New York Times: “A body believed to be of the suspect in a Kentucky highway shooting that left five people seriously injured this month was found on Wednesday, the authorities said, ending a manhunt that stretched into a second week and set the local community on edge. The Kentucky State Police commissioner, Phillip Burnett Jr., said in a Wednesday night news conference that at approximately 3:30 p.m., two troopers and two civilians found an unidentified body in the brush behind the highway exit where the shooting occurred.... The police have identified the suspect of the shooting as Joseph A. Couch, 32. They said that on Sept. 7, Mr. Couch perched on a cliff overlooking Interstate 75 about eight miles north of London, Ky., and opened fire. One of the wounded was shot in the face, and another was shot in the chest. A dozen vehicles were riddled with gunfire.”
To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.
Link Code: <a href="URL">text</a>
OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, but Akhilleus found this new one that he says is easy to use.
OR you can always just block, copy and paste to your comment the URL (Web address) of the page you want to link.
Note for Readers. It is not possible for commenters to "throw" their highlighted links to another window. But you can do that yourself. Right-click on the link and a drop-down box will give you choices as to where you want to open the link: in a new tab, new window or new private window.
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."
David Sanger & Anne Barnard of the New York Times: "The Pentagon said on Saturday that it had conducted its first strikes against Islamic State targets in a besieged Kurdish area of Syria along the Turkish border, destroying two armored vehicles in an area that has been the subject of a weeklong onslaught by the Islamic State. The action around Kobani, where at least 150,000 refugees have crossed into Turkey, appeared to signify the opening of a new front for American airstrikes in Syria, and came on a day when several other strikes took place in Raqqa, the de facto headquarters of the Islamic State's forces, and other sites in the eastern part of the country." ...
... Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "As British jets took off from Cyprus to carry out strikes on Islamic State (Isis) targets in Iraq on Saturday, and US-led strikes continued in Syria and Iraq, President Barack Obama used his weekly address to say American leadership was 'the one constant in an uncertain world'.... On Saturday afternoon, the Department of Defence released a statement regarding the latest strikes, which said that Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates had participated in strikes on Syria." ...
... In a rambling column, Maureen Dowd makes one important point: "As the U.S. woos the Arab coalition, Arab leaders are not speaking out against the atrocities of ISIS against women.
Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post tells the chilling story of how in 2011 a man took seven shots that hit the White House residence while Sasha Obama & Marian Robinson were inside & Malia Obama was expected shortly. The Secret Service was clueless -- saying first that the shots were car backfires & later they were from gangs shooting at each other -- until a maid found a broken window & debris on the Truman balcony days later.
Thomas Frankinterviews Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for Salon. Sanders: "... there are some great people in the Democratic Party who spend an enormous amount of time and energy fighting for working people, and I work with those guys. But I don't think anybody would say, as a whole, that the Democratic Party is the party of the American working class." ...
... CW: I don't know that this is the video to which Sanders refers in the interview, but it's great anyway. From 2003, when Sanders was in the House. Greenspan's smirk while Sanders is speaking & his nonresponsive "answer" to Sanders' question are disgusting:
Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post: "The Pew Forum on Religion and Public life ... finds a growing appetite for belief in the ballot box, and politics in the pulpit. These shifts are largely happening on the Republican side of the aisle. And among Republicans, the changes are driven by white evangelical concern that the country is becoming less favorable to religion and, inexplicably, more hostile toward white evangelicals.... Fifty-nine percent of Republicans want churches to speak out on political issues, compared to 42 percent of Democrats.... Fifty percent of white evangelicals say that there is a lot of discrimination against them." ViaSteve Benen.
Ian Shapira of the Washington Post: "Hours before a controversial segment of 'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart' aired Thursday night, a lawyer for the four Washington Redskins fans featured in it sent one of the program's producers a letter revoking their consent to appear in the piece." Too bad, the segment aired anyway. See yesterday's Commentariat.
Midterm Elections
After reading Bernie Sanders' remarks, it's extra-disheartening to learn than Joni Ernst, a far-right Tea party loon who is Iowa's Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, is now leading Democrat Bruce Braley, a fairly liberal member of the House, by 6 points.
Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "In an election year shaped by voter anger toward the political establishment, the outcome of an unusually large number of close Senate and governor's races could be determined by the outsize role of third-party candidates."
