The Commentariat -- Feb. 24, 2015

Internal links & defunct videos removed.

Paul Kane & Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Congressional Republicans remained sharply divided Monday over how to fund the Department of Homeland Security, prompting White House officials to begin preparations for a potential shutdown of the agency this weekend.... Late Monday, Senate Democrats again filibustered a Republican funding proposal for DHS because the money is tied to a repeal of President Obama's executive actions on immigration.... The Monday vote marked Republicans' fourth attempt to move the House bill.... Now, with four days before the security agency's budget lapses, senior Republicans are pushing for a new strategy that does not directly link Obama's actions on immigration to funding for DHS."

... President Obama, in a Hill opinion piece: "... much recent attention has focused on a single court decision in Texas in response to a partisan lawsuit that delays some of these lawful, common-sense steps.... But make no mistake, I disagree with this judge's ruling. Just yesterday, the Department of Justice asked the court for an emergency stay of this misguided decision, and it has already filed a notice of appeal. My administration will fight this ruling with every tool at our disposal, and I have full confidence that these actions will ultimately be upheld.... We've even heard irresponsible threats to shut down the Department of Homeland Security, the very agency tasked with securing our borders and keeping Americans safe in a time of new threats, for no reason other than partisan disagreement over my actions." ...

Katie Zezima of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration Monday appealed a ruling by a Texas judge that temporarily blocked the president's executive actions on immigration. The Department of Justice filed a notice of appeal and motion to stay the decision by U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen of Texas."

Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "The Senate's chief referee has dealt a significant setback to conservatives who want to send an ObamaCare repeal bill to the president's desk this year. GOP sources say Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has raised red flags in response to queries about whether it's possible to use a special budgetary procedure to repeal the controversial law 'root and branch,' as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said."

Patrick Temple-West, et al., of Politico: Sen. Elizabeth Warren appeared with President Obama yesterday at an AARP meeting in which Obama who called for regulation to police "financial advisors" who scam clients. "'If your business model rests on taking advantage -- bilking -- hard-working Americans out of their retirement money, then you shouldn't be in business,' Obama said.... 'I am happy to be here with the president of the United States to say it's about time to do something we should have done long ago,' Warren said before the president arrived. The issue has pitted the investment industry against consumer groups in a heated lobbying battle for years, while the White House maintained a low profile on the issue... Now, the president is jumping in aggressively...."

Philip Ewing of Politico: Secretary of Defense "Ash Carter has quietly thrown down the gauntlet in a lingering dispute with Russia: If President Vladimir Putin continues to violate the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the U.S. could respond in kind."

David Wood of the Huffington Post: "Robert McDonald, the secretary of veterans affairs, wrongly claimed in a videotaped comment earlier this year that he served in special operations forces, the most elite units in the armed forces, when his military service of five years was spent almost entirely with the 82nd Airborne Division during the late 1970s.... 'I have no excuse,' McDonald told The Huffington Post, when contacted to explain his claim. 'I was not in special forces.'"

AP: "Rep. Aaron Schock of Illinois, a rising Republican star already facing an ethics inquiry, has spent taxpayer and campaign funds on flights aboard private planes owned by some of his key donors, the Associated Press has found. There also have been other expensive travel and entertainment charges, including for a massage company and music concerts." CW: It is unclear from the story whether or not you & I have the privilege of paying for Schock's massages. ...

... Funny, last August Schock was concerned about the "waste, fraud and abuse" of, by and for a few poor people who had obtained vouchers to live in upscale Chicago apartment buildings. Good government: providing Aaron Schock with massages, concert tickets & other luxuries. Bad government: allowing a few of the undeserving poor to live in luxury buildings.

Al Jazeera: "A digital leak to Al Jazeera of hundreds of secret intelligence documents from the world's spy agencies has offered an unprecedented insight into operational dealings of the shadowy and highly politicised realm of global espionage. Over the coming days, Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit is publishing The Spy Cables, in collaboration with The Guardian newspaper." ...

Netanyahu: even fakier than a crude cartoon.... Seumas Milne, et al., of the Guardian: "Binyamin Netanyahu's dramatic declaration to world leaders in 2012 that Iran was about a year away from making a nuclear bomb was contradicted by his own secret service, according to a top-secret Mossad document. It is part of a cache of hundreds of dossiers, files and cables from the world's major intelligence services -- one of the biggest spy leaks in recent times." ...

... Seumus Milne & Ewen MacAskill of the Guardian: "The CIA tried to gain access to Hamas through backchannels despite a US government ban on contact with the Palestinian Islamist movement, the spy cables show. They suggest US intelligence has been anxious to make inroads with Hamas, or recruit agents, inside the Gaza Strip."

CW: Here is the best defense I've read of Rudy Giuliani's complaint that he isn't feeling President Obama's love. The post is by Ed Rogers, a Republican party operative who writes for the Washington Post. It contains a laundry list of right-wing "evidence" that President Obama isn't "pro-America," all of it debunked &/or ignorant &/or twisted. ...

