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Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.
New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~
~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”
New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”
Click on photo to enlarge.
~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI."
Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”
New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”
Washington Post: “An early Titian masterpiece — once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries — caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective, and returned. This week, the oil painting 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for more than $22 million at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice. Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as'the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.'”
Washington Post: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare material, has undergone a major renovation. "The change to the building is pervasive, both subtle and transformational."
Eli Saslow of the Washington Postprofiles xenophobe Kris Kobach, the Kansas Secretary of State who has led the fight against immigrants. The headline: "Conservative expert on immigration law to pursue suit against executive action." Kobach & his wife Heather are dismayed that people are picking on him just because he believes "in rules and fairness." CW: Kobach is an expert on immigration law like Dick Cheney is an expert on environmental protection law.
... Jeff Taylor, Indianapolis Star executive editor: "On Friday, we posted a Gary Varvel cartoon at indystar.com that offended a wide group of readers. Many of them labeled it as racist. Gary did not intend to be racially insensitive in his attempt to express his strong views about President Barack Obama's decision to temporarily prevent the deportation of millions of immigrants living and working illegally in the United States. But we erred in publishing it.... [Varvel] intended to illustrate the view of many conservatives and others that the president's order will encourage more people to pour into the country illegally." ...
... Catherine Thompson of TPM: "At one point on Saturday, the newspaper apparently edited out the 'immigrant' man's mustache.... The newspaper later removed the cartoon altogether." ...
... CW: What Thompson fails to mention is that before publication, the Indy Star edited out the "immigrant" man's sombrero, serape & machete & put smiles on the faces of his menacing posse of disease-riddled braceros. Sensitive. ...
... Pilgrims' Progress. Kelly Conaboy of Gawker: "Is there a time more befitting of a cartoon lampooning unwelcome foreign guests than during the United States' holiday Thanksgiving?" ...
... Caroline Bankoff of New York: "It's fitting that President Obama's decision to temporarily protect 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation came just before Thanksgiving, which celebrates the generosity this country's original inhabitants showed to the undocumented immigrants who landed on their shores in 1620. Unfortunately, the connection was lost on Gary Varvel, an Indianapolis Star cartoonist who doesn't seem to like the idea of sharing anything with people who do not look like him."
Lydia DePillis of the Washington Post: "In advance of coordinated strikes at Wal-Marts across the country on the day after Thanksgiving, a labor union-backed group is accusing the world's biggest retailer of driving its associates into starvation -- and Wal-Mart is fighting back harder than ever, saying it's just providing low-cost groceries to the masses.... This is the third year in which Making Change at Walmart, a campaign financed and run by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union -- which represents employees at Wal-Mart's competitors, like Safeway and Giant -- will have staged protests on Black Friday."
This Week in Elizabeth Warren
Sen. Elizabeth Warren in a Huffington Post opinion piece: "I believe President Obama deserves deference in picking his team, and I've generally tried to give him that. But enough is enough." Warren goes on to elaborate on why Obama's nominee for Under Secretary for Domestic Finance at the Treasury Department -- Antonio Weiss -- is a horrible choice. "It's time for the Obama administration to loosen the hold that Wall Street banks have over economic policy making. Sure, big banks are important, but running this economy for American families is a lot more important." Thanks to Whyte O. for the link.
Peter Eavis of the New York Times: "William C. Dudley, the president of the New York Fed, defended the agency, but Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, at one point told him, 'You need to fix it, Mr. Dudley, or we need to get someone who will'":
Manuel Roig-Franzia, et al., of the Washington Post: "Sixteen women have publicly stated that [comedian Bill] Cosby, now 77, sexually assaulted them, with 12 saying he drugged them first and another saying he tried to drug her. The Washington Post has interviewed five of those women, including a former Playboy Playmate who has never spoken publicly about her allegations. The women agreed to speak on the record and to have their identities revealed. The Post also has reviewed court records that shed light on the accusations of a former director of women's basketball operations at Temple University who assembled 13 'Jane Doe' accusers in 2005 to testify on her behalf about their allegations against Cosby."
Rolling Stone: "FollowingRolling Stone publishing Sabrina Rubin Erdely's harrowing report 'A Rape on Campus,' which detailed a pattern of sexual assault among the fraternities at the University of Virginia, many women who attended UVA emailed Rolling Stone sharing their own similar stories. After 'A Rape on Campus' went viral, the school itself acknowledged the Rolling Stone article by promising to make changes to their student sexual misconduct policy. Now, the University is taking even more stern action. President Teresa A. Sullivan announced in a letter to students and alumni that the school's fraternities have been suspended effective immediately. The suspension will last until January 9, 2015, which marks the beginning of the spring semester."
Presidential Election
Michael Barbaro & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "... as the 2016 White House campaign effectively began in the last week, it became apparent that this [GOP primary] race might be different: a fluid contest, verging on chaotic, that will showcase the party's deep bench of talent but also highlight its ideological and generational divisions."
CW: Let me just say how mightily the major media piss me off when they describe Kris Kobach as an "expert" & the nasty boys of the GOP as a "deep bench of talent." If you want to know why millions of people vote Republican, it's partly because the "liberal media" validate these extremist bastards.
