The Commentariat -- Oct. 22, 2014

Internal links, defunct videos & related text removed.

Dan Roberts of the Guardian: "The Obama administration has announced America's first Ebola-related travel restrictions, forcing passengers originating from affected countries in west Africa to fly via US airports with screening procedures in place. The limited move comes after days of mounting political pressure to introduce outright travel bans on such passengers entering the US, but will instead make sure all recent travellers to Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea are subject to basic tests for fever and face questioning on possible exposure to the disease." ...

     ... Here's the statement by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. ...

... Joe Coscarelli of New York reports on some of "the most ignorant" Ebola panic episodes. ...

... This lady got the materials for her homemade hazmat outfit at J. C. Penney's. Luckily, no Ebola carriers spit on her exposed wrists. That we know of. ...

... Rachel Abrams of the New York Times: "Major manufacturers of personal protective equipment say they have already experienced a significant spike in demand for their products, as hospitals across the country brace for potential new cases of Ebola, which has already killed more than 4,500 people." ...

... Sarah Ferris of the Hill: "The Dallas hospital that has treated three Ebola patients will no longer admit anyone who has been infected with the disease, Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced Tuesday. Texas health officials are creating a pair of new Ebola treatment centers to handle any additional cases. Neither of those facilities are at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, which has been heavily criticized for its flawed care of the country's first Ebola patient." ...

     ... CW: Perry might have acted sooner to establish these treatment centers, but he was out of the country giving speeches about American exceptionalism. ...

... NBC News: "Ashoka Mukpo, the cameraman diagnosed with Ebola while working in Liberia as a freelancer for NBC News, has been declared free of the virus and will be allowed to leave a biocontainment unit at the Nebraska Medical Center on Wednesday, the hospital said Tuesday."

Washington Post Editors: Recent studies have found that mountaintop-removal mining not only has adverse environmental consequences for vast areas surrounding the operations but also creates killing health conditions. "The EPA is right to move more firmly to protect health and environment."

Erica Werner of the AP: "A new government investigation questions a bizarre Secret Service mission that pulled agents from their assignment near the White House and sent them to the rural Maryland home of a headquarters employee embroiled in a personal dispute with a neighbor. The report by the Homeland Security Department's inspector general calls the conduct 'problematic,' and says that the employee's friendship with high-level Secret Service officials creates the appearance it was motivated by personal relations 'rather than furthering official government functions.'"

Conservative economist Bruce Bartlett in the American Conservative: President "Obama has governed as a moderate conservative -- essentially as what used to be called a liberal Republican before all such people disappeared from the GOP. He has been conservative to exactly the same degree that Richard Nixon basically governed as a moderate liberal, something no conservative would deny today." ...

     ... CW: Bartlett ticks off a list of Obama's conservative policy preferences, all of which I've pointed out over the years. In a world where Congressional Republicans weren't crazed, hateful ideologues, Obama would have overseen the enactment of a lot of fairly conservative legislation, but some of it -- educational enhancements, job training, infrastructure improvement, immigration reform, stricter across-the-board regulation, etc. -- would have benefited some lower- & middle-class people. And we all would be living in a better economy. The Party of No has proved to the greatest American shame (& sham) of the past half-century.

Annals of Journalism

Robert Kaiser of the Washington Post: "Benjamin C. Bradlee, who presided over The Washington Post newsroom for 26 years and guided The Post's transformation into one of the world's leading newspapers, died Oct. 21 at his home in Washington of natural causes. He was 93." ...

... The New York Times' obituary of Bradlee is here. ...

A letter from a WashPo reader, ca. 1977, to editor Katherine Graham:

Dear Mrs. Graham:

Messrs. Eugene Meyer and Philip L. Graham must be turning over in their graves because of the way you are dragging down what used to be a wonderful newspaper.

In my humble opinion, I think the persons really responsible for the Washington Post's decline are Benjamin C. Bradlee and Philip L. Geyelin.

Beneath it was Ben’s response:

Dear Mr. Dodderidge:

Your letter to Mrs. Graham reminded me of the story about W. C. Fields sitting with a drink in his hand in his garden one afternoon.

His secretary interrupted him repeatedly to tell him that a strange man wanted to see him and refused to say what he wanted to see him about. Finally Fields told his secretary to give the man 'an equivocal answer -- tell him to go fuck himself.'

Via Jeff Himmelman, in New York.

In a Time essay, Jill Abramson remembers Bradlee.

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.

The Anti-Cronkite -- The Least Trusted Man in News. Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post: "Thirty-nine percent of Americans say they don't trust Rush Limbaugh when it comes to news about government and politics, giving the radio personality the highest untrustworthiness rating of 36 news sources included in a recent Pew Research Center Study. Americans overall are three times more likely to say they distrust Limbaugh than to say they trust him." ...

... Amy Mitchell, et al., of Pew Research: "When it comes to getting news about politics and government, liberals and conservatives inhabit different worlds. There is little overlap in the news sources they turn to and trust. And whether discussing politics online or with friends, they are more likely than others to interact with like-minded individuals, according to a new Pew Research Center study." ...