... AND, yes, Rogers is still aggrieved over President Obama's "latte salute," (or as Karl Rove explained, it was really a "chai tea" salute just to remind you Obama is a foreign Muslim guy.

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.

Emily Steel & Ravi Somaiya of the New York Times: "The Fox News host Bill O'Reilly on Monday stepped up his defense against reports that he embellished stories about his war reporting earlier in his career, while some former colleagues continued to say he had exaggerated his experiences. Mr. O'Reilly is contesting an article in the magazine Mother Jones and subsequent interviews with former journalists at CBS News that accuse him of misrepresenting his coverage of the Falklands war in 1982 as a young correspondent for CBS News. The central dispute is whether Mr. O'Reilly reported from active war zones, as he has repeatedly said on the air and in his 2001 book.... During a phone conversation, he told a reporter for The New York Times that there would be repercussions if he felt any of the reporter's coverage was inappropriate. 'I am coming after you with everything I have,' Mr. O'Reilly said. 'You can take it as a threat.'" Emphasis added. ...

... Dylan Byers of Politico: "Steel confirmed on Twitter that she was the reporter in question." CW: And this after Steel's previous report on the O'Reilly controversy (linked yesterday) was a love letter to O'Reilly. ...

... David Corn & Daniel Schulman of Mother Jones: "CBS News today posted its reports from Buenos Aires at the end of the Falklands war, in response to a request from Fox News host Bill O'Reilly, who has been seeking to counter reports that he mischaracterized his wartime reporting experience. But rather than bolstering O'Reilly's description of the anti-government protest he says he covered as a 'combat situation,' the tape corroborates the accounts of other journalists who were there and who have described it as simply a chaotic, violent protest." Includes video. ...

... Jon Swaine of the Guardian: "Bill O'Reilly has declared himself vindicated by newly unearthed footage of a 1982 riot in Argentina, despite the archive tapes failing to support his disputed claims that he reported from a war zone massacre as a young correspondent." ...

... Michael Walsh of Yahoo! News: "More journalists have come forward to dispute Fox News host Bill O'Reilly's description of Buenos Aires, Argentina, as a 'combat situation' during the 1982 Falklands War." ...

... Joe Strupp of Media Matters: "Another one of Bill O'Reilly's former colleagues at CBS News is casting doubt on his claims that he reported from a 'combat situation' in Buenos Aires during the Falklands War. Charles Krause, a CBS News correspondent from 1980 to 1983 who reported from Buenos Aires during the same period as O'Reilly, is the latest to contradict the Fox News host. In an interview with Media Matters, Krause called O'Reilly's descriptions of his reporting 'absurd.' He also recalls O'Reilly being there for a short period of time and not having 'any significant role in our coverage of the war.... He wasn't a team player and people thought he was grandstanding, basically.'" ...

... Joe Strupp: "Revelations that Bill O'Reilly may have misled viewers about his reporting from the Falklands War back in 1982 are drawing fire from veteran war correspondents who contend apparent embellishments like O'Reilly's hurt the credibility of all combat journalists." ...

... David Folkenflik of NPR: O'Reilly's "behavior is of a piece with our political age, but it stands at great odds with the journalistic pursuit of fact and truth that is supposed to undergird even the opinions ventured through major media outlets.... We should care about what O'Reilly's response says about him -- and about Fox News. The channel's chairman, Roger Ailes, prizes tribal loyalty over journalistic precision." ...

... Jim Naureckas of FAIR: Dylan Byers of Politico is helping Bill O'Reilly get away with making up stuff. "Byers totally swallows O'Reilly's spin that when he said he was "in the Falklands," he didn't think anyone would think he meant he was IN the FALKLANDS." ...

... Tom Scocca of Gawker: "Dylan Byers, the dumbest media reporter alive, has typed up some thoughts at The Politico about, as his headline puts it, "Why the Bill O'Reilly charges aren't sticking.... As Byers explains, the reason Bill O'Reilly isn't being held accountable for bullshitting about his war-reporter heroics is that the Mother Jones reporters who broke the news were the wrong people to do the story, and they did the story wrong. They 'weren't war veterans' but 'liberal reporters at an admittedly liberal magazine.' And they failed to 'deliver conclusive evidence of Choppergate-level sins.'... So what if [O'Reilly's] experience in the Falklands war was bogus? So is his experience in the War on Christmas. The fact that people are calling him dishonest simply proves, from Fox's point of view, that he's doing his job.... Byers blames Mother Jones for coming after O'Reilly with a story that 'could be argued away on semantics.'" ...

... CW: In fairness to O'Reilly, he is on the frontlines of the War on Journalism. ...

