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The Commentariat -- Dec. 23, 2014
Internal links, defunct graphic & photo removed.
... Thanks to safari for the link.
CW: As my god Mithras pushes back, ever so slowly, against the darkness, let us acknowledge this:
** Charles Pierce: "This is an incredibly perilous time for democracy at the most basic levels.... If the CIA is insubordinate to the president, whom the country elected, then it is insubordinate to all of us. If the NYPD runs a slow-motion coup against the freely elected mayor of New York, then it is running a slow-motion coup against all the people of New York." ...
... This Is Stupid. Marc Santora of the New York Times: "Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday called for protesters to suspend demonstrations in the aftermath of the killing of two New York police officers, who were gunned down in Brooklyn as they sat in their patrol car." CW: Yes, please. Let's let a (now-dead) maniac control the conversation. ...
... Digby: "Siding with victims of police brutality is reason for 'blue rage' in the police department? That tells you something." ...
... This Is Stupid, Too. Sebastian Murdock of the Huffington Post: NYPD Chief Bill Bratton "appeared to place blame [for the police killings] on recent demonstrations following the non-indictments of officers involved in the killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. 'It's quite obvious that the targeting of these two police officers was a direct spinoff of the issues of these demonstrations,' Bratton said." ...
... New York Times Editors: "Mr. Bratton had chosen his words poorly earlier in the day, in a morning TV interview, saying that 'the targeting of these two police officers was a direct spinoff of this issue of these demonstrations.'" CW: Yeah, poor word choice. ...
... Jerry Markon & Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: "A coalition of protest groups released a statement blasting both Bratton and the police union, accusing them of trying to link the protests to the officers' shootings as a way of silencing the demonstrations." ...
... Digby again: "... are to understand that the problem is that if you protest the killing of unarmed black citizens you are sending a message to the police that black people are out to get them? How far down the rabbit hole do we have to go for that to make sense?.... If [police officers] are unable to act in a professional manner, 'keep calm and carry on' in the face of criticism then they really are far too delicate to be cops." ...
... Washington Post Editors (sometimes get it right): "... those who have protested the killings of Eric Garner, Michael Brown and others bear no responsibility for the twisted mind and crimes of [Ismaaiyl] Brinsley, who committed suicide after killing the two officers. On the contrary: It is in the long-term interest of the police, as well as of the communities they serve, to shape reforms that might reduce the incidence of police violence while still valuing officers' safety and fighting crime.... Finding the right balance won't be easy. It's made more difficult by inflammatory, unsupported rhetoric like that of [Rudy] Giuliani." ...
... Gene Robinson: "It is absurd to have to say this, but New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, activist Al Sharpton and President Obama are in no way responsible for the coldblooded assassination of two police officers in Brooklyn on Saturday. Nor do the tens of thousands of Americans who have demonstrated against police brutality in recent weeks bear any measure of blame.... No one better appreciates the need for an active, engaged police presence than residents of high-crime neighborhoods. But nobody should be expected to welcome policing that treats whole communities as guilty until proved innocent -- or a justice system that considers black and brown lives disposable." ...
... Ben Kamisar of the Hill: "Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) on Monday said police union leaders should be more focused on keeping guns from the insane than pointing fingers at politicians over the murder of two New York City policemen. Rangel offered criticism of New York City police union leaders who have directed their ire at New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio." ...
We've had four months of propaganda starting with the president that everybody should hate the police. -- Rudy Giuliani ...
... CW: Paul Waldman echoes a sentiment I expressed the other day: "It's hard to find words to describe what a despicable lie this is.... Every single time Barack Obama has spoken about these issues, he has stressed that violence of any kind, even when people are protesting over legitimate grievances, is utterly wrong and unacceptable. He makes sure, in all his public statements, to include praise of police officers. If he had ever said anything like 'everybody should hate the police,' it would have been rather dramatic, to say the least. But he never said anything even remotely resembling that." ...
... A major part of the problem is that Rudy Sack o'Shit Giuliani made his remarks on Fox "News." You can bet Foxbots don't listen to President Obama's speeches, so they only way they "learn" what he has said is through the Fox filter. Ergo, they now believe -- since America's Mayor said it was so -- that Obama has spent four months whipping up hatred of the police, when nothing could be further from the truth. ...
... Half a Nation of Halfwits. Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast: "... two decades' worth of statistics tell us that black men are killed by police at 21 times the rate white men are, and yet half the public has persuaded itself that police treat blacks and whites no differently."
... CW: Speaking of Halfwits, contributor Mae F. points out that Rudy Giuliani has fingered me as an identity thief. (Yes, the actor who plays the thief Marie is a deadringer for me.)
Michael Weissenstein & Andrea Rodriguez of the AP: "Cuba said Monday that it has a right to grant asylum to U.S. fugitives, the clearest sign yet that the communist government has no intention of extraditing America's most-wanted woman despite the warming of bilateral ties. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has urged President Barack Obama to demand the return of fugitive Joanne Chesimard before restoring full relations under a historic detente announced by Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro last week."
