The Commentariat -- Nov. 7, 2015

Internal links removed.

** Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "President Obama on Friday announced that he had rejected the request from a Canadian company to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline, ending a seven-year review that had become a flash point in the debate over his climate policies. Mr. Obama's denial of the proposed 1,179-mile pipeline, which would have carried 800,000 barrels a day of carbon-heavy petroleum from the Canadian oil sands to the Gulf Coast, comes as he is seeking to build an ambitious legacy on climate change." CW: Thanks to Akhilleus for the heads-up. AND thanks to John Kerry, who nixed the pipeline. President Obama's announcement is worth a listen. (Also linked yesterday.)

... Big Surprise. Nick Gass & Eliza Collins of Politico: "Republican presidential candidates reacted forcefully to President Obama's announcement rejecting the construction of TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline Friday, calling it politically motivated acquiescence to environmentalists and damaging the U.S. economy." ...

... ** Bill McKibben in the New Yorker: "The fossil-fuel industry -- which, for two centuries, underwrote our civilization and then became its greatest threat -- has started to take serious hits. At noon today, President Obama rejected the Keystone Pipeline, becoming the first world leader to turn down a major project on climate grounds. Eighteen hours earlier, New York's Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced that he'd issued subpoenas to Exxon, the richest and most profitable energy company in history, after substantial evidence emerged that it had deceived the world about climate change." Read on. ...

... Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York City said this week that he would run millions of dollars in political television ads against four state attorneys general who are suing the Obama administration over regulations on power plant emissions.... [The ads] amount to a defense of the White House over its Clean Power Plan, which has been met with opposition, primarily -- but not only -- from Republican officials.... The ads will run in Missouri, Florida, Michigan and Wisconsin, and target Republicans and Democrats. The lone Democrat in the group, Chris Koster of Missouri, is running for governor next year."

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Friday announced that it would again address a clash between religious freedom and access to contraception. The case concerns regulations under President Obama's health care law that require most employers to provide free insurance coverage for contraceptives to female workers. The regulations say the insurance must cover preventive services, including all forms of contraception approved for women by the Food and Drug Administration." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Rebecca Riffkin of Gallup: "Americans' satisfaction with the way the healthcare system works for them varies by the type of insurance they have. Satisfaction is highest among those with veterans or military health insurance, Medicare and Medicaid, and is lower among those with employer-paid and self-paid insurance. Americans with no health insurance are least satisfied of all." CW: Gee, maybe somebody could think up a way for everybody to have a government-backed healthcare plan so millions & millions of Americans could be happier (Bernie Sanders).

Ashley Halsey of the Washington Post: "As investigators search for the cause of a plane crash that killed 224 people over the Sinai Peninsula on Saturday and Russia suspends all flights to Egypt, U.S. officials said they are taking unspecified precautionary measures to enhance the security of flights from the Middle East."

Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times: "Children of same-sex couples will not be able to join the Mormon Church until they turn 18 -- and only if they move out of their parents' homes, disavow all same-sex relationships and receive approval from the church's top leadership as part of a new policy adopted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In addition, Mormons in same-sex marriages will be considered apostates and subject to excommunication, a more rigid approach than the church has taken in the past."

Presidential Race

Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "Because the Democratic National Committee has not approved [an] event [Friday evening] as an official debate, the First in the South Presidential Candidates Forum, hosted by the South Carolina Democratic Party and Representative James E. Clyburn, cannot present the candidates onstage at the same time. Instead, the moderator, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, will question each candidate individually." Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders & Martin O'Malley will participate. It will begin at 8 pm ET. ...

... Update. Ben Jacobs of the Guardian: "Hillary Clinton moved to the left on Friday night as the Democratic frontrunner took stronger and more impassioned stances than in the past on police violence and corporate influence in the United States. Before a lively crowd of nearly 3,000 in South Carolina, the former secretary of state struck some of her most populist tones of the campaign while participating in what was possibly the strangest televised live event of the election season so far. In a format that was three parts talk show to one part game show, the candidates faced probing inquiries as well as random questions pulled from sealed envelopes as they sat almost knee-to-knee with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow in front of a boisterous campus audience." ...

... Update. Amy Chozick: "Senator Bernie Sanders used a Democratic primary forum in South Carolina on Friday to try to reach out to black voters and make the argument that he is the candidate best suited to address the needs of a demographic that overwhelmingly favors Hillary Rodham Clinton, his chief rival for the nomination." ...

... Evan McMorris-Santoro of BuzzFeed with three takeaways from the forum. Includes video clips.

Let's Watch the E-MailGate Hotair Balloon Fizzle. Josh Gerstein of Politico: "The U.S. intelligence community has retreated from claims that two emails in Hillary Clinton's private account contained top-secret information, a source familiar with the situation told Politico.... Concerns about the emails' classification helped trigger an ongoing FBI inquiry into Clinton's private email setup." ...

... CW: I'll bet Trey is having a sad today. Say, where's Michael Schmidt of the New York Times? He broke the story -- and it was a story, as in tall tale -- that two inspectors general had requested a criminal inquiry into Clinton's e-mails on accounta her sending top-secret info to her yoga-class friends & a wedding planner. You might think Schmidt & the Times would be all over this new "wrinkle." But apparently Schmidt's sources are limited to Trey Gowdy & Trey Gowdy. Because not a peep from the Times 12 hours after Politico dropped the Gerstein post.

** "Gifted Grifter." Every Day a New Lie. Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Ben Carson's campaign on Friday admitted, in a response to an inquiry from Politico, that a central point in his inspirational personal story was fabricated: his application and acceptance into the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.... West Point ... has no record of Carson applying, much less being extended admission.... Also, according to West Point, there is no such thing as a 'full scholarship' to the military academy, as Carson represented in his book.... When presented with these facts, Carson's campaign conceded the story was false.... Carson has said he turned down the supposed offer of admission because he knew he wanted to be a doctor and attending West Point would have required four years of military service after graduation.... Carson repeated his West Point claim as recently as Aug. 13, when he fielded questions from supporters on Facebook." CW: Read the whole story: it's a typical boy's pipedream, not one a man relates as a factual event of his youth. The fact that Carson has continued to repeat it makes me think he came to believe his boyish pipedream. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Update 1. Steve Eder of the New York Times: "In an interview with The New York Times on Friday, Mr. Carson said: 'I don't remember all the specific details. Because I had done so extraordinarily well you know I was told that someone like me -- they could get a scholarship to West Point. But I made it clear I was going to pursue a career in medicine. It was, you know, an informal "with a record like yours we could easily get you a scholarship to West Point."'... , In a Facebook post in August responding to a question, he wrote that he had been 'thrilled to get an offer from West Point.'" (Also linked yesterdzay afternoon.)