Andrew O'Hehir of Salon: "Defeating Hillary Clinton as a political candidate does little or nothing to defeat the deeply corrupt and only half-visible spectacle of power and politics that produced her and infuses her, and in which she is embedded. Defeating 'Hillary Clinton,' on the other hand, is about exposing and dismantling that spectacle and its system, brick by brick and from the ground up, such that it does not produce future Hillary Clintons as our only plausible political leaders. A lot easier said than done, I realize. But if America is ever to escape the paralytic political duopoly of the 21st century, it's a mandatory task."
Beyond the Beltway
Daniel Wallis of Reuters: "Two men suspected of buying explosives they planned to detonate during protests in Ferguson, Missouri, once a grand jury decides the Michael Brown case, were arrested on Friday and charged with federal firearms offenses, a law enforcement official told Reuters."
Jon Herskovitz & Jim Forsyth of Reuters: "The Texas State Board of Education, whose decisions can have national ramifications, on Friday approved nearly 100 textbooks despite criticism the books exaggerated the influence biblical figures had in forming the U.S. system of government." ...
... Morgan Smith & Bobby Blanchard of the Texas Tribune (Nov. 21): "Houghton Mifflin Harcourt pulled its U.S. government title just before the State Board of Education's Friday meeting, where the 15-member board is set to take a final vote on nearly 100 products for eight different social studies courses that will be used in Texas public schools for the next decade. According to the latest documents posted publicly, the publisher declined to make changes in its government textbook that would add greater coverage of Judeo-Christian influence -- including Moses -- on America's founding fathers." ...
... CW: I'm quite certain some of the Founders were doofuses, but I doubt many of them gave a lot of thought to Moses -- an entirely fictional character -- when they were drawing up the Constitution & the Bill of Rights. ...
Washington Post: "Marion Barry Jr., the Mississippi sharecropper's son and civil rights activist who served three terms as mayor of the District of Columbia, survived a drug arrest and jail sentence, and then came back to win a fourth term as the city's chief executive, died early on Nov. 23 at United Medical Center in Washington. He was 78." Barry's New York Times: obituary is here.
Washington Post: "Negotiators working to slow Iran's nuclear program and ease sanctions pressed forward with talks Saturday amid indications that they are at an impasse with two days left before a deadline for an accord." ...
... Reuters: "Iran says it will not be possible by a 24 November deadline to reach a comprehensive deal with world powers aimed at resolving the standoff over Tehran's nuclear ambitions, the Iranian Students News Agency ISNA reported on Sunday." ...
... New York TimesUPDATE: "With a deadline for an agreement to curb Iran's nuclear program just a day away, American officials finally acknowledged Sunday that the two sides would not reach a deal by Monday's deadline but would probably extend the talks a second time to explore a series of possible solutions."
Guardian: "The Obama administration announced the release of another Guantánamo Bay detainee on Saturday, rebuking recent calls from congressional Republicans to stop the transfers entirely. A Saudi man who has spent 12 years at the wartime detention facility, Muhammed Murdi Issa al-Zahrani, will return to Saudi Arabia and enter the kingdom's rehabilitation program. The transfer brings the detainee population of a prison Barack Obama has vowed for six years to close down to 142 men, 72 of whom the Pentagon considers pose little enough threat as to be eligible for transfer."
Charles Pierce linked to this video of CBS News's early coverage of President Kennedy's assassination. Audio bulletins repeatedly break into the "regularly scheduled program" -- the banal "As the World Turns" & its commercials. The news video feed doesn't come in till about 30 minutes in:
White House: "In this week's address, the President laid out the steps he took this past week to fix our broken immigration system. Enacted within his legal authority, the President's plan focuses on cracking down on illegal immigration at the border; deporting felons, not families; and accountability through criminal background checks and taxes":
... Michael Shear & Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "President Obama opened up a campaign for his executive actions on immigration on Friday as he told an audience of mostly Latino students at a high school rally [in Las Vegas, Nevada,] that Congress had to revamp what he called the nation's broken immigration system.... The president said that he had urged Mr. Boehner to let the Senate bill come to a vote on the floor of the House, but to no avail. 'I cajoled and I called and I met,' Mr. Obama said. 'I told John Boehner: "I'll wash your car. I'll walk your dog. Whatever you needed to do. Just call the bill." And he didn't do it.'... Around the country, Mr. Obama's critics began searching for ways to block his action."
... Cristina Marcos of the Hill: "Reps. Ted Poe (R-Texas) and Diane Black (R-Tenn.) have introduced legislation to prohibit funding to implement President Obama's executive action on immigration. Their bill, titled The Separation of Powers Act, would block the use of funds for deferring deportations of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally or providing work permits." ...
... Liberal Professor Encourages Tea Party Radical"s. Law Prof. Peter Schuck, in a New York Times op-ed: "... the pro-impeachment Republicans are right: There is a plausible case for ... impeachment..., [which] is a political accusation and initiates a political remedy, not a legal one. It is pretty much up to Congress to define and apply 'high crimes and misdemeanors,' and no court would second-guess it. The next Congress could find that the president had violated his oath to 'faithfully execute' the laws.... But even if Congress has constitutional authority to impeach the president, that doesn't mean it should.... However truculent Mr. Obama's defiance may be on this issue, Congress has other ways to stymie it -- for example, barring the action by statute. Such tactics are within the normal give-and-take of interbranch disputes." ...
