The Commentariat -- Dec. 15, 2015

Internal links removed.

CW: You're on your own today. Don't forget to watch the GOP debate tonight. Let's hope Trump & Cruz -- who will be standing next to each other -- get into actual fisticuffs. Before you handicap the physical fight, better check out Trump's medical report, linked below. Meantime, do help out by using the Comments section to link to articles you find interesting. (Stick with politics, please.)

Ken Vogel of Politico: "The political operation created by the billionaire conservative mega-donors Charles and David Koch is quietly investing millions of dollars in programs to win over an unlikely demographic target for their brand of small-government conservatism ― poor people. The outreach includes everything from turkey giveaways, GED training and English-language instruction for Hispanic immigrants to community holiday meals and healthy living classes for predominantly African American groups to vocational training and couponing classes for the under-employed. The strategy, according to sources familiar with it and documents reviewed by POLITICO, calls for presenting a more compassionate side of the brothers' politics to new audiences, while fighting the perception that their groups are merely fronts for rich Republicans seeking to game the political process for personal gain."

Robert Pear of the New York Times: "In early November, President Obama challenged 20 communities around the country to compete with one another in signing up people [to the ACA] who were uninsured. The places were chosen because they had large numbers of uninsured residents or because people lacking coverage accounted for a large share of the population. A scoreboard prepared by the White House says that Milwaukee -- with a Democratic mayor who strongly supports the health law -- has made the most progress, followed by Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, Charlotte, N.C., and Atlanta. Oakland, Calif., Nashville, Tampa, Fla., and Salt Lake City were also in the top 10.... 'We are seeing unprecedented demand,' said Lori Lodes, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services...."

Eric Lipton & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "The Environmental Protection Agency engaged in 'covert propaganda' and violated federal law when it blitzed social media to urge the public to back an Obama administration rule intended to better protect the nation's streams and surface waters, congressional auditors have concluded.... Federal laws prohibit agencies from engaging in lobbying and propaganda."

Richard Oppel of the New York Times: "A top Army commander on Monday ordered that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl face a court-martial on charges of desertion and endangering troops stemming from his decision to leave his outpost in 2009, a move that prompted a huge manhunt in the wilds of eastern Afghanistan and landed him in nearly five years of harsh Taliban captivity."

Register Your Drones! Federal Aviation Administration: "The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) today announced a streamlined and user-friendly web-based aircraft registration process for owners of small unmanned aircraft (UAS) weighing more than 0.55 pounds (250 grams) and less than 55 pounds (approx. 25 kilograms) including payloads such as on-board cameras."

Presidential Race

Dan Balz & Scott Clement of the Washington Post: "Following his proposal to temporarily bar Muslims from entering the country, Donald Trump has increased his lead in the Republican primary to its largest margin yet, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll." ...

If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency. -- Harold Bornstein (reputedly), who says he is Trump's doctor ...

... Russell Saunders & Betsy Woodruff of the Daily Beast: "Donald Trump's doctor released a medical report so silly that when we asked the American Medical Association about its language, their spokesman started to laugh." ...

... Colin Campbell of Business Insider reproduces the "astonishingly excellent" letter from Trump's doctor. The medical doctors among you will be sure to want to read it to find out how you're really supposed to write reports. Sometimes, apparently, it's appropriate to let your patients "help" you write the reports.

James Downie of the Washington Post: Ted "Cruz is the one contender who understands the far right and whose conservative bona fides are impeccable. If he were to be the nominee, it would be good news for the Democrats in the short term and the country in the long term. His ideologically extreme positions would hand Hillary Clinton an edge in what the fundamentals still suggest is otherwise likely to be a close election. And a Cruz loss would be most likely to end the myth on the far right that 'Republicans lose presidential elections when they don't run far enough to the right.'"