... Update 2. Rachel Stoltzfoos of the Daily Caller: "'The campaign never "admitted to anything,"' a spokesman for Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson told The Daily Caller News Foundation in response to a hit by Politico claiming his campaign admitted to 'fabricating' a key point about his West Point story. 'The Politico story is an outright Lie,' Doug Watts told TheDCNF." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Update 3. The Emperor Strikes Back. Steve Eder: "On Friday night, in a combative news conference in Florida in which he showed rare flashes of anger, Mr. Carson gave no ground and challenged the news media on its ethics and balance. In a mocking tone, he said reporters had not investigated President Obama, as a candidate in 2008, so intensely. 'Don't lie,' Mr. Carson said, cutting off a reporter asking a question about West Point. He predicted that the scrutiny would be a boon to his campaign, saying voters 'understand that this is a witch hunt'":

     ... Eder, Ctd.: "... just a couple of hours after the news conference, another report, in The Wall Street Journal, challenged events Mr. Carson has recounted. One of them, recalled in 'Gifted Hands,' involved a psychology class he said he had attended at Yale University, called Perceptions 301. Mr. Carson described the professor's conducting an honesty experiment on the class and wrote that he was the only one who passed, prompting The Yale Daily News to take his picture. But no photo identifying Mr. Carson as a student appeared in the newspaper's archives, The Journal reported, and a Yale librarian told the newspaper that there was no psychology course by that name or class number during Mr. Carson's years at Yale." ...

All fiction may be autobiography, but all autobiography is of course fiction. -- Shirley Abbott

... Eliza Collins of Politico: "Ben Carson, in an agitated press conference Friday night, denied that he had ever claimed receiving a 'full scholarship' from West Point. 'I never said that I received a full scholarship. Nowhere did I say that,' Carson said. 'Politico as you know, told a bold-faced lie.'... But the retired neurosurgeon did say he got a scholarship offer -- more than once. In his 1996 autobiography 'Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story,' Carson wrote on page 67 that after a dinner with a prominent U.S. general he was 'offered a full scholarship to West Point.'... " He repeated the remark, in those same words, a few grafs later. "In an October interview with TV host Charlie Rose, Carson said he 'was offered full scholarship to West Point.'" ...

... Dave Weigel & David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "The Politico story seemed to mischaracterize a small but key detail in the way Carson has told the story. In many cases, Carson implied only that he received a formal offer from West Point. He never said explicitly that he had been accepted or even that he had applied.... By mid-afternoon, Politico posted a new version of its story that no longer included the wording that Carson had 'fabricated' a part of his biography. Later in the day, the news site posted an editor's note stating that the story should have made clear that Carson never claimed to have applied for admission to West Point.... Carson also made a similar claim [in another book about another school].... 'The University of Michigan had offered me a scholarship, but I wanted to go farther from home,' he wrote in his 1999 book, 'The Big Picture.' A spokesman for the University of Michigan, Rick Fitzgerald, said he could not confirm that account. The university no longer has records from that time." ...

... Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: Carson's "story held up until now. But in retrospect, it is clear that it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. The process to getting into West Point requires applicants to obtain a nomination, most commonly from their congressman, senator or vice president of the United States. The secretary of the Army -- an appointed civilian leader -- also can nominate a student for consideration, but the service's four-star chief of staff -- Westmoreland from July 1968 through June 1972 -- is not eligible to do so." ...

... Ed Kilgore: "Now that the Carson campaign is hotly denying that it 'admitted' and 'fabrication' of facts to Politico, we're getting deeply into a crossfire of mendacity claims, with some conservatives who originally thought the 'story' might be a problem for Carson now backing into a posture of defending him and attacking Politico.... I suspect the real referees in this and similar disputes are the conservative evangelicals who know little or nothing of the man's Bircher ideology and just see him as a Christian servant-leader with a distinguished career and a common touch.... Something tells me they do not place a lot of faith in Politico." ...

... Kevin Drum: "... here's what [Carson] said in August: 'I was the highest student ROTC member in Detroit and was thrilled to get an offer from West Point. But I knew medicine is what I wanted to do.' Come on, folks. 'An offer from West Point' is the same as 'being accepted at West Point.' It's obvious what he was saying here, and it's equally obvious it isn't true." Friday, Carson told the NYT, "'Because I had done so extraordinarily well you know I was told that someone like me -- they could get a scholarship to West Point. But I made it clear I was going to pursue a career in medicine. It was, you know, an informal "with a record like yours we could easily get you a scholarship to West Point."'... But for the past two decades it's not what Carson has said. It's not even close. There's a world of difference between (a) someone telling you that you could probably get into West Point and (b) actually getting into West Point. Carson is a nutcase, a policy buffoon, and at the very least, a serial personal embellisher. With a guy like that, you just know more stuff is going to come out." ...

... CW: For more commentary on Cadet Carson, see afternoon updates to yesterday's Commentariat. ...

... CW: digby, in a post I also linked yesterday, highlighted an October exchange between Ben Carson & John Harwood. After Carson said President Obama reminded him of a psychopath because he lied about the unemployment rate (actually, Obama accurately cited Labor Department stats, but, you know, who cares?), Carson defined "psychopath": "... they tend to be extremely smooth, charming people, who can tell a lie to your face with complete -- it looks like sincerity, even though they know it's a lie." This describes Carson to a T. I do wonder how Carson became such an expert on psychopathology. ...

... Jeet Heer of the New Republic: "Ben Carson is fast becoming a tragic figure. He's a man of genuine merit, yet he's tarnished his reputation through his inability to resist fantastic ideas -- and to make up fantasies about his own life. He stands as proof of the fact that intelligence is unconnected to morality." Heer explains why that is. ...

... Don't Know Much About His-to-ry. Robert Schlesinger of US News elaborates on how wrong Carson is about the Founders being "citizen-statesmen" with no experience in elected office. ...

... A model, dating to about 2200 B.C.E., of an actual Egyptian granary. In the British Museum. Via Binjamin Appelbaum of the New York Times. (Sorry, couldn't get the link to Appelbaum's Twitter account to work.) Commenter Wendy Morris thought the model appeared to be "a square-looking pyramid.") ...

... Like Appelbaum, Markos Moulitsas is not taking Ben Carson seriously enough. (And that was before Carson's Friday Flameout 2.0.)

"Family Ties," Season 3, Episode 7: Jeb is stunned by a book about Poppy. Steve M.: How could Jeb not be prepared for the publication of [George H.W. Bush's biography]? How could he not have consulted with his father and learned what his father told [biographer Jon] Meacham, and then carefully crafted a response? For that matter, why did Poppy, a cagey old political pro, get into these matters with Meacham at all when he knew there were still presidential races to be run by the Bush family? This crisis in the Bush campaign was as predictable as the 'would you have invaded Iraq?' question. And, of course, Jeb bungled that as well. It seemed as if he had no idea it was coming. The same can be said for this book."

Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "Marco Rubio, looking to capitalize on a wave of momentum, is pushing to win the support of a former rival: Scott Walker.... Walker, though, is not planning on making an immediate endorsement of anyone in the GOP field.... While Walker has been courted by a number of Republican candidates since his exit, those close to the Wisconsin governor say Rubio is the first to formally ask him for his endorsement."

Eliza Collins: The Ladies of "The View" confront their lovely guest Carly Fiorina. ...