... CW: Anyways, this all reminds me of my perilous experiences in the Viet Nam War. I was working for the ABC network at the time, & my boss sent me, unarmed, right into the then-most dangerous war zone in the world. Others would say that my boss sent me on an errand to downtown Los Angeles, where I had to walk thru a Viet Nam War protest, & that the actual war zone was thousands of miles away. But That's Semantics.

Another "Journalist" in a Life-Threatening Danger Zone. From the right-wing "media watchdog" Truth Revolt: "Conservative journalist filmmaker James O'Keefe on Saturday tweeted an ominous message to those who follow him and his influential work. 'We have a story we're going to release this coming week and I've never thought about this before but I am afraid for my life on this one,' O'Keefe announced Saturday afternoon. What the story is one can only speculate, but for this one to be particularly risky in O'Keefe's estimation is saying something."

Dear Fox "News": Here is why you don't hire someone to co-anchor the morning news who "is a beauty queen from Springfield, Missouri who has competed in the Miss USA pageant": Rich Juzwiak of Gawker: "Fox 8's Kristi Capel marveled over Lady Gaga's Oscar performance by saying that generally, 'It's hard to hear her voice with all the jigaboo music...that she...whatever you want to call it...jigaboo, haha!'... Later, when she was called out for using a derogatory term for black people to describe Lady Gaga's music, she apologized on Twitter, explaining, 'I had no idea it was a word or what it meant.'"

Presidential Race

Kate Zernicke of the New York Times: "In a major blow to Gov. Chris Christie, a New Jersey judge ruled on Monday that he violated state law when he declined to make the full payment into the state's pension system for public employees last year and ordered him to find a way to fund it now. The decision further complicates Mr. Christie's hopes of reviving his presidential ambitions, which have suffered in recent weeks as his approval ratings in New Jersey have sunk to the lowest point of his tenure, and Republican donors have moved to other contenders for the party's nomination." ...

... Matt Arco of NJ.com: "Gov. Chris Christie [Monday] lashed out against a state judge who ruled the governor violated the contractual rights of public workers by cutting $1.57 billion from pension payments in New Jersey's current budget. The governor's office decried the ruling of Superior Court Judge Mary Jacobson as 'liberal judicial activism' in a statement after she ruled against the administration. Christie will appeal the ruling...."

Frank Rich on the "Ben Carson for President!" charade. Thanks to MAG for the link.

Dana Milbank: Scott Walker's refusal to acknowledge President Obama's Christianity "is insidious, and goes beyond last week's questioning of Obama's patriotism, because it allows Walker to wink and nod at the far-right fringe where people really believe that Obama is a Muslim from Kenya who hates America.... Beyond that, Walker's technique shuts down all debate, because there's no way to have a constructive argument once you've disqualified your opponent as unpatriotic, un-Christian and anti-American."

William Booth of the Washington Post: For "$5,250, including round-trip airfare from New York [to Israel], five-star hotel accommodations, all meals, deluxe motor-coach transport, licensed guides and all fees, tips and taxes," you can tour supposed Christian sites in Israel. And there's an extra-special bonus: your tour guide will be Mike Huckabee. "Though busy preparing for another run for the White House, Huckabee is currently shepherding his flock of 253 paying guests around Israel for 10 days." It gets worse: "The Huckabeeans also heard from Morton Klein, national president of the Zionist Organization of America, who explained to the group, according to Huckabee, that there's really no such thing as the 'Palestinians.'"

Beyond the Beltway

Kate Mather of the Los Angeles Times: "Prosecutors have declined to file criminal charges against three Los Angeles police officers who shot and killed an unarmed man at the end of a televised pursuit in 2013.... Late last year, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck determined the officers violated department rules in the shooting, rejecting their claims that they had opened fire because they felt their lives were in danger."

Chuck Lindell of the Austin Statesman: "The state's highest criminal court Monday evening halted the planned execution of Rodney Reed 10 days before the Bastrop man was to have been put to death for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites. In a 6-2 ruling, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed Reed's execution based on a recently filed petition claiming that a new look at old forensic evidence shows Reed was innocent of the crime."

Juan Lozano of the AP: "Evidence from more than 6,600 rape kits that went untested for years in Houston have turned up 850 hits in the FBI's nationwide database of DNA profiles, marking a major step in the city's $6 million effort to address the backlog, officials announced Monday. Charges have been filed against 29 people, six of whom have been convicted, since the city launched an effort in 2013 to test 6,663 rape kits -- some of which dated back nearly three decades."

Mommy Has a Baby in Her Tummy. Kimberly Kruesi of the AP: "An Idaho lawmaker received a brief lesson on female anatomy after asking if a woman can swallow a small camera for doctors to conduct a remote gynecological exam. The question Monday from Republican state Rep. Vito Barbieri [R] came as the House State Affairs Committee heard nearly three hours of testimony on a bill that would ban doctors from prescribing abortion-inducing medication through telemedicine." When the doctor who was testifying "replied that would be impossible because swallowed pills do not end up in the vagina" Barbieri said, "'Fascinating. That makes sense,' ... amid the crowd's laughter." Barbieri later claimed he was "being rhetorical." ...