... CW: Thanks, Pete. I'm sure those "pro-impeachment Republicans" will appreciate your "on-the-other-hand" nuance, there. Excellent work. At least President Biden may think so. ...
... Sen. Ron Johnson (RDumb-Wisc.) & Jonathan Turley (who characterizes himself as "a liberal academic," failing to mention his Fox "News" gig & alluding in only the most oblique way [a link to another article] to his new job as lawyer for House Republicans suing the President), in a Washington Post op-ed: "Now is the time for members of Congress and the judiciary to affirm their oaths to 'support and defend the Constitution' and to work to re-establish our delicate constitutional balance. It will not be easy, but the costs of inaction are far higher. We need to look beyond this administration -- and ourselves -- to act not like politicians but the statesmen that the framers hoped we could be." CW: In the "Annals of 'Journalism'" department, the Post itself does not bother to mention Turley's outside interests, either. And of course the link will not appear in the print edition. ...
... Hey, Let's See What the Most Interesting Man in Politics Thinks. Daniel Strauss of TPM: "Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) likened President Barack Obama's decision to take executive action on immigration to then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt's executive order authorizing putting Japanese-Americans in internment camps during World War II. '... there are instances in our history where we allow power to gravitate toward one person and that one person then makes decisions that really are egregious,' Paul said. 'Think of what happened in World War II where they made the decision. The president issued an executive order. He said to Japanese people 'we're going to put you in a camp. We're going to take away all your rights and liberties and we're going to intern you in a camp. We shouldn't allow that much power to gravitate to one individual. We need to separate the power.'" ...
... CW: Yes, Randy, because granting reprieves & imprisonment are pretty much the same thing. Also, never mind that Roosevelt received "considerable pressure" to intern ethnic Japanese from, um, members of Congress and that Congressgave authority to the military to decide whom should be interned (Public Law 503 of the 77th Congress) And never mind that in a series of cases, the Supreme Court upheld the actions of the President, the Congress & the military in regard to interning Japanese-Americans. Yup, "separating the power" was really, really important when it came to this brand of "ethnically cleansing" the West Coast. Let me put it another way: Rand Paul, you don't know WTF you're talking about. Maybe you should start plagiarizing again, so you can get some facts right. ...
... Your Louie Gohmert Weekly Reader. Brian Tashman of Right Wing Watch: "In an interview yesterday with Dan Cofall, Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, accused President Obama of using immigration and the Ferguson case to provoke violence."
(... CW: Here's something I did learn from Louie: "If you look at the conservative gatherings, we even pick up our own trash." A brief Google exploration reveals this particular perfect-us-v.-them point is a conservative meme. So, libruls, start picking up after yourselves. Seriously. ...)
... Jonathan Chait: "Immediately after the election, when John Boehner asked Obama to hold off on unilateral action, reporters asked if he would promise to bring an immigration bill to the House floor. He refused. A senior administration official pinpointed this as the moment when any chance of delay ended.... There are no serious legal questions about the administration's plan.... After years of legislative muddle, [President Obama] was able to detach himself completely from Congress and articulate his own values." Read the whole post. ...
... Ezra Klein: "Instead of coming up with their own immigration policy, [Republicans have] been able to just unite against Obama's. But fury isn't a policy.... One way or another, Republicans need to decide what to do with the 11 million unauthorized immigrants living in the country now.... They are, arguably, the governing party -- they will soon control the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, most state legislatures, and more governorships. And the governing party needs to solve -- or at least propose solutions -- to the nation's problems.... Republicans don't seem to want to do anything except stop Obama from solving the problem." ...
... Steve Benen: "There's a striking asymmetry, not just between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to presenting policy solutions, but between Republican responsibilities and Republican intentions -- they're a post-policy party with an aversion to governing, which is a problem for a party that has been given broad authority by voters to shape policy and govern." ...
... Even Politico Notices the GOP's Got Nuthin'. Burgess Everett & Seung Min Kim: "The lack of a unified response from the GOP risks further fracturing the party just as Republicans prepare to take over Capitol Hill and attempt to prove themselves a responsible governing majority. And Obama's nationwide tour pitching his plan threatens to blunt Republicans' momentum and messaging heading into a long holiday recess, exposing frustrations by both conservatives at a lack of direction on how to respond to Obama's moves and of party elders who worry the GOP's right flank will overreact to the immigration action with talk of impeachment and government shutdowns. Republicans, for now, have offered little other than rhetorical criticisms and a variety of suggestions not yet endorsed by GOP leaders...." CW: You can, of course, forget that part about "prove themselves a responsible governing majority." That was never a GOP goal. ...
... CW: There's an excellent, if discouraging, discussion in yesterday's Comments of the media's coverage of President Obama's immigration order & the GOP's reaction toward it. Apparently, the MSM, en masse, is more impressed with cries of imperialism than with granting reprieves -- apparently legally -- to millions of undocumented residents.
Ashley Parker: "House Republicans filed a long-threatened lawsuit Friday against the Obama administration over unilateral actions on the health care law that they say are abuses of the president's executive authority." ...
