of the Washington Post: "A Utah judge has put a hold on his order to remove a foster child from the home of a married lesbian couple, whom he had said were unfit to keep the girl because of their sexual orientation.... The original order to remove the child from the home of the Carbon County couple drew an outcry from around the country, with former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton chiming in and even the state's Republican governor declaring himself 'puzzled' and concerned that Johansen was not following the law."
Griff Witte, et al., of the Washington Post: "The U.S. military is 'reasonably certain' that an American drone strike in Syria killed the Islamic State executioner known as 'Jihadi John,' an official said Friday as British and U.S. officials seek to confirm the details of the attack."
License & Registration, Please. Dana Hedgpeth of the Washington Post: "Beep, beep. A Google driverless car was pulled over in California. The problem? It was going too slow. An officer in Mountain View, Calif., apparently saw traffic backed up behind the little, white vehicle. The car was traveling 24 mph in a stretch where the posted speed limit was 35 mph.... It was unclear whether a ticket was issued."
*****
** Tim Egan: "... let's try to pull some larger meaning from perhaps the most absurd moment of 2015: that professor at one of the nation's top journalism colleges who threatened to use force against a student journalist for doing the things taught in that school.... [This episode] goes to a more troubling trend -- the diminishment of a healthy, professionally trained free press.... The true media elites are in talk radio and right-wing television -- multimillionaire gasbags from Rush Limbaugh to Sean Hannity. Every day, nearly every hour, they attack reporters, using verbal assaults more consequential than the muscle play by an amped-up academic.... The main reason that Republican politicians sound so crazy of late is because they get their information, and validation, from the twisted world of partisan media outlets."
Paul Krugman: "... what we saw in Tuesday's presidential debate was something relatively new...: an increasingly unified Republican demand for hard-money policies, even in a depressed economy. Ted Cruz demands a return to the gold standard. Jeb Bush says he ... is open to the idea. Marco Rubio wants the Fed to focus solely on price stability, and stop worrying about unemployment. Donald Trump and Ben Carson see a pro-Obama conspiracy behind the Federal Reserve's low-interest rate policy. And let's not forget that Paul Ryan, the new speaker of the House, has spent years berating the Fed for policies that, he insisted, would 'debase' the dollar and lead to high inflation.... This turn wasn't driven by experience. The new Republican monetary orthodoxy has already failed the reality test with flying colors...." CW: Sounds like GlennBeckonomics to me. Invest in gold! Hide it under your mattress! Get a shotgun!
Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Obama awarded the Medal of Honor on Thursday to a soldier who rushed a suicide bomber in Afghanistan in 2012 and saved perhaps dozens of American and Afghan lives at a devastating cost to his own. The soldier, Capt. Florent A. Groberg, has spent much of the last three years recovering from 33 surgeries, but he stood at attention in the East Room of the White House as the commander in chief bestowed on him the highest commendation available to members of the American military":
Michael Gordon & Rukmini Callimachi of the New York Times: "Kurdish and Yazidi fighters retook Sinjar on Friday morning, on the second day of a major offensive to retake this city in northern Iraq, which has been under the brutal domination of the Islamic State for more than 15 months." ...
... Michael Gordon & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "The United States and its allies have sharply increased their airstrikes against the sprawling oil fields that the Islamic State controls in eastern Syria in an effort to disrupt one of the terrorist group's main sources of revenue, American officials said this week."
Eric Schmitt: "The Pentagon said late Thursday that it had targeted Mohammed Emwazi, a member of the Islamic State often referred to as Jihadi John, in an airstrike near Raqqa, Syria. Peter Cook, the Pentagon press secretary, said in a statement that the military was 'assessing the results' of the strike to determine if Mr. Emwazi had been killed. Mr. Emwazi, considered the most prominent British member of the militant group, was shown in videos in late 2014 and early 2015 killing several American and other Western hostages." ...
... Brian Ross, et al., of ABC News: "The ISIS terrorist dubbed 'Jihadi John', who oversaw the brutal executions of American and Western hostages, was hit by a U.S. air strike Thursday night and is believed to have been killed, U.S. officials told ABC News." ...
... BUT. Sewell Chan & Kimoko de Freytas-Tamura of the New York Times: "Secretary of State John Kerry and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain said on Friday that they did not yet know the outcome of an airstrike the American military launched on Thursday to kill Mohammed Emwazi, the Islamic State's most notorious executioner."
Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "Secretary of State John F. Kerry on Thursday called the Islamic State 'the gravest extremist threat faced by our generation and the embodiment of evil in our time,' describing the group as combining 'medieval and modern fascism' and comparing it to the enemies the United States faced in last century's world wars."
