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The Commentariat -- Oct. 28, 2014
Internal links, graphic removed.
NEW. Gov. Rush Limbaugh. Marc Santora & Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: New Jersey Gov. Chris "Christie continued to defend his state's mandatory quarantine program on Tuesday morning, even as a growing number of scientists and public health experts condemned the restrictions as overly broad and possibly harmful in the fight against Ebola in West Africa. The New England Journal of Medicine, in an editorial published on its website, said the approach taken by New Jersey, New York and several other states 'is not scientifically based, is unfair and unwise, and will impede essential efforts to stop these awful outbreaks of Ebola disease at their source, which is the only satisfactory goal.'"
Ron Nixon of the New York Times: "In a rare public accounting of its mass surveillance program, the United States Postal Service reported that it approved nearly 50,000 requests last year from law enforcement agencies and its own internal inspection unit to secretly monitor the mail of Americans for use in criminal and national security investigations. The number of requests, contained in a little-noticed 2014 audit of the surveillance program by the Postal Service's inspector general, shows that the surveillance program is more extensive than previously disclosed and that oversight protecting Americans from potential abuses is lax.... The audit found that in many cases the Postal Service approved requests to monitor an individual’s mail without adequately describing the reason or having proper written authorization." ...
... Eric Tucker of the AP: "While Congress mulls how to curtail the NSA's collection of Americans' telephone records, impatient civil liberties groups are looking to legal challenges already underway in the courts to limit government surveillance powers. Three appeals courts are hearing lawsuits against the bulk phone records program, creating the potential for an eventual Supreme Court review." ...
... Katrina Vanden Heuvel of the Nation, in the Washington Post: "It is time for President Obama to offer clemency to Edward Snowden, the courageous U.S. citizen who revealed the Orwellian reach of the National Security Agency's sweeping surveillance of Americans. His actions may have broken the law, but his act, as the New York Times editorialized, did the nation 'a great service.'"
Michael Shear & Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times: "The federal government on Monday announced a new set of monitoring guidelines for people arriving from West Africa that stopped short of the tough measures instituted in New York and New Jersey last week, an effort to bring uniformity to a messy patchwork of responses by states. The new policy, which federal health officials said was an effort ... to strike a balance between safety and civil liberties, would require returning heath care workers, or people who had been near Ebola patients, to submit to an in-person checkup and a phone call from a local public health authority." ...
... Jon Swaine & Dan Roberts of the Guardian: "Federal health officials attempted on Monday to bring some order to a chaotic response to the latest Ebola diagnosis in the United States, after the United Nations criticised earlier restrictions placed on healthcare workers returning from west Africa.". ...
... Margaret Hartmann of New York: "Since each state sets its own quarantine rules, governors can keep imprisoning health-care workers if they want. The army immediately undermined the federal government's new guidelines by announcing that soldiers returning from West Africa are being quarantined for 21 days, though they show no signs of illness and had no direct contact with Ebola patients." ...
... The Most Misunderstood Man in New Jersey Is Misunderstood Again. Matt Arco of NJ Advance Media: " Gov. Chris Christie insisted during a campaign stop today he hasn't reversed his decision on mandatory quarantines for people traveling to the U.S. from West Africa, even as a nurse who had been held at University hospital was released earlier this afternoon. The governor, speaking to reporters in Florida, said his policy hasn't changed. The statement came just hours after the administration announced the nurse under quarantine at University Hospital in Newark after treating Ebola patients in Africa will be discharged. 'I didn't reverse any decision, why are you saying I reversed my decision?' Christie responded to a question today about the nurse, Kaci Hickox." ...
... Susan Livio of NJ Advance Media: Hickox "will be expected to quarantine herself at home, according to the Maine Health Department, which pledged to 'work collaboratively' with her and coordinate any food or medicine she might need if she begins to show symptoms." ...
... Liz Robbins, et al., of the New York Times: "Even as New Jersey officials on Monday released a nurse they had kept quarantined in a tent since her return from treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, an unapologetic Gov. Chris Christie dismissed those who questioned his handling of the case and denied that he had reversed himself.... Mr. Christie said he had no reason to talk to [nurse Kaci] Hickox. 'My job is not to represent her,' he said. 'My job is to represent the people of New Jersey.'" ...
