The Commentariat -- Sept. 17, 2015
Internal links removed.
Presidential Race
Tom McCarthy of the Guardian: "Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump spent hours Wednesday night fending off attacks from rival candidates on a California debate stage as moderators struggled to enforce order among a clamorous group of 11 White House hopefuls. With the mood swinging from a rollicking family argument to uncomfortably personal confrontation to shared disdain for Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, the debate showcased a race with an unusual number of candidates from unusually diverse backgrounds making creative plays for the Republican base."
New York Times reporters ID what they think were the highlights. They also did some fact-checking, which is important, because most of the candidates told at least one whopper. ...
... Politico staffers fact-check some whoppers, too:
I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to watch these tapes. Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain. -- Carly Fiorina
Gee, I didn't know that. Maybe because Fiorina made it up out of whole cloth. -- Constant Weader
... More fact-checking from Glenn Kessler & Michelle Lee of the Washington Post. CW: These guys can't handle the truth. You wonder which ones know they're liars, which are ignorant followers of Right Wing News & which are just sociopaths. ...
... Marc Caputo of Politico, long a Miami Herald political reporter, tells "the real story behind Trump's Florida gaming fixation." CW: So last night, Trump flat-out lied on stage about that. If you can't beat lazy Jeb!, how are you going to take on Putin & the Ayatollah, Donald? ...
... CW: I wish one of the moderators had had the guts to ask Trump about his supposed business acumen, which he touts as his primary qualification for the top job: National Journal: "Had the celebrity businessman and Republican presidential candidate invested his eventual share of his father's real-estate company into a mutual fund of S&P 500 stocks in 1974, it would be worth nearly $3 billion today, thanks to the market's performance over the past four decades. If he'd invested the $200 million that Forbes magazine determined he was worth in 1982 into that index fund, it would have grown to more than $8 billion today. ...
(... Speaking of Donald Trump's inheritance, it looks as if he came by his racism honestly -- he inherited that, too. Matt Blum of Boing Boing (Sept. 9): "According to a New York Times article published in June 1927, a man with the name and address of Donald Trump's father was arraigned after Klan members attacked cops in Queens, N.Y." Better known: "A 1979 article, published by Village Voice, reported on a civil rights suit that alleged that the Trumps refused to rent to black home-seekers.")
... There's one thing I'll tell you about my brother. He kept us safe. -- Jeb!, telling the Biggest Lie of the Night ...
... Charles Pierce: "I ran out of patience long ago with The Great Mulligan. C-Plus Augustus ignored the terrorist threat for nine months. He told his Attorney General to shift focus from counterterrorism to weed and porn. He told his National Security Advisor to worry about the Russians. He blew off a Presidential Daily Briefing and a CIA briefer. Then, on September 11, 2001, there were 3000 Americans who were not kept safe on his watch. He then stonewalled any real investigation of his negligence. He then launched a war of choice after allowing the architect of the attacks to go free. There were more than 4000 American soldiers who were not kept safe. And now his blithering brother suggests that time began on September 12, 2001. Scott Walker then chimed in about how it was all Barack Obama's fault."
Here are some take-aways from Noah Bierman of the Los Angeles Times.
Tim Dickinson of Rolling Stone picks the "top ten zingers of the ... debate."
Jonathan Chait: "The debate revealed a party wedded to the tenets of Bushism -- rabid, debt-financed, regressive tax-cutting, reflexive hostility to regulation, and a pervasive anti-intellectualism. Trump at one point implicitly defended his lack of foreign-policy knowledge on the grounds that the current administration had many knowledgable people (true) and the world was on fire (questionable). This open attack on brainpower would have been astonishing, except that Marco Rubio repeated it himself, declaring, 'Radical terrorism cannot be solved by intellect.'"
CW: If I had to go on a date with any of these guys, I would definitely pick Ben Carson. He's sort of the Candide of Candidates: well-meaning, soft-spoken & completely naive. Also, Best-Looking. ...
... Then again I liked the part where Lord Cornfields-of-Cornwall Bush (see yesterday's Commentariat) could not think of a single American woman who might merit a spot on the $10 bill & chose, instead, former Britsh PM Margaret Thatcher. Why not Queen Elizabeth? She's used to appearing on currency. O to be in England now. Confederate flag, my ass. How about the Union Jack? It is hardly surprising that Bush the Youngest is so fond of a country that retains a hereditary aristocracy & monarchy.
Gail Collins rues five hours of Republicans & Three Stages of Trump: "And then there was the completely, unbelievably irresponsible Trump of the finale who claimed he knew people whose daughter got autism from a vaccine shot. (This happened, he said, to 'people that work for me just the other day.') Remember when the vaccination issue destroyed Michele Bachmann;s political career? One can only hope."