Election law expert Rick Hasen on the 7th Circuit's decision that allowed the Wisconsin voter suppression law to be imposed for the November election: "I expect that the plaintiffs will next try the Supreme Court. Ordinarily I've been saying that progressives need to stay out of the Supreme Court on these voting rights cases. But (a) this is a really egregious order changing the rules midstream in violation of the Supreme Court's own admonition in the Purcell v. Gonzalez case; and (b) now that the Court has before it the Ohio case, presenting a similar section 2 Voting Rights Act issue but with much worse facts for voting rights advocates, it would be better for this to be up there at the same time."
Lyle Denniston of ScotusBlog: "Arguing that early voting is necessary to continue to deal with the 'unprecedented disaster' at the polls in Ohio in 2004, several civil rights advocacy groups urged the Supreme Court on Saturday to permit Ohioans to start casting their ballots next Tuesday for this year's general election. Allowing that would merely keep in place what the state has been doing for the past four elections, and would not affect any other state, the fifty-four-page brief contended."
Beyond the Beltway
DeNeed Brown & Mark Berman of the Washington Post: "Two days after Ferguson's police chief issued them an apology, Michael Brown's parents said they have no confidence in the justice system in Missouri, where a grand jury will decide whether to charge the officer who killed their son. The lack of trust, they said, began the day their son was shot, when they rushed to the scene but were confronted by officers who 'gave us the finger' and 'sicced dogs' on the crowd. 'We just got rudeness and disrespect,' said Lesley McSpadden, the mother of the unarmed black teenager who was fatally shot Aug. 9 by a white police officer in the small suburb outside St. Louis." ...
... Jim Salter of the AP: "A Ferguson police officer was shot in the arm Saturday night after encountering two men at a community center who ran from him and then opened fire during a foot chase, authorities said. St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said at a media briefing early Sunday that the officer approached the men around 9:10 p.m. because the community center was closed. As the officer approached, the men ran away. When the officer gave chase, 'one of the men turned and shot,' Belmar said."
Whitney Wild of KUSA Denver: "For the fifth school day in a row, students from Jefferson County[, Colorado,] public schools walked out in protest.... [Link fixed.] At the heart of it all, changes to the teacher pay scale and conservative board member Julie Williams' proposal to create a review committee for AP US History courses. Williams says materials shouldn't condone or encourage civil disorder and social strife.... When we asked for examples of historical events she fears are misrepresented, Williams couldn't point to one."
News Ledes
New York Times: "An American drone strike in northwestern Pakistan killed at least four people suspected of being militants, Pakistani officials said Sunday."
New York Times: "On Sunday, the sixth men's [marathon] world record was achieved in Berlin in the last 11 years as Dennis Kimetto of Kenya ran 2 hours 2 minutes 57 seconds. Running the flat course, aided by a phalanx of pacesetters in cool weather, Kimetto became the first person to run 26.2 miles under 2:03 and shattered the previous record by 26 seconds. It had been set only a year ago in Berlin by a fellow Kenyan, Wilson Kipsang."
AP: Alleged cop-killer Eric Frein of Canadensis, Pennsylvania, (Poconos) continues to evade searchers after 16 days. "Frein is described by authorities as a survivalist, marksman and war re-enactment enthusiast who planned the attack for years, extensively researching how to avoid police manhunts and experimenting with explosives. Frein has held anti-law enforcement views for many years, police said."
Neil Irwin of the New York Times: "From 2001 to 2007, 98 percent of income gains accrued to the top 10 percent of earners.... In the first three years of the current expansion, incomes actually fell for the bottom 90 percent of earners, even as they rose nicely for the top 10 percent. The result: The top 10 percent captured an impossible-seeming 116 percent of income gains during that span.... One percent of the population, in the first three years of the current expansion, took home 95 percent of the income gains." ...
... CW: Voters & reporters must confront politicians of both parties at every opportunity to ask them what their plan is to reverse this 75-year trend. I look forward to hearing from John Boehner & Paul Ryan about the sanctity of the free-market economy, blah-blah. Makers & takers, my ass. Ryan has it exactly backwards. ...
... digby has an illuminating post in Salon on why the majority of Republicans still believe in the "American dream": "They don't see it as a middle-class goal at all, much of it made possible by the promise of a decent education and secure retirement, guaranteed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. No, they believe that the American dream is getting filthy rich." CW: Their dream is better than your dream. Their dream, however, is the impossible dream.
Joby Warrick of the Washington Post: "Data released Friday by the Energy Department show American factories and power plants putting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere during the first six months of 2014 compared with the same period in each of the past two years. The figures confirm a reversal first seen in 2013, when the trend of steadily falling emissions abruptly halted. The higher emissions are primarily a reflection of a rebounding economy.... The shift also underscores the challenge confronting the Obama administration as it seeks to honor a pledge to sharply cut U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases by the end of the decade."