Sahil Kapur of Bloomberg: "The divide over same-sex marriage encapsulates [Marco] Rubio's dilemma: he's a young face in a party dominated by older voters. The Pew poll found that while a majority of Americans want gay couples to be able to marry, just 32 percent of Republicans and 24 percent of white evangelical protestants support it.... Surveys indicate that [HIllary] Clinton is more in tune with younger generations than Rubio on issues such as raising the federal minimum wage, normalizing relations with Cuba and loosening marijuana laws."

Beyond the Beltway

Emily Yahr of the Washington Post: "Over the last year, more than three-dozen women have alleged they were sexually assaulted by Bill Cosby. On Monday, the comedian sued seven of the women, saying the 'malicious, opportunistic, false and defamatory accusations' are a mere play for money that has ruined his reputation.

The Commentariat -- Dec. 14, 2015

Internal links & defunct video removed.

CW: I"m on the road again, so updates will be sparse. I'll try to get at least a skeletal Commentariat up each day, but I'm not sure I'll be successful.

Afternoon Update:

Tom Vanden Brook & Gregory Korte of USA Today: "President Obama said he's dispatching Secretary of Defense Ash Carter to the Middle East to help secure more help to fight the Islamic State, promising that his administration is 'moving forward with a great sense of urgency' against the terrorist group."

*****

Jim Fallows of the Atlantic: "... after the climate agreement in Paris, it would be wrong not to note three big things that have happened during [Barack Obama's] presidency that in all probability would not have happened without him:

• The climate deal itself, as explained in a NYT piece just now, and in unbelievable contrast to the utter collapse of the Copenhagen negotiations early in Obama's term;
• The rapprochement with Cuba, marking the beginning of the end of the single stupidest (but hardest to change) aberration in modern U.S. foreign policy; and
• The international agreement with Iran, which in the short term offers (as I have argued at length) the best prospects for keeping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, and in the long run has the potential of beginning to end Iran's destructive estrangement from the international order."

Sewell Chan & Melissa Eddy of the New York Times: "With nearly every nation on earth having now pledged to gradually reduce emissions of the heat-trapping gases that are warming the planet -- a universal commitment that had eluded negotiators and activists since the first Earth Day summit meeting, in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 — much of the burden for maintaining the momentum now shifts back to the countries to figure out, and put in place, the concrete steps needed to deliver on their pledges. The task may prove most challenging for India, which is struggling to lift more than half of its population of 1.25 billion out of poverty and to provide basic electricity to 300 million of them. Rich countries are intent that India not get stuck on a coal-dependent development path." ...

... Clifford Krauss & Keith Bradsher of the New York Times: "If nothing else, analysts and experts say, the accord is a signal to businesses and investors that the era of carbon reduction has arrived. It will spur banks and investment funds to shift their loan and stock portfolios from coal and oil to the growing industries of renewable energy like wind and solar. Utilities themselves will have to reduce their reliance on coal and more aggressively adopt renewable sources of energy." ...

... Joby Warrick of the Washington Post: "The formal adoption of the accord late Saturday was greeted with applause and cheers by thousands of weary delegates to the climate talks here. But the happy conclusion was preceded by days and weeks of tough bargaining, along with occasional flashes of drama." ...

... Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "In a stark display of the partisan divide in the United States over climate change, the Republican presidential candidates have said almost nothing about the Paris Agreement, even though whoever succeeds Mr. Obama will be tasked with carrying it out. Of the nine who will participate in Tuesday's prime-time debate on CNN, only Gov. John Kasich of Ohio would provide an assessment of the deal when asked on Sunday. The near-silence among Republicans is a striking illustration of the vastly different roles that climate change is playing in the presidential primaries for the two major parties." ...

... Paul Krugman: "Republican attitudes haven't changed, except for the worse: the G.O.P. is spiraling ever deeper into a black hole of denial and anti-science conspiracy theorizing. The game-changing news is that this may not matter as much as we thought.... New technology has fundamentally changed the rules.... Costs of solar and wind power have fallen dramatically, to the point where they are close to competitive with fossil fuels even without special incentives -- and progress on energy storage has made their prospects even better. Renewable energy has also become a big employer, much bigger these days than the coal industry.... Maybe we're not doomed after all."

