The Commentariat -- April 26, 2015
Internal links * defunct video removed.
President Obama speaks at the White House Correspondents dinner. The guy is a natural comedian; watch his timing:
... CW: Here's something I didn't know, & Michael Shear of the New York Times brings me up to speed: Keegan-Michael Key is "half of Comedy Central's irreverent 'Key and Peele' show" & last night he was "reprising his TV role as Luther, the president's Anger Translator." ...
... Cecily Strong followed President Obama, because it "feels right to have a woman follow President Obama." CW: I thought she did a swell job, but Strong is a professional comedian & IMO, her delivery wasn't as good as the President's:
Zach Carter of the Huffington Post: "Progressive Democrats have been hoping to see a showdown between Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton for years. Instead, they're getting a public feud between the senator from Massachusetts and President Barack Obama. Obama accused Warren and congressional Democrats on Friday of being 'dishonest' and spreading 'misinformation' about the Trans-Pacific Partnership... On Saturday, Warren and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) responded with a letter essentially telling Obama to put up or shut up. If the deal is so great, Warren and Brown wrote, the administration should make the full negotiation texts public before Congress votes on a "fast track" bill that would strip the legislative branch of its authority to amend it." Thanks to P. D. Pepe for the link.
Michael Schmidt & David Sanger of the New York Times: "Some of President Obama's email correspondence was swept up by Russian hackers last year in a breach of the White House's unclassified computer system that was far more intrusive and worrisome than has been publicly acknowledged, according to senior American officials briefed on the investigation. The hackers, who also got deeply into the State Department's unclassified system, do not appear to have penetrated closely guarded servers that control the message traffic from Mr. Obama's BlackBerry, which he or an aide carries constantly.... On Thursday, Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter revealed for the first time that Russian hackers had attacked the Pentagon's unclassified systems, but said they had been identified and 'kicked off.'">
... CW: Digby sees this exactly as I do: "After all the sturm und drang over Clinton having her private and unclassified emails on a private server, this is a wee bit ironic.... It appears our vaunted security experts aren't that expert ... shocked, I am."
Disciples of Dick. Digby, in Salon: "... Republican senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham ... are losing their positions as the most hawkish members of the GOP.... Now it's time for Dick Cheney's disciples to take the reins and bring the party's warmongering spirit into the 21st century. Tom Cotton is prepared to lead the way."
Anna Palmer, et al., of Politico: House Transportation Committee chair Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) secretly fast-tracked an airlines-friendly bill through the House while he was dating Shelley Rubino, an airlines lobbyist. "The ties go beyond Shuster and Rubino: The wife of Shuster's chief of staff is a top executive for Airlines for America, which is known as A4A. And the congressman recently hired an A4A lobbyist to run the committee's aviation panel.... A4A was unsuccessful in getting the measure through the Senate, and it's now seeking Shuster's help again. The trade association is trying to wedge the legislation into a massive overhaul of the Federal Aviation Administration pending before the transportation panel. Shuster is crafting that bill, and Rubino's group has a major stake in it."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Matt Gertz & Joe Strupp of Media Matters: "Journalists have suggested that conservative author Peter Schweizer's forthcoming book attacking Hillary Clinton is more credible because he will follow it up with a similar book examining Jeb Bush. But according to his publisher, no such book is in the works: Schweizer's reporting on Bush will be published on the website of his non-profit organization.... Bloomberg Politics reported on April 23 that in contrast to the 'left-wing clamor that Schweizer is simply out to get Hillary Clinton,' 'Schweizer is working on a similar investigation of Jeb Bush's finances that he expects to publish this summer.'" ...
... CW: AND as a commenter (MAG???) pointed out here some time ago, won't we be surprised if Schweizer can't find a single irregularity in Bush's financial dealings? If, on the other hand, he does self-publish a Bush hit job, to me that means he's supporting a more confederate candidate.
God News
It's Not God's Country Anymore. For the first time in the history of our country, the government is attacking people, prosecuting people, calling for people to be rehabilitated.... We have the state establishing a new religion, a secular state religion.... We have now the secular church that is being imposed on this country and anybody that defects is subject to persecution and prosecution. -- Rick Santorum, this week on the radio
We are moving rapidly toward the criminalization of Christianity. -- Mike Huckabee, this week
Just this week, Michele Bachmann actually predicted that I would bring about the biblical end of days. Now, that's a legacy. That's big. I mean, Lincoln, Washington, they didn’t do that. -- President Obama, White House Correspondents dinner speech
William Eskridge in a New York Times op-ed: "... leaders in the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ, the Unitarian Universalist Association, the official organizations of conservative and reform Judaism, and more than 1,900 theologians signed a brief urging the court to legalize same-sex marriage.... The faith traditions supporting marriage equality are telling the court that religions, like American families, are diverse. An increasing number of Bible-based faith communities have an inclusive attitude toward gay families and marriages.... The current Baptist view that God condemns 'homosexual behavior' and same-sex marriages comes from the same kind of broad and anachronistic scriptural readings as prior support for segregation.