Bryan Bender of Politico: "Defense Secretary Ash Carter has fired his top military aide after learning about 'allegations of misconduct,' he said in a statement late Thursday, and has asked the Pentagon's inspector general to investigate the matter. 'Today I made the decision to remove my Senior Military Assistant Lieutenant General Ron Lewis from his position after learning about allegations of misconduct,' Carter said, without divulging the details of the allegations. Fox News, citing an unnamed defense official, reported the allegations involved an 'improper relationship.'" ...
... MEANWHILE, Peter Hermann of the Washington Post: "A Secret Service officer has been charged with soliciting a minor for sex after authorities said he texted an undercover detective posing as a 14-year-old girl. Court documents say he admitted to sending some of the texts from his job at the White House. Lee Robert Moore ... faces a federal charge of attempted transfer of obscene material to a minor. He surrendered to the Maryland State Police on Monday...."
Gregor Aisch & Josh Keller of the New York Times: "In response to mass shootings in the last few years, more than 20 states, including some of the nation's biggest, have passed new laws restricting how people can buy and carry guns. Yet the effect of those laws has been significantly diluted by a thriving underground market for firearms brought from states with few restrictions. About 50,000 guns are found to be diverted to criminals across state lines every year, federal data shows [sic!], and many more are likely to cross state lines undetected."
Bill Turque of the Washington Post: "About 20 percent of the 829 U.S. firefighter fatalities over the last decade occurred while firefighters were responding to or returning from calls, according to data from the National Fire Protection Association. Traffic accidents cause more firefighter deaths than smoke, flame or building collapses. Only heart attacks from overexertion kill more firefighters in the line of duty.... Risky driving practices, including excessive speed and dangerous passing maneuvers, are contributing factors, experts say."
** "My Brother Kept Us Safe." -- Jeb! Chris Whipple, in Politico Magazine: "By May of 2001, says Cofer Black, then chief of the CIA's counterterrorism center, 'it was very evident that we were going to be struck, we were gonna be struck hard and lots of Americans were going to die.' 'There were real plots being manifested,' Cofer's former boss, George Tenet, told me.... 'The world felt like it was on the edge of eruption. In this time period of June and July, the threat continues to rise. Terrorists were disappearing [as if in hiding, in preparation for an attack]. Camps were closing. Threat reportings on the rise.. The crisis came to a head on July 10." Read on.
Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Danielle Paquette of the Washington Post: "A Bloomingdale's ad encourages date rape. Also, buy Bloomie's pricey, sexy outfits. ...
... Oh, that reminds me. Here's Neiman's Christmas catalog. For $90,000, you & five friends can travel "to the edge of space" in the capsule tethered to what looks like a super-duper, sleek hot-air balloon. Better hurry; supplies are limited.
Presidential Race
Noah Weiland of Politico: "The second Democratic presidential debate will be Saturday, Nov. 14, live from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.... The debate will last two hours and begin at 9 p.m. Eastern time.... The debate will air on CBS and stream for free at www.cbsnews.com/live/. No cable subscription is necessary. CBS will also air the debate on its radio affiliates...."
Brent Budowsky of the Hill: "In a new McClatchy-Marist poll, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) leads Republican candidate Donald Trump by a landslide margin of 12 percentage points, 53 to 41. In the McClatchy poll, Sanders also leads former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) by a landslide margin of 10 points, 51 to 41."
Stephen Ohlemacher & Hope Yen of the AP: "Hillary Rodham Clinton has locked up public support from half of the Democratic insiders who cast ballots at the party's national convention, giving her a commanding advantage over her rivals for the party's presidential nomination." ...
... Sabrina Saddiqui of the Guardian: "Hillary Clinton on Thursday unveiled a $30bn plan to help America's coal communities adjust to a climate agenda increasingly driven by renewable energy sources." ...
... Rachel Bade of Politico: "Several companies that worked on Hillary Clinton's private server are refusing interview and document requests from congressional investigators, even as they are cooperating with the FBI." CW: Seems mean, doesn't it?
Steve M. finds out from reading the Right Wing News that the reason the Democratic candidates are so old is that all the liberal moms back in the day aborted the 17 other potential candidates.
Worse Than Hillary. We're potentially careening down this road of nominating somebody who frankly isn't fit to be president in terms of the basic ability and temperament to do the job. It';s not just that it could be somebody Hillary could destroy electorally, but what if Hillary hits a banana peel and this person becomes president? -- Anonymous Republican strategist
... As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap. Philip Rucker & Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "Less than three months before the kickoff Iowa caucuses, there is growing anxiety bordering on panic among Republican elites about the dominance and durability of Donald Trump and Ben Carson and widespread bewilderment over how to defeat them.... There are similar concerns about Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who is gaining steam and is loathed by party elites, but they are more muted, at least for now.... The party establishment is paralyzed. Big money is still on the sidelines." ...