... Paul Waldman: "One of the distinct things about the Pew results is that conservatives love, love, love Fox News, while no single news outlet has the same kind of near-universal use among liberals." ...

... Ed Kilgore: "... assessing the importance of Fox News involves more than just looking at ratings. Its extraordinary central role in 'informing' the ideological 'base' of one of the country's two major political parties is unparalleled."

CW: You might like to read Driftglass on Brooks to remind yourself why you don't read David Brooks' columns. The gist of it: once again Brooks faults the breakdown of society for our most recent ill -- this time, Ebola panic -- without every acknowledging that (a) prominent members of his beloved Republican party, along with the rank-and-file wacko-birds, have been feeding the flames of fear for political advantage, or (b) that a dysfunctional society (this week Brooks is blaming "segmented society") is, in part, the result of GOP policies.

CW: I'm quite supportive of James Risen of the New York Times in his troubles with the Obama administration, which for years has been pressuring him in myriad ways -- including threats of criminal prosecution -- to reveal his sources in a chapter of his book (a story he originally wrote for the Times, which the Times decided not to publish) about a CIA plan to sabotage Iran's nuclear program. While this should not affect Risen's righteous First Amendment beef with the DOJ, it's worth noting that Risen isn't as concerned about other people's rights as he is his own. Risen -- along with Jeff Gerth, who "broke" the Whitewater story & whose reporting on that has since been largely discredited -- fingered Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee as a Chinese spy based on "slim evidence, quick conclusions and loyalty to sources with an ax to grind," as Eric Boehlert wrote in Salon in 2000: "... the entire premise of the New York Times' early news reports and strident editorials -- proclaiming that a Chinese-American scientist inside Los Alamos had given away nuclear secrets that had dramatically helped China improve its arsenal, and that the Clinton administration could have stopped it but chose not to -- had turned out to be flat wrong." Eric Holder was a top DOJ guy in the Clinton administration. I wonder if the grief the government is giving Risen now is payback for the embarrassing -- & expensive -- rabbit hole down which Risen's reporting led federal law enforcement agencies.

** Fred Kaplan of Slate: "If all I knew about Edward Snowden were his portrait in Laura Poitras' documentary, Citizenfour, I'd probably regard him as a conscientious, brave young man, maybe an American hero. But Poitras, a very talented filmmaker who flipped from journalist to collaborator in this story long ago, has chosen to leave a lot out."

Greg Miller of the Washington Post: "Former CIA director Leon E. Panetta clashed with the agency over the contents of his recently published memoir and allowed his publisher to begin editing and making copies of the book before he had received final approval from the CIA.... Panetta's decision appears to have put him in violation of the secrecy agreement that all CIA employees are required to sign and came amid a showdown with agency reviewers that could have derailed the release of the book...." CW: Evidently Panetta was in a hurry to get the book out before the midterms.

November Elections

Vote Early. The POTUS might give you a smooch:

... P.S. No matter who you are, you will be asked for ID:

Worse than the Poll Tax. Jonathan Chait: "... the costs of contemporary voter I.D. requirements, even in inflation-adjusted terms, is many times the level of the poll taxes that existed before they were outlawed in 1964." CW: Read the whole post. Chait has a lot more to say about voter suppression, but this factoid jumped out at me. ...

... Matthew McKnight of the New Yorker on the Supreme Court's decision to allow Texas to impose a discriminatory voter suppression law: "... this moment, of threatened voting rights and judicial obscurity, presents a paradox: the strongest tool that citizens possess is being made impotent by the government officials who are most immune to the power of the vote."

Brian Tashman of Right Wing Watch profiles "five Republican Congressional candidates who could be heading to the Capitol next year. Some have been labeled 'establishment,' some 'Tea Party,' but all are emblematic of the party's strong turn to the right." One is worse than the next.

Florida. Nah-ne-na-nah-ni. You're too rich. No, you're too privileged. Charlie Crist & Rick Scott "debate." Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Scott's net worth was more than $132 million last year Crist's was $1.2 million." Steve Bousquet & Mary Ellen Klas of the Miami Herald & Tampa Bay Times: "For a live hour on CNN and in TV stations across Florida, Scott and Crist disagreed, distorted each others' records and exchanged insults."

Georgia. Christina Wilkie of the Huffington Post: "Republican David Perdue, the Georgia businessman running for U.S. Senate, has as much as $1 million invested in an exclusive fund managed by a Swiss private bank -- a rarefied investment strategy that has earned him between $100,000 and $1 million since 2012." Via Greg Sargent. CW: Please, Georgia media, pick up this story. Nobody likes a tax cheat.

Iowa. Miranda Blue of Right Wing Watch: At a campaign event with Donald Trump, Rep. Steve King (RTP-Iowa) "went on a long tirade claiming that America is becoming 'a third-world country' because of 'the things that are coming at us from across the border,' including illegal drugs, Central American children of 'prime gang recruitment age,' ISIS, a childhood respiratory illness that has spread in recent weeks, and the Ebola virus. The ISIS and respiratory disease claims are based on unsubstantiated reports in the right-wing media, while there is absolutely no link between border enforcement and Ebola or the Oklahoma beheading incident."