Presidential Race
Michael Hirsh of Politico Magazine: "... it is highly unlikely that very much of what [Peter] Schweizer alleges will stick, if only because that classic Washington omelette made of equal parts policy and political reasons can never be unmade once it's cooked: Especially among the uber-cautious Clintons, you'll never find the smoking ingredient; no one will ever be caught saying, 'Let's make a policy decision for Bill's donors.'"
Trip Gabriel & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Nine declared or likely Republican candidates descended on a large church in Iowa on Saturday to court evangelical Christians, the voters who played the starring role in the state's two most recent caucuses. They included the winners of those two contests (Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee), newcomers whose biographies lend themselves to evangelical support (Ted Cruz and Scott Walker), and candidates who would like to win some support from the Christian right but are eyeing broad coalitions (Rand Paul and Marco Rubio). The nine-candidate lineup in the worship hall of Point of Grace Church in Waukee, a Des Moines suburb, was proof of evangelical power in Iowa, but also a warning that the script may be rewritten in 2016, with so many candidates competing for social conservatives that their votes splinter." ...
... James Hohmann of Politico: "Leading Republican presidential candidates came to Iowa Saturday to assure social conservatives that they still oppose gay marriage, despite shifting public attitudes and the recent backlash against religious liberty laws. Speaking to some 1,000 evangelicals at the Point of Grace Church in [a] suburb of Des Moines, a procession of presidential candidates expressed support for a constitutional amendment that would allow states to re-ban gay marriage if the Supreme Court recognizes a right to such unions."
Ben Jacobs of the Guardian: "Michigan governor Rick Snyder may be the newest GOP candidate for the White House. Snyder mingled with donors at a meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) in Las Vegas on Friday and told at least one attendee that he was a candidate. On Saturday morning, the former Minnesota senator Norm Coleman told reporters: 'I met with Rick Snyder yesterday. He's running. He's running.'"
Beyond the Beltway
Sour Cakes. George Rede of the Oregonian: "The lesbian couple turned away by a Gresham bakery that refused to make them a wedding cake for religious reasons should receive $135,000 in damages for their emotional suffering, a state hearings officer says. Rachel Bowman-Cryer should collect $75,000 and her wife, Laurel Bowman-Cryer, $60,000 from the owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, an administrative law judge for the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries said in a proposed order released Friday, April 24."
If you were wondering why so many boat people are drowning as they seek refuge in Europe, Philip Gourevitch of the New Yorker has the answer: "... when, in October of 2013, some three hundred people drowned in a wreck off Lampedusa, Italy was spurred to spend nine million euros a month -- and to deploy a good part of its Navy -- on a humanitarian search-and-rescue mission called Mare Nostrum (Our Sea). The results were immediate: after a year, a hundred and fifty thousand people had been rescued. Mare Nostrum had made crossing the Mediterranean safer -- and easier. For that reason, late last year, the European Union called for an end to the mission. Britain's Foreign Office minister, Joyce Anelay, explained that search and rescue creates 'an unintended "pull factor," encouraging more migrants.'... International maritime law and custom require that you save everyone you can...." CW: As good a reason as many to give Britain's conservative government a no-confidence vote.
News Ledes
New York Times: "A powerful earthquake shook Nepal on Saturday near its capital, Katmandu, killing more than 1,900 people, flattening sections of the city's historic center, and trapping dozens of sightseers in a 200-foot watchtower that came crashing down into a pile of bricks." ...
... Update: "By Monday afternoon, Nepalese authorities had sharply raised the death toll to more than 3,400, but the full extent of the devastation and death was still unclear."
New York Times: "A largely peaceful protest over the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who suffered a spinal cord injury in police custody, gave way to scattered scenes of chaos [in Baltimore] on Saturday night, as demonstrators smashed a downtown storefront window, threw rocks and bottles and damaged police cruisers, while officers in riot gear broke up skirmishes and made 12 arrests near Camden Yards. Shortly before 10 p.m., Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake convened a news conference at City Hall, where she appeared with several others -- including Mr. Gray's twin sister, Fredericka; a prominent pastor, Jamal Bryant; and City Councilman Brandon Scott -- to appeal for calm. By that time the disturbances had largely settled.