The Ledes

Sunday, September 15, 2024

Washington Post: “The five-day space voyage known as Polaris Dawn ended safely Sunday as four astronauts aboard a SpaceX Dragon splashed down off the coast of Florida, wrapping up a groundbreaking commercial mission. Polaris Dawn crossed several historic landmarks for civilian spaceflight as Jared Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur and adventurer, performed the first spacewalk by a private citizen, followed by SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis.”

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The New York Times lists Emmy winners.

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."

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Thursday
Mar242016

The Commentariat -- March 25, 2016

If you are interested in taking over Reality Chex -- that is, owning it to do with as you will -- please contact me. I am looking forward to discontinuing my work on the site but would like to see it continue "under new management." I'll help you get started. Thank you to all who have contributed over the years. If I don't find a suitable "buyer," I'll close down next Friday, April 1. -- Constant Weader

Afternoon Update -- GOP Not-Sex Report:

Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "Ted Cruz on Friday accused 'Donald Trump and his henchmen' of planting the seeds behind a 'garbage' National Enquirer report alleging that the Texas senator has had extramarital affairs. 'This National Enquirer story is garbage. It is complete and utter lies,' Cruz said after a campaign event in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. 'It is a tabloid smear, and it is a smear that has come from Donald Trump and his henchmen.'” ...

... CW: Earlier today, I seriously considered skipping the reports of the National Enquirer story, but it seemed to be part-and-parcel of the Nasty Boys' Sleaze-Throwing Fight, so I didn't want to deprive readers of the escalation of said fight. If I made an error, Cruz has retroactively justified my error by addressing it. (And I don't think he had a choice.) If it was just crap earlier; it's crap news now.

Howard Koplowitz of AL.com: "A complaint into possible misuse of state property by Gov. Robert Bentley and potential violations by his alleged mistress and senior political advisor, Rebekah Caldwell Mason, was filed Friday by State Auditor Jim Zeigler. Both Bentley and Mason have denied an affair, although the governor admitted earlier this week that he made sexually inappropriate remarks to his senior political advisor after audio of Bentley's side of the conversation was leaked."

MEANWHILE, in Congress. Charles Pierce: "... there's some serious McCarthyite damage being done to medical research by a congressional committee chaired by a member of Congress whose brains are leaking out of her shell-pink ears. You should pay attention if you or any members of your family has been struck by diseases like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's or ALS. I think, at this point, former NFL football players should take special note, too." The anti-choice wackos have "moved on from the people who actually perform abortions to the people who use fetal tissue in medical research." CW: This perversion of Congress, people, also is all about sex. They're just pretending it's something else.

*****

"There Is No Biden Rule." Kathleen Hennessey of the AP: "Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday tried to clear his name and tout his record on Supreme Court nominations, calling Republican branding of his past remarks on the subject 'ridiculous' and casting himself as a longtime advocate of bipartisan compromise in filling seats on the high court. In a speech at Georgetown Law School, Biden issued a broad warning that Republicans' election-year blockade of President Barack Obama's nominee 'can lead to a genuine Constitutional crisis' and sought to distance himself from the strategy. He argued Republicans have distorted a 1992 speech in which he seemed to endorse the notion of blocking any Supreme Court nominee put forward in the throes of the election season. Republicans have labeled their strategy the 'Biden rule.'...  But there is division within the ranks on that front. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., made the case earlier this week that [Judge Merrick] Garland should get a vote":

... Nick Gass of Politico: "A top conservative group threatened to back a primary challenger against Sen. Jerry Moran on Friday, days after the Kansas Republican told constituents that he was calling upon the Senate to take up Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court." CW: Because the Tea party reveres the Constitution, but only in a special, secret form that can morph to fit their needs of the day. I think they're still solid with the 3/5ths solution, tho. ...

... Jeff Toobin of the New Yorker games out the likely path of Garland's Supreme dreams (not going to happen this term) & sees this: "Merrick Garland’s nomination will prove consequential indeed if it helps usher the filibuster to its long-overdue demise." CW: You'll have to read his post to see how Toobin reaches his conclusion, but it seems plausible, to me, too. Until Democrats control of the House, I don't see how that body will function, but if the Senate eventually dropped the filibuster (and individual holds!), it might start legislating.

Mary Walsh of the New York Times: "Politicians in Washington are coalescing around a financial plan to rescue Puerto Rico, just weeks before an expected major default on bond payments that would spread more turmoil through the island’s shaky economy. The plan, being drafted as legislation by House Republicans, would not grant Puerto Rico’s most fervent request: permission to restructure its entire $72 billion debt in bankruptcy. It would, however, give the island certain crucial tools that bankruptcy proceedings can offer — but only if it first comes under close federal oversight and meets other conditions."

Patrick Clark of Bloomberg: "It's been more than 15 years since Congress increased funding for the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, the government's primary method for encouraging construction of affordable housing. On Thursday, Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) is to announce a plan that calls for Congress to spend 50 percent more on the program, enough to build as many as 400,000 homes over the next decade. That makes the Democrat's plan an ambitious attempt to increase the stock of affordable rental housing, one that comes in the face of potential opposition by a Republican majority, along with the legislative gridlock of a presidential election year. It’s also just a drop in the bucket."

Nick Gass: "Dianne Feinstein's office on Friday released a blistering rebuttal to the latest book from former CIA Director Michael Hayden, slamming numerous examples of what it characterizes as misrepresentations or plain falsehoods related to the use of enhanced interrogation techniques. The 38-page document from the staff of the California Democrat, who is vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, methodically goes over statements from Hayden's 464-page book released in February, titled 'Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror.'"

** Gene Demby of NPR: "... the tug of war over who gets to enjoy the benefits reserved for 'real Americans' has always been all tied up with racial politics. People of color were overwhelmingly excluded during the 'glory days' that so many white voters this election cycle look back on as better times. That's why Trump's 'Make America Great Again' mantra reads so menacingly to so many — whiteness seems to be a necessary precondition for that nostalgia." Via Paul Waldman. ...

... CW: Demby's essay also helps explain -- tho he doesn't discuss this -- Paul Ryan's new disavowal of his infamous "makers & takers" dissection. This was not a moment of self-reflection & correction on Ryan's part; rather, it was another GOP con -- an appeal to the white working-class "takers"/voters who have fled to Trump. A proper translation would be, "Yo, yahoos! My party is your party. You don't need Trump when you've got me, Paul Ryan -- elite, brilliant wonk -- on your side. (P.S. Never mind that just this week I used elite brilliant wonkish jargon to secretly endorse tax breaks for the rich & screw you undeserving yahoos.)" ...

... Digby, in Salon: "... while [Ryan] may be softly chastising Donald Trump for his rudeness and bad manners, it’s highly unlikely that anything fundamental in the GOP has changed. All these modern Republicans, whether Rand-loving 'intellectuals' like Ryan, power-mad hawks like Dick Cheney, anarchic nihilists like Cruz or vulgarians like Trump come from the same toxic ideological swamp."

CW: I'm late with this link, but Graciela Mochkofsky, writing in the New Yorker, provides some essential context for President Obama's declassification of American documents that may reveal the U.S.'s involvement in the Argentine coup that ushered in the infamous junta. (Note to Hillary: You may not want to mention again how much Henry Kissinger likes you.)

Mr. & Mrs. Kelley Learn Their Lawyers Are Not Their Friends. Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "A Florida couple on Thursday dropped a lawsuit over the federal government’s disclosure of their identities in connection with the F.B.I. investigation that uncovered evidence that David H. Petraeus, the C.I.A. director at the time, was having an affair.... This month, [Jill] Kelley’s lawyers told a federal judge that they would no longer represent the couple, citing irreconcilable differences.... In a statement, Ms. Kelley said she had difficulty finding a new lawyer because her previous ones had demanded that they be paid $7 million of any money she received."

Presidential Race

Nick Gass: "Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are effectively tied among Democratic voters, according to the results of a [national] Bloomberg Politics poll released Thursday. Of the 311 people who indicated that they have voted or will vote in their state's Democratic primary or caucus, 49 percent said they support Sanders, while 48 percent indicated that they prefer Clinton and the remaining 3 percent said they are not sure." CW: This is just one poll, so nothing to get excited about. But it is a reminder that Clinton, assuming she prevails in the delegate count, can't ignore half of her party. Sanders' popularity makes it impossible -- or at least stupid -- for her to Etch-a-Sketch out his platform.

Harold Meyerson of the American Prospect: "Are all these experienced activists even right in hoping that this time will be different, that this time a powerful social democratic left might just take root in America’s political soil? I think they are. Chiefly because Bernie Sanders’s campaign didn’t create a new American left. It revealed it.... At first glance, this new socialist presence just seems to have sprung up, unsummoned, unannounced. And yet, it clearly has been building for years. Its emergence was foretold by Occupy Wall Street...." ...