Patrick Wintour of the Guardian: "Britain has embarked on a renewed war in the Middle East, starting with air strikes in the next 48 hours, after MPs overwhelmingly sanctioned a UK air assault against Islamic State targets in Iraq." ...
... Griff Witte & Rebecca Collard of the Washington Post: "Three European nations [-- ... Britain, Denmark & Belgium] -- joined the widening U.S.-led air campaign against Islamic State militants in Iraq on Friday, even as the group's fighters renewed their attempt to overrun a strategic border city in Syria.... All three countries that authorized military action on Friday decided to limit their involvement to Iraq. Meanwhile, Islamic State militants demonstrated that airstrikes have failed to slow their assault on critical positions within Syria." ...
White House: "In this week's address, the President reiterated the forceful and optimistic message of American leadership that he delivered in his speech before the United Nations General Assembly earlier this week":
... AP: "American warplanes and drones hit Islamic State group tanks, Humvees, checkpoints and bunkers in airstrikes Friday targeting the extremists in Syria and Iraq, as the U.S.-led coalition expanded to include Britain, Denmark and Belgium." ...
... Joan Lowy of the AP: "An al-Qaida cell in Syria known as the Khorasan Group, which was targeted by U.S. airstrikes this week, represents 'a clear and present danger' to commercial flights to Europe and the United States, the Obama administration's top aviation security official said Friday. The purpose of the airstrikes was to disrupt an 'imminent attack or attack entering the last phases of execution,' said John Pistole, head of the Transportation Security Administration. The Khorasan Group has been researching and testing improvised explosive devices designed to elude airport security.'"
Somini Sengupta of the New York Times: "Japan said it would change its laws in order to be able to send soldiers on United Nations peacekeeping missions. Mexico said it would revive its involvement in United Nations peacekeeping. Indonesia, Mongolia and Bangladesh promised to prepare troops for rapid deployment. The pledges were part of an unusual session led by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.... There are more peacekeepers than ever before -- 130,000 troops, police officers and civilian staff members, according to the United Nations. Attacks on them are rising."
Brian Knowlton of the New York Times: "... Richard A. Stengel, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy, believes the United States has no choice but to counter [ISIS social media] propaganda with a forceful online response.... Digital operators at the State Department are directly engaging young people -- and sometimes jihadis -- on websites popular in Arab countries, publishing a stream of anti-Islamic State messages, and one somewhat shocking video, on Facebook or YouTube or Twitter, using the hashtag #Think Again Turn Away."
Mohammed Daraghmeh of the AP: "Facing pressure at home to come up with a new strategy for achieving Palestinian statehood, Mahmoud Abbas said Friday he would ask the U.N. Security Council to dictate the ground rules for any talks with Israel, including setting a deadline for an Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian lands. In a speech to world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly, the Palestinian leader also accused Israel of conducting a 'war of genocide' in Gaza, but stopped short of saying he would pursue war crimes charges against Israel."
Sahil Kapur of TPM: Michael Carvin, lawyer for the plaintiffs in Halbig v. Burwell, on why the Supreme Court will hear his case even though it is likely that the lower courts will all have consistently ruled against the plaintiff (a three-judge D.C. panel ruled in favor, but the full en banc court is likely to overturn that ruling): "I don't know that four justices, who are needed to [take the case] here, are going to give much of a damn about what a bunch of Obama appointees on the D.C. Circuit think." ...
Missed this. Craig Timberg & Greg Miller of the Washington Post (Sept. 25): "FBI Director James B. Comeysharply criticized Apple and Google on Thursday for developing forms of smartphone encryption so secure that law enforcement officials cannot easily gain access to information stored on the devices -- even when they have valid search warrants. His comments were the most forceful yet from a top government official but echo a chorus of denunciation from law enforcement officials nationwide.... He said he could not understand why companies would 'market something expressly to allow people to place themselves beyond the law.'" ...
Why the Fed Didn't Prevent the Financial Meltdown. Jake Bernstein of ProPublica writes a long piece based on secret recording & a confidential report for the Fed that shows how the big banks "captured" Federal Reserve employees supposed to oversee the banks' transactions. If the bank examiners found fault with a transaction, Fed higher-ups could be counted on to "rein in" the examiners. CW: It's no surprise that these banks operate with impunity, that every authority from the president on down kowtows to them. The ProPublica report shows how the nitty-gritty of how fix works re: Fed regulation. If a bank examiner tries too hard to curb a bank's illegal or questionable activity, she just might get fired for, um, failing to be a team player. ...