... Merriam-Webster Dictionary, Revised Standard Edition: "rhetorical. adjective: [1] of, relating to, or concerned with the art of speaking or writing formally and effectively especially as a way to persuade or influence people; [2] of a question: asked in order to make a statement rather than to get an answer"; [3] of a question: asked in order to demonstrate one is ignorant beyond belief. ...

... CW: Never forget this, oh Women of Idaho: Vito Barbieri is a man who thinks he is qualified to decide what you can do with your body. And damned if he isn't acting on that belief: "Monday afternoon Barbieri told The Spokesman-Review that he adamantly supports the bill" which further limits a woman's right to choose. In addition (you won't want to read this if you have an upset vagina because you might puke), Barbieri "sits on the board of a crisis pregnancy center in northern Idaho."

News Ledes

USA Today: "Eddie Ray Routh, the former Marine and Iraq War vet struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder, was found guilty of capital murder Tuesday night in the shooting deaths of American Sniper Chris Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield."

Washington Post: "Islamic State militants in eastern Syria have captured at least 70 Assyrian Christians -- including many women and children -- in one of the largest recent abductions against religious minorities by the extremists, watchdog groups said Tuesday."

New York Times: "As European diplomats labored to patch up a flagging peace agreement in Ukraine on Tuesday, Russia warned the Ukrainians that they could run out of natural gas within two days because of a dispute over payments."

Washington Post: Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler, "the book that once served as a kind of Nazi bible and that was banned from domestic reprints since the end of World War II will soon be returning to German bookstores from the Alps to the Baltic Sea. The prohibition on reissue for years was upheld by the state of Bavaria, which owns the German copyright and legally blocked attempts to duplicate it. But those rights expire in December, and the first new print run here since Hitler's death is due out early next year."

"ABC News has learned [that Trayvon] Martin's family will soon be notified that the Justice Department will not be filing charges against George Zimmerman, who shot the 17-year-old after a confrontation in 2012. Thursday marks three years to the day since Martin was killed." ...

... The New York Times story is here.

Politico: "The chairman of a key global climate change panel has resigned following an investigation into a researcher's claims of sexual harassment against him. India's Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, stepped down this morning in a letter to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, adding that he had intended to leave after the release of a major report last August. Pachauri had chaired the committee since 2002, and shared in its 2007 Nobel Peace Prize."

The Commentariat -- Feb. 23, 2015

Internal links removed.

** Paul Krugman: Education is the new Bowles-Simpson: "... whatever serious people may want to believe, soaring inequality isn't about education; it's about power." ...

... Lawrence Mishel, in a New York Times op-ed: "Contrary to conventional wisdom, wage stagnation is not a result of forces beyond our control. It is a result of a policy regime that has undercut the individual and collective bargaining power of most workers. Because wage stagnation was caused by policy, it can be reversed by policy, too." ...

... Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Robert Reich: "The rise of 'independent contractors' Is the most significant legal trend in the American workforce -- contributing directly to low pay, irregular hours, and job insecurity. What makes them 'independent contractors' is the mainly that the companies they work for say they are. So those companies don't have to pick up the costs of having full-time employees. But are they really 'independent'? Companies can manipulate their hours and expenses to make them seem so. It's become a race to the bottom." Thanks to Janicefor the link.

Juan Williams in the Hill: "After a terrible, bone-breaking accident and two eye surgeries, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the former Senate Majority Leader, is scheduled to be back on Capitol Hill this week. Somehow the bruised Reid looks good compared to the new Republican Majority Leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.). In just over a month, McConnell has come to look like the beaten man. He is on the brink of breaking his promise to avoid shutting down government agencies.... 'It's not a good start for the future,' Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) conceded. 'But hopefully we'll get it put together.'" ...

Rebecca Shabad of the Hill: "Lawmakers will begin returning to Washington on Monday with only five days left to prevent a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)." ...

... Here's Jeh Johnson Scaring Me Again. John Bacon & David Jackson of USA Today: "The secretary of Homeland Security warned shoppers at Minnesota's iconic Mall of America and similar venues to be vigilant in the wake of new terrorist threats. 'I'm not telling people to not go to the mall,' Secretary Jeh Johnson said Sunday on NBC's Meet The Press. 'I think that there needs to be an awareness.'... Hours later, department spokeswoman Marsha Catron said in a statement, 'We are not aware of any specific, credible plot against the Mall of America or any other domestic commercial shopping center.'" ...

... Really, Marsha? Caitlin MacNeal of TPM: "The Mall of America has increased its security after a video online purported to show al Shabaab, a terrorist group associated with al Qaeda, threatening to attack the Minnesota mall, according to multiple news reports. The group called for an attack similar to the one it carried out in the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya. According to USA Today, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security are both aware of the threat." ...