New Hampshire. Joshua Miller of the Boston Globe: "... incumbent Democrat Jeanne Shaheen and Republican Scott Brown engaged in a fiery debate. Shaheen attacked Brown ... as someone driven by his own ambition rather than a desire to serve New Hampshire residents.... Brown painted Shaheen as a lockstep partisan, tying her to President Obama, who has grown unpopular in New Hampshire." OR, as Greg Sargent puts it, "Brown robotically repeat[ed] Obummer-Obummer-Obummer talking points."

North Carolina. Greg Sargent: GOP Senate nominee Thom "Tillis is now suggesting that North Carolina should consider opting in to Obamacare's Medicaid expansion. Which is funny, because during the GOP primary, he ran an ad boasting that as state House speaker, he had 'stopped Obamacare's Medicaid expansion cold.'"

Wisconsin. I don't want to say anything about your Wisconsin voters but, some of them might not be as sharp as a knife. -- RNC co-chair Sharon Day, who might not be as sharp as a knife

Presidential Election

Another Potential GOP Presidential Candidate Is "Tired of Hearing about the Minimum Wage." This week, it's Chris Christie (who told it to the fat cats at a Chamber of Commerce event.) Last week it was Scott Walker. (And of course Walker's sidekick, the state's GOP attorney general nominee Brad Schimel, reflecting Scottie's "values," thinks minimum wage jobs are not "real jobs.") CW: It all makes sense, see? If you don't have a "real job," you don't merit a "real living wage." You have to be satisfied with the fake one the Walker administration came up with: $7.25/hour. Never mind that researchers have calculated that a minimum living wage in Madison is $21/hour, or almost three times the Walker claim. It's all fake, see -- your job, their calculation. That's the way it is in Right Wing World, where their perception is your reality. ...

... Tim Alberta of the National Journal: "New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie launched a preemptive strike Tuesday against some potential Republican rivals for the White House, saying the 'experiment' of promoting a lawmaker to president has failed -- and arguing that Republicans must nominate a governor in 2016.... The remarks may well represent Christie's most forceful intra-party offensive to date, a preemptive and unprompted attack against unnamed 'legislators' -- including Sens. Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz -- who almost certainly will be competing with him in 2016." ...

... CW: Christie, like Joni Ernst, says, "Pain will be involved. Some people will be unhappy" under his governance. It's hard not to notice a decided sadistic strain running through Republican political philosophy. Both Ernst & Christie describe the pain they intend to inflict upon their constituents as a demonstration of strength: Ernst uses the term "intestinal fortitude"; Christie sees hurting people as a measure of "leadership": "It's time to start offending people," he boasts. "I don't care if I'm loved; I want to be respected."

Ron Paul, Still Marching to His Own Drummer. Jonathan Topaz of Politico: "Ron Paul on Monday said that calls for a ban on travel from West African countries affected by Ebola are primarily 'politically motivated' -- just days after his son Sen. Rand Paul announced his support for one."

Beyond the Beltway

Preying on the Poor. Michael Corkery of the New York Times: "Over the last two years, lawmakers in at least eight states have voted to increase the fees or the interest rates that lenders can charge on certain personal loans used by millions of borrowers with subpar credit. The overhaul of the state lending laws comes after a lobbying push by the consumer loan industry and a wave of campaign donations to state lawmakers." CW: No, these legislators have no shame. They're just as bad as the usurers themselves.

Charles Pierce adds some historical context to the (Allegedly) Felonious Mike story out of Alabama, with more than a cameo appearance of Karl Rove. One thing that unites the GOP establishment in these red states -- they are all dirty rotten scoundrels. ...

... Ferinstance. Lauren McGaughy of the Houston Chronicle: "Former David Dewhurst [R] campaign manager Kenneth 'Buddy' Barfield is facing up to 28 years in prison and millions in fines and restitution payments after pleading guilty Tuesday to embezzling nearly $1.8 million from the outgoing lieutenant governor's failed 2012 bid for U.S. Senate. Appearing before a federal judge, Barfield pleaded guilty to charges of wire fraud, filing a false tax return and embezzlement. While he faces a maximum of 28 years in prison, seven years supervised release and fines, his ultimate sentence will be determined by a district court judge at a later date." Barfield now lives in Alabama.

Christine Byers of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "The St. Louis medical examiner, Dr. Michael Graham, who is not part of the official investigation [into Michael Brown's death], reviewed the autopsy report for the newspaper. He said Tuesday that it 'does support that there was a significant altercation at the car.'... Dr. Judy Melinek, a forensic pathologist in San Francisco, said the autopsy 'supports the fact that this guy is reaching for the gun, if he has gunpowder particulate material in the wound.' She added, 'If he has his hand near the gun when it goes off, he's going for the officer's gun.' Sources told the Post-Dispatch that Brown's blood had been found on [Officer Darren] Wilson's gun. Melinek also said the autopsy did not support witnesses who have claimed Brown was shot while running away from Wilson, or with his hands up."

Laurel Andrews of the Alaska Dispatch News on a Palin family melee. "Real America" turns out to be a horrible place.

News Ledes

Hill: "The Pentagon confirmed Wednesday that Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters took possession of a stray bundle of U.S.-airdropped weapons and other supplies in the Syrian border town of Kobani earlier this week."