... The audio story by This American Life is here. The transcript is here. ...
... As Michael Lewis succinctly puts it in Bloomberg View: "The Fed encourages its employees to keep their heads down, to obey their managers and to appease the banks. That is, bank regulators failed to do their jobs properly not because they lacked the tools but because they were discouraged from using them.
Steve Peoples & Ken Thomas of the AP: "Fighting to improve their brand, leading Republicans rallied behind religious liberty at a Friday gathering of evangelical conservatives, rebuking an unpopular President Barack Obama while skirting divisive social issues. Speakers did not ignore abortion and gay marriage altogether on the opening day of the annual Values Voter Summit, but a slate of prospective presidential candidates focused on the persecution of Christians and their values at home and abroad -- a message GOP officials hope will help unify a divided party and appeal to new voters ahead of November's midterm elections and the 2016 presidential contest." CW: Yes, because Democrats are totally in favor of persecuting Christians. ...
... Olivia Nuzzi of the Daily Beast: "Rand Paul and Ted Cruz's back-to-back speeches at Friday's Values Voter Summit offered a preview of what the Republican presidential primary would look like should the two senators decide to run for president in 2016.... The crowd did not seem to notice Cruz's blatant pandering -- or if the did, they didn't mind. They were up on their feet so often to applaud the Texas senator that his speech was practically an aerobics class. Paul's reception, meanwhile, was markedly less enthusiastic." Read the whole post.
... Here's the New York Times report, by Jeremy Peters. Contra Nuzzi, it turns out Paul did cite some scripture. And contra the AP report, Paul didn't exactly "skirt social issues," Peters reports: "Mr. Paul emphasized his opposition to abortion. As he was introduced to the crowd, a video of an ultrasound and the murmur of a beating heart played, accompanied by lines from Mr. Paul's speeches like, 'I will always take a stand for life.'" Creepy. ...
... Luke Brinker of Salon runs down the five craziest thingsCruz said in his speech. CW: Bear in mind, Ted's misrepresentations were totally lost on the "values voters." Facts don't matter to true believers.
Quit Picking on Republicans/"Pathetic Losers"!
... Chris Moody of Yahoo! News: "A Republican adman [-- Vinny Minchillo, who worked for Mitt Romney --] unveiled a new public relations campaign this week to soften the image of the Grand Old Party using the guiding slogan 'Republicans Are People, Too.' The promotional push came complete with a highly produced video, a website and social media efforts.... [Hilariously,] in 1974, when the heavily damaged GOP brand was reeling from the Watergate scandal that brought down Richard Nixon, the Republican National Committee launched its own 'Republicans Are People Too' initiative in an attempt to recast the party...." Minchillo told Moody he was unaware of the Nixon-era campaign. Craig Shirley, a political consultant & Reagan biographer, described the '74 campaign as "the wail of pathetic losers."
Gail Collins: Republican Congressional candidates want you to know their Democratic opponents are really fans of terrorism. Also, Scott Brown is an idiot. ...
... On that subject, Scot Lehigh of the Boston Globe attended Scott Brown's "major speech on foreign policy" (as advertised): "As far as I can tell, Brown has been studying under the tutelage ofSean Hannity. Which is to say, he has cast his gaze about the globe, catalogued the various problems that have arisen in the last half-decade -- and blamed them all on President Obama. His foreign-policy reasoning, to the extent it can be called that, runs this way: Post Barack ergo propter Barack." When asked, foreign-policy-expert/Obama basher Brown wouldn't answer whether or not Congress should vote on authorizing Obama to fight ISIS. Read the whole column.
Here's the "Daily Show" segment in which Jason Jones interviews Washington's football team fans & Native American activists about the team's name:
Beyond the Beltway
Jason Stein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Opponents of Wisconsin's voter ID law fell just short Friday of getting a full federal appeals court to reconsider their recent loss in the case before a panel of judges. On Sept. 12, a three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled that Wisconsin could implement the law for the Nov. 4 election. The law requires voters to show a photo ID in order to vote.... The members of the court split 5-5 on whether to hold the hearing, which means that the request did not get a majority of votes and failed as a result.... All five who declined to take the case were appointed by Republicans, and three of the five sat on the panel that first decided the case.... There is a chance that the U.S. Supreme Court could yet consider the matter." Thanks to Victoria D. for the lead. ...