... Jordyn Phelps of ABC News: "Carly Fiorina did not correct a New Hampshire man [Friday] who called President Obama a 'black Muslim.' 'He doesn't want this country to get ahead,' the man said to Fiorina as she shook hands with a group of mostly undecided voters at Foodee's restaurant in Milford. 'He doesn't. He's a Muslim. He's a black Muslim.' '"Well, uh, it's time to do something different in many ways,' Fiorina said before moving on to shake the hand of the next prospective voter."

Governor's Race

Greg Hilburn of Gannett News: "Democrat state Rep. John Bel Edwards has cut a TV ad attacking Republican U.S. Sen. David Vitter specifically about Vitter's prostitution scandal for the first time during the Louisiana gubernatorial campaign.... Edwards' ad will run statewide beginning Saturday, which coincides with the early voting period. Election Day is Nov. 21.":

... Julia O'Donoghue & Kevin Litten of the Times-Picayune discuss in some detail the bases for & implications of the ad. ...

... Kevin Litten: "Louisiana Republicans are not happy with Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne's decision to endorse Democratic candidate John Bel Edwards for governor over Republican David Vitter."

Beyond the Beltway

James McKinley of the New York Times: "At a time when most city and state agencies are struggling with budget constraints, [Manhattan D.A. Cyrus] Vance[, Jr.,] has secured a windfall of $808 million from criminal penalties against three international banks accused of violating United States sanctions — HSBC, Standard Chartered and BNP Paribas.... Because by law it must be spent on criminal justice projects, it has transformed Mr. Vance into a kind of Santa Claus for the law-enforcement world, with a sack filled with new programs and equipment."

Liam Stack of the New York Times: "Two police officers have been arrested on charges of second-degree murder in connection with the shooting death of a 6-year-old boy during a pursuit of his father in a sport utility vehicle in central Louisiana, the state police said Friday. The officers, Norris Greenhouse Jr. and Lt. Derrick Stafford, who were placed on administrative leave after the chase on Tuesday, also face charges of attempted second-degree murder...."

Isaac Stanley-Becker & Susan Svrluga of the Washington Post: Yale University decides Black Lives Matter, after all.

Way Beyond

Austin Ramzy of the New York Times: "President Xi Jinping of China met with Ma Ying-jeou, the president of Taiwan, on Saturday in the first ever encounter between the leaders of the neighbors and longtime rivals, an act both sides described as a breakthrough gesture meant to promote peace and mutual prosperity.

News Lede

Washington Post: "A former aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin and prominent political figure was found dead on Thursday in a Dupont Circle hotel room, according to the Russian Embassy in Washington. The spokesman confirmed Russian media reports that Mikhail Lesin, a former press minister and ex-executive of Gazprom-Media, died in D.C." Cause of death unknown.

The Commentariat -- Nov. 6, 2015

Internal links & defunction videos removed.

Afternoon Update:

** Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "President Obama on Friday announced that he had rejected the request from a Canadian company to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline, ending a seven-year review that had become a flash point in the debate over his climate policies. Mr. Obama's denial of the proposed 1,179-mile pipeline, which would have carried 800,000 barrels a day of carbon-heavy petroleum from the Canadian oil sands to the Gulf Coast, comes as he is seeking to build an ambitious legacy on climate change." CW: Thanks to Akhilleus for the heads-up. AND thanks to John Kerry, who nixed the pipeline. President Obama's announcement is worth a listen:

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Friday announced that it would again address a clash between religious freedom and access to contraception. The case concerns regulations under President Obama's health care law that require most employers to provide free insurance coverage for contraceptives to female workers. The regulations say the insurance must cover preventive services, including all forms of contraception approved for women by the Food and Drug Administration."

** "Gifted Grifter." Every Day a New Lie. Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Ben Carson's campaign on Friday admitted, in a response to an inquiry from Politico, that a central point in his inspirational personal story was fabricated: his application and acceptance into the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.... West Point ... has no record of Carson applying, much less being extended admission.... Also, according to West Point, there is no such thing as a 'full scholarship' to the military academy, as Carson represented in his book.... When presented with these facts, Carson's campaign conceded the story was false.... Carson has said he turned down the supposed offer of admission because he knew he wanted to be a doctor and attending West Point would have required four years of military service after graduation.... Carson repeated his West Point claim as recently as Aug. 13, when he fielded questions from supporters on Facebook." CW: Read the whole story: it's a typical boy's pipedream, not one a man relates as a real event of his youth. The fact that Carson has continued to repeat it makes me think he came to believe his boyish pipedream. ...

... Update 1. Steve Eder of the New York Times: "In an interview with The New York Times on Friday, Mr. Carson said: 'I don't remember all the specific details. Because I had done so extraordinarily well you know I was told that someone like me -- they could get a scholarship to West Point. But I made it clear I was going to pursue a career in medicine. It was, you know, an informal "with a record like yours we could easily get you a scholarship to West Point."'... , In a Facebook post in August responding to a question, he wrote that he had been 'thrilled to get an offer from West Point.'"

... Update 2. Rachel Stoltzfoos of the Daily Caller: "'The campaign never "admitted to anything,"' a spokesman for Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson told The Daily Caller News Foundation in response to a hit by Politico claiming his campaign admitted to 'fabricating' a key point about his West Point story. 'The Politico story is an outright Lie,' Doug Watts told TheDCNF." ...

... Carson gets the best honesty grades among top candidates [of both parties], a positive 62 - 24 percent. -- Quinnipiac poll, November 4

... Kevin Drum: "Evangelicals love stories of youthful rebellion followed by redemption and a full Christian life. They do not like serious lies told many years after finding God. They especially don't like lies about military service. If Carson's fans blow this off, then he's truly invulnerable.... He told this lie in 1992, when he was 39 years old and already director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He wasn't running for president at the time, so he figured no one would ever check up on it. He deliberately invented a story just because it made him look good. Ben Carson is either a serial liar or else he lives a very rich fantasy life. At this point, I'm honestly not sure which." ...

... Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "Friday afternoon, conservative talkers like Rush Limbaugh, Hugh Hewitt, and Sean Hannity criticized the coverage that had made Carson out as a dissembler." ...

... Steve M.: "Many right-wing commentators concluded that this was real trouble for Carson's campaign.... But then the right remembered: Hey, wait. This is from the liberal media. We hate the liberal media. So it must be a lie! And now they're in the process of talking themselves into that.... Carson's going to get a lot more scrutiny, and there are going to be more skeletons in his closet, but the right is living in a post-truth environment, so it'll all be a liberal media plot." ...

... digby: "So, if you combine the weird stuff he said about how he would behave in the presence of a disturbed gunman (lead others to run into the line of fire like he's Audie Murphy), his unverified story of how he was a violent potential mad dog killer in his youth and now this fake story about getting a scholarship to West Point, Carson appears to be someone who is very insecure about his macho bona fides. (Most of his friends from school remember him as a smart nerdy kid which makes sense.) It's just sad since his verifiable real life story is truly great and needed no embellishment. On the other hand he's got a lot of nerve saying President Obama reminds him of a psychopath for 'lying' about the unemployment rate."