Brian Ross, et al., of ABC News: "Fearing a civil liberties backlash and 'bad public relations' for the Obama administration, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson refused in early 2014 to end a secret U.S. policy that prohibited immigration officials from reviewing the social media messages of all foreign citizens applying for U.S. visas, a former senior department official said.... A spokesperson for the DHS, Marsha Catron, told ABC News that months after [the official, John] Cohen left, in the fall of 2014, the Department began three pilot programs to include social media in vetting, but current officials say that it is still not a widespread policy. A review of the broader policy is already underway, the DHS said. The revelation comes as members of Congress question why U.S. officials failed to review the social media posts of San Bernardino terrorist Tashfeen Malik. She received a U.S. visa in May 2014, despite what the FBI said were extensive social media messages about jihad and martyrdom."

** Allyson Hobbs in the New Yorker: "... the scenes in 'The Birth of a Nation' from 1915 eerily reflect the deeply troubling realities of race in America in 2015.... Many of the stereotypes that fill the film persist; and, as we've learned over and over and over and over again, this is a still a country where people, and police, need to be reminded that black lives really do matter.... It isn't hard to see the themes of the film echoed in the current Presidential race, particularly in the words of Donald Trump, who has sounded a call for the birth of a new nation, one that he will 'make great again.'... For some Americans, President Barack Obama's two terms in office appear to resemble the period of misrule portrayed in 'The Birth of a Nation.'"

Mike Brunker & Polly Defrank of NBC News: Since Sandy Hook, an American child "has died by a gun every other day." CW: Yes, and Republicans are so afraid you'll find this out that they won't authorize the CDC to do research on gun violence.

Fred Barbash of the Washington Post: "Twitter has warned an undetermined number of users that their accounts may have been 'targeted by state-sponsored actors,' according to news reports and some users who received the notifications.... The targeting may have been aimed at obtaining information such as email addresses, IP addresses and/or phone numbers; Twitter added that it had no evidence at this point that the hackers had obtained account information.... The email [from Twitter] did not specify which government or 'state sponsor' might be behind the targeting...."

Presidential Race

AP: "CNN is inviting Gov. Chris Christie back to prime-time in the upcoming Republican presidential debate. The New Jersey governor, who had been dropped from the main stage during the last debate, is one of nine Republican presidential candidates to qualify for the network's prime-time event on Tuesday. Also among them: Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who was 'on the bubble' of qualifying late last week, the network said. Front-runner Donald Trump will appear at center stage, flanked by retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and Sen. Ted Cruz, who is surging in Iowa. Other GOP hopefuls who qualified for the main stage include Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and Ohio Gov. John Kasich." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... We Can All Breate a Sigh of Relief. Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky will retain his place on the main stage when the Republican presidential candidates debate on Tuesday, CNN said on Sunday, sparing Mr. Paul from what could have been a setback for his campaign. On Saturday, aides to Mr. Paul had indicated they would fight any decision by CNN to drop the senator to the so-called undercard debate when the candidates gather on Tuesday in Las Vegas. Mr. Paul was at risk of falling out of the main event because of his low poll numbers." (Also linked yesterday.)

It Ain't Over Till It's Over. Al Hunt of Bloomberg in the New York Times: "Voters can choose either party's primary in New Hampshire, and knowledgeable Republicans suggest that a heavy influx of independents could help push a mainstream conservative to the top spot. There is no movement yet, and it's possible that this vote could split rather evenly, with no candidate breaking out." ...

... Ted Cruz, Uniter! Brian Beutler: "If you believe Trump's robust lead both nationally and in every early primary state suggests he can actually win the nomination, none of [the jostling among other candidates] matters. But if you believe he will ultimately give way and his send his supporters defecting to the next-best thing, then Cruz is the guy to watch -- both on the debate stage Tuesday and as the debates give way to actual statewide contests just over a month from now."