Bernie Sanders live-tweets the debate.
Matt Grunwald of Politico: "Last night's Republican debate in the Reagan Library was not about Morning in America. It was more like Darkness at Noon. Jeb Bush did call for the party to embrace a Reaganesque sense of optimism, which he contrasted with 'the Donald Trump approach of "Everything is bad, everything is coming to an end."' But with occasional exceptions, usually involving the softer-edged John Kasich, the Trump approach dominated. For five hours, the candidates stood in front of Reagan's plane and described America as a declining nation in a dystopic world, as they pledged, to borrow a phrase, to Make America Great Again."
Margaret Hartmann runs down what some pundits had to say about each candidate's performance.
Steve M.: "Everyone from The Weekly Standard's Michael Warren to The Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart to Politico's panel of 'early-state insiders' believes that Carly Fiorina won last night's debate. I think she's going to get the biggest media bounce from the debate -- if you watch political TV or read pundits, you won't be able to avoid her for a week or two -- and I assume she'll get a poll bump as well. But I predict that a month from now she'll be back in the 3%-5% range, because she's just not the kind of woman Republican voters want." ...
... Yastreblyansky, commenting on Steve's post: "Hey, Fiorina may be 'well informed' -- I'd say well prepped -- but watching her trembling with emotion about a scene in a video that doesn't exist..., and advising everybody else to watch it too with the suggestion that we'd all get just as emotional as she is, suggests she's as detached from reality as Ronald Reagan ever was. That would explain why she thinks she was a successful CEO, too."
Trip Gabriel & Matt Flegenheimer of the New York Times cover the kiddie table. ...
... Charles Pierce: "Well, if there's one thing we learned from the prelim bout on Wednesday night from the Bob MacFarlane Gift Shoppe And Notions Department, it's that if any of the four of these guys gets elected, we're going to be at war somewhere, or in a couple of somewheres, very soon.... Not that any of them need that much pushing, but [Lindsey] Graham is setting the allowable parameters of the Republican party on foreign policy. And those parameters are bristling with guns."
Looks as if CNN is liveblogging the GOP debates here. CW: Because I had some gruntwork to do, I listened to most of the debates. I see now what Republican voters are so ignorant: it's because they believe these baldfaced liars. Also, Ted Cruz makes Donald Trump seem downright personable. What a horse's ass.
Ahead of the debate, some guy helps Li'l Randy take shots at the tax code. Because this is the responsible, adult thing to do:
... Then This Moment in Responsible Rhetoric. Mark Hensch of the Hill: "Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says he will not hold back in attacking Donald Trump as a false conservative during the second GOP presidential debate Wednesday night. 'I think he deserves both barrels,' he said on Tuesday, according to The Daily Caller."
Goodfellas, Village Edition. digby in Salon: Donald "Trump sounds more like a cheap gangster than a politician most of the time.... The political media seems to be adopting his rhetorical style. Trumpism must be catching.... [Mark] Halperin has caught a bad case of it. Scalping and assaulting and stomping and pulverizing -- it almost makes Trump's little references to 'counter-punching' sound, dare I say it, a little weak...." digby then delves into "the desperate GOP establishment plots to take Trump down."
Ted vs. the Scorpion. Whatever horror the scorpion is supposed to represent in Ted Cruz's weird ad, Steve Stromberg of the Washington Post finds the ad -- and its dark implications -- "revolting." CW: That's because Stromberg assumes that Ted is the revolting character is the ad. Stromberg is right.
Simon Rosenberg, in Time, makes a strong case for more Democratic debates.
Real News
Sarah Wheaton of Politico: "President Barack Obama accused congressional Republicans of 'playing chicken' with the economy over Planned Parenthood on Wednesday. Speaking before about 100 members of the Business Roundtable, just blocks from the Capitol, Obama said Republicans would be jeopardizing not just the United States but global markets if their insistence on eliminating funding to Planned Parenthood leads to a government shutdown." ...
There's nothing particularly patriotic or American about talking down America. -- Barack Obama ...
... Kevin Liptak of CNN: "As Republican presidential candidates lay into his record, President Barack Obama on Wednesday chalked up the attacks to expected election-year politics but said there was 'nothing particularly patriotic' about their rhetoric. 'Despite the perennial doom and gloom that I guess is inevitably part of a presidential campaign, America is winning right now,' Obama said at a meeting of the Business Roundtable in Washington. 'America is great right now. We can do even better.'" ...
... Julie Davis of the New York Times: "President Obama warned Wednesday that his administration was ready to take action against China for cyberattacks carried out by Beijing or its proxies, publicly raising the specter of sanctions a week before President Xi Jinping arrives in the United States for a state visit." ...