... CW: Yesterday, Steve M. asked "Is Chris Christie being mean enough to Kari Hickox to win the Republican nomination in 2016?" Yeah, I think, "Fuck you, International Hero Nurse," is just mean enough. (It would have been better if Hickox had been both a nurse AND a nun who dedicated herself at great risk to helping the helpless, but you can't have everything.) ...
... Oh, sorry, I was wrong. Lucy McCalmont of Politico: "Rush Limbaugh slammed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Monday over his Ebola response, saying it's the Republican governor who should be quarantined for siding with President Barack Obama ahead of the elections. 'So one week before the election, once again, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has caved. We need to quarantine Chris Christie is what needs to happen here, folks. This is the second election in a row,' Limbaugh said on his radio program.... Comparing Christie's Ebola response to his Hurricane Sandy hug with the president ahead of the 2012 elections, Limbaugh said Christie is 'responding to Obama's demands.'" ...
... Steve M. explains Christie's mistake: "If he were whining now that he was forced to [release Hickox] by jackbooted Obama administration thugs, or possibly by evil trial lawyers (... Hickox was threatening a federal lawsuit), he might be looking good right now in the eyes of Limbaugh and his crowd.... You leave her in the tent, or you say you were forced to free her by the fascist political correctness police. Christie had an enemy -- as Mark noted in my comments, the right was already mounting a hate campaign against Hickox, noting that she's (gasp!) a registered Democrat, and has worked for (horrors!) the CDC." ...
... Abby Ohlheiser & Cecilia Kang of the Washington Post: Hickox "was specifically critical of Christie, who had told reporters Saturday that Hickox was 'obviously ill.' 'First of all, I don't think he's a doctor,' Hickox told CNN on Sunday, in an interview from her isolation tent.... That same day, she hired civil rights attorney Norman Siegel, who told NBC News that Hickox planned to sue for her release." ...
... Andy Borowitz: "Saying that he was 'sick and tired of having my medical credentials questioned,' Governor Chris Christie (R-N.J.) had himself sworn in as a medical doctor on Sunday night. Dr. Christie acknowledged that becoming a doctor generally requires pre-med classes, four years of medical school, plus additional years of residency, but he said that the Ebola epidemic compelled him to take 'extraordinary measures, as we say in the medical profession.'" ...
... Benjamin Wallace-Wells of New York: "Christie's own politics, his instinctive pugilistic communitarianism, may seem a little anachronistic in a country less inclined to see outsiders as enemies.... Already there is something that feels characteristic about Christie in this episode, in which he rushed to the barricades to fight an enemy that no one else could see."
Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "The office of Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, said on Monday that [New York C]ity's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the contractor, Computer Sciences Corporation, created schemes that would trigger [fraudulent Medicaid] reimbursements on tens of thousands of false claims.... [The] reimbursements ... amount to tens of millions of dollars.... The lawsuit, which follows a whistle-blower's complaint, was filed under the False Claims Act. The lawsuit demands triple damages and penalties, but does not specify how much it is seeking.... '... we strongly disagree with the allegations, which we believe involve technical billing issues, not fraud,' the [city's] Law Department said."
A Kindlier, Gentler ISIS Media Campaign? Adam Taylor of the Washington Post: "In a remarkable new video released by the Islamic State militants, British hostage John Cantlie gives a tour of the Syrian city of Kobane and denounces Western coverage of the fighting in the city."
Kate Cox of the Nation: "All across the United States, prison populations are graying, growing old and infirm behind bars.... This is a man-made crisis that tracks back to the nation's long obsession with retribution, which peaked in the 1980s and 1990s. That's when the 'tough on crime' and 'war on drugs' ideologies reigned supreme, spawning mandatory minimum sentences and 'three strikes' laws, among other things.... Spending on inmates ages 50 and older tops $16 billion annually.... Perpetrators and victims -- and the public at large -- could benefit from a system that recognizes retribution must be paired with earlier release and more support for re-entry, as well as repealing mandatory minimum sentencing laws and refocusing our energies on diversion, community supervision and community-based sanctions and services."
November Elections
Dan Balz & Peyton Craighill of the Washington Post: "Republicans enter the final week of the midterm campaign holding higher ground than the Democrats, [link fixed] aided by public dissatisfaction with President Obama's leadership, with the overall direction of the country and with the federal government's ability to deal with major problems, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll." ...
... John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "... it is perfectly possible that neither side will emerge from next Tuesday with victory sealed. Runoffs are likely in Georgia and Louisiana. We could have to wait until early January to find out who controls the upper chamber."