... Oh, for Pete's Sake. Jon Swaine of the Guardian: "The US homeland security secretary on Sunday seized on a new threat of attacks against western shopping centres by Islamist terrorists to pressure Congress to avert a partial shutdown of his department and agree to a funding deal. Jeh Johnson said a propaganda video released by al-Shabaab on Saturday calling for strikes on the Mall of America in Minnesota, Oxford Street and two Westfield malls in London, and Canada's West Edmonton Mall, showed 'all the more reason why I need a budget'."

Kevin Cirilli of the Hill: "President Obama is expected to speak to the AARP on Monday afternoon to discuss retirement-related issues, according to multiple sources familiar with the speech. Obama's remarks come as his administration has put new emphasis in recent weeks on considering regulations -- dubbed 'fiduciary standards' -- for the financial advice industry that are vehemently opposed by the business community. A senior House staffer and two financial services industry sources each said they expect Obama to discuss the new regulations, which administration officials are expected to move ahead with any day."

Reid Wilson of the Washington Post: "Governors of those 34 states, even the Republicans who oppose the Affordable Care Act, say they are concerned at the chaos that could ensue if the court rules the federal subsidies unconstitutional." Via Greg Sargent.

Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: Police are using cell-tower simulators, called Stingrays, to collects "information not just about a criminal suspect's communications but also about the communications of potentially hundreds of law-abiding citizens.... A gag order imposed by the FBI -- on grounds that discussing the device's operation would compromise its effectiveness -- has left judges, the public and criminal defendants in the dark on how the tool works.... So far, there is virtually no case law on how the Fourth Amendment -- which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures -- should apply to this technology."

Truth-Deniers. Terrence McCoy of the Washington Post: "Over the weekend, Greenpeace released a batch of documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act that showed [aerospace engineer Willie] Soon received more than $1.2 million from Exxon Mobil, Southern Company, the American Petroleum Institute and the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.... Conservatives denounced the weekend's revelations regarding Soon's funding. Blogs cited the reports as further evidence of a concerted campaign to silence scientists like Soon, who they say need to seek alternative avenues of funding thanks to the establishment.

Gail Collins interviewed Justice Ruth Ginsburg for the Times Sunday Review, & I missed it. Collin's column is delightful.

 

Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: "Giuliani must have muted the sound whenever Obama spoke. He certainly has every right to his opinion about the tenor of the president's remarks. But he has no business claiming something that is so factually incorrect -- or easily disproved."

Jeff Toobin in the New Yorker: "... since [Rudy] Giuliani's disastrous run for the Republican Presidential nomination, in 2008, he has become a national embarrassment of a distinctive type.... At one level, one could see Giuliani's statements as simply incorrect.... But Giuliani's attacks on the President are not principally meant as assertions of fact. They are meant to tap into a deep wellspring of American political thought, one defined by the Columbia historian Richard Hofstadter five decades ago. In an article in Harper's, Hofstadter described 'the paranoid style in American politics,' which he said was characterized by 'heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy.'"

David Edwards of the Raw Story: "Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) on Sunday suggested that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) had increased the national security of the United States by saying that President Barack Obama did not love America.... [CNN's Gloria] Borger pointed out that Giuliani's comments went beyond national security policy. 'These remarks were hateful,' she observed.... Issa replied, '... Now, the reality is I believe the president believes strongly in America, I just think he views America differently."

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.

Heather of Crooks & Liars: "Brian Stelter spoke to former CBS correspondent Eric Engberg about his recent post questioning Bill O'Reilly's version of events on his reporting in Argentina":

... Lloyd Grove of the Daily Beast: "On the friendly territory of Media Buzz — on which host [Howard] Kurtz framed the dispute over O'Reilly's claims as a matter of 'semantics,' not facts and exaggerations -- O'Reilly spent as much time attacking his critics as defending his assertions." CW: As a matter of semantics, I won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009. And the Oscar for Best Song last night. (Some quibblers might say I only watched the acceptance speeches of the "real" winners.) ...

... Video of the Kurtz segment is here. Jessica Contrera of the Washington Post reports on it, if you don't care to watch. ...

... O'Reilly Never Played Well with Others. Terrence McCoy: CBS News could hardly wait to get rid of cub reporter Bill O'Reilly, whom the news organization kicked out of Buenos Aires for being a "'disruptive force' who threatened his bureau's morale and cohesion," according to Eric Engberg. "... retired CBS national editor Sam Roberts in a Facebook thread beneath Engberg's Facebook post.... 'Dan Rather walked into my office and shut the door," Roberts wrote. 'He said, "Under no circumstances is O'Reilly to be assigned any story for the Evening News."'" When O'Reilly's agent called Roberts a few weeks later, Roberts told the agent O'Reilly should take a local station job he had been offered. "He'll never make it here," Robert told the agent." ...

... MEANWHILE, the New York Times finally gets around to O'Reilly. CW: It looks as if reporter Emily Steel has produced a good piece to put in the portfolio she presents with her Fox "News" employment application.