... Ernst-Ulrich Franzen for the Journal Sentinel Editorial Board: "The voter ID issue is settled -- at least for the Nov. 4 election: Voters will be required to bring a photo ID to the polls. We think that's an unnecessary burden to place on voters and could cause some to stay home for lack of a proper ID. And, with only a few weeks before the election, some may find it difficult to get one. But our hope is that officials and voters will rise to the occasion and not allow this attempt at voter suppression to achieve its goal. Make sure you have or obtain a proper photo ID -- and vote. If you know someone who needs a photo ID, help that person get one. It does matter."
Julie Bosman of the New York Times: "The Justice Department on Friday pressured the Ferguson Police Department to stop its officers from wearing bracelets stamped with the message 'I am Darren Wilson,' in solidarity with the police officer who is being investigated for shooting an unarmed black 18-year-old, and from covering up their name plates with tape.... In a stern letter to Chief Thomas Jackson, Christy E. Lopez, deputy chief of the special litigation section of the Justice Department's civil rights division, said that the bracelets 'upset and agitated people.'" ...
... CW: It's pretty pathetic when the Justice Department has to urge a police chief to exercise common sense. If the Ferguson mayor & city council had any sense themselves -- which clearly they don't -- they would fire Tom Jackson.
News Ledes
New York Times: Chelsea Clinton "gave birth to her first child -- with her husband, Marc Mezvinsky -- on Friday and posted the news on Twitter early Saturday." The child, a daughter, is named Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky.
Washington Post: "James A. Traficant Jr., an iconoclastic nine-term Ohio populist in the U.S. House of Representatives who was convicted on corruption charges in 2002, becoming the second member of Congress to be expelled since the Civil War, died Sept. 27 at a hospital in Youngstown, Ohio. He was 73."
It's time for a new compact among the civilized peoples of this world to eradicate war at its most fundamental source, and that is the corruption of young minds by violent ideology. -- Barack Obama, address to the U.N. General Assembly, Wednesday ...
... Tim Egan: "... look ahead, with optimism, and you can see a design for long-term peace behind the president's plan to simultaneously kill fanatics and force a religion to confront the sources of that fanaticism. With his blunt speech at the United Nations on Wednesday, Obama put on notice the Sunni Muslim nations that have allowed Sunni barbarians to spread.... Until this week, most Western leaders have been afraid to say what Obama said at the United Nations."
Diaa Haddid of the AP: "U.S.-led airstrikes targeted Syrian oil installations held by the extremist Islamic State group overnight and early Thursday, killing at least 19 people as more families of militants left their key stronghold, fearing further raids, activists said. The strikes aimed to knock out one of the militants' main revenue streams -- black market oil sales that the U.S. says earn up to $2 million a day for the group. That funding, along with a further estimated $1 million a day from other smuggling, theft and extortion, has been crucial in enabling the extremists to overrun much of Syria and neighboring Iraq."
Greg Miller of the Washington Post: "FBI Director James B. Comey said the United States has determined the identity of the Islamist militant who beheaded two American journalists in Syria, but declined to provide any additional information on the masked operative who spoke in a British accent."
Arshad Mohammed of Reuters: "Iraq has 'credible' intelligence that Islamic State militants plan to attack subway systems in Paris and the United States, the prime minister said on Thursday, but U.S. and French officials said they had no evidence to back up his claims."
When Congress Loves a "Lawless" President. Steve Benen: House Speaker John Boehner tells Carl Hulse of the New York Times that the House won't take up authorization of the military campaign against ISIS before the new Congress convenes in January. "Americans can take every Republican anti-Obama argument of late -- about separation of powers, about co-equal branches of government, about the importance of institutional checks and balances -- and throw them right out the window, confident in the knowledge that the GOP didn't mean a word of it. For all the chatter about the president being an out-of-control, lawless tyrant, here's an instance in which Obama really is acting without any congressional authority, only to find congressional leaders saying, 'No big deal. We'll think about doing something in a few months, maybe.'" ...
... Mike McAuliffof the Huffington Post, viaPaul Waldman:
Mark Landler & Somini Sengupta of the New York Times: "Seeking to speed the response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, President Obama delivered a blunt warning on Thursday at a high-level United Nations meeting devoted to the health crisis: the world was doing too little and moving too slowly":
President Obama makes a statement about Attorney General Eric Holder:
Allowing Democratic senators, many of whom will likely have just been defeated at the polls, to confirm Holder's successor would be an abuse of power that should not be countenanced. -- Sen. Ted Cruz (RTP-Texas) ...
... Paul Kane & Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "President Obama has yet to reveal his choice to succeed Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., but already the Senate confirmation process has begun its march toward contentiousness. With Nov. 4 midterm elections potentially tipping the balance in the Senate, some Republicans immediately called for a delay in the hearings and votes on the new attorney general until January, when the possibility of a GOP majority in the Senate might give Republicans almost total control of the outcome." ...