... Paul Waldman argues that Joseph the Pyramid Builder is a bigger story than the West Point lie: "Ben Carson's ideas about things like the pyramids, combined with what he has said about other more immediate topics, suggest not only that his beliefs are impervious to evidence but also an alarming lack of what we might call epistemological modesty. It isn't what he doesn't know that's the problem, it's what he doesn't realize that he doesn't know. He thinks that all the archeologists who have examined the pyramids just don't know what they're talking about, because Joseph had to put all that grain somewhere. He thinks that after reading something about the second law of thermodynamics, he knows more about the solar system than the world's physicists do. He thinks that after hearing a Glenn Beck rant about the evils of Islam, he knows as much about a 1,400-year-old religion as any theologian and can confidently say why no Muslim ... could be president. So what happens when President Carson gets what he thinks is a great idea, and a bunch of 'experts' tell him it would actually be a disaster? What's he going to do?" ...

... John Cole of Balloon Juice: "As a side note, IMHO, no profession has suffered more damage in my eyes in the last few years of enhanced wingnuttery than the medical profession. It's been eye opening how many doctors are just sociopaths."

*****

Michael Shear & Dan Bilefsky of the New York Times: "President Obama said Thursday evening that there was 'a possibility' that a terrorist bomb was responsible for the destruction of a Russian passenger plane that broke up last Saturday over the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. Mr. Obama said in a radio interview that there may have been a bomb on the plane, but he did not go as far as his counterparts in Britain, who have suggested that the destruction of the plane, and the death of all on board, was likely the result of a terrorist explosion." ...

... Neil MacFarQuhar & Dan Bilefsky of the New York Times: "President Vladimir V. Putin on Friday suspended all flights from Russia to Egypt, the most popular tourist destination for Russians, as several airlines imposed bans on checked luggage over concerns that a bomb in the cargo hold brought down the Russian charter jet that broke apart over the Sinai Peninsula on Saturday, killing all 224 people on board."

Keith Laing of the Hill: "The House approved a bill to spend up to $325 billion on transportation projects on Thursday after a weeklong vote-a-rama and an intense debate about federal gas taxes. The measure also includes a reauthorization of the controversial Export-Import Bank's charter, which has been held up in Congress since it expired in June. The extension, which was included in the Senate's highway bill and left unchanged by the House, reauthorizes the bank's expired charter until 2019. The House voted to approve the bill in a 363-64 vote. It calls for spending $261 billion on highways and $55 billion on transit over six years. The legislation authorizes highway funding for six years, but only if Congress can come up with a way to pay for the final three years. The measure must now be conferenced with a separate Senate measure...." ...

... Ron Nixon of the New York Times: "From coast to coast, the country's once-envied collection of bridges, dams, pipelines, sewage treatment plants and levees is crumbling. Studies have shown that a lack of investment in public infrastructure costs billions of dollars a year in lost productivity, as people sit in traffic or wait for delayed shipments. But experts ... say the economic measures obscure the more dire threat to public safety: Every year, hundreds of deaths, illnesses and injuries can be attributed to the failure of bridges, dams, roads and other decaying structures. On Thursday, the House overwhelmingly approved a highway bill that would make significant investments in transportation infrastructure over the next three years. But the bill, and a similar Senate version passed earlier in the year, still fall far short of what many infrastructure experts say is needed, both in terms of time and money."

Remember the Catfood Commission? It Was Way Worse than We Knew. Paul Krugman: "... there's growing evidence that we critics [of austerity policies] actually underestimated just how destructive the turn to austerity would be. Specifically, it now looks as if austerity policies didn't just impose short-term losses of jobs and output, but they also crippled long-run growth."

     ... CW: There's another irony here, which Krugman is too polite to mention: the co-author of a 1986 paper warning of the affects of austerity & of a new paper documenting the actual effects on the Great Recession was Larry Summers -- the guy who hid from the Christina Romer's counsel to go big on the stimulus & who drove economic policies that specifically hurt the jobs market (& helped Wall Street). The country is suffering now because President Obama listened to a man instead of a woman, a man who would be Fed chair instead of a women had not another woman led the fight to give the Fed job to a woman. Just saying.

Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Justin Gillis & Clifford Krauss of the New York Times: "The New York attorney general has begun a sweeping investigation of Exxon Mobil to determine whether the company lied to the public about the risks of climate change or to investors about how those risks might hurt the oil business. According to people with knowledge of the investigation, Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman issued a subpoena Wednesday evening to Exxon Mobil, demanding extensive financial records, emails and other documents.... The bitter irony of the story is that this catastrophic policy was undertaken in the name of long-run responsibility, that those who protested against the wrong turn were dismissed as feckless." ...

... Clifford Krauss: "The opening of an investigation of Exxon Mobil by the New York attorney general's office into the company's record on climate change may well spur legal inquiries into other oil companies, according to legal and climate experts, although successful prosecutions are far from assured." ...

... "Fossil Fools." Tim Egan: "It's not surprising, given its army of first-rate scientists and engineers, that Exxon was aware as far back as the 1970s that carbon dioxide from oil and gas burning could have dire effects on the earth. Nor is it surprising that Exxon would later try to cast doubt on what its experts knew to be true, to inject informational pollution into the river of knowledge about climate change. But what is startling is how a deliberate campaign of misinformation -- now disavowed by even Exxon Mobil itself -- has found its way into the minds of the leading Republican presidential candidates.... Trump calls climate change 'a total hoax.' He arrived at this position, judging by several tweets, after experiencing a couple of especially cold winter days in New York.... And here's Carson: 'I'll tell you what I think about climate change,' he said earlier this year. 'The temperature is either going up or down at any point in time, so it really is not a big deal.'... In trying to win the support of the Koch brothers, Senators Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul have signed a pledge to do the bidding of the billionaire oil industrialists, promising to 'oppose any legislation relating to climate change' that would involve higher taxes or fees."

** Michael Lind, in Politico Magazine: "... it's fair to say that the three great projects of the post-1955 right -- repealing the New Deal, ultrahawkishness (first anti-Soviet, then pro-Iraq invasion) and repealing the sexual/culture revolution -- have completely failed. Not only that, they are losing support among GOP voters. This is nothing less than a failure of conservatism itself.... But instead of fading from the scene and opening the way to new thinking, old-fashioned Buckley-Goldwater-Reagan movement conservatism came back, in an even more radical form in the 2000s, catching me (by then an ex-neoconservative) and others by surprise."

Joseph Goldstein of the New York Times: "At a news conference in Kabul on Thursday, [Doctors Without Borders] said that more than a month after the attack the United States military had yet to offer an explanation for why a clearly marked hospital was struck, other than to say it had been hit by mistake. 'A mistake is quite hard to understand and believe at this stage, [Christopher] Stokes[, the organization's general director,] said at the news conference. The organization shared more details of the attack and renewed its call for an independent investigation, which both the United States and Afghanistan have resisted so far. 'From what we are seeing now, this action is illegal in the laws of war. You cannot do this. You cannot bomb a hospital.'"

Steven Mufson of the Washington Post: "President Obama has concluded that a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians is beyond reach during his presidency and will press Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take steps to preserve the mere possibility of a two-state solution, senior administration officials said Thursday." ...

... CW: Yeah, when one party's likely top "diplomat" calls the President an anti-Semite & his chief negotiator a nincompoop, things might not work out. ...