John Dickerson of Slate: "This year's contest is a no-mandate election, in which the winning side will succeed with no great animating idea other than the fear (or avoidance) of the Obama nightmare. Republican debates, speeches, and advertisements have been so thoroughly concerned with the president and how much the Democrat on the ballot agrees with him, there is no other message that competes. That's a smart political strategy, but it's not a governing strategy. Republicans may take control of Congress, but it will have been by clobbering a president they'll then have to work with...."
Coming Soon -- the Ebola Senate Majority. Margaret Talev of Bloomberg Politics: "Last week marked a spike in TV ad buys in Senate and House races featuring either the word 'Ebola' or images of emergency workers in protective suits and masks, according to data from Kantar Media's CMAG, a tracking firm. The uptick coincided with polling showing worsening prospects for Democrats in some of the same states where the ads are running, including Georgia." ...
... David Espo of the AP: "Senate Democrats unleashed a late-campaign round of attack ads Monday accusing Republicans in key races of harboring plans to cut Social Security and Medicare. The commercials in Iowa, New Hampshire, Louisiana and elsewhere appear aimed at older voters, who cast ballots in relatively large numbers in midterm elections and have tended to support Republicans in recent years."
Georgia. Laura Bassett of the Huffington Post: "David Perdue, Georgia's Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, defended himself Sunday night against charges that he paid female managers less than male ones when he was CEO of Dollar General, saying 'it was less than 2,000 people' who brought the lawsuit against the company.... We had upwards of 70,000 employees at that company.'" ... Paul Waldman suggests, "Maybe he should turn this into a slogan: 'David Purdue: The majority of people who worked for me didn't sue for discrimination.'" ...
... CW: If you read the underlying Mother Jones story, you'll see that more than 4,000 employees sued Dollar General during Perdue's tenure as CEO: 2,100+ in the gender discrimination suit & another 2,000 in a suit claiming "that the company had made them managers in name only so it could deny them overtime they would have earned as store clerks." In mediation, Dollar General paid off the employees & former employees in both class action suits.
Kentucky. The Louisville Courier Journal Editors in endorsing Alison Grimes. notes that Mitch McConnell has refused to speak to the board: McConnell "now is identified largely as the master of obstruction and gridlock in Washington. Kentucky needs a U.S. senator who sees a higher calling than personal ambition and a greater goal than self-aggrandizement." ...
Lexington Herald Leader Editors, endorses Alison Grimes for U.S. Senate: "The Senate may never recover from the bitter paralysis [Mitch] McConnell has inflicted through record filibusters that allow his minority to rule by obstruction. Even before Barack Obama was sworn in, McConnell told his fellow Republicans that their strategy was to deny the new president any big wins. The country was in two wars and at deep risk of sliding into a depression, but making an adversary look bad was McConnell's main mission. His signature cause - flooding elections with ever more money - corrupts. He poses as a champion of the right to criticize the government, but it's really his rich buddies' right to buy the government that he champions." ...
... Sam Stein of the Huffington Post: After asking McConnell's various offices a dozen times, a spokesman finally confirmed that Mitch McConnell "wants to repeal the full health care law, including not just the federal subsidies for people purchasing on exchanges like Kynect, but also the mandates and taxes on high-cost plans and other features of the legislation." CW: Say adios to affordable health insurance, 500,000 Kentuckians & millions of Americans. ...
... CW: Despite his despicable character & Dickensian policies, Mitch makes a humanizing campaign ad, proving, if nothing else, that Mad men are awesome. If you can make the Turtle seem like a good-natured human being, you can make even that dead guy in New Hampshire (see below) come to life:
Louisiana. Phil Mattingly of Bloomberg Politics: "Senator Mary Landrieu [C-La.] used the absence of her top opponent in her re-election race at Monday's debate to highlight her differences with President Barack Obama and her efforts to work across the aisle during her time in office.... The no-show, Rep. Bill Cassidy "has consistently led Landrieu in head-to-head polling."
Maine. Matt Byrne of the Portland Press Herald: "Two Portland-area lawmakers will roll out a referendum petition drive this week to enact ranked-choice voting in Maine gubernatorial elections. Rep. Diane Russell, D-Portland, who is running for re-election, and Sen. Richard Woodbury, an independent from Yarmouth who is not running again, said Monday that ranked-choice voting offers a fairer way for Mainers to choose their governor." CW: Good for Russell & Woodbury, but this system should be used for other races, too.