Foster Klug & Hyung-Jin Kim of the AP: "AP: "Key North Korean websites were back online Tuesday after a nearly 10-hour shutdown that followed a U.S. vow to respond to a crippling cyberattack on Sony Pictures that Washington blames on Pyongyang. It wasn't immediately clear what caused the Internet stoppage in one of the least-wired and poorest countries in the world, but outside experts said it could be anything from a cyberattack to a simple power failure. The White House and the State Department declined to say whether the U.S. government was responsible." ...
... Nicole Perlroth & David Sanger of the New York Times: "North Korea's already tenuous links to the Internet went completely dark on Monday after days of instability, in what Internet monitors described as one of the worst North Korean network failures in years. The loss of service came just days after President Obama pledged that the United States would launch a 'proportional response' to the recent attacks on Sony Pictures, which government officials have linked to North Korea.... The biggest impact would be felt by the country's elite, state-run media channels and its propagandists, as well as its cadre of cyberwarriors. If the attack was American in origin -- something the United States would probably never acknowledge -- it would be a rare effort by the United States to attack a nation's Internet connections." ...
... Everett Rosenfeld of CNBC: "When asked for comment, a White House National Security Council representative told CNBC, 'We don't have any new announcements on North Korea today.' 'We aren't going to discuss publicly operational details about the possible response options or comment on those kind of reports in anyway except to say that as we implement our responses, some will be seen, some may not be seen,' Marie Harf, a deputy spokeswoman at the State Department, said during a media briefing."
... The Washington Post story, by Cecilia Kang, et al., is here. ...
... Sam Biddle of Gawker: "The evidence linking agents of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to the recent digital implosion of Sony remains vague. And even though the feds are squarely blaming North Korea, many security experts aren't buying it." ...
... Sheera Frenkel of BuzzFeed: "Cybersecurity experts looking at the FBI's explanation for why North Korea was behind the Sony hack say the logic keeps coming up short, as they increasingly question whether someone else could be behind one of the worst hacks in U.S. history. These experts have called into question the timeline of the attack, aspects of the language used, and the capabilities of North Korea's bandwidth. Some say the FBI was too quick to point the finger without looking further than the most obvious clues in the malware."
Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "The State Department envoy who negotiates detainee transfers from the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, is resigning, dealing another blow to President Obama's efforts to close a facility that top administration officials say is a blight on the country's international standing. The resignation of Cliff Sloan, a close confidant of Secretary of State John Kerry, comes as officials at the State Department and the White House have increasingly expressed frustration with the Defense Department's slow pace of transferring approved prisoners."
Ho Ho Ho. William Rashbaum of the New York Times: "Representative Michael G. Grimm, a Republican from Staten Island who was easily re-elected to his third term in Congress last month despite a pending federal indictment, has agreed to plead guilty to a single felony charge of tax fraud, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.... A guilty plea by the congressman, who has steadfastly maintained his innocence, would almost certainly put him under tremendous pressure to resign." ...
... John Bresnahan & Jake Sherman of Politico: House Speaker John "Boehner's office declined to comment, and an aide to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) did not respond to a request for comment." ...
... Ben Jacobs & David Freedlander of the Daily Beast: "Grimm faces no legal pressure to leave office. There is no requirement for a member of Congress to resign after pleading guilty to a felony. However, House Rule XXIII suggests that a representative who has been convicted of an offense that may result in at least two years' imprisonment should 'refrain from voting.' A report by the Congressional Research Service notes that members are 'expected to abide by this rule, even though it is technically advisory.'"
Lucy McCalmont of Politico: "Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says his biggest challenge will be righting the course of Congress, adding -- in a swipe at outgoing Majority Leader Harry Reid -- that his own chamber 'basically didn't do squat for years.'" CW: Yeah, that was Harry Reid's fault. ...
... Here's Carl Hulse of the New York Times on McConnell's big challenge. CW: Aw, poor Mitch. In the spirit of the season, let's see what the evangelist Paul had to say about that: "... whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap."
What we're simply striving for is accuracy in score keeping. We know for a fact that it is not accurate or prudent to ignore the effects of economic growth on policies we make in Congress. -- Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), incoming Chair of the House Ways & Means Committee & Famed Innumerato know for confusing Ayn Rand novels with facts ...
Funny how outlier theories become "facts" when they suit Republican ways & means. As for well-founded, near-universally accepted scientific theories? Not so much. Asked if human activity caused climate change, Ryan said, "I don't know the answer to that question," Ryan said. "I don't think science does, either." ...
... CW: I believe I mentioned this was coming. Dave Weigel of Bloomberg Politics: "Incoming Republican leaders in Congress won't reappoint Doug Elmendorf to another term as head of the Congressional Budget Office, according to a party aide briefed on the decision. The move comes after a campaign from conservative lawmakers who want to change the way the CBO calculates the costs of government, said the aide.... Republican lawmakers ... agreed with calls from incoming House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price for a new director who might introduce so-called dynamic scoring to CBO analysis." ...