... Jodi Rudoren of the New York Times: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel indicated Thursday night that he was reconsidering his choice for public diplomacy chief after a furor over the nominee's critiques of public officials, including a suggestion that President Obama was anti-Semitic and Secretary of State John Kerry had the intellect of a preteenager.... Mr. Netanyahu's pick for the post, Ran Baratz, is a conservative academic who lives in a settlement in the occupied West Bank. Just last week, he insulted Israel's president, Reuven Rivlin.... "

Presidential Race

Mahita Gajanan of the Guardian: "Hillary Clinton did not shy away from criticizing Republican candidates' platforms in an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Thursday. Watching the most recent GOP debate left Clinton 'a combination of being appalled and being amused'..., [she] said."

Daniel Strauss & Hadas Gold of Politico: "Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee failed to make the cut for the main stage at next week's Fox Business Network/Wall Street Journal debate.... The two Republican candidates failed to meet the 2.5 percent average polling threshold, meaning they'll both be bumped to a 6 p.m. undercard debate on Tuesday, appearing alongside former Sen. Rick Santorum and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.... Sen. Lindsey Graham, former New York Gov. George Pataki, and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore failed to register enough in four recent national polls to participate in the Nov. 10 event at all. They needed to get just 1 percent support in one of those polls." ...

... So now the Demoted are all mad at their former BFFs -- Fox & the Wall Street Journal. I guess Fox & the WSJ are the new "liberal media." ...

... Greg Sargent: "... it's striking that four candidates with real governing experience are getting booted, while Donald Trump and Ben Carson will be at center stage."

Mythmakers. Elizabeth Wiliamson of the New York Times: "To run for president this year, it's not enough to be a neurosurgeon, a senator or a former secretary of state. One must be a neurosurgeon who chased his mother with a hammer as a child; a senator whose father was beaten toothless in prison and fled Cuba with $100 sewn into his underwear; or a former secretary of state whose mother went without food as a first grader.... Ever since Bill Clinton rode his hardscrabble history as an abused kid from Hope, Ark., into the White House, it has become increasingly fashionable for candidates to display authenticity by plumbing their family histories for (often questionable) examples of 'I made it, America, and you can, too.'"

Gene Robinson: "Majorities of Republicans do not favor deporting 11 million people, reject all gun control legislation or believe Obama is a psychopathic slave master. But enough do hold such views to make it unlikely that the Trump and Carson campaigns will collapse of their own weight. The outsiders look to be settling in for a long stay."

In today's Comments, bkeil writes, "Some Surgeons are the last of the 'Doctor as God' stereotype." CW: I'd say bkeil was onto something here.

... CW BTW: Six years later, when he made his Great Pyramids Speech, Carson boasted to the kidz that he had showed "a lot of courage" for dumping on his pro-life friends. But the facts Fahrenthold & Weigel lay out suggest that it was Carson's profound, inexplicable ignorance or confusion or something weird that forced him to reverse himself & denounce the anti-abortion group, not some heroic spasm of personal courage. His turnabout may have had something to do with the fact that he was advising his own patients to get abortions if he found fetal abnormalities. Courage had nothing to do with it. We need not wonder why Ben Carson does not want reporters delving into his history: his stories -- and his self-image -- are at odds with the facts.

... Tierney Sneed of TPM: "Ben Carson is standing by his theory that the Egyptian pyramid theory -- that the pyramids were built by the biblical figure Joseph to store grain -- which has come under scrutiny since Buzzfeed surfaced a 1998 video of Carson referencing it. 'Some people believe in the Bible, like I do, and don't find that to be silly at all, and believe that God created the Earth and don't find that to be silly at all.' Carson told reporters in Miami during a stop on his book tour. 'The secular progressives try to ridicule it any time it comes up and they're welcome to do that.'" CW: Once again, "secular progressives" are at fault here. I don't know that Carson believes any of what he says. In the video embedded in the story, he closes his eyes every time he launches a new whopper. It's creepy. ...

... Turns out Ole Doc is not the only "pyramid truther." Tierney Sneed: "In the fringier corners of the Internet, variations of the pyramids-as-grain-storage argument has spawned entire blogs and a 30-minute documentary." BTW, the Good Book never says Joseph built graneries, much less pyramids, some of which, as Akhilleus pointed out in yesterday's thread, were built centuries before the era in which Christians place Joseph.

I'm really big into conspiracy theories, so I think they were probably built by the aliens as grain silos, don't you think. -- Rand Paul, mocking Carson Thursday

​Aliens make more sense, both as regards the construction of the pyramids and as regards a candidacy for president of the United States.​ -- Charles Pierce

... Katherine Krueger of TPM: "The Wall Street Journal called out Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson Thursday for wrongly claiming the Founding Fathers 'had no elected office experience.' In a Facebook post late Wednesday, Carson wrote: 'Every signer of the Declaration of Independence had no elected office experience...What they had was a deep belief that freedom is a gift from God.' The Journal pointed out the historical inaccuracy Thursday. Thomas Jefferson, Sam Adams, John Hancock and many other signer of the Declaration of Independence all held elected seats in colonial assemblies.... A spokesman for the Carson campaign, when asked about the error, told the paper that the retired neurosurgeon had since edited his post to clarify the signers has no experience in 'federal' office." ...

... CW: Right. Because there was no U.S. federal government before there was a U.S. & the founders established a federation -- on confederation. See, that's why they're called "founders." ...

... "A Tale of Two Ben Carsons." Um, maybe Carson invented even the stories he likes to tell about his violent acts as a teen. CW: Why would he do that? Well, the holy conversion from violent youth to successful, soft-spoken neurosurgeon makes his life story more compelling. It's all part of the grift.

     ... UPDATE: Eric Levitz of New York: Carson defends himself by asserting he did too try to kill a kid, only it wasn't a fellow student, it was a relative who does not wish to come forward. "'I would say to the people of America: Do you think I'm a pathological liar like CNN does? Or do you think I'm an honest person?' Carson said." CW: I vote for pathological liar. Although I have no idea if he tried to kill somebody or if he tried to hit his mother over the head with a hammer. I'm with Trump on this: "The Carson story is either a total fabrication or, if true, even worse-trying to hit mother over the head with a hammer or stabbing friend!" ...

... Ed Kilgore: Carson's campaign is placing the ad "in six 'urban markets' (code for African-American stations) in the South... You do have to wonder if the real 'target audience' isn't African-Americans likely to vote in upcoming Republican primaries (a very small audience, particularly if it's limited to rap aficionados), or if instead it's part of an effort to convince white conservatives that Carson is willing and able to cut into the overwhelmingly Democratic African-American vote in a general election. That's a pretty compelling electability argument, particularly for primary voters who are in no position to question its credibility. Maybe Ted Cruz should try to same gambit by running some ads with salsa music." ...

... ** Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Time: "Ben Carson is terrible for black Americans." Abdul-Jabbar counts the way. ...

... James Downie of the Washington Post runs down the list of recent remarks Carson has made that show "he doesn't know what he's talking about." But his "striking ignorance" doesn't stop him from arrogantly opining on matters about which he knows nothing or from criticizing people who know more about the subjects than he does. ...