... CW: Meyerson may be dreaming, but his essay is heartening. Read it & smile.

Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "Bernie Sanders’ campaign on Thursday officially served the Democratic National Committee with a lawsuit, alleging the organization unfairly revoked its access to voter file data. Sanders’ campaign initially filed a suit in December and was facing a Thursday deadline to serve the committee with the suit. The allegations stem from a controversy late last year in which Sanders staffers improperly accessed information from Hillary Clinton's data file after a firewall between the campaigns' information was inadvertently dropped."

Steve LeBlanc of the AP: "U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren waded deeper into the presidential primary debate Thursday, sharpening her criticism of Donald Trump and cheering on Bernie Sanders.... Warren said. 'He has put the right issues on the table both for the Democratic Party and for the country in general so I'm still cheering Bernie on.' Warren declined to say which candidate she voted for in the Massachusetts primary. She said she plans to make an endorsement, but not yet.... The Massachusetts Democrat described the Republican presidential front-runner as a failed businessman who inherited a fortune from his father and then maintained it 'by cheating people, by defrauding people, and by skipping out on paying his creditors through Chapter 11' bankruptcy protection." ...

... Jim Newell of Slate: "The Democrats won’t force [Bernie Sanders] out of the race, no; they’ll just smother him with smarmy condescension.... They’re asking Sanders to continue running for the nomination without really running for the nomination. It doesn’t work that way.... Sanders has earned the right to finish out his candidacy, just as Clinton had in 2008.... Clinton and her supporters, which include the vast majority of the Democratic Party apparatus, would like Sanders to back the hell off and not put her in any uncomfortable positions. Putting Clinton in uncomfortable positions is exactly what Sanders wants to do."

Drip, Drip. Julian Hattem of the Hill: "Conservative legal watchdogs have discovered new emails from Hillary Clinton’s private email server dating back to the first days of her tenure as secretary of State. The previously undisclosed February 2009 emails between Clinton from her then-chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, raise new questions about the scope of emails from Clinton’s early days in office that were not handed over to the State Department for recordkeeping and may have been lost entirely. Clinton’s presidential campaign has previously claimed that the former top diplomat did not use her personal 'clintonemail.com' account before March 2009, weeks after she was sworn in as secretary of State. But on Thursday, the watchdog group Judicial Watch released one message from Feb. 13, 2009, in which Mills communicated with Clinton on the account to discuss the National Security Agency’s (NSA) efforts to produce a secure BlackBerry device for her to use as secretary of State."


Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker on the fall of Rome -- and other places: "Today ... we find ourselves in the midst of the ascent of a figure right out of Petronius: an orange-colored vulgarian of meretricious display, right down to the trophy wives from Far Elsewhere — with an ambition to dominate, a cunning out of proportion to his wisdom, a contempt for truth coupled with a readiness to manipulate, and a personal arrogance combined with, and indifferent to, a universal understanding that he is utterly unfit to govern. Now that we are in possession of an honest-to-God demagogue of the classical model, old portents of doom seem pertinent.... Democracy remains more delicate than we imagine."

Katy Tur & Ari Melber of NBC News: "While [Donald] Trump publicly dismisses talk of a battle in Cleveland, he is quietly assembling a team of seasoned operatives to manage a contested convention. Their strategy, NBC has learned, is to convert delegates in the crucial 40 days between the end of the primaries and the convention - while girding for a floor fight in Cleveland if necessary. The outreach is already underway." ...

... Greg Sargent follows up : "If Trump is far ahead of both his two rivals in delegates, accepting him might look like the most plausible — or the least undesirable — path. Obviously this might not work, because GOP elites and delegates may continue to hold to their #NeverTrump resolve. But it might!"

Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "... it is with pleasure that we can present [RNC chair Reince] Priebus with a bit of good news.... There is someone even less popular than the Republican Party and less popular than Congress. That person is Donald Trump." ...

... Jamelle Bouie of Slate: "... Donald Trump is one of the most unpopular figures in national politics. He’s disliked (or despised) by a large majority of Americans. This isn’t because the public doesn’t know him. With nearly $2 billion in free coverage from news networks — dwarfing Hillary Clinton’s $746 million — the public knows him well. And they don’t like what they see. Far from scrambling political alliances in his favor, Trump may be the key to further gains for Democrats, from solidifying an advantage with Hispanics to making inroads with college-educated whites."

Tim Egan on the symbiotic relationship between Trump & terrorists: "The more people who are murdered by the savages from the Islamic State, the better it is for [Donald Trump]. The Islamic State is a gift to Trump. And he is a gift to them, playing into the grand scheme of the killers. He would make the world far less safe, and bring the Islamic State closer to the global clash of worlds that those monsters desire."

Gene Robinson: "Donald Trump’s ignorance of government policy, both foreign and domestic, is breathtaking. The Republican Party is likely to nominate for president a man who appears to know next to nothing about the issues that would confront him in the job." ...

... CW: Yeah? So? Drumpf knows what he needs to know: like the beans on Heidi he's going to spill. ...

This Is What Republicans Call "Presidential"

"Your wife is a slut!" "Your wife is an ugly, angry nut-job."

The "comparison" Trump tweeted.Nolan McCaskill: "Ted Cruz blasted Donald Trump on Thursday, calling the Republican front-runner a 'sniveling coward' for bringing Cruz’s wife to the forefront of his presidential campaign. 'Donald, you’re a sniveling coward,' Cruz told reporters Thursday in Dane, Wisconsin, forcefully pointing his finger. 'Leave Heidi the hell alone.'” ...

... CW: As far as I can tell, based partly on a Google search, Cruz never disavowed the anti-Trump ad featuring Melania Trump in a nude pose. So his self-righteous "leave my wife the hell alone" is, like all of his temper tantrums, rather hollow dudgeon.

Jesse Byrnes of the Hill: "Donald Trump has intensified his feud with Ted Cruz over the Republican presidential rival's wife after she slammed his statements for having 'no basis in reality.' Trump shared an image on Twitter around midnight Wednesday comparing his wife, Melania, a former model, to Cruz's wife, stating, 'A picture is worth a thousand words.'... CNN’s Kate Bolduan sparred with a Trump adviser over the tweet during an interview Thursday.... 'As a woman, it’s demeaning to not only Ted Cruz’s wife, it’s demeaning to Melania Trump because she has a lot more going for her than just her looks, and you don’t see that in this retweet,' Bolduan said...."

Jose DelReal & Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "A nasty feud that escalated Thursday between Donald Trump and ... [Ted Cruz] over their wives set off a new wave of alarm among establishment Republicans, who fear the GOP front-runner would drive away female voters in a general-election fight with likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.... GOP strategist Katie Packer, who leads the anti-Trump Our Principles super PAC[, said,] 'Half of the reason why I’m fighting so hard to stop Donald Trump is because I think he’s a walking, talking stereotype of a sexist misogynistic pig.'”

Emma Green of the Atlantic: "Ted Cruz was ... always that guy ... who would look away as his allies circulated a naked picture of the wife of his enemy, and then suggest that 'real men don’t attack women.'... That guy who would suggest the only female Democratic presidential candidate in this race needs a spanking."

Women, you have to treat them like shit. -- Donald Trump, ca. 1990s

** Franklin Foer in Slate: "... there’s one ideology that [Donald Trump] does hold with sincerity and practices with unwavering fervor: misogyny.... In his view, treating women like meat is a necessary precondition for winning.... By winning, Trump means asserting superiority. And since life is a zero-sum game, superiority can only be achieved at someone else’s expense.... He relishes judging women on the basis of their looks, which he seems to believe amounts to the sum of their character.... Misogyny isn’t an incidental part of Donald Trump. It’s who he is."

CW: Like Karoli Kuns of Crooks & Liars, I don't buy the National Enquirer story that Ted Cruz found five attractive women who would have sex with him. (Okay, one is supposedly a sex worker, so maybe she was just doing her job.) "It feels to me like Trump dropped a whole lot of garbage over at the Enquirer to discredit Ted Cruz, and that sense is backed up even more by the fact that one of the lovely ladies is supposedly Donald Trump's spokeswoman. That's just a little too convenient.... It's hearsay at this point, but it leaves a nice pile of grist for the rumor mill." ...

     ... AND it's fun stuff in Twitter World. ...

Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "Ted Cruz says he declined to directly attack Donald Trump for much of the Republican primary because those who did ended up 'as roadkill.'... Cruz said Wednesday to radio host Charlie Sykes of WTMJ..., '... If you look at a number of the candidates that took on Donald Trump early on, they ended up as roadkill.... I am very strongly committed on the anti-roadkill approach.'”