... Paul Waldman: "The actual complaints in the suit were always strange -- they're suing Obama for delaying the employer mandate, a provision they despise. If they won, he'd be forced to speed up implementation of the mandate, even as Republicans are pressing to eliminate it altogether. And by the time the suit wends its way through the courts, the issue will probably be moot.... As for the other of the suit's complaints, on cost-sharing subsidies, if Republicans are successful in killing them it would mean that poor people would have to pay more in copays and deductibles.... So apart from the satisfaction some Republicans might receive from making life harder for the working poor, even if they win this lawsuit they won't have dealt the ACA a serious blow. Legal experts who have looked at this suit haven't found much merit in it...." ...
... Jonathan Bernstein of Bloomberg View: "The suit is likely to fail. The first issue is 'standing.' To get into court, the House would have to prove that it was damaged by the way the administration carried out the ACA, and courts have consistently rejected that idea. Beyond that, it's far from clear that the administration's actions ... were beyond the normal discretion the executive branch has to carry out laws. Just because some Republicans want to pretend that before January 2009 presidential power had been limited to pardoning Thanksgiving turkeys doesn't mean they are right. And if Republicans win, it would be terrible for Congress.... In effect, it says that the courts, not Congress, should have the last word when there's a dispute between branches." ...
... Michael Lynch & Rachel Surminsky elaborate in a Washington Post article on the many reasons the House lawsuit is likely to fail. ...
... CW: Lynch & Surminsky don't mention the main reason the suit will flop because they don't acknowledge its real purpose: to distract or assuage Congressional Tea Party flamethrowers. Good luck with that, Orange Man. (Or as Zandar puts it in Balloon Juice, "Please proceed, gentlemen. It's a lose-lose and you know it, as the case will get laughed out of court and will never satisfy the red meat cravings of INPEECH OBUMMER Teabaggers.") My belated congrats to Jonathan Turley for wasting our taxpayer dollars in pursuit of a quixotic farce. You're a great American, Turkey. (Sorry, the "l" is right next to the "k". You all know I'm a typo queen.) ...
... Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "In a clearly coordinated campaign against what Republicans have labeled as Obama's 'imperial presidency,' Boehner announced the filing of the lawsuit minutes after he publicly denounced Obama's executive action on immigration. And later in the day, the first legislative hearing on the immigration order was scheduled." CW: The report also covers Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III's speech at the Heritage Foundation. ...
... Ave, Imperator! Jeff Sessions, in a USA Today op-ed: "Apparently, America now has its first emperor." Blah-blah-blah. (Paraphrase.) ...
Mark Mazzetti & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "President Obama signed a secret order in recent weeks authorizing a more expansive mission for the military in Afghanistan in 2015 than originally planned, a move that ensures American troops will have a direct role in fighting in the war-ravaged country for at least another year. Mr. Obama's order allows American forces to carry out missions against the Taliban and other militant groups threatening American troops or the Afghan government, a broader mission than the president described to the public earlier this year...."
Ali Watkins, et al., of the Huffington Post: "The White House's briefing [by Chief of Staff Denis McDonough] to Democrats on immigration Thursday erupted instead into a confrontation over the Senate's classified torture report, Senate sources told The Huffington Post. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, waited for the immigration discussion to end and then pulled out a prepared speech that she read for five or six minutes, making the case for the release of the damning portrayal of America's post-9/11 torture program." ...
... "Time Is Running Out." David Firestone of the New York Times: "Republicans take over the Senate in just a few legislative days. And when they do, they will probably snuff out the last possibility of releasing a huge report on the use of torture by the Central Intelligence Agency during the Bush-Cheney Administration.... The incoming chairman of the committee, Richard Burr of North Carolina, thinks the report amounts to a political hit job on the Bush years. Mr. Burr has said the report is full of unspecified inaccuracies. He not only opposes its release, but also all public hearings of the Intelligence Committee.... [Jay] Rockefeller [D-W.Va.] said he feared any senator who tried [to read the report on the Senate floor] would be 'grabbed' and hauled away. Presumably he's referring to the exceptions in the Constitution's speech or debate clause, which says members can't be arrested while speaking in either chamber, except in cases of treason, felony and breach of the peace. But someone -- possibly Mark Udall, who will not be returning as a senator from Colorado -- should consider testing that clause. Is it treason to inform the public how government officials broke international law and permanently stained the country's moral reputation?"
Your Friday Afternoon Docudump. "House Intel Panel Debunks Many Benghazi Theories." Ken Dilanian of the AP: "A two-year investigation by the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee has found that the CIA and the military acted properly in responding to the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, and asserted no wrongdoing by Obama administration appointees. Debunking a series of persistent allegations hinting at dark conspiracies, the investigation of the politically charged incident determined that there was no intelligence failure, no delay in sending a CIA rescue team, no missed opportunity for a military rescue, and no evidence the CIA was covertly shipping arms from Libya to Syria.... Many of [the report's] findings echo those of six previous investigations by various congressional committees and a State Department panel. The eighth Benghazi investigation is being carried out by a House Select Committee appointed in May." ...
... CW: I don't believe Fox "News" will be going big with this one. Wonder if the report covers the fake hacking of Sharyl Atkisson's computers. However, Politico did manage to take a gulp & report the committee's findings. ...
... Lauren French of Politico: "Some Republicans in Congress have continued to cling to initial reports that surfaced after Ambassador Chris Stevens and two others were killed in the attacks.... But Rogers' committee has long said its investigation would disproved those myths. The report, released quietly on a Friday night, dismisses the bulk of the most damning critics against the administration." ...