... Dr. Carson's Traveling Medical Show & His Soothing Magical Elixirs. Charles Pierce: "... here is the most overwhelming irony of all as regards to what's happening with Doctor Ben Carson and his former career as a Mannatech shill. The entire Republican primary process has been rendered a travelling medicine show, and he's just one wagon in the caravan. After all, what is Republican economics, if not supply-side quackery and sleight of hand? All the candidates are playing the muscle men, flexing at Vladimir Putin and at Hafez al-Assad and at ISIL from across an ocean. Come early, bring the kids, watch the Magic Asterisk do its work, and make gold fall from the sky into your pockets! The process began with Ronald Reagan, the greatest patent-medicine salesman of them all."

CW: I don't know why we're mocking Ben Carson when we still have Rick Santorum to kick around. While we weren't looking, Santorum took on both ISIS & the Ladies of "The View." Meanwhile, Santorum reminds us, President Obama "doesn't have the guts to appear with Sean Hannity...."

Peter Baker of the New York Times: Former President George H.W. "Bush's assertion in a new biography that Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld undercut George W. Bush's presidency rattled the extended Bush political world, and forced the second Bush son now seeking the presidency, Jeb, to straddle an awkward line between family and politics.... Once again [Jeb] was compelled on Thursday to talk about his family.... 'My brother is a big boy,' Jeb Bush told NBC News. 'His administration was shaped by his thinking, his reaction to the attack on 9/11. I think my dad, like a lot of people that love George, want to try to create a different narrative, perhaps, just because that's natural to do.' Jeb Bush said that Mr. Cheney 'served my brother well as vice president and he served my dad extraordinarily well as secretary of defense.'" ...

... CW: I'm pretty sure that thumbing his nose at his own father in service of Dick Cheney will help Jeb!'s campaign a lot. ...

     ... I'm Not Arrogant; He's Senile. Claire Phipps of the Guardian: "Donald Rumsfeld has dismissed George HW Bush's criticism of him as 'arrogant', saying the former president 'is getting up in years'."

News Ledes

New York Times: "The American economy added 271,000 jobs in October, the government reported Friday, a very strong showing that makes an interest-rate increase by the Federal Reserve much more likely when policy makers meet next month. The unemployment rate dipped to 5 percent, from 5.1 percent in September. Average hourly earnings also bounced back, rising 0.4 percent in October after showing no increase in September; that lifted the gain to 2.5 percent over the last 12 months, the healthiest since 2009."

Washington Post: "Confusion reigned at the airport in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh on Friday as a British plan to quickly evacuate thousands of its citizens under emergency security rules was thrown into doubt. Despite repeated assurances from British officials that the airlift would go ahead as planned, the low-cost carrier EasyJet announced Friday that 'rescue plans that were put in place yesterday have been suspended by the Egyptian authorities.'"

The Commentariat -- Nov. 5, 2015

Internal links & defunct content removed.

Afternoon Update:

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Obama vowed a year ago to give Central American children fleeing violence a new, legal way into the United States by allowing them to apply for refugee status while in their own countries instead of accepting help from smugglers or resorting to a dangerous trek across Mexico. But not a single child has entered the United States through the Central American Minors program since its establishment in December, in large part because of a slow-moving American bureaucracy that has infuriated advocates for the young children and their families."

Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "The revelations [In Bush I's biography] come at the absolute lowest point of the year for Jeb Bush, who is mounting his own quest for the presidency." ...

... Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: Jeb "Bush is suddenly campaigning as if he's in a therapy session, wounded and wrestling with his identity both as a political performer and as heir to the Bush family dynasty. On a comeback tour [of New Hampshire] this week to rehabilitate his sputtering candidacy, Bush wore his emotions on his sleeve and volunteered introspective interpretations of why he wasn't winning." CW: Let's all vote for Jeb! so he can feel better about himself.

Greg Sargent: "The relatively staid and civil Democratic presidential primary may be about to take a hard turn into much more contentious territory: Bernie Sanders is now declaring that he supports ongoing investigations into Hillary Clinton's e-mail arrangement. And he's claiming her reversals on issues speak to her 'character.'... Sanders appears to be giving his blessing to the ongoing FBI probe.... In [a] Wall Street Journal interview, Sanders stated that Clinton's inconsistencies on the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other issues 'does speak to the character of a person.'"

*****

David Nakamura & Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration released the full text of a 12-nation Pacific Rim free-trade accord on Thursday, launching what is expected to be a long and bruising fight to win final ratification in Congress for one of the president's top priorities."

Republicans Divided on How Much to Screw Old Folks. Robert Costa & Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "Newly installed House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said he plans to pursue a 'bold alternative agenda' that would include major revisions in entitlements [CW: as the WashPo likes to call social safety-net program]. At the same time, leading GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump railed against proposals to end or significantly change Medicare.... The Republican presidential candidates are jockeying to be seen as in solidarity with Ryan, the darling of party elders, or with Trump, a voice for grassroots voters."

Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) warned on Wednesday that Democrats will block a defense spending bill this week for a third time. Reid said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was 'wasting the Senate's time' by repeatedly filing procedural motions to move forward with the defense bill that 'he knows will fail.'"

My Man Harry. Katherine Krueger of TPM: "Seasoned troll and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) took his beef with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski to the Senate floor on Wednesday, bashing the MSNBC hosts for their interview with the billionaire Koch brothers earlier this week. Reid called the 'Morning Joe' interview with conservative mega-donors Charles and David Koch an example of the media catering to 'modern-day robber barons,' and read aloud his favorite excerpts from the segment. 'Wow. Those were some really tough questions asked by the host of "Morning Joe." That's sufficient journalism,' Reid said [CW: Actually, Reid said sarcastically, "That's tough journalism."] ... after reading excepts of the hosts asking the brothers if they play rugby together and whether their 'graciousness' came from their mother. He continued: 'Those questions are so easy, they may even qualify them to moderate the next Republican presidential debate.'... In January this year, Brzezinski, the so-called 'liberal' foil to conservative Scarborough, announced on the show she had seen the light on the Koch brothers after attending a Koch-backed retreat in Palm Springs":

** Peter Baker of the New York Times: "After years of holding back, former President George Bush has finally broken his public silence about some of the key figures in his son's administration, issuing scathing critiques of Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. In interviews with his biographer [Jon Meacham], Mr. Bush said that Mr. Cheney had built 'his own empire' and asserted too much 'hard-line' influence within George W. Bush's White House in pushing for the use of force around the world. Mr. Rumsfeld, the elder Mr. Bush said, was an 'arrogant fellow' who could not see how others thought and 'served the president badly.' Mr. Bush's sharp assessments ... gave voice to sentiments that many long suspected he had harbored but kept private until now. While he continued to praise his son, he did tell Mr. Meacham that the younger Mr. Bush was responsible for empowering Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld and was at times too bellicose in his language."...

... The Washington Post story, by Justin Moyer is here. It adds more detail, including the Big Dick's responses.