... Anne Laurie of Balloon Juice gathers some humorous responses to GOP panic story. Possible white knights: Mitt (already suited up), Bob Dole, Warren Harding clone, Reagan zombie. CW: How could they forget Paul Ryan? He's already saved our beloved House of Representatives, he was second-runner up for the veep slot last time around, & he thinks he knows how to force everybody on his team to play nice.* Also, he's very, very smart & a wonk who knows everything there is to know about economic policy. Just ask Krugman. Also, he's very, very buff & can catch fish with his bare hands -- he can invite Putin to a Catfish Summit & solve all our international problems, too, with one deft swoop into the catfish pond. Draft Paul Ryan, Reluctant Hee-ro. ...
... * Or Maybe Not. Billy House of Bloomberg: "U.S. House Republican hard-liners who helped force out former Speaker John Boehner are readying their next act: a multi-point manifesto demanding quick action on long-time conservative priorities."
Arlette Saenz of ABC News: "Donald Trump's proposal to use a 'deportation force' to deport millions of undocumented immigrants is unrealistic, President Obama said in an exclusive interview today with ABC News' Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos. 'The notion that we're gonna deport 11, 12 million people from this country -- first of all, I have no idea where Mr. Trump thinks the money's gonna come from. It would cost us hundreds of billions of dollars to execute that,' the president told Stephanopoulos.... 'Imagine the images on the screen flashed around the world as we were dragging parents away from their children, and putting them in what, detention centers, and then systematically sending them out,' the president said." With video. ...
To have a leading candidate propose a new federal police force that is going to flush out illegal immigrants across the nation? That's very disturbing and concerning to me about where that leads Republicans. -- Dick Wadhams, former Colorado GOP chairman
... I never said what I said Tuesday & repeated Wednesday. -- Trump, Thursday. Eliza Collins of Politico: "Trump said on Tuesday night. 'Taxes too high, wages too high, we're not going to be able to compete against the world.' But on Fox News' 'Special Report' Thursday he insisted that he never said wages were too high, just that the minimum wage should not increase." CW: As Maggie Haberman of the NYT wrote Wednesday, "Donald J. Trump on Wednesday morning repeated a statement he made the night before in the Republican presidential debate: that wages are 'too high' in the United States, an argument he made to explain his opposition to raising the minimum wage." ...
Ben Carson never did what he said he did. -- Trump, Thursday. Maggie Haberman: "Donald J. Trump unleashed a torrent of insults on Thursday against his main rival, Ben Carson, comparing him to a child molester in a television interview and suggesting that the people of Iowa are 'stupid' if they believe Mr. Carson's claim that he tried to stab a close relative during his childhood." CW: I suppose Trump figures he is the only candidate permitted to lie thru his teeth.
... ** Behold the Meltdown. Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "For an hour and 35 minutes, Republican front-runner Donald Trump vented about everything that's wrong with this country and this election. He said he would 'bomb the s---' out of areas controlled by the Islamic State that are rich with oil and claimed to know more about the terrorist group than U.S. military generals. He ranted about how everyone else is wrong on illegal immigration and how even the 'geniuses at Harvard' have now backed his way of thinking. He accused Hillary Rodham Clinton of playing the 'woman's card,' and said Marco Rubio is 'weak like a baby.' He signed a book for an audience member and then threw it off the stage. He forgot to take questions like he promised. And he spent more than 10 minutes angrily attacking his chief rival, Ben Carson, at one point calling him 'pathological, damaged.'" ...
... Kevin Drum: "Can you imagine what Trump would be like if he ever had a genuinely stressful job, like, um, you know?" ...
... Gregory Krieg of CNN: In an interview, "Donald Trump said on Thursday that Marco Rubio favors 'amnesty' for undocumented immigrants because the Florida senator and his parents are Hispanic." ...
... If you think the Donald was crazy-mad yesterday, wait till he hears this. Joanna Rothkopf of Jezebel: "Trump's 169-page Crippled America will debut on the nonfiction list at #5, one whole spot below Carson's A More Perfect Union, according to BuzzFeed News, which goes to show that Americans don't like to be told they are bad or dysfunctional -- they like to be told that they are perfect and will only get perfecter."
Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "The White House on Thursday pushed back against Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson's claim that China is involved in the conflict in Syria. 'I have not seen any evidence of Chinese military involvement in Syria,' National Security Adviser Susan Rice told reporters when asked about Carson's remarks. Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, who grinned when ABC News's Jonathan Karl asked the question, later appeared at the lectern and said China generally does not involve itself in Middle Eastern conflicts. 'It's worth stepping back and noting China makes it a practice to not get extended into military conflicts in the Middle East,' he said. 'Their policy over many years and decades has been to not be overextended in military exercises.'" ...