... Update. Charles Pierce "interrupt[s] your regularly scheduled weekend with this special report.... A few things should happen now, though I do not believe all of them will....Sharyl Atkisson's newly minted career as a martyred truth-teller should experience something of a downturn although, rising to her defense, the burble caucus has retrenched on Fast And Furious, which is an even deader parrot. The Sunday Showz should apologize to America for wasting time on this thing. And, please god, Chris Stevens and the other people who died at the consulate finally can rest in peace. And to that, all say amen."
Fulfilling Today's Gossip Quota. Jason Horowitz of the New York Times: "Administration and congressional officials have argued that the transgressions of [Harry Reid's top aide David] Krone -- publicly challenging the president, betraying the Oval Office code of silence and acting more like a senator than a staff member to one -- have damaged Democratic unity at a time when the party can least afford it, as its numbers in Congress dwindle and the president sorely needs discipline in his ranks to advance what is left of his agenda.... Aides in Speaker John A. Boehner's office, who avoid emailing Mr. Krone because of an earlier breach, said that the aide has 'burned both sides of the aisle.'... One person who did not seem bothered at all was Mr. Reid." Krone is married to "Alyssa Mastromonaco, a former West Wing staff member who is extremely close to the president.... In an interview, Mr. Krone acknowledged that his battles with the White House and his recent speaking out had put his wife 'in a tough spot.' Ms. Mastromonaco ... this week announced that she had taken a job at Vice, the Brooklyn-based media company...."
Annals of "Justice," Ctd.New York TimesEditors: "Richard Nixon was president when Albert Woodfoxlanded in solitary confinement, along with another inmate, both convicted of the 1972 murder of a Louisiana prison guard named Brent Miller. He is still there. Mr. Woodfox, now 67 years old, has maintained his innocence of the murder from the start. He has been held in isolation longer than any prisoner in the United States, and perhaps in the nation's history." CW: This is unconscionable. Whether he is guilty or not, Woodfox should be removed from Bobby Jindal's jurisdiction.
Sari Horwitz of the Washington Post: "Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has expressed concerns privately to Missouri officials this week about their recent actions in advance of a grand jury's decision in the Michael Brown case. A top aide to Holder called the office of Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) earlier this week to express Holder's displeasure and 'frustration' that the governor had declared a state of emergency at a news conference and activated the National Guard in advance of the grand jury decision in the Ferguson shooting, expected to be announced in the next few days, according to a Justice Department official. 'Instead of de-escalating the situation, the governor escalated it,' said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.... 'He sent the wrong message. The tone of the press conference was counterproductive.'" ...
... Josh Margolin of ABC News: "The FBI has sent about 100 agents to the St. Louis area to help deal with any problems that could arise from the grand jury decision in the police shooting of Ferguson teenager Michael Brown. In addition to the FBI, other federal agencies have also mobilized staffers to get to St. Louis today, sources told ABC News. A decision by the grand jury is expected soon, but St. Louis authorities said today that the grand jury is still meeting." ...
... Daniel Wallis of Reuters: "Prosecutors made preparations to announce the eventual decision by a grand jury on whether to charge a white police officer who shot dead an unarmed black teenager and some local schools said on Friday they would close next week in anticipation of unrest."
Loose Lips Sink Contracts. Mark Binkerof WRAL Raleigh: North Carolina "State Auditor Beth Wood has terminated a contract with MIT economics professor Jonathan Gruber after the health care policy expert came under fire for controversial comments involving how the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010.... The same comments that have caused a firestorm among conservatives prompted Wood, a Democrat, to dismiss Gruber on Wednesday."
Sarah Larimer & Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "The death toll from a monster blizzard is still rising in western New York, where structural damage from the heavy snow is making roofs creak and officials in and around Buffalo are bracing for possible flooding, according to reports.... The extreme lake-effect storm, which has dumped as much as 85 inches of snow on the area, has claimed 13 victims so far. Most of them, the [Buffalo] News reported, were killed by 'cardiac issues when victims attempted to shovel snow or push vehicles.'" ...
... "Jet Stream Weirdness." Chris Mooney of the Washington Post: "There's growing evidence that global warming is driving crazy winters."
Nick Madigan & Lorne Manly of the New York Times: "The uproar over allegations that Bill Cosby had molested or assaulted several women, in some cases years ago, was almost nowhere in evidence on Friday night during a sold-out performance by the 77-year-old comedian on a college campus [in Melbourne, Florida].... Outside the theater, however, three protesters held signs criticizing 'victim shaming,' while another sign said, 'Rape is no joke.' The protesters were kept more than 200 yards from the theater and next to a main road, on orders from the police. Earlier on Friday, three women -- Renita Chaney Hill, Angela Leslie and Kristina Ruehli -- were the latest to publicly detail their experiences with Mr. Cosby, all telling similar stories of being given drugs or alcohol before being sexually assaulted."