Paul Krugman: "... Mr. Cruz has staked out positions on crucial issues that are, not to put too fine a point on it, crazy. How can elite Republicans back him? The answer is the same for Mr. Cruz and the elite as it is for Mr. Trump and the base: Leading Republicans support Mr. Cruz, not despite his policy positions, but because of them. They may not like his style, but they agree with his substance.... While his policy ideas are extreme, they reflect the same extremism that pervades the party’s elite. There are no moderates, or for that matter, sensible people, anywhere in this story."

Pick Me! Pick Me! Jessie Opoein of the Madison, Wisconsin, Capital Times: "If the Republican Party finds itself with an open convention in July, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker believes the nominee may not be Donald Trump, Ted Cruz or John Kasich. 'I think if it’s an open convention, it’s very likely it would be someone who’s not currently running,' Walker told reporters Thursday."


David Schwartz of Reuters: "Phoenix's mayor on Wednesday urged a federal probe into the local county's handling of voting in Arizona's presidential nominating contest, questioning whether minority voters were granted a fair chance to cast their ballots. Greg Stanton asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate a decision by Maricopa County officials to slash the number of polling locations in Arizona's most populous county and leave minority-heavy areas with seemingly fewer sites.  The Democratic mayor called the vote 'a fiasco after voters had to wait in line for several hours on Tuesday to cast their ballots." ...

... CW: Cutting down the number of polling places in "urban areas" & voter ID laws are two tricks among many in a well-stuffed Republican Voter Suppression Bag. Ask President Kerry. ...

... Fernanda Santos of the New York Times: "Days later, angry and baffled voters are still trying to make sense of how democracy is working in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous, where officials cut the number of polling places by 70 percent to save money — to 60 from 200 in the last presidential election. That translated to a single polling place for every 108,000 residents in Phoenix, a majority-minority city that had exceptional turnout in Tuesday’s Democratic and Republican primaries.... But beyond the electoral breakdown here, many observers saw Arizona as a flashing neon sign pointing toward potential problems nationally at a time that 16 states will have new voting restrictions in place for the first time in a presidential election." ...

... Eliza Collins of Politico: Bernie Sanders & the Clinton campaign weigh in on the Maricopa County voting scandal.

Senate Race

Alex Roarty of Roll Call: "Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson on Wednesday was endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an important sign of support for the business-friendly lawmaker ahead of a difficult re-election test this November. But it's unclear whether the behemoth business lobby -- and other well-funded Republican-aligned groups like it -- will actually spend big money on the GOP senator's behalf in a general election.... Early surveys of the race paint a grim picture for Johnson: Since April of last year, five of six polls from Marquette Law School have found [former Sen. Russ] Feingold sporting a double-digit lead, including a mid-February survey that found the Democrat winning by 12 points."

David Herszenhorn of the New York Times: "Republican leaders say they are taking a principled stand against election-year appointments rather than focusing on Judge [Merrick] Garland’s qualifications, [Sen. Ron] Johnson, without any pretense, is boasting that he and his Republican colleagues are preventing Mr. Obama from tilting the ideological balance of the court to the left. And he is attacking Judge Garland — without any basis, many legal experts say — as posing a grave threat to Second Amendment gun rights.... Democrats, including [former Sen. Russ] Feingold, say they are confident that Mr. Johnson is making a politically fatal mistake by playing to the Republican Party’s conservative base in a state that despite the party’s recent inroads has voted Democratic in the past seven presidential elections, and where pocketbook issues like jobs and trade are dominant."

Beyond the Beltway

Sandhya Somashekhar of the Washington Post: "Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) signed a controversial abortion bill Thursday that, among other things, would ban the procedure if it is sought because the fetus was diagnosed with a disability or defect such as Down syndrome.... The law, which was passed by the legislature earlier this month, would make Indiana the second state in the nation, after North Dakota, to ban abortion in cases where a fetal anomaly is detected.... And it could make Indiana the first state in the country to require that fetal remains be buried or cremated, rather than treated like medical waste." ...

... CW: Red State/Blue State. If you're a woman of child-bearing age, you don't want to live in a state governed by Republicans. In fact, any man who intends to be or is in a relationship with a young woman should consider getting the hell out of Red State America. ...

... Let's not forget North Carolina & Georgia:

Sandhya Somashekhar : "A new North Carolina law that bars local governments from extending civil rights protections to gay and transgender people is provoking a growing backlash from businesses and others who say the law is discriminatory. American Airlines, Wells Fargo and the National Basketball Association were among those to raise concerns about the law, which was introduced and passed Wednesday in a hastily called special session and signed by Gov. Pat McCrory (R) later that day." ...

... Niraj Chokshi of the Washington Post: "Another industry is warning Georgia’s governor not to sign a religious-liberty bill into law — the latest to suggest that the state risks losing business over the measure. Actors, writers, producers, directors, movie studios and whole entertainment companies have weighed in on the debate, many calling the bill discriminatory and some threatening to sever ties with Georgia if it’s passed. The latest threat comes from a group of 34 individuals in the movie business, including celebrities Kristin Chenoweth, Lee Daniels, Anne Hathaway, Seth MacFarlane, Julianne Moore, Rob Reiner and Marisa Tomei. In a Thursday letter, they warn Gov. Nathan Deal (R) that they 'plan to take our business elsewhere' should he sign the bill, which passed the legislature last week. The Walt Disney Co. and its subsidiary movie studio, Marvel, said the same in a statement Wednesday.... At least 20 Fortune 500 companies — including Delta Air Lines, Google, Home Depot, IBM, Marriott, Microsoft, Nordstrom, Coca-Cola, Dow Chemical, UPS and Verizon — belong to a coalition urging Deal to veto the measure. The coalition has several hundred corporate members in all." ...

... CW: Excuse me. That's no "religious liberty bill: "The bill protects religious leaders from being forced to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies and individuals from being forced to attend such events. It also allows faith-based organizations to deny use of their facilities for events they find 'objectionable' and exempts them from having to hire or retain any employee whose religious beliefs or practices differ from those of the organization." The first part is absolute nonsense; the First Amendment protects ministers from performing rituals they oppose, & who the hell thinks the government can require "individuals" to go to weddings? The second part isn't about "religious liberty," either; generally speaking, faith-based organization can hire whom they want to & rent their facilities to whom they want, unless they receive government grants.

Paul Gattis of Al.com: "A state audit released last month reported no issues with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, whose director was fired Tuesday by Gov. Robert Bentley after "several areas of concern" were discovered. Spencer Collier, the first director of the new organization designed to consolidate and streamline 12 state law enforcement agencies, denied any wrongdoing at a news conference Wednesday in which he outlined elements of what he described as an inappropriate affair between the governor and senior advisor Rebekah Caldwell Mason." ...

... CW: I have a feeling Bentley didn't quite know how to "keep his friends close & his enemies closer." He got right close with one friend, but he canned an enemy -- a guy who had the goods on him -- for no reason Bentley has been willing to make public, so perhaps for no good reason. Feeling up the help, if the help was willing, appears at this time to have been a lesser mistake. The story may evolve, but right now Bentley looks like an idiot.

Way Beyond

Matthew Lee of the AP: "At least two American citizens have been confirmed killed in this week’s attacks in Brussels, a U.S. official said Friday, as Secretary of State John Kerry is visiting the city to express his condolences to the Belgian people." CW: Hate to mention it to Republicans who said President Obama should drop everything & go give some speeches in Brussels, but elite snob John Kerry, unilike Obama, actually speaks one of Belgium's official languages.

Alistair Macdonald, et al., of Reuters: "Belgian police arrested six people in their probe of Tuesday's Islamic State suicide bombings in Brussels, while authorities in France said they thwarted a militant plot there 'that was at an advanced stage.' The federal prosecutor's office in Belgium said on Thursday that the arrests came during police searches in the Brussels neighborhoods of Schaerbeek in the north and Jette in the west, as well as in the center of the Belgian capital." ...

... Aurelien Breeden, et al., of the New York Times: "Belgium’s justice and interior ministers acknowledged Thursday that the authorities had erred by not acting on Turkey’s request last year that they take custody of a Belgian citizen arrested for suspected terrorist activity. The man was one of the Islamic State suicide bombers in the devastating Brussels attacks. The acknowledgments by the justice minister, Koen Geens, and interior minister, Jan Jambon, were the first high-level Belgian admissions of blunder in the aftermath of the bombings on Tuesday. The attacks have exposed missteps by European security officials and police, just four months after the Islamic State’s assault on targets in Paris."

Liz Sly of the Washington Post: "As European governments scramble to contain the expanding terrorist threat posed by the Islamic State, on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria the group is a rapidly diminishing force. In the latest setbacks for the militants on Thursday, Syrian government troops entered the outskirts of the historic town of Palmyra after a weeks-old offensive aided by Russian airstrikes, and U.S. airstrikes helped Iraqi forces overrun a string of Islamic State villages in northern Iraq that had been threatening a U.S. base nearby. These are just two of the many fronts in both countries where the militants are being squeezed, stretched and pushed back."