New York Times: "The heart of the Canadian capital [Ottawa] was traumatized and placed in emergency police lockdown on Wednesday after a gunman fatally wounded a soldier guarding the National War Memorial, entered the nearby Parliament building and fired multiple times before he was shot and killed. It was the second deadly assault on a uniformed member of Canada's armed forces in three days. While the motive was unclear, the Ottawa attack heightened fears that Canada, a strong ally of the United States, had been targeted in an organized terrorist plot." ...

... Toronto Globe & Mail: "Federal sources have identified the suspected shooter as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a man in his early 30s who was known to Canadian authorities. Sources told The Globe and Mail that he was recently designated a 'high-risk traveller' by the Canadian government and that his passport had been seized -- the same circumstances surrounding the case of Martin Rouleau-Couture, the Quebecker who was shot Monday after running down two Canadian Forces soldiers with his car." The page includes links to related stories. ...

... Here's the Guardian's live feed.

Guardian: "A three-month old baby was killed and eight other people wounded in Jerusalem -- one seriously -- in what Israel police are describing as a 'terrorist attack' in which a speeding car drove onto a pavement crowded with pedestrians alighting from the city's light railway. Video footage posted on social media appears to show a car on the main road slowing slightly before crossing to the train tracks and climbing on to the station pavement and ploughing through the people standing on it."

The Commentariat -- Oct. 21, 2014

Internal links removed.

Frank Rich on "Why the Future We Imagined in 1964 Was Wrong in Pretty Much Every Way" -- Thanks to MAG for the link.

** Jeff Toobin of the New Yorker interviews President Obama on the subject of his judicial legacy. A consequential essay & a pleasure to read.

Jamie Dettmer of the Daily Beast: "While U.S. warplanes strike at the militants of the so-called Islamic State in both Syria and Iraq, truckloads of U.S. and Western aid has been flowing into territory controlled by the jihadists.... The aid -- mainly food and medical equipment -- is meant for Syrians displaced from their hometowns, and for hungry civilians. It is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, European donors, and the United Nations. Whether it continues is now the subject of anguished debate among officials in Washington and European [sic.]. The fear is that stopping aid would hurt innocent civilians and would be used for propaganda purposes by the militants, who would likely blame the West for added hardship."

Alan Pyke of Think Progress: "Indiana will cut tens of thousands of its poorest people off of the food stamps roles beginning next spring, the state announced. Gov. Mike Pence (R) has decided to join seven other states in reinstating work requirements for food stamps despite being eligible for a federal waiver from those rules for the coming fiscal year.... Gov. John Kasich ...(R-Ohio) retained the SNAP work waivers for 16 of the state's 88 counties but reinstated work rules in the counties that house the majority of the state's minority population. Food stamps recipients in the counties that continue to enjoy waivers are 94 percent white...." Read the whole post. ...

... CW Note: Kasich has reinvented himself as a "compassionate conservati[ve], with strong religious overtones." Apparently strongly-religious conservatives have compassion only for white people. BTW, when Dan Balz of the Washington Post wrote about Kasich's compassionate conservatism, in a highly favorable article published last week, he neglected to mention anything about Kasich's racially-biased food-stamp move even though news of Kasich's controversial food-stamp maneuver -- which he pulled more than a year ago -- has been well-publicized & is the subject of a civil rights lawsuit. Kasich is a shoo-in for re-election in November. His Democratic challenger Ed Fitzgerald is the Worst Democratic Candidate Ever. ...

... Gaffe. Greg Sargent highlights Kasich's accidental endorsement of ObamaCare:

The opposition to it [ObamaCare] was really either political or ideological. I don't think that holds water against real flesh and blood, and real improvements in people's lives. -- Gov. John Kasich (R-Ohio)...

     ... Sargent: "Now, perhaps recognizing how lethal this is to his hopes in upcoming GOP presidential primaries, Kasich has rushed to clean up the mess.... The truly revealing thing about Kasich's comments was ... that he admitted the law has made 'real improvements in people's lives.' And even in his effort to clean up his comments, he again implicitly admitted this to be the case, claiming he supports Obamacare's general goals but not the ACA itself."

Digby notes that Jim Crow will be returning to the Supreme Court this term, in the form of a challenge to the Fair Housing Act. There's a good chance Jim will win an important round in his never-ending quest to subjugate black Americans. ...

... ** Read Jamelle Bouie's full column on "the next assault on civil rights," which digby cites. Bouie really nails the conservative Supremes. ...

... CW: George W. Bush usually gets a pass on race -- including from me -- because he isn't a Jeff Sessions kind of racist. I believe Bush has actual black friends, not the Tom Corbett-Photoshopped kind. But Bush put two nasty boys on the Supreme Court -- and the same type of fellows on many lower-courts, too -- which, even as the ideological balance of the courts tip left, will put the stamp of racial discrimination on our judicial system for decades to come. Conservatism itself has turned out to be a petulant, subversive form of racism & promoter of economic inequality, whose "free-market values" are a pretense for prejudice & oppression. Conservatives may dress their shibboleth respectably, but it is wearing filthy underwear.

Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Republican leaders, conceding the futility of a flight ban from Ebola-afflicted West Africa, are refining their response to the outbreak, pressing to suspend visas for travelers and create 'no boarding' lists." ...

... But What about Marco? Jesse Byrnes of the Hill: "Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) plans to introduce legislation banning travel between the U.S. and three West African countries hardest hit by the deadly Ebola virus, his office announced Monday." CW: If there's a bad idea out there, if there's a knee-jerk crazy reaction to a crisis, if there's a chance to knock the president, if there's an opportunity to capitalize on Americans' fears -- count on Marco to milk it for all it's worth. ...

     ... The Times' Weisman sort of implies Marco's folly is a feint: "In reality, Republicans are not planning a legislative response, at least for now, Republican leadership aides said Monday. They merely want their voices heard." ...

... Our elected Republican representatives explain why you should expect to contract Ebola. The already-disembodied guy warning of "liquified internal organs" is Rep. Mike Kelly (RTP-Pa.), & the zombie fella there is Rep. Blake "Pajama Boy" Farenthold (RTP-Texas):

Anna Palmer & Rachel Bade of Politico: "Federal law enforcement officials are taking an ISIL threat against Michele Bachmann so seriously that Capitol Police have given the Minnesota Republican her own security detail. An online threat against Bachmann emerged recently, according to multiple law enforcement officials...."

Reuters: "Monica Lewinsky, the one-time White House intern whose affair with Bill Clinton in the 1990s nearly brought down his presidency, has described herself as one of the first victims of cyberbullying and vowed to help others survive the 'shame game' of public humiliation. In a rare public appearance Lewinsky spoke at Forbes' inaugural 30 Under 30 summit in Philadelphia, saying her depiction in the media -- as a constant punchline for late-night comedians and fuel for internet gossip -- destroyed her sense of self." CW: Affair? I don't think the honor of giving the prez a few blow jobs constitutes an "affair."

Dana Milbank: On "Meet the Press" Sunday, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases at the NIH, offered a big wet kiss to deficit hawks & contradicted his boss Francis Collins when he did. Fauci said, contra Collins, that if the NIH had all the funding it wanted they still might not have an Ebola vaccine today....

     ... CW: One would think these big shots, who may not be polished polticians, would at least know how to be a bit more diplomatic when they go on national teevee. It's not that Chuck Todd is a tough questioner who backed Fauci into a corner. ...

     ... Much of the right has claimed that the "real reason" the NIH hasn't worked harder on developing an Ebola vaccine is that it wastes your taxpayer dollars studying bike paths & other more frivolous concerns. But that's bull. A significant reason the NIH did not prioritize work on an Ebola vaccine is that until last month, Ebola was an illness mostly confined to West Africa. The representatives of the people would rather the NIH & other government-funded health agencies prioritize issues here at home. This is not necessarily foolish. However, this inward-looking orientation can sometimes have unintended consequences -- like a localized epidemic elsewhere spreading worldwide. As Akhilleus pointed out in yesterday's thread, the spread of Ebola -- and the failure of the U.S. government to fully address it -- is a riff on the spread of AIDS, which also started on the African continent, probably in the 1960s.

CW: Should you be inclined to fault me for almost never watching the Sunday talk shows, I shall allow Charles Pierce to defend me. His report on this week's goings-on is all I need. Had I watched any of them, I would have smashed a perfectly good teevee.

November Elections

CW: The next couple of weeks will be gruesome for progressives. So I'll be ignoring some of the bad-news polls -- there will be plenty -- and concentrating on less depressing stuff.

Alex Roarty of the National Journal: "... in several key races, a national political climate driven by the president's unpopularity has been eclipsed locally by a less-Republican friendly attitude. It's turning once-predicable contests into some of the country's most competitive battles, and it's a key difference between this midterm election and many of its recent predecessors."

Michael Gerson of the Washington Post knocks his fellow Republicans' hubris: "Republicans are susceptible to the myth of the midterm mandate. Midterm elections generally express unhappiness, not aspiration. But some conservatives took the 2010 result as an ideological turning point. They concluded that Obama's 2008 victory was an anomaly -- that the country, deep down, was really on the Republican side. It was a false dawn.... At the presidential level, the GOP brand is offensive to many rising demographic groups. Republicans are often perceived as indifferent to working-class struggles (because they sometimes are). The GOP appeal seems designed for a vanishing electorate."

Florida. Mark Caputo of the Miami Herald: "Rick Scott ad: Obama backs Crist. Next Scott ad: water is wet."

Georgia. Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: Former President George H. W. Bush, who supports David Perdue (R) in Georgia's Senate race, doesn't like this rebuttal ad by the former CEO of Bush's Points of Light Foundation, Michelle Nunn:

     ... CW: Ya know, Mr. President, if you're going to support a scummy candidate who runs scummy ads, you have to expect his opponent to push back with this perfectly respectable, respectful -- and truthful -- rebuttal.

** Iowa. Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "Iowa ... is undergoing an economic transformation that is challenging its rural character -- and, inevitably, its political order. As Iowans prepare to elect a new United States senator for the first time in three decades, the scale at which people and power have shifted from its rural towns to its urban areas is emerging as a potent but unpredictable undercurrent in the excruciatingly close race, offering opportunity and risk for both sides."