Jim Romenesko: "Investigative reporter Ken Silverstein has resigned from First Look Media's The Intercept after 14 months, saying he and others were hired 'under what were essentially false pretenses [by being] told we would be given all the financial and other support we needed to do independent, important journalism, but instead found ourselves blocked at every step of the way by management's incompetence and bad faith.'" From Silverstein's Facebook page, Feb. 20: "You know what's cool about being a former employee of First Look/The Intercept? That Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, Betsy Reed and Pierre Omidyar all believe in Free Speech and the First Amendment so they won't mind my writing about my time working for and with them. Tentative title: 'Welcome to the Slaughterhouse.'"

Presidential Race

James Hohmann of Politico: "... being seen as a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination is testing whether the 47-year-old [Scott] Walker is really ready for the klieg lights. Since saying 'I'm going to punt' when asked about evolution in London 10 days ago, operatives from rival campaigns have begun quietly raising doubts about his preparedness. He's also taken heat from establishment Republicans for meeting with Donald Trump...." ...

... Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: Scott Walker is "making an aggressive effort to win the hearts of the party’s Christian conservatives. In doing so, he is stressing a much harder line on social issues than he did just a few months ago, when he faced a robust challenge from a well-funded Democratic woman in his run for re-election as governor. The shift in emphasis and tone is noticeable not only on abortion, but also on same-sex marriage, another issue of intense interest to social conservatives." ...

... Steve Benen: Walker "won't say whether he accepts modern biology. He won't say whether Obama loves America. He won't say whether the Christian president is a Christian. He has a record of repeatedly dodging simple, straightforward questions, which most political leaders are able to answer effortlessly. It may be debatable whether these are good questions. It's not debatable that Walker has provided cringe-worthy answers.... In recent weeks, he's made a fine impression with radical elements of the Republican Party's base, but he's simultaneously making it clear to everyone else that when it comes to genuine leadership abilities, Scott Walker is obviously not ready for prime time." ...

... Robert Samuels of the Washington Post: "The anti-union law passed [in Wisconsin] four years ago, which made Gov. Scott Walker a national Republican star and a possible presidential candidate, has turned out to be even more transformative than many had predicted.... The once-thriving public-sector unions were not just shrunken -- they were crippled." (See also Paul Krugman's column & Lawrence Samuels' NYT op-ed, linked above.)

Fracking Man. Adam Smith & Alex Leary of the Tampa Bay Times: Jeb Bush suddenly started speaking about the joys of fracking right after he & his family made big investments in -- fracking. "The technology is not just a key part of his policy on energy and the economy, but foreign policy as well..... Bush's fracking investments are not the only time his private business life has overlapped with his public policy advocacy. His work as an education reformer coincided with his financial stake in Academic Partnerships, an online higher education company." Via David Atkins. ...

... Karen Tumulty & Alice Crites of the Washington Post: Columba Bush, Jeb's wife, likes to buy expensive jewelry. Also, she's a famous tax cheat. But we knew that.

News Lede

Guardian: "Stuart Gulliver, the HSBC chief executive who has vowed to reform the crisis-hit bank, sheltered millions of pounds in a Swiss account through a Panamanian company and remains tax domiciled in Hong Kong."

The Commentariat -- Feb. 22, 2015

Internal links removed.

Phil Stewart of Reuters: "The United States is considering slowing a planned withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan to ensure that 'progress sticks' after more than a decade of war, new Defense Secretary Ash Carter said during an unannounced visit to Kabul on Saturday."

Carol Morello & Michael Birnbaum of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration is weighing a new round of sanctions against Russia in response to its continued 'land-grabbing' in eastern Ukraine despite a cease-fire agreement, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Saturday. Speaking to reporters in London, where he met with British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, Kerry said he expected that the United States and its European allies would impose some 'very serious' sanctions and other steps to punish Moscow after repeated cease-fire violations by Russian-backed Ukrainian separatists."

** William Saleton of Slate explains President Obama's remarks about terrorism & Islam. "He sees the connections but chooses to be careful in how he talks about them. If his language isn't as blunt as yours, maybe that's not because you're more clearheaded about the threat or more courageous in facing it. Maybe he has good reasons, and you should listen to them." CW: You can use Saleton's careful explanation the next time your Crazy Uncle Rudy starts railing about the POTUS. Try this: "Look, Rudy, what you're doing is giving the terrorists what they want. And you're encouraging more Muslims to become terrorists. Obama isn't the danger here; you are." With any luck, Rudy won't even show up at Thanksgiving this year.

** Nicholas Kristof: "Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, a Duke University sociologist, aptly calls the present situation 'racism without racists'; it could equally be called 'misogyny without misogynists.' Of course, there are die-hard racists and misogynists out there, but the bigger problem seems to be well-meaning people who believe in equal rights yet make decisions that inadvertently transmit both racism and sexism." Read the results of the studies Kristof cites. Life isn't fair.