CW: Maybe the real reason there are so many nonviolent drug offenders in jail is that nonviolent drug offenders are fucking stupid. Jessica Roy of New York: "Two doofuses in Worcester, Massachusetts, thought they were being super slick by staging their drug deal outside in broad daylight.... A Fox 25 anchor was reporting on a local snowstorm when two dummies walked up behind him, did a couple of sketchy maneuvers that could really only be interpreted as a drug-and-cash swap, then casually parted -- all while the cameras were rolling.... The anchors back in the studio couldn't stop laughing":
Presidential Election
Michael Kazin of the New Republic: "At the risk of seeming ridiculous, I think Sherrod Brownshould run for president. I know that, barring a debilitating health problem or a horrible scandal, Hillary Clinton is likely to capture the Democratic nomination. I realize too that Brown, the senior senator from Ohio, has never hinted that he may be tempted to challenge her.... Yet, for progressive Democrats, Brown would be a nearly perfect nominee. During his two decades in the House and Senate, he has taken strong and articulate stands on every issue which matters to the party's broad, if currently dispirited, liberal base." CW: I share Kazin's pipedream.
Margaret Hartmann of New Yorkgathers up reactions to President Obama's speech from politicians U.S. leaders. Apparently you can now embed videos in your tweets (which sort of undermines the 140-character-beauty-of-brevity purpose of Twitter). Hartmann's intro to Tailgunner Ted's tweet: "Senator Ted Cruz shared this video of himself rehearsing a blistering speech in his bathroom mirror" ...
... Charles Pierce: "This was the second time in two days that they had to put the pinch on somebody exercising Second Amendment freedoms inappropriately in the vicinity of the president's house. (The other one was R.J. Kapheim, the designated liaison between the administration and Someone In Iowa.) Maybe it's time for someone in authority over such matters to tell the more excitable conservatives in the Congress, and on the electric teevee box, ix-nay on the yrrany-tay for a while." ...
... Sahil Kapur of TPM summarizes the components & the impact of the President's executive action. ...
... John Cassidy of the New Yorkerparses the President's remarks. ...
... "It's Legal." Walter Dellinger, former head of the Office of Legal Counsel under President Clinton, in Slate: "he idea that the immigration plan just announced by President Obama is a lawless power grab is absurd. As the Justice Department legal analysis [linked below] that was just released amply demonstrates, much of the advance criticism of the president’s action has been uninformed and unwarranted. The opinion is well-reasoned and at times even conservative. The president is not acting unilaterally, but pursuant to his statutory authority. Wide discretion over deportation priorities has long been conferred on the executive branch by Congress, and it is being exercised in this case consistent with policies such as family unification that have been endorsed by Congress.... No one has been granted 'amnesty,' either literally or functionally.... The president is ... acting on the basis of specific statutory authority from the Immigration and Nationality Act." ...
... Paul Krugman: "... today’s immigrants are the same, in aspiration and behavior, as my grandparents were — people seeking a better life, and by and large finding it. That’s why I enthusiastically support President Obama’s new immigration initiative. It’s a simple matter of human decency." ...
... Carrie Brown, et al., of Politico: Over a nine-month period, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh "Johnsonworked, largely in secret on the grand plan that finally became public this week, convening a small group of former Capitol Hill aides with expertise on immigration to work with Homeland Security officials to draft a policy that all expected would provoke not only fierce opposition from conservatives but from liberals who thought Obama should go further. It was a consuming task: in all, sources said, the immigration issue ate up fully half of the Homeland Security secretary’s time in recent months, with Johnson — a high-powered corporate attorney in his previous life — writing the final presidential memorandum himself." ...
... David Nakamura, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration will begin accepting applications this spring from illegal immigrants who are seeking deferred deportations under President Obama’s new executive action program, and those who qualify will be granted protections for three years, administration officials said.... According to prepared excerpts, Obama plans to say that mass deportation of the nation’s more than 11 million illegal immigrants 'would be both impossible and contrary to our character.' But he will also argue that his plans do not amount to 'amnesty' but rather increased 'accountability' for the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants.... The administration will release an opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel fully explaining the legal underpinnings of the action after the announcement." ...
... Justin Sink of the Hill: "President Obama would veto any Republican attempts to undermine the executive action he’s unveiling Thursday night in a primetime address, a senior administration official said Thursday. The official said the White House expects Republicans would 'spend a lot of creative energy making up ways to try and stop us either through funding bills or other' and could 'cook up some riders.' But, the official said, that ultimately was 'all an irrelevant point' because the president would veto any such effort." ...
... Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Republicans on Thursday vowed a swift and forceful response to the executive action on immigration that President Obama is to announce in a prime-time address, accusing the president of exceeding the power of his office and promising a legislative fight when they take full control of Congress next year." CW: They just don't seem to have any idea what that "forceful response" might be, although I suppose calling immigrants "illiterate" is one form of "forceful." ...
... Story was updated following the President's speech. New lede: "President Obama chose confrontation over conciliation on Thursday as he asserted the powers of the Oval Office to reshape the nation’s immigration system and dared members of next year’s Republican-controlled Congress to reverse his actions on behalf of millions of immigrants." ...
... OR THIS. David McCabe of the Hill: "Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) ... took to the floor of the Senate and delivered a speech that included one of Cicero’s most famous addresses, subbing in Obama's name. 'When, President Obama, do you mean to cease abusing our patience? How long is that madness of yours still to mock us? When is there to be an end to that unbridled audacity of yours, swaggering about as it does now?” he said, using the beginning of Cicero’s First Oration Against Catiline. By substituting Obama's name for Catiline's, Cruz compared the president to a figure who sought to violently overthrow the Roman republic." ...