Pity the Poor Billionaire. Gabriel Sherman of New York: "... the most important lesson the billionaires are learning this year is that they aren't much better at politics than Karl Rove. Well, not true. There is one billionaire who seems to have contemporary Republican politics figured out": Donald Trump.

Ambassador-at-Large Daniel Benjamin & Steven Simon in a Politico Magazine opinion piece: "In their jockeying for the Republican presidential nomination, GOP contenders -- Donald Trump above all -- have managed to exacerbate dramatically the two U.S. weaknesses most likely to erode our country's safety: fear and Islamophobia."

Kevin Robillard of Politico: "Donald Trump seemingly laid fault for the rise of ISIL and the Syrian civil war directly at the feet of ... Hillary Clinton on Sunday, claiming the former secretary of state 'killed hundreds of thousands of people with her stupidity.' Trump, appearing on "Fox News Sunday," shocked host Chris Wallace with his comments. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump sharpened his criticism of Republican presidential rival Ted Cruz in television interviews broadcast Sunday morning, lambasting Cruz's approach to the Senate and expressing doubts about whether the senator's "temperament" is fit for the presidency.... 'I don't think he has the right temperament,' Trump said of Cruz on 'Fox News Sunday.' 'I don't think he's got the right judgment.'" CW: Because Trump is the picture of tranquility & discernment. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Bradford Richardson of the Hill: "... Donald Trump says he does not agree with comments from Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia questioning the efficacy of affirmative action." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Benjamin Wallace-Wells in the New Yorker: Donald "Trump undoes the modern presidential campaign.... There's probably no organizing genius to the Trump campaign. But maybe there's a kind of accidental genius. That Trump had opted out of the machinery of the modern campaign freed him to chase a group of voters who were traditionally hard to reach. With no need for donors, he could go all in on economic nationalism; with no inclination to woo party élites, he could simply decline to assemble policy proposals; and with no aspirations ever to run again, he could demonize multiple minority groups." ...

... E. J. Dionne: "... most Americans would reject Trumpism when they finally got to have their say in a voting booth -- perhaps in the Republican primaries and certainly in the general election. Yet to ignore his ability both to win a following and to mesmerize the media is to wish away what is a real threat to democratic tolerance across the world's free nations.... For the first time in decades, the word 'fascism' is being used seriously by non-hyperbolic people in countries with a history of temperate politics."

Kevin Robillard: "Florida Sen. Marco Rubio repeated his concerns about Donald Trump's fitness to be commander-in-chief during an interview airing Sunday on NBC's 'Meet The Press.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... New York Times Editors: "Senator Marco Rubio of Florida is boasting about his efforts to sabotage a program intended to keep health insurance markets stable and premiums low during the start-up years of the Affordable Care Act.... The big losers [in Rubio's sabotage efforts] were small insurers without ample reserves. More than a dozen nonprofit cooperatives that were new to the business have closed or soon will, in part, some of them say, because the government provided less money than they were counting on.... This has left hundreds of thousands of consumers scrambling to pick other plans.... His riders will benefit big insurers by driving out their smaller competitors. They could also drive up premiums for some people, as insurers try to recoup early losses or replenish their reserves. The Senate should block his new rider and find other sources of funds to pay companies what they were promised." ...

... Judd Legum of Think Progress: "... after numerous deflections, [Marco] Rubio [told Chuck Todd] he would simply appoint new Supreme Court justices who would overturn Obergefell," [the landmark marriage equality decision]. ...

... CW: As I wrote yesterday, there's no need to slime Rubio with his tenuous connection to a drug ring for which he bears no responsibility. He is plenty slimy in his own right.

Bradford Richardson: "Ben Carson doubled down on his stance that he will leave the GOP if party elite are planning to mount a floor fight at the nominating convention. 'Well, one of the reasons that I got into this is because I heard the frustration in the people who are so tired of back-room deals, of subterfuge, of dishonesty,' Carson said on ABC's 'This Week' on Sunday. 'And, you know, if that is the case, then you know I'm out of here.'"

Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune in Real Clear Politics: Ted Cruz's "patented formula is a mix of repellent ingredients: misrepresentation of facts, baseless smears, exaggerated sincerity and pretended solidarity with the average person. If Cruz tells you it's raining, you can leave your umbrella at home." CW: I'm not familiar with Steve Chapman, but he's been on the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune for a long time, so I'm guessing he's a conservative. Thanks to Citizen 625 for the link. ...

... CW: The topic of Cruz's discussion with Steve Inskeep of NPR was climate change. So to bolster his creds, Cruz set at the outset, "I believe that public policy should follow the science and follow the data. I am the son of two mathematicians and computer programmers and scientists." His upbringing gives Teddy a real interest in facts, doesn't it? So I thought I'd check to see what kind of "mathematicians, computer programmers & scientists" his parents were. Why, they worked in the oil & gas industry. As for young Ted, he works in the snake oil industry.

Beyond the Beltway

Michael Miller of the Washington Post: A "spate of anti-Islam vandalism comes as Muslims in southern California have rallied in support of the victims of the San Bernardino attack.... Southern California's simmering cauldron boiled over on Friday when a blaze erupted at the Islamic Society of the Coachella Valley.... Friday evening, authorities arrested Carl James Dial Jr. for arson, hate crime, and burglary." ...

... Margaret Hartmann of New York: "The FBI and police in Southern California opened a hate-crime investigation into the vandalism of two mosques in Hawthorne, California."

Ian Lovett & Adam Nagourney of the New York Times: "A man who was killed by sheriff’s deputies in a hail of 30 bullets in front of a gas station here was brandishing a gun at officers and passers-by, and he apparently fired it into the air at least six times during the encounter, the police said Sunday. The man, identified as Nicholas Robertson, 28, of Lynwood, was seen carrying a gun during the entire encounter on Saturday, the police said, displaying photographs and videos in which the gun was clearly visible in the suspect's hand. They said he had been acting erratically and had ignored the instructions of deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office to drop his weapon, which officials described as a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun."

Raw Story: Sparta, Missouri, "Police Chief Andrew Spencer resigned this week after it was revealed that he shot and killed an innocent dog that was in a cage and meant no one any harm. To make matters even worse, he took the puppy to a firing range and killed it there because he did not want to deal with finding its home."

The Commentariat -- December 13, 2015

Internal links removed.

Afternoon Update:

We Can All Breate a Sigh of Relief. Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky will retain his place on the main stage when the Republican presidential candidates debate on Tuesday, CNN said on Sunday, sparing Mr. Paul from what could have been a setback for his campaign. On Saturday, aides to Mr. Paul had indicated they would fight any decision by CNN to drop the senator to the so-called undercard debate when the candidates gather on Tuesday in Las Vegas. Mr. Paul was at risk of falling out of the main event because of his low poll numbers." ...

... AP: "CNN is inviting Gov. Chris Christie back to prime-time in the upcoming Republican presidential debate. The New Jersey governor, who had been dropped from the main stage during the last debate, is one of nine Republican presidential candidates to qualify for the network's prime-time event on Tuesday. Also among them: Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who was 'on the bubble' of qualifying late last week, the network said. Front-runner Donald Trump will appear at center stage, flanked by retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and Sen. Ted Cruz, who is surging in Iowa. Other GOP hopefuls who qualified for the main stage include Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and Ohio Gov. John Kasich."

Kevin Robillard of Politico: "Donald Trump seemingly laid fault for the rise of ISIL and the Syrian civil war directly at the feet of ... Hillary Clinton on Sunday, claiming the former secretary of state 'killed hundreds of thousands of people with her stupidity.' Trump, appearing on "Fox News Sunday," shocked host Chris Wallace with his comments. ...

... Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump sharpened his criticism of Republican presidential rival Ted Cruz in television interviews broadcast Sunday morning, lambasting Cruz's approach to the Senate and expressing doubts about whether the senator's "temperament" is fit for the presidency.... 'I don't think he has the right temperament,' Trump said of Cruz on 'Fox News Sunday.' 'I don't think he's got the right judgment.'" CW: Because Trump is the picture of tranquility & discernment.