This Climate Scientist for Hire. Justin Gillis & John Schwartz of the New York Times: One of a handful of climate-denying scientists, who is the go-to guy for confederates & oil companies, has taken cash for the papers -- what he calls "deliverables" -- he writes for the fossil-fuel industry. Documents newly-released under a Greenpeace FOIA request "show that corporate contributions were tied to specific papers and were not disclosed, as required by modern standards of publishing.... Though often described on conservative news programs as a 'Harvard astrophysicist,' Dr. [Willie] Soon is not an astrophysicist and has never been employed by Harvard. He is a part-time employee of the Smithsonian Institution with a doctoral degree in aerospace engineering." CW: The irony here is that perhaps the most common argument from deniers (up there with "God is the culprit") is that greed-for-grants motivates most climate scientists' work. I guess the childish taunt, "It takes one to know one" has teeth.

Democrats: We Need a Bumper Sticker!" Mario Trujillo of the Hill: "The Democratic Party lacks a 'single narrative' and must tighten its pitch to voters in order to compete in future elections, an interim report from the Democratic National Committee found. The report released at the party's winter meeting recommended forming a national project to bring together party leaders, activists and messaging experts to hone in on a theme." ...

... CW: Well, yeah, that's true. But the real problem is that Democrats have been running away from their traditional themes -- which pretty much explains why voters don't know what, if anything, they stand for.

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Steve M. is fairly furious that the media seem only now to be noticing that Rudy Giuliani is a bigoted ideologue. Rudy's remarks, & his doubling-down on them, is classic Giuliani; it's not a newly-minted Crazy Uncle Rudy. ...

     ... Update. Steve has gone from furious to perplexed: "... it always surprises me when people who have power and clout utter pronouncements that are indistinguishable from the crap your right-wing uncle forwards you every few days.... Giuliani ... may have once been a serious candidate for president of the United States and he may now be a globetrotting international security consultant, but he wallows in the same pool of ignorance as your uncle.... That's what are right-wing elites are like now -- they're ignoramuses with money." ...

... Darren Samuelsohn & Ben Schreckinger of Politico: "Rudy Giuliani says he is getting death threats at his office in the wake of controversial comments that President Barack Obama doesn't love America.... Giuliani didn't tell CNN if he had alerted police to those calls...."

     ... CW: Why would Rudy have to alert the police? He is, after all, a "globetrotting international security expert." He can swat these flies away all by hisself. ...

... CW: If you go back to mid-January & follow Rudy's logic, as he expressed it to fellow-theologian & philosopher Sean Hannity, you will kinda have to conclude that Giuliani thinks President Obama is a Muslim. ...

... Dave Weigel tries to put the Rudy Giuliani media frenzy in context. CW: Weigel is missing one element: by concentrating on Rudy (i.e., beating a dead horse), the media can pretend they're way too busy to pursue Bill O'Reilly's tall-tale reportage. ...

... Lloyd Grove of the Daily Beast tries to explain why O'Reilly gets away with his fake claims. ...

... BUT, Thank You, Erik Wemple of the Washington Post: "The apparent goal of O'Reilly's frenzy was to keep the story from breaking into the next week. A Facebook posting by a former CBS News correspondent, however, appears likely to keep the questions flowing toward the O'Reilly camp. An extensive rant by Eric Jon Engberg, who served as a CBS News correspondent for 27 years, calls into question several of O'Reilly's statements about the reporting -- and O'Reilly's subsequent recollections of it.... Now that a nearly three-decade CBS News correspondent has spoken up, O'Reilly will have to find a new defense." CW: Too bad Wemple's blog doesn't appear in print. ...

... CW: Both Engberg & Wemple conclude that O'Reilly's fabrications don't rise to the level of Williams' "claim[ing] to be the target of an enemy attack." But for some odd reason, Engberg & Wemple ignore O'Reilly's multiple claims & implications that he was reporting in the Falkland Islands, not in Buenos Aires. At least Williams was in the vicinity of where he "claimed to be the target," not 1,000+ miles away.

God News

Where was the Bible written, again? -- Jon Stewart, on Alabama's anti-Sharia Law state constitutional amendment, which, because of a little quirk of the U.S. Constitution, was written to exclude judicial consideration of "foreign law" ...

... CW: Brian Tashman:'s post, linked below, is a bit old, but I think it's helpful in understanding not just where the confederates are going, but whence they come:

... Brian Tashman of Right Wing Watch: "Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore threw his state into turmoil ... when he ordered probate judges to defy a federal judge's ruling striking down the state's ban on same-sex marriage.... Moore, who has a history of making extreme anti-gay statements, insists that the federal judge is the one who is really breaking the law since she violated divine law by ruling for marriage equality. Moore's call for statewide defiance of the federal judiciary's 'tyranny' stems from a belief that the Constitution was made to protect biblical commandments, so that anything that goes against his personal interpretation of the Bible is therefore in violation of the Constitution. Moore shares that belief with a powerful ally: Michael Peroutka, a neo-Confederate activist who is also one of the most influential behind-the-scenes figures in the Religious Right's reimagining of American law." ...