... The President took quite a few deserved potshots against Republicans during his remarks& during the Q&A that followed. Very refreshing:
... Text of the President's full remarks is here.
President Obama meets with King Felipe of Spain:
** David Ignatius of the Washington Post: "The political circus surrounding the Iran nuclear deal shouldn't obscure the fact that President Obama won an enormous victory in negotiating the agreement and mustering the necessary congressional votes to sustain it. It's the most determined, strategic success of his presidency.... The outliers are Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the U.S Republican leadership, who reject an agreement most nations endorse. The political reality is that Obama outfoxed them at nearly every turn." ...
... Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) plans to force Democrats to walk the line on the Iran nuclear agreement, teeing up a vote on a contentious amendment on the deal. The Republican leader scheduled a procedural vote on an amendment that would block President Obama from lifting sanctions against Iran under the nuclear deal until Iran publicly supports Israel and releases Americans currently held in Iranian prisons. Under Senate rules, the vote would occur Thursday, which is also the deadline for Congress to pass legislation on the Iran nuclear agreement." ...
... Seung Min Kim & Burgess Everett of Politico: "For the second time in less than a week Tuesday, the Senate blocked an attempt by the majority leader [Mitch McConnell] to push a measure to scuttle the Iran nuclear deal through the chamber. The try-and-try-again strategy -- amounting to a repeated public shaming -- has become something of a go-to move for McConnell. Problem is, it's not working, at least if the metric of success is producing a different outcome.... McConnell further raised the stakes minutes ahead of the vote by threatening to force Democrats to vote on proposals that would require Iran recognize Israel as a state and release Americans held in Iran, [the votes to be held] likely on Thursday. Aside from Iran, the majority leader has forced multiple votes on funding for the Department of Homeland Security and human-trafficking legislation." ...
... Julian Hattem of the Hill: "A small but growing number of GOP lawmakers say that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) should invoke the 'nuclear option' to change Senate rules and prevent a filibuster on a resolution to kill the deal.... Less than two years after Republicans railed against Democrats for changing the rules to prevent filibusters on most presidential nominees, McConnell has ruled out using the nuclear strategy. But the call puts more pressure on the majority leader and illustrates Republicans' growing frustration with their inability to score significant victories in Congress, even while controlling both chambers." ...
... Ed Kilgore: "... we have to assume the people whining at ol' Mitch about this are aware there's this thing called a presidential veto that will absolutely with zero uncertainty be used to thwart their will on both the Iran deal and Planned Parenthood. I mean, they may not know the difference between Sunnis and Shi'a or that snowfall doesn't refute global climate change. But they probably know about vetoes. So they're asking McConnell to make a pretty big strategic change of course over a gesture.... [Or] Maybe they think the Senate should become like the House and the 'rule' for consideration of legislation is determined on a case-by-case basis. Or maybe they're just incapable of making a coherent argument."
Benjamin Mueller of the New York Times: "Jon Stewart, the recently retired host of 'The Daily Show,' exhorted Congress on Wednesday to permanently extend a law providing treatment and compensation to rescue workers who were injured or sickened by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The bill, which is set to start expiring next month, has long been a favored cause of the comedian, whose shows in 2010 criticizing the law's Republican opponents and showcasing emergency medical workers with health problems helped prompt its passage. The law, called the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, pledged federal money for the health care of rescue workers who had for years been forced to depend on mix of short-term federal, city and private money."
Rachel Bade of Politico: "Two senior Senate Democrats dismissed Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn's call for a special counsel to probe the Hillary Clinton emails controversy, calling it a political ploy. Judiciary and Intelligence committee ranking Democrats Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said the No. 2 Senate Republican's demand that Attorney General Loretta Lynch appoint an outside investigator would just be a waste of taxpayer money." CW: Good for Feinstein & Leahy.
Linda Greenhouse: "What's placed now in high relief by many of the current disputes is the tension inherent in religion clauses of the First Amendment. The amendment prohibits the 'establishment' of religion while also protecting 'the free exercise thereof.... The relative weight the court has accorded each of the religion clauses shifts over time, reflecting in broad strokes the concerns of the general culture as the tension between the two principles comes to the fore in different ways. The Roberts court has tilted quite far in the direction of free exercise, to the detriment of the values of pluralism inherent in the establishment clause. Inevitably, if history is any guide, a tipping point will come.... That process may have begun in the clerk's office in Rowan County, Ky. If so, we may have Kim Davis and her zealous lawyer to thank."