... Bradford Richardson of the Hill: "... Donald Trump says he does not agree with comments from Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia questioning the efficacy of affirmative action."

Kevin Robillard: "Florida Sen. Marco Rubio repeated his concerns about Donald Trump's fitness to be commander-in-chief during an interview airing Sunday on NBC's 'Meet The Press.'"

*****

Joby Warrick & Chris Mooney of the Washington Post: "Negotiators from 196 countries approved a landmark climate accord on Saturday that seeks to dramatically reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases blamed for a dangerous warming of the planet.... The deal was struck in a rare show of near-universal accord, as poor and wealthy nations from across the political and geographic spectrum expressed support for measures that require all to take steps to battle climate change. The agreement binds together pledges by individual nations to cut or limit emissions from fossil-fuel burning, within a framework of rules that provide for monitoring and verification as well as financial and technical assistance for developing countries.... The agreement is a major diplomatic achievement for the Obama administration, which has made climate change a signature issue in the face of determined opposition from congressional Republicans, many of whom dispute the scientific consensus that links man-made pollution to the Earth's recent warming." CW: Making the GOP out of step with the whole world -- and a threat to the Earth itself. They are exceptional troglodytes. ...

... Julie Davis of the New York Times: "Six years ago, President Obama came away from a round of global climate talks bitter and frustrated, having been reduced to personally chasing other world leaders around a Copenhagen conference center and bursting uninvited into a meeting with them to salvage a pact that left many disappointed. On Saturday, Mr. Obama strode triumphantly into the Cabinet Room of the White House to declare victory in his quest for an ambitious climate agreement, after 195 nations reached an accord in a Paris suburb that commits them to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.... For Mr. Obama, the agreement represents a legacy-shaping success, destined to join his health care law in the annals of his most lasting achievements":

... Daniella Diaz of CNN: "Hillary Clinton quickly lauded Saturday's agreement of a global climate change pact in Paris, calling it an important step in protecting the planet, though her foremost challenger, Bernie Sanders, said he was unimpressed by the deal.... Sanders ... said that while the agreement was a step forward, it not enough to tackle climate change. 'The planet is in crisis. We need bold action in the very near future and this does not provide that,' he said in a statement. 'In the United States, we have a Republican Party which is much more interested in contributions from the fossil fuel industry than they care about the future of the planet....'" ...

... Melanie Schmitz of Bustle: "While the move was generally celebrated worldwide, in the United States, GOP candidates' reactions to the Paris Agreement have been largely MIA.... The Republican Party itself hasn't stayed mum on the topic. 'This agreement is no more binding than any other "agreement" from any conference of the parties over the last 21 years,' said Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), who currently serves as chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, in a statement." ...

... Kevin Freking of the AP: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said [President] Obama is 'making promises he can't keep' and should remember that the agreement 'is subject to being shredded in 13 months.' McConnell noted that the presidential election is next year and the agreement could be reversed if the GOP wins the White House." CW: Right there, in & of itself, is the reason to get your asses to the polls & vote for Democrats, my fuzzy-headed lefty friends.

Katie Williams & Sarah Ferris of the Hill: "Democrats' latest push on gun legislation appears likely to fall short, as Republicans look to beat back a proposal to restore the flow of federal dollars for gun violence research as part of a sweeping government spending bill now under consideration. On the heels of a string of mass shootings -- including this month's deadly attacks in San Bernardino, Calif. -- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) led calls to repeal the 19-year-old funding prohibition this week, adding it to her list of demands during this week's budget talks. But Pelosi has carefully refrained from a threat to reject the overall bill if her demand isn't met...."