... Lisa Mascaro & Michael Memoli of the Los Angeles Times: "Republican leaders who had hoped to focus on corporate tax reform, fast-track trade pacts, repealing the president's healthcare law and loosening environmental restrictions on coal are instead being dragged into an immigration skirmish that they've tried studiously to avoid for most of the last year. That's largely because the question of how to handle the estimated 11 million immigrants living illegally in the U.S. bitterly divides Republicans, and the party has been unable to agree on an alternative to the president's plan." ...
... Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "For Republicans the roiling debate over the president’s decision is not only a fight with the White House, but a test of whether they can contain some of the unhelpful passions among their swelling majorities in both chambers. The task is keeping on-message and away from the controversial and sometimes offensive comments that have traditionally hindered attempts to bolster support for the party among Hispanics." ...
... The Post is liveblogging events ahead of the speech. At 5:27 pm ET (Thursday), we learn that Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III will don the gray uniform to speak at the Heritage Foundation to "address the grave concerns about the President’s action – and how to save the country from it." CW: One for the ages, I'm sure. ...
... Esther Lee of Think Progress: "Even now that Republicans will control both houses of Congress, Boehnerrefused to guarantee a House floor vote on immigration reform — even if the president doesn’t take executive action. And so now, as President Obama announces his executive action tonight, here are some of the many other government programs Republicans are threatening to sabotage in retribution: Threatening to shut down the government..., to selectively defund parts of the budget they don’t like..., to block confirmation of nominees to any and all vacancies..., not to pass any immigration legislation..., to impeach Obama..., to sue the President." ...
... Don't Drink the Water. American Bridge: "... Republicans are adamant that when Obama announces his immigration reform executive action tonight, he will be 'poisoning the well.'... Why, it seems every time the President takes a position, according to Republicans, he’s 'poisoning the well.' When President Obama tried to pass background checks on gun sales after Newtown — a policy supported by 9 in 10 voters — Lindsey Graham accused him of poisoning the well. And when Obama signed legislation reforming a broken health care system — ... John McCain said he had poisoned the well. Jeff Flake said that if Obama took any credit for the immigration reform principles in the bipartisan Senate bill, he would be poisoning the well. According to Marco Rubio, policy to protect DREAMers poisoned the well. To other Republicans it was the president’s refusal to cave to their demands during their government shutdown that poisoned the well, or criticizing Paul Ryan’s draconian budget, or passing a stimulus package, or repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell." ...
... David Atkins, in Hullabaloo on "poisoning the well": "Two things stand out about it. The first is that a simple google search shows that the phrase was almost never used to describe George W. Bush's presidency. Somehow, no matter how outrageous and vindictive the Bush Administration became, nothing they did ever seemed to eliminate the possibility of some sort of cooperation between the Administration and Democrats.... The second is that it's a thinly veiled indication that Republicans cannot control their own caucus at all.... In essence, the GOP leadership is telling the President that if he does anything at all to help people, the crazies that make up the majority of the GOP caucus will get out of line and do crazy things, and that would be bad." ...
... Rebecca Shabad of the Hill: "It would be 'impossible' to defund President Obama’s executive actions on immigration through a government spending bill, the House Appropriations Committee said Thursday. In a statement released by Committee Chairman Hal Rogers's (R-Ky.) office hours before Obama's scheduled national address, the committee said the primary agency responsible for implementing Obama's actions is funded entirely by user fees. As a result, the committee said the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) agency would be able to continue to collect fees and carry out its operations even if the government shut down." ...
... Rebecca Shabad: "Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) on Thursday rebutted claims by the House Appropriations Committee that President Obama’s executive order on immigration could not be defunded in legislation to avoid a government shutdown. 'The American people’s Congress has the power and every right to deny funding for unworthy activities. It is a routine and constitutional application of congressional power. There is no question that Congress has the power to block this expenditure and no doubt that it can be done,' Sessions said in a statement." ...
... The Word from Kansas. Ahiza Garcia of TPM: "Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) on Sunday warned that President Obama's executive actions and general 'lawlessness' on immigration could lead to 'ethnic cleansing.' Kobach, a vocal advocate of the anti-immigrant movement, claimed during his radio talk show that there was a strategy to replace American voters with Hispanic ones who favored socialism."
Jamie Crawford of CNN: "China and 'probably one or two other' countries have the capacity to shut down the [United States'] power grid and other critical infrastructure through a cyber attack, the head of the National Security Agency [Adm. Michael Rogers] told a Congressional panel Thursday."
Alex Wayne of Bloomberg News: "The Obama administration said it erroneously calculated the number of people with health coverage under the Affordable Care Act, incorrectly adding 380,000 dental subscribers to raise the total above 7 million.... The error was brought to light by Republican investigators for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, using data they obtained from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services."
White House: "President Obama delivers remarks at the National Medals of Science and National Medals of Technology and Innovation awards ceremony":
Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd.
Johana Bhuiyan of BuzzFeed: "Uber has in recent weeks sought to hire opposition researchers to 'weaponize facts' to use against its taxi industry competition, according to a confidential recruiting document obtained by BuzzFeed News and confirmed by the company.... The new role of director of research and rapid response appears to be part of Uber’s effort to bring the aggressive tactics of American presidential politics to its city-by-city trench wars with existing car companies. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said in May that the company has no choice but to 'throw mud' at taxi companies and the associations that represent the taxi industry, and in August brought former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe to the company to lead a campaign-like effort that now includes both Uber’s communications shop and the new opposition research role."