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "At a Supreme Court argument on Wednesday about procedures in redistricting cases, the justices appeared to be trying to reconcile two conflicting impulses. They did not want to close the door entirely on challenges to gerrymandering, but they also did not want to be required to rule on them.... The case, Shapiro v. McManus, No. 14-990, is a challenge to Maryland's 2011 congressional maps. Democrats, the challengers said, had gone to elaborate and unconstitutional lengths to create oddly shaped districts to favor their candidates."

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), in a New York Times op-ed: "INSTEAD of blocking President Obama's efforts to close the costly Guantánamo Bay detention facility, Congress should be working with him to finally shut it down."

James Hohmann of the Washington Post: "Just like the midterms one year ago, [Tuesday's election results represented] another awful night for Democrats." ...

... Kevin Drum: "But that's not really right. Conservatives did win big victories in Virginia, Kentucky, and Houston. But Ohio's marijuana initiative most likely went down because it was too raw a giveaway to a bunch of rich donors, and San Francisco sheriff Ross Mirkarim was plagued by scandals that had nothing to do with his support for sanctuary cities. (The winner, Vicki Hennessy, was endorsed by SF mayor Ed Lee. She's hardly a conservative insurgent.) Elsewhere, liberals won public financing initiatives in Seattle and Maine. Pennsylvania elected three Democrats to the state Supreme Court. Movement conservatives lost big in two of Colorado's largest school districts." ...

... John Cheves of the Lexington Herald-Leader: "Whatever Republican Matt Bevin has in mind for Kentucky's health insurance reform efforts after he's sworn in as governor Dec. 8, there are unlikely to be changes this winter while people enroll for their 2016 coverage.... Legally, Bevin is free to reverse what Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear did two years ago when he established Kynect by executive order. However, no state so far has dismantled its health insurance exchange or repealed its Medicaid expansion -- not even those with Republican-controlled statehouses.... And the bureaucratic process for closing Kynect would not be swift.... Repealing Kentucky's Medicaid expansion, which covers people up to 138 percent of the poverty line, or even modifying the Medicaid program with federal waivers, could take months of negotiations with the federal government."

Presidential Race

Even. More. Un.Fucking.Believeable. Quinnipiac University: "One year before Election Day 2016, Dr. Ben Carson is virtually tied with Donald Trump as strong front-runners for the Republican nomination, and Carson tops former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton 50 - 40 percent in the final face-off, according to a Quinnipiac University National poll released today." ...

... Steve M.: "... forgive me if I'm not enjoying the craziness in the Republican presidential race as much as some of you are. Forgive me if I don't agree that what's going on in that race is going to lead to the party's demise.... It may not matter how crazy the GOP candidate is -- Republicans are fired up in every election, desperate to nullify the Obama era, while it's difficult to inspire Democrats to vote. Why do we automatically assume that Democrats will suddenly be hungry for a win next year? The right stirs up rage every day...." ...

... ** David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report, in 538: "There are plenty of reasons to be cautious of national polls that show Trump and Carson leading.... But perhaps the biggest reason ... is that they're simulating a national vote that will never take place. In reality, the GOP nominating contest will be decided by an intricate, state-by-state slog.... And thanks to the Republican National Committee's allocation rules..., the more moderate GOP primary voters who live in Democratic-leaning states and congressional districts -- could weigh more than those of more conservative voters who live in deeply red zones.... As The New York Times' Nate Cohn astutely observed in January, Republicans in blue states hold surprising power in the GOP presidential primary process even though they are 'all but extinct in Washington, since their candidates lose general elections to Democrats.'" This explains why Republicans have selected relatively moderate presidential nominees while the party's members in Congress have continued to veer right." ...

... Ed Kilgore: "... there are a couple of planted axioms here that need to be questioned. First of all, 'blue' states are more likely to go late in the presidential nominating contest calendar.... they will have to choose from the field left to them by the more conservative red-state contests, whose influence, of course, will be magnified by media coverage.... Second, there the whole matter of defining candidates as 'moderate' or 'conservative.'... So it's a little unclear how these dynamics are supposed to work. Add in the fact that some blue-state Republican Parties are by no means 'moderate' -- Wisconsin, anybody?"

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "An organization related to the Clinton Foundation has again reversed itself on fixing errors on its federal tax filings and now says it plans to submitted amended returns. Clinton Health Access Initiative spokeswoman Maura Daley said Wednesday that the group has now decided to refile two years worth of forms with the Internal Revenue Service."

Bloomberg: "Donald Trump's campaign said Wednesday it had placed a $300,000 radio ad buy in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina to run through end of month."

Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "On Wednesday, more than a dozen of the nation's leading Hispanic groups are planning to hold a 'Dump Trump' rally outside 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where 'Saturday Night Live' is taped. Latino and immigration groups also plan to deliver a petition, with 460,000 signatures, calling on NBC Studios and [producer Lorne] Michaels to drop Mr. Trump.... On Monday, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus issued a statement also calling on NBC Universal and Mr. Michaels 'to disinvite Mr. Trump'" ...

... Meg Wagner of the New York Daily News: "Donald Trump used Twitter to let loose a slew of nasty images against GOP rival Jeb Bush: pictures that compared the former Florida governor to a Nazi, mocked his ties to Mexico and suggested he is intellectually disabled. 'ADIOS, JEB aka JOSÉ,' the billionaire-turned-presidential candidate posted to Twitter Tuesday, apparently retweeting a message from one of his followers.... The tweet included a collage of racist and derogatory pictures." ...

... Hadas Gold of Politico: "NBC removed several 'Saturday Night Live' promos featuring Donald Trump on Wednesday.... According to NBC co[r]respondent Peter Alexander, NBC had posted the link with eight SNL promos by mistake before removing three of them.... The original series of promos, posted as a single video, included a segment where SNL cast member Cecily Strong says, 'Because of equal time rules for television, Mr. Trump can only speak for four seconds in this promo.' Trump then says: 'So let me just say this. Ben Carson is a complete and total loser.' The Carson portion was edited out at some point on Wednesday afternoon...."

(New Jersey) Star-Ledger Editors: Ben Carson "has combined Rick Santorum's dogmatic conceit, Herman Cain's policy ignorance, and Michele Bachmann's unapologetic loopiness to create a woozy barstool doctrine that makes sense to a bloc of voters who are repulsed by the notion of electing anyone who once held high office." You lefties will want to read the whole editorial. It's excellent. Thanks to Marvin S. for the link. ...

'Cuba? Cuba?' You mean Cuba Gooding, Jr.? -- the guy who played me in that film classic "Gifted Hands"? Did you see it? They're featuring it on Netflix now. It's about my heroic rise from poverty to become a world-famous neurosurgeon.... 'Wet-foot, dry-foot?' Sounds like a medical condition. Did I tell you I separated twins conjoined at the head? I'm a world-famous neurosurgeon. Not a podiatrist, for crying out loud. My work was a little more complicated than removing plantar warts. That's why I would be great president.... Now, you may proceed. But no more 'gotcha' questions. -- Ben Carson, to Miami Herald reporters

Or something like that. -- Constant Weader

... Doc Ben Has Always Been Crazy. Nate McDermott & Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson told graduates during a commencement address in the late '90s that he believed the pyramids in Egypt were built by the biblical figure Joseph to store grain, and not, as most archaeologists contend, as tombs for pharaohs." Apparently Young Doc Carson believed that the Hebrew god directed Joseph in a dream to build the pyramids to accommodate the grain which Joseph advised the pharaoh to store. Joseph, BTW, is one of many mythical Bible characters. He was not a real guy. P.S. Do read the part about the aliens v. god. ...