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Wednesday
Mar232016

The Commentariat -- March 24, 2016

If you are interested in taking over Reality Chex -- that is, owning it to do with as you will -- please contact me. I am looking forward to discontinuing my work on the site but would like to see it continue "under new management." I'll help you get started. Thank you to all who have contributed over the years. If I don't find a suitable "buyer," I'll close down next Friday, April 1. -- Constant Weader

Afternoon Update:

Gardiner Harris of the New York Times: "A special House committee empaneled to investigate fetal tissue research is preparing to issue 17 subpoenas to medical supply companies and laboratories, seeking the names of researchers, graduate students, laboratory technicians and administrative personnel. The House investigation into how some of the nation's most prestigious universities acquire fetal tissue has prompted charges of intimidation and coercion, escalating a battle that some researchers fear could shut down studies seeking cures for Parkinson's disease, the Zika virus and a host of other conditions. Representative Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, who opposes most fetal tissue research because of its association with abortion, intends to issue the subpoenas on behalf of the Republicans on the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives." ...

... CW: Blackburn's move here is fascistic enough to impress Donald Trump. She's a successful publicity hound, a climate denier & otherwise standard-issue Tea party grande dame. If Trump picked Blackburn as his running mate, it would mitigate his unpopularity with women, & she'd be just the person to attack Hillary Clinton, if Clinton is the Democratic nominee. And Blackburn is willing: Washington Examiner: "U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn said Friday she'd be open to becoming GOP front-runner Donald Trump's vice president if he wins the nomination." So Marsha Blackburn is my entry in today's GOP Veepstakes.

Republicans Being Sorry for Stuff:

Amanda Marcotte, in Salon, on Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley's (R) hypocritical apology for extracurricular sex or sex-words or not-sex or whatever: "This is what Bentley should be apologizing for: Treating everyone else who isn't a straight man like their private, consenting sex lives that harm absolutely no one are some great evil to be snuffed out by denying them medical care and basic rights like marriage.... It's clear that Bentley thinks that being mildly embarrassed is punishment enough for a straight man caught having sexytimes. But the rest of us won't get off so easy. We're denied marriage rights, birth control, abortion access, and told we're a danger to our children."

"Today in Paul Ryan's Shadow Campaign for President." Charles Pierce: "Remember, he's sorry for all those terrible things he's said about the poor, but he might say them again, and he'll feel even more sorry. Biggest. Fake. Ever."

*****

BBC News: "President Barack Obama, who is on a visit to Argentina, has promised to release secret files concerning the US role in the military coup there 40 years ago that installed one of the region's most brutal regimes. He was speaking after talks with Argentine President Mauricio Macri. Mr Obama said US military and intelligence files from the era would be declassified for the first time":

David Sanger of the New York Times: "The Justice Department on Thursday unsealed an indictment against seven Iranian computer specialists who regularly worked for the country's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, charging that they were behind cyberattacks on dozens of American banks and that they attempted to take over the controls of a small dam in Rye, N.Y. The indictment, while long expected, is the first time that the Obama administration has sought action against Iranians for a wave of computer attacks on the United States that began in 2011.... None of the named Iranians live in the United States and it is doubtful that they will ever make it to an American courtroom."

Alissa Rubin, et al., of the New York Times: "The Brussels suicide bombers included two Belgium-born brothers with a violent criminal past and suspected links to plotters of the Islamic State's Paris attacks last November, the authorities said Wednesday, raising new alarms about Europe's leaky defenses against a militant organization that has terrorized two European capitals with seeming impunity. One of the brothers was deported by Turkey back to Europe less than a year ago, Turkey's president said, suspected of being a terrorist fighter intent on entering Syria, where the Islamic State is based. Despite that statement, Belgian officials said neither brother had been under suspicion for terrorism until recently, an indication of the Islamic State's ability to remain steps ahead of European intelligence and security monitors." ...

... Joby Warrick & Greg Miller of the Washington Post: "As Belgian police delve into the backgrounds of the men behind Tuesday's attacks in Brussels, they are encountering a pattern familiar to investigators in Paris and other European cities targeted by the Islamic State: The shock troops used in the terrorist group's signature attacks are largely men already well known to local law enforcement -- not as religious radicals, but as criminals." ...

... Lori Hinnant & Paisley Dodds of the AP: "The Islamic State group has trained at least 400 fighters to target Europe in deadly waves of attacks, deploying interlocking terror cells like the ones that struck Brussels and Paris with orders to choose the time, place and method for maximum chaos, officials have told The Associated Press." ...

... Josh Lederman of the AP: "A day after bombs ripped through Brussels, President Barack Obama declared that fighting the Islamic State is his 'No. 1 priority' and pledged that the United States will pursue the jihadist group until it is destroyed. 'I've got a lot of things on my plate, but my top priority is to defeat I ISIL and to eliminate the scourge of this barbaric terrorism that's been taking place around the world,' Obama said Wednesday. '... The issue is, how do we do it in an intelligent way?" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Nicole Perlroth & Katie Benner of "the New York Times: Why are hackers willing to help the FBI unlock Apple's iPhone? Maybe because Apple, unlike other big tech companies, doesn't offer hackers a "bug bounty" when they alert the companies to programming flaws. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "In an address billed as an examination of the future of politics, Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin on Wednesday admonished politicians in both parties for debasing political discourse.... It was a familiar role for the speaker: He has become something of a Washington scold.... In the most striking part of his speech, Mr. Ryan faulted himself for having referred to the 'makers and takers' in society when he was the Republican vice-presidential nominee in 2012.... But what Mr. Ryan did not address in his speech has been the inability of Congress to turn those ideas into laws, even with Republican majorities in both houses, or to maintain much decorum in its own chambers." ...

... Amber Phillips of the Washington Post: "Yes, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) addressed the nation on Wednesday to once again rebuke GOP front-runner Donald Trump in all but name. But as Ryan waxed wishfully about what the Republican Party and our political dialogue should be, it almost sounded like he had given up trying to shift its inevitable march to disaster this presidential election -- and was laying the groundwork for the next. Possibly even his own.... Ryan has slowly, carefully been pitching himself as the Republican Party's anti-Trump, and Wednesday's speech sounded like he hoped to emerge as an alternative to a party burned by Trump for 2020." ...

... Driftglass puts it more simply: "There can be no end to political madness in this country until this kind of speech is laughed at every time anyone tries it."

... The Cowardly Ryan. Dana Milbank: Ryan "clearly would, despite his demurrals, like to be the consensus nominee. But to preserve his neutrality, and his presidential prospects, Ryan is making a corrupt bargain. There is no neutrality between good and evil."

... CW: 2020? I'm with Milbank. Ryan is thinking 2016. Just as he became the Reluctant Speaker, so he would like to become the Reluctant President. ...

The Vagina Dialog. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court weighed moral theology and parsed insurance terminology on Wednesday in an extended and animated argument that seemed to leave the justices sharply divided over what the government may do to require employers to provide free insurance coverage for contraception to female workers. A 4-to-4 tie appeared to be a real possibility, which would automatically affirm the four appeals court decisions under review. All four ruled that religious groups seeking to opt out of the requirement that they pay for the coverage must sign forms and provide information that would shift the cost to insurance companies and the government." ...

... Today's Word: "Hijack." Lyle Denniston of ScotusBlog: "'Hijacking' is what a long list of religious institutions that object for reasons of faithto contraceptive methods have used to describe what they say the federal government will do to their health-care plans as it moves toward providing free birth control to those institutions' female employees and college students. And, if there was a startling moment during the ninety-four-minute hearing on Zubik v. Burwell, it came when Justice Anthony M. Kennedy deployed that word in obvious sympathy to those institutions." ...

... Dahlia Lithwick of Slate: "In case you believed Wednesday's big contraception/religious liberty case at the Supreme Court was about contraception, or about religious liberty, you would be wrong. It's about Obamacare. Again. For the fourth time in four years. And in case you believed the court's conservatives have maybe come around on Obamacare -- well, no. They still hate it. But now they hate it in sound bites.... Specifically, the idea that Obamacare has 'hijacked' the nonprofit religious charity Little Sisters of the Poor (and others like it) and their insurance apparatus to force the horror that is Obamacare onto them." ...

... Clueless Geezers Want You Ladies to Get an Imaginary Healthcare Policy. Tierney Sneed of TPM: "Judging by the questions from conservatives on the court -- all men -- they're still not fully aware of how every day people -- particularly women -- receive health care in the United States, or how health insurance actually works." ...