... CW: So we will find ourselves with a partisan CBO, rendering any so-called analysis from that office meaningless. "Scoring" bills for their likely effects on the economy will become an exercise in numbers-massaging. This is not to suggest that the CBO always got it right -- as I recall, the office underestimated some of the positive effects of the ACA & the stimulus -- but the point is that the office tried to get it right. Now it will start with the GOP-preferred outcome & work backwards to find rationales that might support the pie-in-the-sky/fake intents of Republican legislation. We have all moved into Right Wing World, a place where facts don't matter.
It's about Doctors' Rights, Not Women's Rights. Sandhya Somashekhar of the Washington Post: "A Richmond appeals court panel on Monday rejected a North Carolina law requiring that women seeking abortions first undergo ultrasounds, with the fetal image displayed and described to them in detail by a doctor. The three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's finding that the 2011 law violated the free speech of doctors by forcing them to provide the image and description even if the woman averted her eyes or actively tried not to listen." ...
... Annals of "Justice," Ctd.
Just in Time for Christmas. Erik Eckholm of the New York Times: "A federal judge in Oklahoma City on Monday said that the state can resume executing prisoners this winter, rejecting the argument by some medical experts that using the same sedative involved in the bungled execution of Clayton D. Lockett in April amounted to an illegal experiment on human subjects. Judge Stephen P. Friot of Federal District Court, ruling against condemned prisoners who sought to delay new executions, said that lethal injection was more humane than historical methods like hanging, and that since the sedative in question, midazolam, had been successfully used in a dozen executions elsewhere, it should not be considered new or experimental." CW: Friot is a George W. Bush appointee.
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.
Gawker: "Last night, Baltimore's WBFF[, a Fox affiliate,] aired a video of protesters chanting 'kill a cop' -- evidence, it claimed, of murderously violent rhetoric on the part of anti-brutality protesters in Washington, D.C. The only problem? The protesters weren't chanting 'kill a cop' at all, and there's video evidence to prove it.... This week Baltimore's corrupt, inept, and ineffectual police department issued a statement in which they all but explicitly promised retaliatory violence for what they've characterized as an 'atmosphere of unnecessary hostility' created by politicians and pundits, but of course this line crumbles at the slightest scrutiny: police are killing civilians with impunity, and the media is doing the dirty work of casting those outraged about these killings as the true villains. If there's an atmosphere of unnecessary hostility, it is the direct handiwork of police and their apologists."
Egberto Willies in Daily Kos: "... Chuck Todd said that ... the tone of the president’s presentation of the new policy was not sufficiently deferential to the exile community in Florida." Thanks to P. D. Pepe for the link. CW: Just another example of why the public is ignorant: top media put more emphasis on phony superficialities than on substance. Yes, the President made an historic foreign policy advance, but what was his tone?
Alexandra Alter of the New York Times: "Rolling Stone magazine said Monday that it had asked the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism to conduct a review of a widely disputed article about a gang rape at the University of Virginia. In an editor's note that will appear in the magazine's next issue, Jann Wenner, Rolling Stone's editor and publisher, said that the review would be led by Steve Coll, the journalism school's dean, and Sheila Coronel, the dean of academic affairs, and that it would evaluate 'the editorial process that led to the publication of the story.' The report will be published unedited and in its entirety on Rolling Stone's website, and excerpts will appear in the magazine."
Girl "Reporters" Are Silly. Howie Kurtz of Fox "News": "President Obama took a victory lap the other day, and nobody in the press tried to slow him down. Obama skated in a year-end news conference, easily handling questions that were bland, tentative or rambling. This is not unrelated to the fact that he skipped the front-row TV correspondents -- Jonathan Karl, Ed Henry, Major Garrett -- who tend to ask more confrontational and, yes, theatrical questions." ...
... CW: Kurtz never mentions that President Obama called on only female reporters, but he's counting on you to know that that; after all, it was a major news story over the weekend. But the message is clear: he complains about the questions these women asked but says male reporters, whom he mentions by name but not gender, would have asked more "confrontational" questions. ...
Presidential Election
Ruby Cramer of BuzzFeed: Elizabeth Warren isn't running for president. But she also is not shutting down the draft-Warren movement.
Chris Christie Is a Star Student at the GOP Foreign Policy College. Jill Colvin of the AP: "The calls, which generally last about 90 minutes, typically begin with several experts discussing a region's history, recent developments and the views of foreign leaders of the countries involved, followed by a detailed question-and-answer session. The format is designed, they said, to expose Christie to multiple points of view and help him build a deeper understanding of history and world affairs." CW: If his opponent is, say, Rick Perry, he ought to do fine. Against Hillary Clinton, not so much.
News Lede
AFP: "Ukraine took a historic step toward NATO on Tuesday in a parliamentary vote that stoked Russia's anger ahead of talks on ending the ex-Soviet state's separatist war. Lawmakers in the government-controlled chamber overwhelmingly adopted a bill dropping Ukraine's non-aligned status -- a classification given to states such as Switzerland that refuse to join military alliances and thus play no part in wars."
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