Massachusetts. Charles Pierce stands up for Martha Coakley & rips the Boston Globe for its endorsement of Charlie Baker which "doesn't make a very compelling case for Baker over Coakley on any grounds save for the fact that he's not her."
New Hampshire -- where a dead politicians weighs in on today's U.S. Senate campaign. He didn't like Jeanne Shaheen when he was alive, & he doesn't like her now that he's dead, apparently. Anyway, the GOP thought what was good in 2008 is good for 2014. Whatever. Dave Weigel, via Margaret Hartmann.
Wisconsin. "Scott Walker to Chris Christie: Thanks for Nothing." Alexander Burns of Politico: "Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says he needs more help from the national GOP in his reelection fight -- and an upcoming visit from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie isn't going to cut it.... '[Christie] is coming because he asked if he could come and we weren't going to say no,' Walker said. 'But we're not looking for surrogates.'" CW Note to Scottie: Maybe your likely 2016 presidential rival doesn't want you to win this one.
Presidential Election
Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "As [Chris] Christie considers a run for president, the question of how his image as a no-nonsense, shoot-from-the-hip executive will play in the far-flung precincts of Iowa and South Carolina, where politics tends to be less in-your-face than in New Jersey, is increasingly relevant. His Ebola decision thrust both his persona and his policy-making style back into the spotlight."
Surprise! Hillary 
Business, After All. Ruby Cramer of BuzzFeed. At a rally for Martha Coakley Friday, where she & Elizabeth Warren both spoke, Hillary Clinton said, "Don't let anybody tell you that corporations and businesses create jobs." Speaking Monday at a rally for Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney" (D-N.Y.), Clinton corrected herself: "The Republican alternative is a discredited economic theory that will hurt middle class families. So-called trickle-down economics has failed. I short-handed this point the other day, so let me be absolutely clear about what I've been saying for a couple of decades. Our economy grows when businesses and entrepreneurs create good-paying jobs here in America and workers and families are empowered to build from the bottom up and the middle out -- not when we hand out tax breaks for corporations that outsource jobs or stash their profits overseas." CW Translation: "Send more cash, my Little Wall Street Angels." ...
... Jonathan Chait adds some context in a post titled, "In gaffe, Hillary Clinton endorses communism."
Jason Horowitz of the New York Times profiles Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, who is gearing up to run for president.
Beyond the Beltway
Michael Schwirtz & Michael Winerip of the New York Times: "The New York City Correction Department’s top uniformed officer, facing criticism over underreporting of violence at , will step down, a department spokesman said Tuesday. The officer, William Clemons, a 29-year veteran correction official in New York, was appointed chief of department just five months ago by Mayor Bill de Blasio's reform-minded correction commissioner, who described him at the time as a 'superb corrections professional.'... The move is a blow to the commissioner, Joseph Ponte, who has stalwartly defended his decision to promote Mr. Clemons in the face of unsettling revelations about his competence in recent weeks." ...
... UPDATE. New Lede: "In a major shake-up at the New York City Correction Department, three high-ranking officials, including the top uniformed officer, are stepping down amid mounting criticism over the handling of violence and corruption at Rikers Island.... Mayor Bill de Blasio's handpicked correction commissioner, Joseph Ponte, had promoted all three within the last five months."
News Ledes
AP: "An unmanned commercial supply rocket bound for the International Space Station exploded moments after liftoff Tuesday evening, with debris falling in flames over the launch site in eastern Virginia. No injuries were reported following the first catastrophic launch in NASA's commercial spaceflight effort. The accident at Orbital Sciences Corp.'s launch complex at Wallops Island was sure to draw criticism over the space agency's growing reliance on private U.S. companies in this post-shuttle effort."
USA Today: "Amber Vinson, one of two Texas nurses who tested positive for Ebola after treating an infected patient, is free of the virus and will be discharged Tuesday from Atlanta's Emory University Hospital, according to the hospital."
Atlantic: "Darren Wilson, the police officer accused of shooting Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, this summer..., has not been seen since August 9.... It's now being reported that a total of six criminal cases have been dismissed, because Wilson, as the arresting officer, isn't showing up to court to testify."
CNN: "South African prosecutors will appeal the verdict and the sentence in the Oscar Pistorius case, a spokesman for the country's National Prosecuting Authority told CNN on Monday."
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