... CW: I found Tashman's piece via Paul Rosenberg, who covers the same topic -- though more extensively -- in Salon. Rosenberg's piece is rather first-drafty, so you'll have to do your own editing. ...

... In case you still think Christian Reconstructionism is just a far-out, fringey thing, here's more evidence of its pervasiveness:

... Dave Boucher of the Tennessean: "That reference to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence isn't enough for Rep. James VanHuss, R-Jonesborough. He wants to change the Tennessee constitution so that it includes the phrase: 'We recognize that our liberties do not come from governments, but from Almighty God, our Creator and Savior.' That's in addition to Rep. Jerry Sexton's bill that would make the Bible the official book of Tennessee."

Jim Yardley of the New York Times: Recent news that James Foley, an American whom ISIS murdered, had converted from Roman Catholicism to Islam, has discomfited some Roman Catholics who viewed him as a Christian martyr.

Presidential Race

Redeemer Boy. Maureen Dowd: "Jeb ... wanted to bolster his negligible foreign policy cred, so the day of his speech, his aide released a list of 21 advisers, 19 of whom had worked in the administrations of his father and his brother. The list starts with the estimable James Baker. But then it shockingly veers into warmongers. It's mind-boggling.... If he wants to reclaim the Bush honor, Jeb should be holding accountable those who inflicted deep scars on America, not holding court with them. Where's the shame?"

Scott Walker still has no idea if President Obama loves the U.S., & he isn't sure if Obama is a Christian, either. As to MSM reporters asking him these questions, he objects. CW: I think he has a point, but it's a weak one. ...

... Here's the story, by Dan Balz & Robert Costa, where the reporters ask him if President Obama is a Christian. "Told that Obama has frequently spoken publicly about his Christian faith, Walker maintained that he was not aware of the president's religion.... Walker suggested that he is being held to a different standard than some Democrats." Later on, Walker's spokesperson Jocelyn Webster changed the story: "Of course the governor thinks the president is a Christian." ...

... CW: So (a) the liberal media are picking on me; (b) ask my spokeslady. This guy should definitely quit doing Q&As because he has no As. ...

... David Atkins in the Washington Monthly: "Conservative media mouthpieces have spent so much time not only denigrating any social policy to the left of Attila the Hun but questioning the President's very allegiance and faith, that conservative candidates looking to win a GOP primary can't help but engage on these most ridiculous of questions. All of which buoys the conventional wisdom that any Republican candidate to emerge from the GOP primary clown car is going to wind up weakened and battered by the process rather than strengthened. Republican primary voters wouldn't have it any other way."

Beyond the Beltway

Today in Responsible Gun Ownership. Chris Michaud of Reuters: "A recently retired suburban New York police office[r] shot and killed his two daughters before killing himself at the family's home.... Glen Hochman, 52, who retired from the White Plains police force last month, killed two daughters, ages 17 and 13, before killing himself in Harrison, an affluent town about 15 miles northeast of New York City.... Hochman's wife and an older daughter were not home at the time." ...

... Steve Barnes of Reuters: "A university professor, his wife and his sister were found shot to death on Friday night in the family's burning home in a prosperous Little Rock suburb, Arkansas authorities said. 'The initial indication is murder-suicide, but it's an open investigation so I can't comment beyond that,' Captain Jim Hansard of the Maumelle, Arkansas police department, said on Saturday."

Today in Stupid. Nicole Garcia of KSAZ Phoenix, Arizona: A prank caller, posing as Circle K corporate security, urged Circle K employees to discharge fire extinguishers inside the store, although there was no fire, then throw the extinguishers through the store's plate glass windows. So they did. "Circle K Corporate asked FOX 10, not to run this story." CW: Oh, thank the Founders for freedom of the press. ...

... CW Sunday Sermon: It would be more fun to laugh at the employees for stupid if I didn't have a powerful suspicion that their corporate controllers had frightened these minimum-wage serfs into unquestioning submission. So the stupid is probably corporate scare tactics imposed by the same yahoos who tried to quash the story. As ye sow, so shall ye reap.

News Ledes

New York Times: "The Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization were found liable on Monday by a jury in Manhattan for their role in knowingly supporting six terrorist attacks in Israel between 2002 and 2004 in which Americans were killed and injured. The damages are to be $655.5 million, under a special terrorism law that provides for tripling the $218.5 million awarded by the jury in Federal District Court."

AP: "A river ferry carrying about 100 passengers capsized in central Bangladesh on Sunday after being hit by a cargo vessel, killing at least 31 people, officials said. A rescue operation was underway, but it was not clear how many people were missing."