... Judicial Malpractice. Kevin Drum: "These justices have already heard two major cases on Obamacare, and they've presumably read the briefs for this one. But they still seem unable to grasp the concept that you can't just go out to the exchange and buy a 'contraceptive policy.' Nor do they seem to care that even if you could, it would mean not being able to get contraceptives from your regular doctor, which for some women would cause real problems with continuity of care." ...

... Nancy LeTourneau of the Washington Monthly: "It all reminds me of the three qualities President Obama outlined that he'd be looking for in a Supreme Court nominee....

There will be cases in which a judge's analysis necessarily will be shaped by his or her own perspective, ethics, and judgment. That's why the third quality I seek in a judge is a keen understanding that justice is not about abstract legal theory, nor some footnote in a dusty casebook. It's the kind of life experience earned outside the classroom and the courtroom; experience that suggests he or she views the law not only as an intellectual exercise, but also grasps the way it affects the daily reality of people's lives in a big, complicated democracy, and in rapidly changing times.

... Obama Is Mean to Nuns. Charles Pierce: "The plaintiff's entire case is based on the sub rosa notion that a small order of nuns is being bullied by the big, bad government. (It's also based, on a deeper level, on a distrust and fear of female sexuality.)... In any event, Zubik is yet another example of what a dog in the manger is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Yet another blessing on the nation signed by Bill Clinton in his attempt to get re-elected, RFRA ... is the only reason Zubik (and, earlier, Hobby Lobby) even got this far. It is the reason that the preposterous argument that filling out a form is a 'near occasion of sin,' as the Sisters of St. Joseph used to call them, ever made it to the eight wise souls herein sitting in judgment. It's the reason why employees of all faiths may now have to submit to the anti-human dictates, and the bullshit theology, of an encyclical that American Catholics have been lubriciously ignoring for going on half-a-century."

Richard Painter, a Bush II lawyer, in a New York Times op-ed: "Judge [Merrick] Garland is just the kind of candidate we would have advised President Bush to nominate if he had been in this situation. A proven moderate, he has enjoyed widespread Republican support in the past.... It is time for the Senate to consider the Garland nomination. Judge Garland should get exactly what Justice Alito got in 2006: a hearing, perhaps with some bluster along the way, but a vote in the end, and confirmation.... If the Senate does not move forward with the Garland nomination now, a lot of senators could find themselves voting on a Supreme Court nominee in December while packing up their offices."

Max Ehrenfreund of the Washington Post: "In recent decades, rich black kids have been more likely to go to prison than poor white kids.... Hispanic participants who were less affluent in 1985 were more likely to be eventually incarcerated than their white peers with similar wealth, but less likely than black participants."

Alan Schwartz, et al., of the New York Times: "... an investigation by The New York Times has found that the N.F.L.'s concussion research was far more flawed than previously known. For the last 13 years, the N.F.L. has stood by the research, which, the papers stated, was based on a full accounting of all concussions diagnosed by team physicians from 1996 through 2001. But confidential data obtained by The Times shows that more than 100 diagnosed concussions were omitted from the studies.... The committee then calculated the rates of concussions using the incomplete data, making them appear less frequent than they actually were."

This really upset the scolds on "Morning Joe," who, as we know, are Very Serious People:

... That's kinda funny, because they weren't all upset when Mika & Jonathan Capehart danced through "the most serious election coverage in all of teevee" the day after 31 Americans were murdered by guns & 151 people went to the emergency room after a gun assault. (No, I don't know the exact date of Mika & Jonathan's routine, but those are the averages. They don't include the 55 people who commit suicide by gun daily or the 46 who die in accidentaly shootings daily.)

The NRA's version of "Hansel & Gretel."... Lindsey Bever of the Washington Post: "Hansel with a hunting rifle. Or Little Red Riding Hood's granny with a shotgun.... [These stories are featured] on the National Rifle Association's NRA Family website, which partnered with author Amelia Hamilton 'to present her twist on those classic tales' -- a series that has infuriated gun-control advocates, some of whom called it 'absolutely sick.' Gun-rights supporters say the stories -- which started with 'Little Red Riding Hood (Has a Gun)' and continued with 'Hansel and Gretel (Have Guns)' -- are a more peaceful alternative to the often disturbing fairy tales from childhood."

Presidential Race

Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "In her most vigorous assault yet on her Republican rivals, Hillary Clinton on Wednesday ridiculed the foreign policy prescriptions of [link fixed] Donald J. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz, calling them 'reckless actions' that would alienate America's closest allies, demonize Muslims and empower Russia.... Yet in her own policy prescriptions -- which included an 'intelligence surge' to collect more data on the Islamic State, partnerships with Silicon Valley firms that have been suspicious of Washington, and beefing up security on soft targets like airport check-in areas -- Mrs. Clinton resisted calls to distance herself from the Obama administration's actions, and instead called for an acceleration of the approaches already underway."

Charles Pierce: "You want to know what it's like to be president of the United damn States, and there's nothing anybody can do about it, and you no longer have any fcks left in that big old bag to give?":

     ... Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "President Obama on Wednesday delivered a sharply personal rebuke of GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz for his call to institute surveillance on Muslim communities in response to the Brussels terrorist attacks. During a press conference in Argentina, Obama called such a proposal 'wrong and un-American' and said it would undermine the U.S. campaign against Islamic extremists.... 'I just left a country that engages in that kind of neighborhood surveillance, which, by the way, the father of Sen. Cruz escaped for America,' the president said. '... The notion that we would start down that slippery slope makes absolutely no sense.'” ...

... Simon Maloy of Salon: "... Ted Cruz really isn't the guy to make the case that Obama is not acting presidential, given that his own response to the Brussels attack has been hysteria, demagoguery, and a foul sop to anti-Muslim sentiment.... He's proposed denying American citizens their civil liberties and using the heavy hand of the state to treat them as potential criminals for no other reason than their faith.... He sees a terrorist attack unfold overseas and his immediate instinct is to bomb things, violate religious freedom, and curtail civil liberties at home.... I'll happily take a 'cool' and 'detached' president over one who freaks out and proposes creating a discriminatory police state." ...

... Allegra Kirkland of TPM: "... Donald Trump accused Muslims of intentionally declining to report suspected terrorist activity in a Wednesday interview on ITV's 'Good Morning Britain.' 'When they see trouble, they have to report it. They are not reporting it; they are absolutely not reporting it, and that's a big problem,' Trump told host Piers Morgan.... British officials were quick to condemn Trump's comments as false and potentially dangerous." ...

... Ana Swanson of the Washington Post on the "Trump Network," a sleazy pyramid scheme (I mean "multi-level marketing model") that sold multivitamins supposedly engineered to the individual based on a costly fakey test. "Trump says he was not involved in the company's operations. But statements by him and other company representatives -- as well as a plethora of marketing materials circulating online -- often gave the impression of a partnership that was certain to lift thousands of people into prosperity. In fact, within a few years, the company fell on hard times, leaving some salespeople in tough financial straits." CW: In case you didn't notice, everything about Trump Network is a scam. Yes, that's your future Republican presidential nominee. See more below on the guy who imagines he will be Vice President Doctor Carson.

... E. J. Dionne: "The terrorist attacks in Belgium brought out the worst in Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. Cruz demonstrated that his only focus right now is to find ways of out-Trumping Trump. He seeks words that sound at least as intolerant and as dangerous to civil liberties as the formulations that regularly burst forth from the Republican front-runner.... With large parts of the Republican establishment giving up on Kasich and embracing Cruz as the last anti-Trump hope, we can now look forward to a GOP race to the bottom in which fear itself is the only thing its leading candidates have to offer." ...

... Gail Collins: "How can things get worse for Republicans? Jeb Bush turned out to be a terrible candidate. Marco Rubio turned out to be an annoying twit. Donald Trump is a nightmare. Something had to be done, and so the solid, steady moderate elite decided the best strategy was to rally around ... Ted Cruz. Welcome to worse.... Maybe they think if Cruz is the spoiler at the convention, it'll be easier to shove him away to make room for a brand new superhero? (Looking at you, Mitt.)"

... Greg Sargent: "Large percentages of GOP voters reject the GOP elite argument for giving the nomination to someone other than Trump at a contested convention, to spare the GOP a disastrous election, even as polls (and other evidence) also suggest GOP elite fears of a Trump disaster may be well founded." That is, Republican "leaders" plan to solve a problem by creating another, perhaps worse, problem. ...

... Betty Cracker of Balloon Juice: "Why on earth wouldn't [Republican voters] unite behind Trump? It's not the open bigotry they're unable to countenance after decades of trafficking in covert racism to gin up votes.Sure, Trump is embarrassing. But if the party grandees can just convert Trump to the Church of Austerity, he could continue to peddle the same old shit in a brand new package. No reason to think that couldn't be done fairly easily. Just prescribe some scripture -- Two Rand, perhaps." ...

... Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "Republicans desperate to stop Donald J. Trump from capturing the presidential nomination increased the pressure Wednesday on Gov. John Kasich of Ohio to quit the race, with Jeb Bush joining the growing number of party figures throwing their weight behind Senator Ted Cruz. Mr. Kasich refused, saying that he ... was the best option to stop Mr. Trump. But his argument was undercut by his dismal showings Tuesday in Utah and Arizona, where he won no delegates -- as well as by the surprise endorsement Wednesday morning by Mr. Bush of Mr. Cruz." ...

... Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker: "There are no more states like Utah [where Ted Cruz won all of the delegates] on the primary calendar. The stop-Trump forces have only been given a brief respite. But it was a significant one. If Trump had swept [Tuesday] night's contests, the race would effectively be over. It's no coincidence that Jeb Bush endorsed Cruz [Wednesday] morning, after Cruz proved that his efforts to deny Trump a majority of delegates were not entirely futile."

You may think that this is the end, Well, it's not. (Music by John Phillip Sousa, lyrics attributed to Fred Allen):

... If It Looks Like a Crook & Quacks Like a Crook.... Bonnie Kristian of the Week: "A super PAC called the 2016 Committee is still raising money for Ben Carson -- even though he ended his campaign weeks ago. 'The 2016 Committee will now kind of morph itself into the objective of having Dr. Carson be Donald Trump's running mate,' the founder of the fundraising group, John Philip Sousa IV..., told supporters last week.... [Sousa's superPAC] collects mainly small donations. And according to analysis ... by the Daily Caller, nearly half of the 2016 Committee's listed donors are retirees who may be on a fixed income. Though Sousa promises supporters that 'Whatever you send will be used carefully to put Ben Carson on the Republican presidential ticket in 2016,' in practice the committee has spent money on things like buying 450,000 copies of Sousa's own book and taking paychecks for hundreds of thousands of dollars."

NAME THAT VICE PRESIDENT. All of us, including Sousa (but maybe not Ole Doc himself), know that Stubby Fingers will not make Ben Carson his veep. But that raises the question, Who will the Mophaired Menace choose as his running mate? Let's have your best guess or a helpful suggestion we can pass along to @realDonaldTrump. Ridiculous recommendations accepted/unavoidable. Contest ends April 1.

Beyond the Beltway

Paul Egan & Matthew Dolan of the Detroit Free Press: "A task force appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder issued a hard-hitting report on the Flint drinking water public health crisis, slamming the catastrophe as a story of 'government failure, intransigence, unpreparedness, delay, inaction and environmental injustice.' The 116-page report said the state's controversial emergency manager law contributed to the lead contamination crisis by removing governmental checks and balances. It called for a review of the law and said Snyder should look for alternatives to the current approach so that locally elected officials can be kept more engaged." ...

... Brady Dennis of the Washington Post: "The independent group faulted Snyder and his administration for failing to act even after 'suggestions to do so by senior staff members in the Governor's office.' The group said the state Department of Health and Human Services failed to quickly recognize the crisis and protect public health. It said the Flint Water Department 'rushed unprepared' into switching to a new water source in spring 2014 -- the Flint River -- without proper use of corrosion controls. Finally, the task force blamed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's delayed enforcement of federal drinking-water standards for 'prolonging the calamity.'" ...

... The report is here (pdf).

David Philipps of the New York Times: "North Carolina legislators, in a whirlwind special session on Wednesday, passed a wide-ranging bill barring transgender people from bathrooms and locker rooms that do not match the gender on their birth certificates. Republicans unanimously supported the bill, while in the Senate, Democrats walked out in protest." CW: I hope all North Carolinians realize that they may now be required to show their birth certificates before entering any public restroom. Kinda beats voter ID, doesn't it? Oh, and just like those anti-abortion & anti-contraception laws, we learn that this law was designed to "protect women." Thanks, guys! ...

... This weird GOP obsession with other people's sexual identity & bathroom habits leads us to ...

... Today in GOP Sex News

Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "Gov. Robert Bentley of Alabama [R] acknowledged Wednesday that he had made inappropriate and sexually charged remarks to one of his closest aides, but he denied an accusation that he and the woman had pursued a physical relationship.... Mr. Bentley's public demonstration of remorse came nearly seven months after Dianne Bentley, to whom the Republican governor was married for 50 years, sought a divorce, and just hours after [Spencer] Collier, the recently ousted leader of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, described what he saw as a history of improper conduct between the governor and [top aide Rebekah] Mason. Mr. Collier said that Mr. Bentley had, in 2014, effectively acknowledged an affair, and that it appeared to be continuing as recently as last month." ...

... It Depends on What the Meaning of "Sexual" Is. John Archibald of AL.com: "The tapes for which [Bentley] apologized were purportedly created by members of the Bentley family in 2014 as they tried to ascertain whether he was involved in a relationship. People close to the Bentley family allowed AL.com to hear portions of the tapes.... 'You know I just I worry about sometimes I love so you much,' Bentley is heard saying in a phone conversation with a woman he calls Rebekah. 'I worry about loving you so much.... You know what?' he goes on. 'When I stand behind you, and I put my arms around you, and I put my hands on your breasts, and I put my hands (unintelligible) and just pull you real close. I love that, too.' After being asked about that, Bentley reiterated that the relationship was not sexual." Includes audio....

... CW: So, hands on breasts, not sexual. Hands on (unintelligible), not sexual either. Also (from the audio), putting hands "under you," not sexual. "Doing what we did the other night, Baby," which requires "locking the door" also not sexual.

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "A previously unidentified victim of alleged sexual abuse by former House Speaker Dennis Hastert has come forward to federal prosecutors and may seek to testify next month when Hastert faces sentencing in federal court in Chicago. The new accuser, labeled as 'Individual D' in court papers, is not the 'Individual A' to whom Hastert agreed to pay $3.5 million, setting off a series of events that led to the former speaker pleading guilty to illegally structuring $900,000 used in payments to the man.... Hastert defense attorney John Gallo said Tuesday that the former speaker doesn't plan to contest 'Individual D''s claims."

Way Beyond

Brian Murphy of the Washington Post: "A former Bosnian Serb leader was found guilty of genocide and other charges Thursday for his roles in deadly campaigns during the country's war in the 1990s, including the massacres in Srebrenica, as an international tribunal announced a long-awaited reckoning for Europe's bloodiest chapter since World War II. Radovan Karadzic was found guilty of charges including genocide in connection with the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the Srebrenica enclave."

News Lede

Los Angeles Times: "Larry Shandling, the pioneering cable TV star and writer whose turn as a self-doubting talk show host on HBO's 'The Larry Sanders Show' during the 1990s helped redefine the television sitcom, has died. He was 66. The Chicago-born Shandling died of a heart attack, said his spokesman Alan Nierob."

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Tuesday
Mar222016

The Commentariat -- March 23, 2016

If you are interested in taking over Reality Chex -- that is, owning it to do with as you will -- please contact me. I am looking forward to discontinuing my work on the site but would like to see it continue "under new management." I'll help you get started. Thank you to all who have contributed over the years. If I don't find a suitable "buyer," I'll close down next Friday, April 1. -- Constant Weader

Afternoon Update:

Josh Lederman of the AP: "A day after bombs ripped through Brussels, President Barack Obama declared that fighting the Islamic State is his 'No. 1 priority' and pledged that the United States will pursue the jihadist group until it is destroyed. 'I've got a lot of things on my plate, but my top priority is to defeat I ISIL and to eliminate the scourge of this barbaric terrorism that's been taking place around the world,' Obama said Wednesday. '... The issue is, how do we do it in an intelligent way?"

Nicole Perlroth & Katie Benner of the New York Times: Why are hackers willing to help the FBI unlock Apple's iPhone? Maybe because Apple, unlike other big tech companies, doesn't offer hackers a "bug bounty" when they alert the companies to programming flaws.

The New York Times has what it is still calling the "latest updates of President Obama's trip to Latin America." The "latest update," as it turns out, was posted yesterday evening, when the President was still in Cuba. (He's in Argentina now.) There are some interesting posts nonetheless.

*****

Presidential Race

Nick Gass of Politico: "Donald Trump would lead either Ted Cruz or John Kasich in a two-way race, according to the results of a Quinnipiac University national poll released Wednesday. On the Democratic side of the race, 50 percent said they would prefer Hillary Clinton as their party's nominee, while 38 percent wanted Bernie Sanders and 10 percent did not know. Matched up against Trump and Cruz, both Clinton and Sanders lead by as much as 14 points, as is the case of Sanders' lead in a hypothetical race with Trump. On the other hand, Kasich outperformed both Democrats when tested head-to-head, leading Clinton 47 percent to 39 percent and Sanders 45 percent to 44 percent."