Matt Apuzzo, et al., of the New York Times: "Tashfeen Malik, who with her husband carried out the massacre in San Bernardino, Calif., passed three background checks by American immigration officials as she moved to the United States from Pakistan. But none uncovered what Ms. Malik had made little effort to hide — that she talked openly on social media about her views on violent jihad. She said she supported it. And she said she wanted to be a part of it.... Had the authorities found the posts years ago, they might have kept her out of the country. But immigration officials do not routinely review social media as part of their background checks, and there is a debate inside the Department of Homeland Security over whether it is even appropriate to do so." CW: Hmm, seems "appropriate" to me. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... As contributor Gloria wrote (in part) in yesterday's Comments thread: "One has to wonder about all the billions being spent on homeland security when they don't even check Facebook! Perhaps it's too easy and too cheap, and doesn't require all that exciting and invasive espionage stuff. And too effective.... Am I too naive to think that social media would be your first port of call in any background check?"

Elizabeth Chuck of NBC News: "While the world has been focused on Europe's migrant crisis, apprehensions of unaccompanied minors along America's own border have exploded: More than 10,000 undocumented children have been stopped in just the last two months, according to U.S. Border and Customs Protection."

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Eric Boehlert of Media Matters, in Salon: "81:1.... That's the ratio of TV airtime that ABC World News Tonight has devoted to Donald Trump's campaign (81 minutes) versus the amount of TV time World News Tonight has devoted to Bernie Sanders' campaign this year. And even that one minute for Sanders is misleading because the actual number is closer to 20 seconds.... The network newscasts are wildly overplaying Trump, who regularly attracts between 20-30 percent of primary voter support, while at the same time wildly underplaying Sanders, who regularly attracts between 20-30 percent of primary voter support. For the entire year."

Presidential Race

Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "Concerned about the harshly negative presidential campaign dominated by Donald J. Trump, the nation's highest-ranking Republican says Congress must confront polarizing populism by promoting an 'inclusive' policy-focused agenda to counter any personality-driven run sure to cost his party the White House. That Republican, Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, said he felt professionally obligated to support whoever wins the party's presidential nomination next year. Yet he said he believed that congressional Republicans must set a policy agenda that offered a clear contrast to the angry insurgent refrain blasting into the winter primaries."

Ben Schreckinger of Politico: "Donald Trump praised Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, panned Chief Justice John Roberts and celebrated the First Amendment rights of his protesters at a town hall in South Carolina on Saturday." Also can't flush his own shit down the toilet. CW: No surprise there. ...

John McCormick of Bloomberg: "... Ted Cruz has surged ahead to become the latest front-runner in the campaign for the Iowa caucuses, dislodging Ben Carson and opening an impressive lead over a stalled Donald Trump, a Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register Iowa Poll shows." ...

... Gabriel Debenedetti of Politico: "Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta handicapped the GOP race for 90 Democratic donors assembled at a private fundraising event in Berkeley, California, on Thursday night, according to a Clinton backer who was in the room, telling the crowd that he viewed Cruz as the likeliest nominee, followed by Trump, and then Marco Rubio." ...

... Alex Jaffe of NBC News: "Florida Sen. Marco Rubio boasts of being the only Republican presidential candidate to have dealt a blow to Obamacare -- but he's also insured under the law. Rubio's campaign confirmed to NBC News that the GOP presidential candidate and his family remain insured under the law, through the D.C. exchange. He first signed up in 2013, at which point spokeswoman Brooke Sammon told the Tampa Bay Times that Rubio 'spent time looking at all the options and decided to enroll through the D.C. exchange for coverage for him and his family.'... Rubio's decision to accept a federal subsidy offered to congressional lawmakers and their staff could complicate his declaration on the trail that he's successfully undermined the law." ...

... Manuel Roig-Franzia & Scott Higham of the Washington Post: Marco Rubio's brother-in-law, with whom Marco was close, was a drug lord -- the Number Two man in a big Miami drug operation back in "Miami Vice" days. Marco was much younger than his brother-in-law & had nothing to do with the business. CW: I'm not sure why newspapers print this stuff. Most of us have a sleazy relative. I don't have any outright criminals in my close family (or extended family, as far as I'm aware), but that's my good fortune; it has nothing to do with merit. Having an older in-law who ran a criminal enterprise is no reflection on Marco. He's a creep in his own right.