... Steve M. "Why does Ted Cruzhate the Constitution? ... A senator who's lost a reelection bid is still a senator. The Constitution -- which you claim to hold sacred -- says so." ..
... CW: Gee, Steve, haven't you noticed by now that anything Democrats do constitutes "an abuse of power"? ...
... If Glenn Thrush's reporting is correct, Tailgunner Ted will have to figure out how to "countenance ... an abuse of power." Thrush: "It was now or never, several current and former administration officials say, and Holder -- under pressure to retire from a physician wife worried about a recent health scare, checked the 'now' box. 'It was a quit-now or never-quit moment,' one former administration official said. 'You didn't want confirmation hearings in 2015 if the Republicans control the Senate. So if he didn't do it now, there was no way he could ever do it.'" ...
... German Lopez of Vox retraces some of Holder's laudable efforts & successes, mostly in areas that relate, at least tangentially, to civil rights. ...
... Danny Vinik of the New Republic recalls Holder's multiple failures to hold banks & bank executives accountable for the frauds & other illegal schemes they conducted, many of which led to the 2008 world financial meltdown. "Holder simply never tried to use [his office] to hold Wall Street executives accountable. That is a major blemish on Holder's record. Bankers sleep easier at night thanks to his decisions. And when the next financial crisis hits -- and when we discover that financial fraud was a major cause of it -- Holder will deserve blame as well." ...
... New York TimesEditors: "... Mr. Holder has continued to stake out strong and laudable legal positions on many of the most contested issues of our time. But his record is marred by the role the Justice Department played in matters of secrecy and national security under his leadership." Read the whole editorial. ...
... Oh yeah? If the Times editors find fault, then wingers must LOVE Eric Holder:
Holder is a huge racist and let's not forget that golden oldie where he called us a nation of cowards. Civil liberties hero, my ass.... He has shamed the office of Attorney General and besmirched the office he rules with an iron, hate-filled fist. Trust me when I say this evil Marxist will never go away if he has his way. --- Terresa Monroe-Hamilton of Right Wing News
Well, okay. But at least they see a bright future for him:
The damage he has already done to the country leaves a turbulent wake that is ill-matched to the financial reward awaiting him at a shameless and large Washington, D.C., law firm. -- Christian Adams, the PJ Tattler
Wait, wait, Holder may get another gummit job:
There may be a Supreme Court vacancy -- and I can see Barack Obama nominating Eric Holder to fill it. -- Rush Limbaugh
AND, they're looking forward to President Obama's nominating a new AG:
Help wanted: Obama admin seeks Chief Corruption Smidgenizer; Must be able to start before November. -- Doug Powers of Michelle Malkin's blog
... No, No, Rush. Sharpton is not going to be the attorney general; he's just going to pick the attorney general. Colin Campbell of Business Insider: "Al Sharpton Says He's Helping The White House Pick The Next Attorney General." ...
... Well, that's the headline. It's bullshit. Here's an update Sharpton forced upon Campbell's scooplet: "Sharpton sent a statement to Business Insider clarifying that he is not involved in the 'decision making.'" ...
... Joshua DuBois of the Daily Beast interviewsEric Holder. ...
... AND you will enjoy reading Akhilleus' rundown in today's Comments on attorneys general past.
The "Decadent Elites." Paul Krugman: "... the lives of an earlier generation's elite were, indeed, far more restrained, more seemly if you like, than those of today's Masters of the Universe," thanks to a much more progressive tax system. "Running through much recent conservative writing is the theme that America's elite has also fallen down on the job, that it has lost the seriousness and restraint of an earlier era.... High inequality brings a perceived need to spend money in ways that signal status.... While chiding the rich for their vulgarity may not be as offensive as lecturing the poor on their moral failings, it's just as futile. Human nature being what it is, it's silly to expect humility from a highly privileged elite. So if you think our society needs more humility, you should support policies that would reduce the elite's privileges." ...
** Tom Dickinson of Rolling Stone: "The volume of Koch Industries' toxic output is staggering... Thanks in part to its 2005 purchase of paper-mill giant Georgia-Pacific, Koch Industries dumps more pollutants into the nation's waterways than General Electric and International Paper combined. The company ranks 13th in the nation for toxic air pollution. Koch's climate pollution, meanwhile, outpaces oil giants including Valero, Chevron and Shell. Across its businesses, Koch generates 24 million metric tons of greenhouse gases a year. For Koch, this license to pollute amounts to a perverse, hidden subsidy.... The toxic history of Koch Industries ... also extends to the company's business practices, which have been the target of numerous federal investigations, resulting in several indictments and convictions, as well as a whole host of fines and penalties."