One’s own employees ought to be one’s own best customers. Paying high wages is behind the prosperity of this country. -- Henry Ford...
... Here's Something for the Party of Nothing. Nelson Schwartz & Patricia Cohen of the New York Times: "Pressured by temporary hiring practices and a sharp decrease in salaries in the auto parts sector, real wages for manufacturing workers fell by 4.4 percent from 2003 to 2013..., nearly three times the decline for workers as a whole. Despite that widening gap, Washington still paints the manufacturing sector as a gateway to the middle class, even if the gate is closing."
Rebecca Traister of the New Republic: "No one wanted to talk aboutBill Cosby's alleged crimes because he made white America feel good about race." ...
... Amanda Marcotte of AlterNet, in Salon: "The real turning point [in popular views of acquaintance rape] appears to be the crisis over the sexual assault of a high school girl in Steubenville, Ohio.... The past couple of years have also seen increased attention, aided by a White House initiative, to the problem of on-campus rape." ...
... Actually, Bill Cosby has long thought drugging girls was a hilriaous way to seduce them:
... Alan Scherstuhl of the Village Voice: "Even when I heard this bit as a kid, I wondered: Why would famous TV stars need a drug to get women interested in them? Why is sex something to lie and cheat and scheme to get, rather than something to share? Hearing it now, it's positively chilling, especially the crowd's easy laughter, which suggests that Cosby was able to put over his fantasy of women stripped of their ability to say no as something near universal."
Beyond the Beltway
Lyle Denniston of ScotusBlog: "With two Justices [Scalia & Thomas] dissenting, the Supreme Court on Thursday refused to delay same-sex marriages in South Carolina, leaving intact a federal judge’s order that goes into effect at noon and strikes down the state’s ban. Neither the Court nor the dissenters gave any explanation.... However, because Thursday’s Supreme Court order in the South Carolina case was confined solely to declining to postpone the federal judge’s order, and was not a ruling on the validity of that order, that issue could come up again if the Court agrees in coming weeks to review any case raising the basic question of state power to ban same-sex marriages."
Evan Perez & Shimon Prokupecz of CNN: "Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson ... is in the final stages of negotiations with city officials to resign, according to people close to the talks. Wilson maintains he hasn't done anything wrong, and the resignation talks have hinged on whether a grand jury returns an indictment against him in the death of [Michael] Brown.... Wilson has told associates he would resign as a way to help ease pressure and protect his fellow officers. Wilson has expressed concern about resigning while the grand jury was hearing evidence for fear it would appear he was admitting fault."
Oh, Darkies, How My Heart Grows Weary, Far from de Old Folks at Home." Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "Nevada Assemblyman Ira Hansen (R), who the assembly’s Republican caucus selected as their choice to be its next speaker earlier this month, has a long history of racist, sexist and homophobic statements chronicled in a long list published by the Reno News Review. Among other things, as part of a broader statement of support for school vouchers, Hansen claimed that '[t]he relationship of Negroes and Democrats is truly a master-slave relationship, with the benevolent master knowing what’s best for his simple minded darkies.' Indeed, according to the News Review, Hansen keeps a Confederate battle flag on his wall, which he says that he flies 'proudly in honor and in memory of a great cause and my brave ancestors who fought for that cause.' He also 'tends to use the term ‘Negro’ and often does not capitalize it.'” ...
... CW: Maybe I'm a pessimist, but I'm not foreseeing a lot of bipartisan-y stuff happening in Nevada. ...
... Zandar, in Balloon Juice: "Remember kids, racism is a barbarous old relic of the past that is no longer applicable in American politics, therefore political remedies for racism like the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act are equally as outdated.... Nevada’s newly minted Republican majority in the State Assembly had no reservations whatsoever about putting a guy who used the word 'darkies' as their Speaker."
Aleksander Chan of Gawker: "A Bullitt County, Ken. sheriff's deputy was responding to a car accident this past September when his body camera recorded county fire chief Julius Hatfield making a racist remark. In the body camera footage obtained by WDRB, the officer can be heard saying, 'Well, I've got a family of four from Cincinnati, I got to do something with.' You can then hear Hatfield respond, 'We ain't taking no niggers here.'" What with this being a post-racial society, Gawker readers are way shocked to learn a white Kentucky official is a racist:
... Thanks to safari for the lead. CW: Here's what the county can do to mitigate Hatfield's attitude: nothing. Fire his ass. Rescind any public contribution to his pension. Public servants are required to serve all of the public. Obviously, Hatfield hasn't been doing that. ...
... Here is something that actually could mitigate unequal treatment in police stops. ...
... Richard Oppel of the New York Times: "The protests in Ferguson — which may return in force when a grand jury decides whether to indict the police officer — may yet help rewrite the relationship between the police and communities there and in other cities. But what quietly played out in Durham[, North Carolina,] may provide another model for activists: using stop and search data collected by an increasing number of cities and states to galvanize supporters and pressure departments to change policies.... The use of statistics is gaining traction not only in North Carolina, where data on police stops is collected under a 15-year-old law, but in other cities around the country."
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