... Oh, Yeah? Caitlin Cruz of TPM: "Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson's business manager and adviser Armstrong Williams attempted to support Carson's bizarre debate claims on Syria during a Wednesday interview with MSNBC by assuring the anchor that the Chinese are, in fact, in Syria.... 'From our own intelligence and what Dr. Carson's been told by people who are on the ground who are involved in that region of the world, it has been told to him may times over and over, that the Chinese are there.' Williams said in the 'next few days' a story may come out to reinforce Carson's claim of a Chinese presence in Syria." CW: Just you wait. ...
... Kevin Drum: "Carson -- or Williams -- really ought to tell us who these experts are that keep briefing the campaign on foreign policy issues. Are these the same guys who told him that seizing the Anbar oil fields in Iraq could be done 'fairly easily' and that ISIS could then be destroyed in short order?"
Marco Rubio points out that Ted Cruz has supported some pro-immigrations legislation. CW: Because Ted is a reasonable man.
Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post on Ted Cruz's & Rand Paul's tax plans, both of which include a VAT tax (which they call something else, of course).
Everything Is Obama's Fault, Ctd. Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "Asked about the protests at the University of Missouri and Yale University, where complaints of racism or racial insensitivity have pitted students against administrators..., [Chris Christie] said that President Obama had created an atmosphere of 'lawlessness.'" It must have been very disappoint to Gov. Crisco that he couldn't think of a way to blame Hillary Clinton, too.
Beyond the Beltway
Sarah Larimer & Susan Svrluga of the Washington Post: "A onetime civil rights lawyer and longtime administrator at the University of Missouri's flagship campus will take over the helm of the university system, replacing a president who was forced out amid heated protests over racism and bigotry there. Michael Middleton, a lawyer and who served as deputy chancellor of the University of Missouri at Columbia before retiring this summer, will come back to serve as interim president, the Board of Curators announced Thursday afternoon."
Academic Freedom Is So Wrong. Massoud Hayoun of Al Jazeera: "A University of Missouri doctoral student plans to continue research for her dissertation on the effects of the state's recently imposed 72-hour waiting period for abortions, despite a state legislator's push to block the research, the student told Al Jazeera in an exclusive interview.... State Sen. Kurt Schaefer, a Republican from Columbia, Missouri, who chairs the Missouri state senate's interim Committee on the Sanctity of Life, sent a letter in late October to the University of Missouri calling [the] dissertation 'a marketing aid for Planned Parenthood -- one that is funded, in part or in whole, by taxpayer dollars.'... Schaefer called for the university to hand over documents regarding the project's approval and said that, because the University of Missouri is a public university, it should not fund research that he said would promote elective abortions. Missouri law prohibits the use of public funds to promote non-life-saving abortions." ...
... Zandar, in Balloon Juice: "It's pretty weird how that whole theocratic crushing of ideas thing kicks in for Republican Conservative Champions Of Free Speech whenever the subject turns to a woman's reproductive system.... Republicans have long stated that waiting periods, required counseling, forced ultrasounds, etc. before abortions are to be allowed are good for women.... Somebody finally decided to take that theory, which is a testable theory, and decided to research and test that theory scientifically as part of a doctoral research project at a university.... But instead of even waiting for the findings, Sen. Schaefer is effectively saying that research cannot even be done on this subject because it might support the notion that women may be harmed by all these restrictions."
Adam Chandler of the Atlantic: "On Thursday, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign reached a settlement with Steven Salaita, a professor who had a job offer revoked by the school after he tweeted incendiary statements about Israel during the country's war with Hamas in Gaza last summer.... Salaita's job offer is still off the table, but he will receive $600,000, in addition to $275,000 in legal fees."
News Ledes
CNN: "A pair of suicide bombings struck southern Beirut on Thursday, killing 43 people and leaving shattered glass and blood on the streets, Lebanese authorities said. At least 239 others were wounded, according to state-run National News Agency.... Lebanese intelligence believes the bombers could be part of a cell dispatched to Beirut by ISIS leadership, the source said, but investigators are still working to verify the surviving suspect's claim. The three other bombers were killed in the explosions."
New York Times: "Gene Amdahl, a trailblazer in the design of IBM's mainframe computers, which became the central nervous system for businesses large and small throughout the world, died Tuesday night at a nursing home in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 92."
New York Times: "Myanmar's election commission said on Friday that the party of the Nobel Peace laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi had won 348 seats in Parliament, giving her democracy movement a majority and the power to select the country's next president."