Rob Maaddi of the AP: "The video of Ray Rice punching his fiancee inside a casino elevator was sent to NFL headquarters to the attention of league security chief Jeffrey Miller in April, a law enforcement official says. The NFL has repeatedly said no one with the league saw the violent images until TMZ Sports released the video earlier this month. Miller said Thursday through an NFL spokesman that he never received the video. The official ... said he doesn't know if Miller ever saw the DVD or opened the package. His only communication with the NFL was a 12-second voicemail on April 9 from league offices confirming receipt of the package, in which a woman says, 'You're right. It's terrible.'"
Amanda Marcotte, in Slate: "Kimberly Guilfoyle of The Five on Fox News rolled out a story on Wednesday about Major Mariam Al Mansouri, the first female fighter pilot for the United Arab Emirates. Mansouri led the UAE strikes against ISIS on Monday and will reportedly be leading future strikes.... Naturally, Guilfoyle's story about a woman doing a thing required her male co-hosts to take one of their patented principled stands against modern feminism. 'The problem is, after she bombed it, she couldn't park it,' quipped Greg Gutfeld, showing off that edgy humor style from 1955 he has finally mastered. Added Eric Bolling: 'Would that be considered boobs on the ground, or no?'"
Adam Gabbatt of the Guardian: "One year after the racism scandal that saw [Paula] Deen's television show dropped by the Food Network and her corporate sponsors flee..., [she is] attempt[ing] at a comeback: a subscriber-only channel posting new video recipes each week."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Alec MacGillis of the New Republic learns that the Washington Postcan't handle "colorful language": a humorous Barney Frank quote, which fleetingly made it past a first edit, gave way to a meaningless reference to "colorful language." Thanks to P. D. Pepe for the link. ...
... CW: General-interest papers like the WashPo probably should not use "colorful language" in their original reporting & analysis. But any publication that targets adult readers should freely cite what a public figure or other newsworthy person says. If the editors are worried about offensive language appearing in "the same section as the comics and the 'Kids Post' page," as MacGillis puts it, I have some news for the news experts: any kid who is old enough to read the funny papers is also old enough to use the Internets. It's stupid, unprofessional, and to me "offensive," for a news outlet to cater to hypothetical 8-year-olds & church ladies at the expense of accurate reporting.
Beyond the Beltway
David Zahniser & Emily Reyes of the Los Angeles Times: "Big hotels in Los Angeles will soon be required to pay at least $15.37 an hour to their workers -- one of the highest minimum-wage requirements in the country.The City Council voted 12 to 3 on Wednesday to impose the higher wage on large hotels, delivering a huge victory to a coalition that included organized labor, more than a dozen neighborhood councils and the ACLU of Southern California."
Andy Cush of Gawker: "'I Am Darren Wilson' bracelets are Missouri cops' new fashion statement." And, yeah, they're wearing them in Ferguson. ...
... Ed Kilgore suggests, "To the extent that the duty of the police officers patrolling Ferguson is maintenance of peace and calm, visibly wearing a token of identification with an alleged murderer when dealing with people protesting the alleged murder is not a real smart tactic."...
... Andy Cush: "In a video released [Thursday], Ferguson, Mo., Police Chief Thomas Jacksonsays that he is 'truly sorry' to the Brown family for the death of Michael Brown and the way that his body was handled. He also apologizes to peaceful protesters 'who did not feel that I did enough to protect their constitutional right to protest,' and accepts full responsibility 'for any mistakes I have made.'" ...
... AND, No, He Won't Resign. Eliott McLaughlin & Ana Cabrera of CNN: "Even after apologizing for his department's actions following Michael Brown's shooting, the police chief of Ferguson, Missouri, insisted Thursday that he's not going anywhere -- telling CNN, this is mine, and I'm taking ownership of it.'" ...
... Charles Pierce on a spate of police shootings of innocent people doin' nothin'. CW: Weirdly, Pierce treats these incidents as if police shooting innocent people was something new. It isn't. They've been doing it since before any of us was born. These shootings are in the news now not because they are remarkable but because the public reaction to particular shootings in Sanford, Florida (yes, thank you, Al Sharpton )& Ferguson, Missouri, has been loud & uncompromising. That young man who automatically raised his hands in surrender after a cop shot him for no reason didn't just learn to do that after Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown. That pose of surrender is what black mothers have been teaching their children for a long time. It's a necessary form of self-protection against a police force that is perceived as the enemy because it is the enemy.