Daniel Strauss of Politico: "Start typing the words 'is Rand Paul...' into Google, and the search engine's autocomplete function fills in the rest of the question: '... still running for president.' The answer, of course, is yes — but barely. Indeed, if Paul were a patient on the operating table, he'd be flat-lining right now. By nearly every measure, the Kentucky senator's White House bid is struggling to find a pulse. Paul is on the verge of being demoted to the undercard stage in the next Republican presidential debate, the result of poll numbers that haven't moved above single digits since the summer. He isn't faring much better in state polls, either." ...

... Angelina Sacedo & Robert Way of the Boston Globe: "Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is confident he will be on the primetime Republican debate stage Tuesday, but if he falls short, he will make an announcement this week about what comes next. Asked Saturday by the Globe specifically if he would drop out of the race for president if he didn't qualify for the main-stage GOP debate, Paul said: 'We will make an announcement, on that, on Tuesday." ...

... Tweak Me. Timothy Cama of the Hill: "Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) wants CNN to tweak the rules for its upcoming GOP presidential debate to ensure that he makes it to the main stage. Based on recent polling, Paul risks being pushed to the undercard debate for CNN's Dec. 15 event.... 'We think if they give us the same treatment that Carly Fiorina was given last time, that you measure from debate to debate, that we do meet the criteria,' Paul said Friday night on Fox News...."

Beyond the Beltway

Rebecca Elliott of the Houston Chronicle: "State Rep. Sylvester Turner won the Houston mayor's race with a down-to-the-wire finish to edge businessman Bill King on Saturday." Turner is a Democrat. ...

... MEANWHILE, in Austin. Dave Montgomery of the New York Times: "Only a handful of gun-rights advocates and those supporting Texas' new, less restrictive campus-carry law showed up near the University of Texas campus ... on Saturday for a highly publicized but divisive demonstration and mock shooting in favor of ending gun-free zones. A few demonstrators carried legal AK-47 and AR-15 rifles before the first stage of the gathering.... They were outnumbered by throngs of reporters, photographers and television cameras, and later by counter-demonstrators. Organizers of what was billed as the Life and Liberty Walk to End Gun Free Zones had agreed not to go onto campus grounds after university officials warned them they would be trespassing. The event took place as Texas colleges and universities prepared to put into place a new state law permitting adult owners of licensed guns to carry them inside campus buildings."

Ashley Soley-Cerro, et al., of KTLA Los Angeles: "Investigators say a man was armed and turning toward [Los Angeles County] sheriff's deputies when they fatally shot him in Lynwood[, California] Saturday, as video emerged showing the man apparently walking away as a barrage of bullets were fired at him, video provided to KTLA shows.... The man[, Nicholas Robertson, who was black,] died at the scene.... A person who wished to remain anonymous sent KTLA a 29-second video Saturday afternoon that apparently captured some of fatal incident."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Marjorie Lord, an actress who achieved success as the comedian Danny Thomas's wife on the Emmy-winning comedy series 'The Danny Thomas Show,' but to her frustration found herself being typecast as a housewife for years afterward, died on Nov. 28. She was 97."

New York Times: "French voters dealt a sharp setback to the far-right National Front in elections on Sunday, depriving the party of victory in any of the country's 13 regions, according to projections based on exit polls. A week after the National Front came out on top in the first round of voting, France sent a far different message, with the party losing even in a northern region where its charismatic leader, Marine Le Pen, had been widely expected to win."

AP: "At least 19 Saudi women have won seats on local municipal councils a day after women voted and ran in elections for the first time in the country's history, according to initial results released to The Associated Press on Sunday."

AP: "Leipzig police say 69 officers have been injured in clashes with rioting leftwing protesters and that they had to use tear gas and water cannons to disperse the group. Some 50 police cars were also damaged in the riots Saturday evening, which started after hundreds of leftwing activists demonstrated against a rally by far-right protesters in the eastern German city of Leipzig earlier in the day."