Neil MacFarquhar & Andrew Kramer of the New York Times: "This week, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin unleashed a diplomatic offensive, pushing to meet with President Obama, offering to hold military-to-military talks on Syria, and planning a big rollout for a Syrian peace plan when he speaks at the United Nations later this month. The stakes for Mr. Putin are high.... The Kremlin has been on the defensive, diplomatically isolated after its adventures in Ukraine and battered economically by sanctions, low oil prices and a weak ruble that is cutting into living standards. Rapidly depleting the rainy day funds that have staved off financial disaster so far, Mr. Putin knows he needs to get back in the West's good graces in a hurry, or at least change the conversation. Syria provides an ideal vehicle for that, while also giving Moscow a significant role in the Middle East and promoting Mr. Putin's long-term ambitions of re-establishing Russia as a player on the world stage." ...
... CW: To all the saber-rattlers (name any Republican) who said President Obama didn't know how to handle Putin: the joke's on you.
Josh Gerstein of Politico: "After decades of stiff resistance, the CIA on Wednesday released about 2,500 President's Daily Briefs and similar reports delivered to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson during a nearly eight-year span in the 1960s. The briefings detail the evolution of the war in Vietnam and responses to such events as the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Six-Day War in the Middle East." Gerstein embeds 13 of them.
Robert Pear of the New York Times: "The number of people without health insurance dropped last year by 8.8 million, to a total of 33 million, but there was no statistically significant change in income for the typical American household, the Obama administration said Wednesday." Because ObamaCare really sucks.
Ben Protess & Danielle Ivory of the New York Times: "Federal prosecutors are poised to settle a criminal investigation into General Motors, according to people briefed on the matter, accusing the automaker of failing to disclose a safety defect tied to at least 124 deaths. The case, which the prosecutors plan to unveil on Thursday, would cap a wide-ranging investigation that tainted the automaker's reputation for quality and safety and damaged its bottom line. The prosecutors will impose a penalty of nearly $1 billion on G.M., according to people briefed on the matter..., but they are not expected to include charges against individual G.M. employees."
Beyond the Beltway
Guardian: "An appeals court agreed to halt the execution of an Oklahoma man with just hours to spare Wednesday after his attorneys asked for time to review new evidence, including a fellow inmate's claim that he overheard the other man convicted in the case admit he acted alone.... [Richard] Glossip, 52, was scheduled to be executed at 3pm [Wednesday]. But the Oklahoma court of criminal appeals agreed to delay the lethal injection after Glossip's attorneys said they had new evidence. Among the material is a signed affidavit from another inmate, Michael Scott, who claims he heard [Justin] Sneed say 'he set Richard Glossip up, and that Richard Glossip didn't do anything'."
David Ferguson of the Raw Story: "The police chief of Surf City, North Carolina was abruptly forced into retirement on Tuesday after an emergency meeting with city commissioners regarding an angry Facebook rant the chief posted about the Black Lives Matter movement." You can read the full rant here.
CW: Say you're a high-school English teacher & a 14-year-old student shows you this gizmo to the left, which he says he made at home. What do you do? Ahmed Mohamed's English teacher thought the gizmo looked like a bomb & took it to the school principal, who alerted the Irving, Texas, cops. As we all know, cops are chosen for their inability to tell the difference between beef & mackerels, so we should not be surprised that five Irving, Texas, cops -- in their combined wisdom -- cannot tell the difference between a bomb-detonating device & a crude digital clock, nor can they tell the difference between an enthusiastic science-y kid (wearing a NASA T-shirt) & a mad goth bomber. They cuffed the kid, interrogated him, carted him off to the Irving police station (without allowing him to contact his parents) & accused him of bringing a "hoax bomb" to school. The school suspended him. Ahmed's parents & the Internets (also a well-known font of wisdom & reason) accused the cops & the school of racism & Islamophobia. Frankly, I'm not so sure Islamophobia has anything to do with it. Anyway, President Obama & Mark Zuckerberg liked the clock. It seems a bit clunky to me.
Way Beyond
Rick Lyman & Dan Bilefsky of the New York Times: "Hungarian police officers moved against hundreds of migrants on Wednesday, attacking them with batons, water cannons and tear gas after they tried to surge through a border crossing that had been blocked for a second day. The migrants tore down a razor-wire gate on the Serbian side of the border crossing, and were pushing through to a second gate on the Hungarian side when the riot police drove them back. Twenty people were injured, including two children who had been thrown across the fence into Hungary, and taken to a hospital, the authorities said."
AP: "A major earthquake just offshore rattled Chileans, killing five people and shaking the Earth so strongly the tremor was felt in places across South America. Authorities worked into the early hours Thursday assessing damage in several coastal towns that saw flooding from small tsunami waves set off by the quake."