Congressional Races
Brian Beutler on Gabby Giffords' "mean" ads calling out Congressional candidates who oppose even modest gun control legislation.
Chris Geidner of BuzzFeed: "Conservative activists are launching 'an unprecedented campaign' against three Republican candidates -- two of whom are out gay men -- because of their support for marriage equality and abortion. The National Organization for Marriage, Family Research Council Action, and CitizenLink 'will mount a concerted effort to urge voters to refuse to cast ballots' for Republican House candidates Carl DeMaio in California and Richard Tisei in Massachusetts and Republican Senate candidate Monica Wehby in Oregon, according to a letter sent to Republican congressional and campaign leaders on Thursday."
Gubernatorial Race
** How Sam Brownback Blew up His Laboratory of Democracy. Patrick Caldwell of Mother Jonesdetails Gov. Brownback's (RTP-Kansas) disastrous policies, dirty politics, & their effects. ...
... Ed Kilgore: "Brownback has very publicly made his state a conservative 'experiment station' and sought to stamp out any dissent in his party, all in the pursuit of a sort of intellectual rogue's gallery of bad ideas, from supply-side economics to the harshest attacks in the country on reproductive rights. He not only deserve to lose, but his regime needs to be remembered with fear and trembling by Republicans everywhere." ...
... CW: It would be great if Republicans did learn from Brownback that their economic policy prescriptions were calamitous. It would be swell if voters never forgot what a mess these policies created. It would be super if Kansas became a case study in bad policy that high-school students learned in their history books. But there's no chance any of that will happen. Republicans are bought & paid for; voters are disengaged & clueless; & textbook writers are subservient to school boards populated by dimwits & evangelical ideologues. Sam Brownback, Ted Cruz, Louie Gohmert -- they are all evidence of the best our particular democracy can do.
Presidential Election
Run, Mitt, Run! Kevin Drum: "We still live in a 50-50 nation, after all, and for the foreseeable future I suspect that pretty much every presidential election is going to be fairly close. And Romney certainly has a decent chance of winning the Republican nomination, since he'd be competing against pretty much the same clown show as last time.So sure: Run, Mitt! I hear that Eric Cantor is available to be your vice president."
Washington Post: "A man who had just been fired by an Oklahoma City-area food processing plant allegedly severed the head of one of his former co-workers and attacked another before being shot by the company's chief operating officer, according to police.... [Alton] Nolen was attacking a second woman at the plant ... when, Lewis said, he was shot by Mark Vaughan, a top executive at Vaughan Foods who is also a reserve deputy with the Oklahoma County Sheriff's Department.... Nolen was hospitalized and police are waiting until he is conscious to arrest him.... Two federal law enforcement officials told The Post that Nolen is a recent convert to Islam." ...
... CW: I scarcely need to relay that Right Wing World is going batshit over "Bloody jihad comes to Oklahoma" (an actual headline).
AP: "A contract employee who recently was told he was being transferred to Hawaii set a fire at a suburban Chicago air traffic control center where he worked, bringing two of the nation's busiest airports to a halt Friday, according to a criminal complaint filed Friday."
Washington Post: "Bill Gross, founder of Pacific Investment Management Co. and the manager of the largest bond mutual fund in the world, is stepping down. Starting next week, Gross, who managed the $222 billion Pimco Total Return Bond fund, will run a new unconstrained bond fund at Janus Capital Group.... Gross ... has seen his reputation bruised in the past several months...."
New York Times: "European officials said they had brokered a deal between Russia and Ukraine aimed at ensuring gas flows to keep factories running and homes warm over the coming six months, despite a dispute between Moscow and Kiev over the size of Ukraine's outstanding bills."
AP: "The U.S. economy's bounce-back last quarter from a dismal winter was even faster than previously thought, a sign that growth will likely remain solid for rest of the year. The economy as measured by gross domestic product grew at a 4.6 percent annual rate in the April-June quarter, the Commerce Department said Friday. It was the fastest pace in more than two years and higher than the government's previous estimate of 4.2 percent. The upward revision reflected stronger-than-expected business investment and exports last quarter."
New York Times: "With one out in the bottom of the ninth, [Derek] Jeterstroked the winning hit and ended his Yankee Stadium career the way he had ended so many games -- with both arms raised in celebration. The 6-5 win over the Baltimore Orioles was his 1,627th regular-season victory as a Yankee."
;)
Share Article