The Party of Slime. Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "Within a matter of seconds on Tuesday night, Donald Trump tweeted -- and deleted -- an apparent threat involving Ted Cruz's wife.... 'Wow Sen. Ted Cruz,' it read, 'that is some low-level ad you did using a picture [of] Melania in a G.Q. shoot. Be careful or I will spill the beans on your wife.'... Within a few minutes, he tweeted a new version with the same not-so-veiled threat.... Make America Awesome's Liz Mair [who used the Melania photo in an ad] tweeted that 'Donald Trump is so desperate to beat Cruz that his team has been pushing around rumors she's a criminal w a mental illness for weeks now.' This appears to be a reference to [a] depressive episode..., when police in Austin encountered Heidi Cruz by the side of a highway, distraught." CW: I believe it was way back yesterday when I said Rubio had better be careful because Trump might attack his wife. I was kidding; I should have been dead-serious.

Cranks & Losers Unite. Maggie Haberman & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Jeb Bush ... endorsed Ted Cruz on Wednesday, becoming the most prominent member of the Republican establishment to support the Texas senator as he tries to slow Donald J. Trump's efforts to capture the presidential nomination.... With his endorsement of Mr. Cruz, Mr. Bush is sending two messages to voters: Reject Mr. Trump, and do not keep Mr. Kasich's candidacy alive." CW: Nice to see Jeb! is still a man of principle, endorsing the worst over the worser for pragmatic reasons. Either that or Kasich was mean to him.

AP: "Ted Cruz is suggesting he'd find a place for Republican rival John Kasich in his future administration if Kasich agrees to drop out of the presidential race and supports him." CW: Since Cruz no doubt knows a quid pro quo violates federal law, his bid was coy: after urging Kasich to leave the race, "In an interview Wednesday on CNN's 'New Day,' Cruz said of Kasich: 'I think he'd be a tremendous addition to an administration.'"

Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) plans to deliver Wednesday a repudiation of the 'disheartened' state of American politics, a lengthy speech that comes amid the increasingly toxic Republican presidential primary that he has tried to steer away from in public comments.... Advisers view the speech, which will take place inside his former stomping grounds of the Ways and Means Committee hearing room, as a chance to firmly establish Ryan, 46, as the adult in national Republican politics and to get activists focused on the emerging agenda that the still-new speaker is trying to craft." CW: And remind convention delegates that Ayn Ryan would be an exceptional presidential nominee. I'll give Ryan this: he is a master of the art of the dog whistle, whether using it to diss "urban voters" for relying on "free lunches" or promote himself.

CW: Whatever the late-term machinations, we know the Republican nominee for president of the United State will be a scary, vile creep who already has promised to do irreparable harm to the nation & beyond.

Primary Results

Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump overwhelmed their rivals in the Arizona primaries on Tuesday.... But Senator Bernie Sanders thrashed Mrs. Clinton in the Idaho and Utah Democratic caucuses, demonstrating his enduring appeal among liberal activists even as she closes in on the party's nomination. And Senator Ted Cruz, who won the Republican contest in Utah, captured more than 50 percent of the vote, giving him all 40 of the state's delegates and sustaining hope among Mr. Trump's opponents that he can be slowed, if not stopped."

Greg Sargent: The reason Trump is winning is that he is openly practicing white-identity politics. CW: When Trump said in January, "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any voters, okay?" he was right. Trump voters don't care what he says or does as long as they feel sure Trump is going to Make American White Again.

Democrats

Arizona. With less than one percent of the vote counted, Clinton is leading Sanders 61 to 36 percent. With 2 percent counted, the AP has called the race for Clinton. With 94 percent counted, the vote is 58-40, Clinton.


Idaho. With 100 percent of the vote counted, Sanders has won the state, 78 percent to Clinton's 21 percent.


Utah. With one percent counted, Sanders is leading Clinton 48 to 45 percent. With 11 percent counted, the AP has called the race for Sanders. He currently has 75 percent to Clinton's 24 percent. With 82 percent counted, the tally is 80-20, Sanders.


Republicans

Arizona. With less than one percent of the vote counted, Trump is leading with 45 percent, followed by Cruz with 20 percent & Kasich with 10. With 2 percent counted, the AP has called the race for Trump. With 94 percent counted, the vote is Trump 47, Cruz 25, & Kasich 10.

Utah. With 2 percent counted, Cruz is leading with 62 percent, Trump 23 percent & Kasich 15. If Cruz can finish with more than 50 percent of the caucus vote, he will get all 40 delegates. The AP has called the race for Cruz. With 85 percent of the vote counted, Cruz has 69 percent, Kasich 17 & Trump 13. With 94 percent counted, the results are Cruz 69, Kasich 17, Trump 14.


Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "Hillary Clinton portrayed herself on Tuesday as the only presidential candidate who has presented a detailed plan to defeat the Islamic State, which took responsibility for the terrorist attacks in Brussels earlier in the day." CW: Oh, I don't know. Here are some other "detailed plans":

... The Totalitarians

I would close up our borders to people until we figure out what's going on.... We're taking in people without real documentation, we don't know where they're coming from, we don't know what they're -- where they're from, who they are.... If they could expand the laws, I would do a lot more than waterboarding. You have to get the information from these people. -- Donald Trump, Tuesday morning, in response to the terror attacks in Brussels

... Peter Holley & Lindsey Bever of the Washington Post: "Experts across the political spectrum harshly criticized Trump's statements. Appearing on Fox News to discuss the attacks in Belgium, Michael Chertoff, who was the secretary of homeland security in the George W. Bush administration, labeled the candidate's ideas 'preposterous.'... During an appearance on MSNBC, terrorism expert Malcolm Nance said Trump's 'bluster' in the wake of Tuesday's attacks was hampering U.S. intelligence and the armed forces." ...

... Aaron Rupar of Think Progress: "Asked during his Fox appearance about what else he'd do in response to the attacks in addition to closing the southern border and banning Muslims, Trump said he [would] give the American people a 'pep talk.' 'I guess I would just talk to the people and give them, frankly, a pep talk,' Trump said. 'We need spirit in our country, okay.'" ...

     ... CW: If you are wondering what a Trump "pep talk" would look like, contributor Janice provided a pretty good picture. I just noticed she did so on the Ides of March, in an excellent comment that indirectly led to the end of Reality Chex (unless an "angel" comes forward to save it). Ironically, the Ides bode well for me, as I now have an opportunity to create an actual life in my waning years. I can't quite picture that life, but I'll think of something. ...

... Katie Zezima & Adam Goldman of the Washington Post: "Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) said following Tuesday's terrorist attacks in Brussels that law enforcement should 'secure' Muslim neighborhoods, a comment that drew swift criticism. 'We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized,' Cruz said in a statement issued after the attacks...." ...

... Jonathan Chait: "Looking at this state of affairs, with a dangerous, ghettoized European Muslim population and a much less threatening, well-assimilated American Muslim population, Cruz proposes to treat American Muslims like European ones. He endorses racial profiling of 'Muslim neighborhoods.'... This is the kind of madness that now prevails for foreign-policy logic in this party. Cruz, of course, has appointed raging paranoic Frank Gaffney as a foreign-policy adviser. Gaffney has called Barack Obama 'America's first Muslim president.' Perhaps Cruz envisions the special law patrols to include the neighborhood of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, to prevent the (further) radicalization of its Muslim occupant." ...

... Steve Benen: "... how would Cruz determine what a 'Muslim neighborhood' is? How many Muslim Americans does it take, exactly?... What would law-enforcement officials do in these areas, exactly? After a neighborhood has been 'secured' to Cruz's satisfaction, does the Republican envision a semi-permanent police presence to monitor Americans in the area based on their faith...? According to Cruz..., the plan would be to prevent radicalization. One wonders if he realizes the extent to which such a plan actually encourages the opposite." ...

... Steve M.: "... does Senator Cruz think the mostly non-Muslim neighborhood that was the home to Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik should be 'patrolled and secured'? Or the mostly non-Muslim neighborhood where Farook's mother lived? Or maybe Senator Cruz thinks Muslims should be rounded up and compelled to live in all-Muslim neighborhoods, to allow more effective patrolling and securing." ...

... Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "Gov. John Kasich of Ohio on Tuesday cautioned against monitoring Muslim-Americans after the attacks in Brussels, saying that such a step would create division and harm the country's ability to gather intelligence. His comments came after one of his rivals, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, called for law enforcement 'to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized.'" ...

... MEANWHILE. Eliza Collins & Katie Glueck of Politico: "John Kasich and Ted Cruz called on President Barack Obama to leave Cuba and come back to the U.S. -- or go to Brussels -- following deadly terrorist attacks in the heart of Europe on Tuesday." CW: Yes, what Belgium need right now is a Great American Butinski creating an additional security nightmare & giving speeches in English. ...