... Still Crazy After All These Years. Erica Brown & Ellen Uchimiya of CBS News: "Ben Carson stood by his long-held belief about ancient pyramids in Egypt, that they were used to store grain, rather than to inter pharaohs. Asked about this Wednesday, Carson told CBS News, 'It's still my belief, yes.'" CW: The headline writers call this an "unusual theory." Why can't we get more honest headline writers? ...

... In Your Heart, You Know He's Nuts. Ed Kilgore: "... what should actually disqualify Carson [is] his extremist, paranoid 'world-view' which treats regular boring old center-left liberals as conscious and systematically deceitful would-be destroyers of this country bent on imposing a Marxist tyranny via 'politically correct' suppression of free speech and confiscation of guns. There's unquestionably a constituency for this point of view, but we may never know whether it would outnumber the Republicans baffled or horrified by it until such time as one of his rivals or the heretofore clueless media start talking about it. If they don't pretty soon, then one theory of the 2016 GOP nominating process could come true: conservatives want to rerun the 1964 elections, and they've finally found their Barry Goldwater." ...

... CW: Or what about the fact, Ed, that Ole Doc goes to Miami & submits to a phone interview with a Herald reporter without having the foggiest idea what U.S. Cuban policy is? This is a guy who thinks his own ignorance of the law is immaterial. Because he imagines he has "common sense" & can figure this stuff out if it ever comes up. It was mighty consequential that Dubya couldn't be bothered to read that daily briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." It would be catastrophic if a President Carson had read it & decided to apply one of his "common sense" solutions. ...

... Kevin Drum on why Carson is so popular among evangelicals. And what an empty-headed huckster he is.

Michael Barbaro & Steve Eder of the New York Times: "A decade after he used a Republican Party credit card for personal purchases like stone pavers at his home, Senator Marco Rubio on Wednesday pledged to disclose spending records from that account as he urgently sought to inoculate himself against what could be his biggest liability as a presidential candidate: how he manages his finances.... As his once-plodding presidential campaign experiences a surge in the polls, Mr. Rubio's rivals are now rushing to resurrect the matter in an attempt to portray him as a careless manager of money, despite Mr. Rubio's assurances that he paid for every personal purchase himself.... During his 2010 Senate campaign Mr. Rubio refused to release the full records of his charges on the card..., calling it an 'internal party matter.'" ...

... Alex Leary of the Tampa Bay Times: "The Tampa Bay Times asked Rubio's team for the records in June and again in early October. A top strategist, Todd Harris, said Tuesday they would be released soon, possibly within the month, but declined to answer questions about what they might contain.... A Florida man filed an ethics complaint against Rubio in 2010, and in 2012 the state ethics commission cleared him, though an investigator said the level of 'negligence' exhibited by Rubio's confusion between the GOP American Express and his own MasterCard, and failing to recognize the error on monthly statements, was 'disturbing.' Now questions are resurfacing."

Andrew Husband of Mediaite: Jeb! tells middle-schoolers that his father (you know, the president guy) would reprimand him in a way that would send him "into a deep depression for days." "Let's hope Jeb Can Fix It." CW Safety Alert: Watch for incoming MoDo. I'll bet she wishes she still had two columns a week. Between Pappy's biography & Jeb!'s psychological problems, she's got plenty to milk for weeks.

Hadas Gold & Steven Shepard of Politico: "It's looking like Chris Christie may not make the primetime debate stage at next week's Fox Business Network/Wall Street Journal debate. While Fox Business will not officially announce the lineup until Thursday, a new Fox News poll released late Wednesday puts him at 2 percent. That likely means Christie will get bumped to the undercard stage -- a big blow for the New Jersey governor, especially because it comes as he appeared to be gaining some traction in the presidential race."

Beyond the Beltway

Dan Hinkel & Lauren Zumbach of the Chicago Tribune: "Upending the portrayal of Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz as a hero cop tragically gunned down in the line of duty just before his planned retirement, authorities on Wednesday said the Fox Lake[, Illinois,] officer died in a suicide he staged as it became clear he could face consequences for years of criminal behavior. At a news conference, Lake County Major Crime Task Force Cmdr. George Filenko said Gliniewicz, 52, shot himself in a 'carefully staged suicide' designed to look like a murder after he had engaged in 'extensive criminal acts.'" ...

... Ruth Fuller, et al., of the Chicago Sun-Times: "Investigators said [Fox Lake, Illinois, Police Lt. Charles Joseph] Gliniewicz killed himself but staged it to look like a murder as he feared an ongoing internal village audit would reveal he stole tens of thousands of dollars from a police youth group he led.... The officer had been stealing and laundering the money over seven years from the Fox Lake Explorers Unit, which was supposed to teach youngsters about law enforcement."

Karen Kucher, et al., of the San Diego Union-Tribune: "A man who shot at San Diego police officers from a Bankers Hill penthouse surrendered Wednesday afternoon after a five-hour SWAT standoff that locked down nearby streets and schools and prompted aviation officials to cancel incoming flights at Lindbergh Field. No one was wounded as dozens of rounds were fired through the day by officers and the gunman, identified as Titus Colbert, 33."

Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "Police in Sacramento, Calif., said Wednesday that they have arrested a man in connection with the stabbing of a U.S. airman who helped foil a terrorist attack by an armed gunman on a Paris-bound train in August. James Tran, 28, of Elk Grove, Calif., was arrested Wednesday morning near his home and faces one count of attempted murder in the Oct. 8 attack on Spencer Stone, police said.... Stone is considered a victim in the altercation, and faces no charges."

Way Beyond

Rowena Mason, et al., of the Guardian: "The British government has suspended all flights between the UK and the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh after US and UK officials said they believe the Russian plane that crashed over the Sinai peninsula may have been brought down by an explosive device. The UK foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, said his government is now advising against all but essential travel through Sharm el-Sheikh airport in Egypt as there is a 'significant possibility' that the plane was brought down by an explosion on board, the strongest remarks yet by an official on the cause of the crash. US officials have also suggested a bomb was planted on the plane by Isis or an Isis affiliate, according to several media reports citing unnamed sources."

Elisabeth Malkin & Azam Ahmed of the New York Times: "The Mexican Supreme Court opened the door to legalizing marijuana on Wednesday, delivering a pointed challenge to the nation's strict substance abuse laws and adding its weight to the growing debate in Latin America over the costs and consequences of the war against drugs. The vote by the court's criminal chamber declared that individuals should have the right to grow and distribute marijuana for their personal use. The ruling is a first step -- applying only to a single cannabis club that brought the suit -- and does not strike down Mexico's current drug laws. But it lays the groundwork for a wave of legal actions that could ultimately legalize marijuana."