Maryland. Dana Milbank offers an explanation for why some people left an Obama rally while the President was still speaking: "This exodus wasn’t intended as a protest. Long lines for shuttles taking attendees to remote parking sites induced participants to leave early so they could beat the rush.... [But] Even among the faithful, Obama's magic can't match the urge to get a jump on traffic." This jibes with a remark made by one commenter to the OFA site who attended the rally. See yesterday's Commentariat for context.

** Massachusetts. Walter Robinson of the Boston Globe: "... Seth W. Moulton, the Democratic nominee for Congress in the Sixth Congressional District, a former Marine who saw fierce combat for months and months in Iraq..., chose not to publicly disclose that he was twice decorated for heroism until pressed by the Globe." ...

... "The Best Candidate Anywhere." Charles Pierce, who has known Walter Robinson for a long time: "... Moulton got on Robinson's radar because Moulton treated his service in Iraq very obliquely in his campaign. Because he [Robinson] had run down so many people who'd phonied up their war records, Robinson got intrigued, so he went to work combing through Moulton's service record.... What Robinson found was enough to warm even the most cynical heart. Including his own. Including mine." ...

... Here's Rachel Maddow on Robinson & Moulton:

South Carolina. Alexandra Jaffe of the Hill: "Rep. James Clyburn's (D-S.C.) Republican challenger [Anthony Culler] referred to same-sex couples as 'gremlins' and 'bullies' in a Facebook post urging supporters to oppose gay marriage at the polls this fall.... Culler ... wrote a Facebook post on Oct. 14 decrying same-sex marriage as 'a pestilence that has descended on our society, against our will, by those in the courts and government that do not value the traditional family. Same sex couples that seek to destroy our way of life and the institution of marriage are NOT cute and cuddly but rather (for those of you that are old enough to remember the movie), Gremlins that will only destroy our way of life...." ...

... CW: South Carolina's 6th Congressional district has a majority-black population. Luckily, Republicans were able to find a white guy who is a confirmed bigot to challenge Clyburn, a member of the House Democratic leadership.

Wisconsin. "Get a Real Job." Alice Ollstein of Think Progress: "Brad Schimel, the Republican candidate for Attorney General [of Wisconsin], told supporters at a Milwaukee County Republicans party that he's tired of the contentious statewide debate over the minimum wage. 'I want every one of our neighbors to have a job again, a well-paid job, so we don't have to argue about minimum wage for someone working at Burger King,' he said. 'Let's get them a real job.'"

Presidential Election

Sam Levine of the Huffington Post: "In the November issue of Harper's magazine, Doug Henwood argues that Hillary Clinton, if elected president, would do little to assuage liberals' disappointment in President Barack Obama. This is how Henwood sums up the case for Hillary's candidacy in 2016: 'She has experience, she's a woman, and it's her turn.' But, he says, 'it's hard to find any political substance in her favor.'" Harper's has firewalled Henwood's piece, so Levine summarizes his arguments.

David Corn: "Rand Paul [is] the most interesting conspiracy theorist in Washington. Bilderbergers, the Iraq invasion, Alex Jones -- the GOP senator has routinely flirted with America's paranoid fringe." ...

... CW: Corn concentrates on Paul's conspiracy theories past. But we would be remiss in failing to include his Ebola truther movement connections. ...

... Brian Beutler: "Dr. Rand Paul Should Be Held Accountable for Whipping Up a Frenzy About 'Incredibly Contagious' Ebola."

Beyond the Beltway

Mike Cason of AL.com: "Mike Hubbard, speaker of the Alabama House of Representatives and a powerful leader in the state Republican Party, has been indicted by a grand jury and charged with 23 counts, including using his office for personal gain and soliciting things of value. Late Monday afternoon, Hubbard reported to the Lee County Jail where he was booked.... According to the indictment, Hubbard solicited favors from some of Alabama's rich and powerful. They include former Alabama Governor Bob Riley.... Earlier this year, the [grand jury] investigation resulted in charges against two other [Republican] state lawmakers."

Home-Grown "Terrorists": Chris Hayes has a nice follow-up of the Pumpkin Festival riots in Keene, New Hampshire.

News Ledes

New York Times: "The Ukrainian Army appears to have fired cluster munitions on several occasions into the heart of Donetsk, unleashing a weapon banned in much of the world into a rebel-held city with a peacetime population of more than one million, according to physical evidence and interviews with witnesses and victims."

Guardian: "The US State Department says Jeffrey Fowle, one of three Americans being held in North Korea, has been released. State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said Fowle was home Tuesday after negotiators left Pyongyang. She said the US is still trying to free two other Americans, Matthew Miller and Kenneth Bae."

New York Times: "Oscar de la Renta, the doyen of American fashion, whose career began in the 1950s in Franco's Spain, sprawled across the better living rooms of Paris and New York, and who was the last survivor of that generation of bold, all-seeing tastemakers, died on Monday at his home in Kent, Conn. He was 82."