... Also, too, wingers are very upset that President Obama went to a baseball game in Cuba while Brussels was burning.

** David Smith of the Guardian: AIPAC "has denounced Donald Trump for his blunt criticism of Barack Obama at its conference in Washington on Monday.... [Trump] was cheered by some delegates at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's (Aipac) event when he said: '... He may be the worst thing that ever happened to Israel.' But on Tuesday morning the Aipac president, Lillian Pinkus, broke from the planned agenda to distance the organisation from Trump's remarks. Other Aipac leaders stood with her on stage. 'Last evening, something occurred which has the potential to drive us apart, to divide us,' Pinkus said. 'We say unequivocally that we do not countenance ad hominem attacks and we take great offence against those that are levied against the president of the United States of America from our stage.' She added: 'While we may have policy differences, we deeply respect the office of the United States and our president, Barack Obama. There are people in our Aipac family who were deeply hurt last night and for that we are deeply sorry.'"

Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: Donald Trump "... plans to release a list of 5-10 names sometime in the next week. He says that, if given the opportunity to name a Supreme Court justice, he will limit his selection to the names on that list. At a press conference on Monday, Trump also revealed an unusual detail about how he is determining which names should be on the list. 'Heritage Foundation and others are working on the list,' according to Trump. Heritage is a think tank known for its stridently conservative views and its unorthodox approach to mathematics." ...

... Ed Kilgore: "Not only has Heritage had a long history of vetting Republican appointees; its current president, Jim DeMint, is arguably the most reliable of 'constitutional conservatives,' a man who believes conservative policy prescriptions ought to be permanently protected from the occasional liberal majority via a divinely inspired and unchanging Supreme Law."

David Fahrenthold & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "Aides to Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said this week that his charitable foundation made a mistake when it donated $25,000 to a political committee backing Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, a potential violation of federal rules prohibiting charities from aiding political candidates. The Donald J. Trump Foundation compounded the error by not listing its 2013 gift to the pro-Bondi group ... in its filings with the IRS that year.... The donation ... was controversial because it came as Bondi was reviewing whether to investigate fraud allegations against Trump University.... Bondi, a Republican..., never took action against Trump University. When questions arose at the time, the group and Trump defended the donation."

Gabriel Sherman of New York: "Donald Trump's campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, is considering suing BuzzFeed over an article alleging that he made unwanted sexual advances toward female journalists covering the candidate -- perhaps doing so under the influence of alcohol.... Trump has a history of suing journalists and likes to call reporters 'disgusting.' At a press conference in February, Trump said his administration would look into 'opening up libel laws' to punish unfriendly news organizations. 'When they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles we can sue them and win lots of money, he said. 'We're going to have people sue you like you've never got sued before.'"

Other News & Views

Kamilia Lahrichi of USA Today: "President Obama met with Argentinian President Mauricio Macri Wednesday during the visit to the South American country in a bid to strengthen ties with what is the continent's third largest economy.Security for the visit was beefed up in the wake of the terrorist attacks that shook Brussels Tuesday morning."

Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura & Alissa Rubin of the New York Times: "Two bombers who carried out deadly attacks on Tuesday at Brussels Airport have been identified as brothers with criminal records, public broadcasters in Belgium reported on Wednesday. The brothers were identified as Khalid el-Bakraoui, 27, and Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, 30, whom the police had been seeking since the March 15 raid on an apartment in the Forest district of Brussels, the radio station RTBF reported, citing police sources. At least one of the brothers is believed to have died in the attacks at the airport. A third attacker has not been publicly identified and was still at large." ...

... Alissa Rubin, et al., of the New York Times: "The Islamic State claimed responsibility for deadly bombings that traumatized Brussels on Tuesday, killing at least 30 people at the main international airport and in a subway station at the heart of the city, near the headquarters of the European Union. Hours later the police found an unexploded bomb, loaded with nails, in a Brussels house search, along with chemicals and an Islamic State flag." ...

... Griff Witte, et al., of the Washington Post: "Belgian police released surveillance images of three men pushing luggage carts at the Brussels airport. They asked for help in identifying one man dressed in white, who they said was on the loose. Local reports said police believe that the other two men died in the explosions." ...

... Spencer Ackerman & Amanda Holpuch of the Guardian: "Authorities are set to bolster security at American airports and other transit hubs in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Brussels, although officials say they do not have credible intelligence about terrorism in the United States. The Transportation Security Administration will send additional personnel and security measures 'to major city airports in the United States, and at various rail and transit stations around the country', announced Jeh Johnson, the US secretary of homeland security, who called it a 'precautionary measure' rather than a response to a specific threat." ...

... The Guardian's liveblog for today is here. The Guardian's liveblog for March 22 is here. The New York Times' current liveblog is here. ...

... Roger Cohen of the New York Times: "President Obama's slow-but-steady strategy to defeat the Islamic State is clawing back a little territory in Syria and Iraq but is doing nothing to dent the charismatic appeal of the militant group, disrupt its propaganda or prevent it from killing Europeans." CW: OR, Everything Is Obama's Fault. ...

... Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post: "The terror attacks in Brussels on Tuesday pose the worst kind of foreign policy dilemma for President Obama, pitting his instincts, which tell him that he's doing all he can to defeat the Islamic State, against intense political pressure to do more.... The reality -- as Obama learned in the aftermath of the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif. -- is that impressive battlefield statistics and reasoned calls for restraint mean little in the climate of fear generated by terror strikes."


Richard Winton of the Los Angeles Times: "A top FBI official said it would take at least two weeks to determine whether investigators can open the iPhone of San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook without help from Apple. Assistant Director David Bowdich said in an interview Tuesday that the Washington office of FBI became aware of a third-party claim that it could unlock the iPhone on Sunday evening. Bowdich said that third party -- who he would not identify -- did demonstrate the ability to unlock the phone in testing. That is why the agency asked a federal judge to delay a hearing in its legal battle against Apple."

Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "The bitter impasse over the nomination of Judge Merrick B. Garland is raising a once unthinkable possibility: Presidents may no longer be confident of filling a Supreme Court vacancy unless their party controls the Senate.... While they have balked at some court picks, Democratic-controlled Senates have confirmed multiple nominees offered by Republican presidents on the principle of granting deference to a presidential choice. (The last time a Republican Senate considered a nominee by a Democratic president was in 1895.)" ...

     ... CW: Senate Republicans are also holding up lower court nominees. Given the tenor of today's Republican party, it seems likely that Democrats will hold the White House for years, but there's no telling which party will control the Senate. If Republicans continue to prevail there, theoretically the entire federal court system could dwindle to a few elderly coots presiding in district courts. Thanks, Mitch & Chuck!

Irin Carmon of MSNBC: "The anti-birth control coverage camp is returning to the Supreme Court Wednesday... Now that Scalia's death has robbed the plaintiffs of a fifth vote, the nonprofit objectors face two unappealing outcomes: Losing entirely, or a 4-4 tie that leaves in place the lower court opinions that backed the Obama administration. In other words, a lose-lose."

Peter Schroeder of the Hill: "The Supreme Court issued a deadlocked ruling Tuesday, its first since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. The court tied 4-4 in a case involving whether a pair of wives should be held financially responsible for the failure of their husbands' real estate endeavor.... The outcome of Hawkins v. Community Bank of Raymore leaves in place a lower court ruling that affirmed that the bank did not discriminate against the women. But it also means the Supreme Court did not resolve [a] pair of conflicting lower court rulings on the matter. A decision from the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which ruled directly on this case, conflicted with a prior ruling from the 6th Circuit on a similar issue."

Gail Collins answers questions about her job.

Beyond the Beltway

Marissa Liebling of Project Vote: "As expected, last week Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed an election bill into law. Significantly, the bill provides for online voter registration.... The most harmful provision buried in the bill effectively stops groups from organizing community voter registration drives.... Local and national groups, including Project Vote, joined together to show lawmakers that the proposed online registration system would not be available to all eligible electors, disproportionately impacting students, veterans, older individuals, low-income people and people of color.... Presented with this information, lawmakers refused to amend the law to preserve community registration drives or to expand access to the online registration system. We then asked Governor Walker to veto this provision."

Mitch Smith of the New York Times: Donnell Flora of Chicago, who gave his 14-year-old niece a gun to shoot her schoolmates over a dispute about a boy, has received a 100-year-sentence. The niece shot & killed one girl & critically wounded another. She will be tried for murder in juvenile court.

News Lede

Washington Post: "Joe Garagiola, who transformed a mediocre playing career in baseball into almost six decades as a popular and joyously self-deprecating broadcaster, becoming the sport's ambassador to the American public and a host of the 'Today' show, died March 23 in Scottsdale, Ariz. He was 90."

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