New York Times: "Oscar Pistorius, the South African track star once seen as an emblem of triumph over adversity, was sentenced on Tuesday to five years in prison for killing his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp." ...

     ... The Guardian is liveblogging the sentencing.

The Commentariat -- Oct. 20, 2014

Internal links, defunct video removed.

Laura Barron-Lopez of the Hill: "The U.S. military is readying a 30-person team for Ebola response inside the U.S., the Defense Department said on Sunday. The team, which will be ready to 'respond quickly, effectively, and safely' in the event of more Ebola cases, is in response to a request by the Department of Health and Human Services." ...

... Richard Preston writes a fascinating -- and heartbreaking -- story for the New Yorker on scientists who are racing to map the Ebola genome. "Since there is no vaccine against or cure for the disease caused by Ebola virus, the only way to stop it is to break the chains of infection." The Ebola virus is mutating, but Preston cites an expert who says it is very unlikely to mutate to a form that could survive in dry air & dust motes. "There are many ways by which Ebola could become more contagious even without becoming airborne." ...

... Laura Barron-Lopez: "A top official at the National Institutes of Health on Sunday said a travel ban on flights to and from West Africa would only make things worse in the fight against Ebola, pushing back against calls from lawmakers to institute one. 'The fact is it would be very, very difficult if we lost control of easily tracking people,' Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on CNN's 'State of the Union.'" ...

... Wait, Let's Hear from Famed Epidemiologist Dr. Ted Cruz. Laura Barron-Lopez: "Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Sunday slammed President Obama for not instituting a travel ban on flights to and from West Africa. During an interview on CNN's 'State of Union' show, Cruz said the 'biggest mistake that continues to be made is that we continue to allow open commercial air flights.'... Cruz also accused the administration of treating Ebola as 'another political' situation rather 'than a public health crisis.'" ...

     ... CW: Worth noting: Ted Cruz is the same "expert" who thinks he has the knowledge to contradict actual experts, yet in the same breath complains that Ron Klain is not a medical genius & Ebola expert so he shouldn't be coordinating efforts to stop the spread of the virus. Cruz thinks his own epidemiological knowledge is greater than that of trained epidemiologists, but he doesn't think anyone else is capable of listening to these experts & acting on their advice -- which is what Klain's new job is.* If you were looking for a picture of a sociopathic megalomaniac, look no further. People like Cruz & Rand Paul, who think their own prejudices & self-serving poses are superior to the best expert knowledge (which, admittedly, is not 100 percent accurate), are the most dangerous people in the world to entrust with any power & responsibility. ...

     * As Jonathan Cohn explained in the New Republic last week, "... the primary tasks of a czar are to coordinate action and advice among the different agencies -- and to serve as a reassuring public spokesman. Klain has done that.... He has a reputation for knowing the ins and outs of government and how to make things happen...." ...

... Adam Peck of Think Progress: "It has been nearly a year since Vivek Murthy was nominated by President Obama to serve as the next Surgeon General.... Earlier this year, the NRA launched a campaign to derail Murthy's nomination because he voiced support for expanding background checks for gun purchases. His comments that gun violence was a public health concern raised the ire of the gun lobby and conservative lawmakers despite the fact that every major medical association -- and several former Surgeons General under Republican presidents -- shared the same view.... After the NRA began publicly opposing Murthy's nomination, several of Blunt's Republican colleagues including Rand Paul, John Cornyn and John Barrasso said they too would move to block Murthy's nomination, and Paul placed a hold on the nomination."

... Frances Robles & Manny Fernandez of the New York Times: "The head of the group that runs the Texas hospital under scrutiny for mishandling Ebola cases apologized Sunday in full-page ads in local Dallas newspapers, saying the hospital 'made mistakes in handling this very difficult challenge.'" ...

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the N.I.H.'s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the hospital had been following guidelines on protection gear from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which were prepared by the World Health Organization for treating people in rustic conditions in Africa. The protocols have been refined to be used in a setting where complicated procedures such as dialysis and incubation take place, Dr. Fauci said in an interview on Sunday on the NBC morning news show 'Meet the Press.'

... Julian Barnes of the Wall Street Journal has a bit more on the new guidelines for protective wear. ...

... CW: To prove how seldom I watch the Sunday shows, I just learned that a year ago George Will moved from ABC News to Fox "News." ...

... Driftglass, however, is on it & is not surprised to hear George Will, the Anti-Science Shill, is over there on Fox "News" quoting "some [unspecified] scientists" that Ebola may be an air-borne virus. ...

... Even Fred Hiatt, the Washington Post's editorial page editor, can be right occasionally: "... in a climate that is so unforgiving, so quick to pounce, so unwilling to accept that mistakes will be made and should be learned from, it's understandable that leaders trap themselves into promising more than they can deliver. A desire for accountability does not have to preclude a certain generosity of spirit, or some empathy for those who are performing public service. We seem to have forgotten that."

Paul Krugman: "Amazon.com, the giant online retailer, has too much power, and it uses that power in ways that hurt America.... Can we trust Amazon not to abuse that power? The Hachette dispute has settled that question: no, we can't."

Simone Sebastian & Ines Bebea of the Washington Post: The NFL promotes a culture that encourages players' partners to keep quiet when the players physically abuse them.

November Elections

Florida. Jake Sherman of Politico: "It should've been an easy year for Rep. Steve Southerland, but instead of waltzing to reelection, the two-term congressman has served up a case study in how to blow a relatively safe Republican seat. He started campaigning late, got crosswise with women by holding a men-only fundraiser, warred behind the scenes with his party over strategy and fretted over anonymous quotes criticizing his reelection effort. In the meantime, a threat emerged in the hard-charging Gwen Graham, who put 36,000 miles on her Chevy Equinox traversing this district and drumming up support among rural Republicans and Democrats alike, appearing with her popular father [Bob Graham], a former governor and senator." CW: Southerland can pull this out. he's cooperating with the NRCC now, & President Obama has about a 30 percent approval rating in the district, according to Sherman.

Maryland. There's Something Wrong Here. Jeff Mason of Reuters: "President Barack Obama made a rare appearance on the campaign trail on Sunday with a rally to support [Anthony Brown,] the Democratic candidate for governor in Maryland, but early departures of crowd members while he spoke underscored his continuing unpopularity.... A steady stream of people walked out of the auditorium while he spoke..., and a heckler interrupted his remarks." ...

... Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Before Mr. Obama's speech ended, a steady trickle of people had departed, leaving some empty seats. And an immigration activist interrupted the speech, holding a sign demanding that '#Not1more' immigrant be deported. As the crowd bellowed the protester away, Mr. Obama suggested that he 'should have been protesting the folks that are blocking' an immigration overhaul." ...

... Here's the Washington Post report, by Jenna Johnson & Arelis Hernandez: "The president told the largely African American, and wildly enthusiastic, crowd that Republicans want voters to become so cynical that they don't vote.... At times, the crowd punctuated each of his sentences with cheers. It also defended him with boos when a heckler challenged Obama on immigration. It was a level of enthusiasm that Brown has yet to see as he campaigns to become the state's first African American governor and the nation's third to be popularly elected. Some in the crowd said they waited in line for hours to see Obama, not Brown." ...

... According to this Obama for America site, Obama & Brown also spoke to a crowd in an overflow room. (Not sure if this was before or after the speech to 8,000.) Someone who attended the rally wrote in the comments, "The older people were dropping like flies. One person after the next was fainting and most of the people who were leaving early were Seniors. This happens at all his rallies."

... CW: I couldn't find video of the full speech, but here's an AP clip:

     ... Of course wingers are eating up the Reuters story. I do not find it credible that a "largely African American, and wildly enthusiastic, crowd" of people who "waited in line for hours to see Obama, not Brown" got up & walked out en masse when the President spoke. Were the people who left Republicans? Latinos? Going to a ball game? Or, as the commenter says, overcome by the close crowd? This is just odd.

Pennsylvania. Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed. All of Gov. Tom Corbett's black friends are Photoshopped. In fact, everyone on Tom Corbett's Website who isn't Tom Corbett is a stock image, Photoshopped in. A stock image of black lady is Photoshopped into one photo facing one way, in another photo, the same image is facing the other way. But wait! Somebody bothered to change the color of her shirt! CW: I guess the governor was too busy messing up the Keystone State to make friends. ...

     ... Driftglass: "I guess Ben Carson was unavailable."

Texas. A "5 am Wake-up Call on Voting Rights." Rick Hasen in Slate: "... why did Justice Ginsburg keep the court and court-watchers up all night for a relatively lengthy dissent from an order issued with no majority opinion?... My guess is that she wanted to make an important statement about how the Supreme Court should handle these voting cases going forward and to publicly flag where she believes the court is going wrong....This middle-of-the-night dissent calls attention to what Justice Ginsburg likely sees as a grave injustice.

Wisconsin. Alice Olstein of Think Progress: It turns out, at least according to Dan Sebring, the GOP nominee for Congress in Wisconsin's 4th district, that the real reason the Supremes blocked implementation of Wisconsin's voter ID law for this election is that they don't want Scott Walker to be president. In Right Wing World, everything is a conspiracy. And it doesn't have to make a lick of sense. ...

... CW: Here's another dirty trick, this one coming from the librul media cabal. At the top of today's online Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is this headline: "Obamacare plan rates in Wisconsin to keep pace or decline next year." This would never have happened, BTW, if Chief Justice John Roberts had not decided that most of the ACA was constitutional. It's a plot, all right.

News Ledes

New York Times: "At least one chapter of the Ebola saga neared a close Sunday, as most of the dozens of people who had direct or indirect contact here with Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who died of Ebola, had been told by officials that they were no longer at risk of contracting the disease."

New York Times: "Escalating its assistance to Kurdish fighters battling the Islamic State in the Syrian town of Kobani, American military aircraft on Sunday dropped ammunition, small arms and medical supplies to resupply the combatants, officials said."

New York Daily News: "Tennessee state Sen. Jim Summerville was arrested twice this weekend -- just one month after he was arrested for public intoxication, police said. The outgoing Republican senator from Dickson, Tenn., has been charged with stalking and assault in separate incidents involving his neighbor, Lt. Todd Christian said.