;)
The Commentariat -- Nov. 21, 2015
Internal links removed.
** Alec MacGillis in a New York Times op-ed: "In eastern Kentucky and other former Democratic bastions that have swung Republican in the past several decades, the people who most rely on the safety-net programs secured by Democrats are, by and large, not voting against their own interests by electing Republicans. Rather, they are not voting, period. They have, as voting data, surveys and my own reporting suggest, become profoundly disconnected from the political process. The people in these communities who are voting Republican ... [are voting], in part, [as] a reaction against what they perceive, among those below them on the economic ladder, as a growing dependency on the safety net, the most visible manifestation of downward mobility in their declining towns."
Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to overturn lower courts and declare that the president has the authority to allow millions of illegal immigrants to remain and work in the United States without fear of deportation. The administration petitioned the justices to step in only 10 days after a federal appeals court ruled against President Obama's program. Unless the Supreme Court agrees to consider the issue and overrules the lower court, Obama has little chance of carrying out the program before he leaves office in January 2017."
As long as I'm president, we will keep on stepping up and ensure American remains, as it has always been, a place where people who in other parts of the world are subject to discrimination and violence have in America a friend and a place of refuge. -- Barack Obama, in Malaysia
... Josh Lederman of the AP: "Pushing back against efforts to bar Syrian refugees from resettling in the U.S., President Barack Obama vowed Saturday that his country will be a welcoming place for millions fleeing violence ... 'as long as I'm president.' Obama commented Saturday at a learning center in the Malaysian capital that serves the poor, including some refugees." ...
... The New York Times report, by Michael Shear, is here. ...
... Gov. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), in a New York Times op-ed: "... many of my fellow governors have been quick and loud in proclaiming their states off limits to Syrian refugees -- even though governors lack authority to close state borders to refugees. They spoke before knowing what the review process entailed, and in some cases punctuated their comments with divisive and misguided rhetoric that appeared to saddle all Syrians with the crimes of the Islamic State. The House bill, which President Obama has said he will veto, would essentially halt the resettlement of refugees fleeing Syria. That's a mistake driven by fear, not sound policy making." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... ** Still a Hero. Yvonne Abraham of the Boston Globe: "If you want them here so badly, why don't you take in a refugee? That was the inevitable response from some of congressman Seth Moulton's [D-Mass.] critics this week, after he called out Governor Charlie Baker [R-Mass.] for saying he didn't want Syrian refugees coming to Massachusetts until his concerns over security are assuaged. Actually, Moulton has opened his home to a refugee. In this and other ways, the representative from the Sixth District speaks from experience as he takes a blessedly unequivocal stand in favor of compassion and common sense on this issue." Via Charles Pierce. (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Bradford Richardson of the Hill: "Rep. Steve Russell (R-Okla.) says he changed his vote on Syrian refugee legislation after colleagues in the House 'surrounded' him and pressured him to support the bill. Just prior to the Thursday vote, Russell gave an impassioned speech on the floor calling the SAFE Act 'xenophobic' and a 'knee-jerk reaction' to the Paris terrorist attacks last week." ...
... Digby, in Salon: "The explanation as to why 47 Democrats would join in this immigrant bashfest is as prosaic as it is depressing. They fear being called 'soft on terrorism.' A bunch of hysterical voters who listen to demagogues on cable TV and talk radio called their offices to demand they put a stop to this foreign threat. Rather than be leaders and try to calm the waters, they just went with the flow, knowing that this legislation is unlikely to become law, but wanting to be able to tell their constituents they voted to bar refugees from our shores and keep the children safe. (Well, the good American children anyway. Syrian children will not be so lucky.) ...
... Eric Posner in Slate: "Psychologists who have studied these reactions have identified a number of factors that predict when people place excessive weight on a low risk. All of these factors point, with remarkable clarity, to the reaction to the Syrian refugee crisis. People underestimate risks that are familiar, under their personal control, voluntarily incurred, ignored by the media, and well-understood. Driving an automobile is the best example.... The opposite qualities are true for the risks that people fear the most.... People also overreact to risks that may produce especially dreaded or gruesome outcomes.... People put up with risks if they trust the institutions that manage them. [Here Posner, a confederate, pauses to blame President Obama, which is a requirement for every right-wing political essay.] Once people get it into their heads that someone or something poses a big risk to them and their families, it's hard to do anything about it."
... Seems like a waste of space to mention that Steve King (R-Iowa) is still Steve King. Andrew Kaczynski & Nathan McDermott of BuzzFeed: "Republican Rep. Steve King, while discussing on Thursday the Obama administration's plan to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees next year, said President Obama is 'filling our country up with people that will continue to attack us' and cited Obama's upbringing in Indonesia as giving him an entirely different idea of what America should be like." CW: Thing is, Steve, that's exactly what the U.S. needs & has always needed: people who don't hold xenophobic, parochial views. Like yours.
Jonathan Chait: "Former Bush Speechwriter [-- that would be Michael Gerson of the Washington Post --] Attacks Obama As Vicious Peacemonger."
Hamza Hendawi, et al., of the AP: "The Islamic State group is aggressively pursuing development of chemical weapons, setting up a branch dedicated to research and experiments with the help of scientists from Iraq, Syria and elsewhere in the region, according to Iraqi and U.S. intelligence officials. Their quest raises an alarming scenario for the West, given the determination to strike major cities that the group showed with its bloody attack last week in Paris." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
The GOP "Reality Gap." Steve Benen: Republicans think unemployment has gone up while President Obama has been in office. After an initial increase brought on by the Bush recession, the unemployment rate has decreased significantly. "This is by no means limited to unemployment. President Obama increased border security, and Republicans are absolutely certain that he's done the opposite. The deficit has dropped by $1 trillion in the Obama era, and Republicans just know in their gut that the deficit has ballooned. The Affordable Care Act has lowered the uninsured rate to unprecedented depths, but Republicans are confident that 'Obamacare' hasn't improved the uninsured rate at all. The United States' international reputation has improved dramatically since the end of the Bush/Cheney era, though Republicans believe it's deteriorated."
Devin Henry of the Hill: "Republicans are taking aim at a new 'Green Climate Fund,' as they look to weaken President Obama's hand in global climate talks later this month. The pot of money, a $3 billion climate change pledge the president's administration made last year, is something officials hope to bring to the negotiating table at United Nations summit in Paris. But Republicans -- hostile to the climate talks and bent on doing whatever they can to derail a deal in Paris next month -- say they're going to deny Obama the first tranche of money he hopes to inject into the fund."
Charlie Savage of the New York Times (Nov. 19): "When the National Security Agency's bulk collection of records about Americans' emails came to light in 2013, the government conceded the program's existence but said it had shut down the effort in December 2011 for 'operational and resource reasons.' While that particular secret program stopped, newly disclosed documents show that the N.S.A. had found a way to create a functional equivalent. The shift has permitted the agency to continue analyzing social links revealed by Americans' email patterns, but without collecting the data in bulk from American telecommunications companies -- and with less oversight by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court."
Jonathan Cohn & Jeffrey Young of the Huffington Post: "The Affordable Care Act has gotten some bad news lately. It's not a sign of impending disaster, as the law's critics say, but it may be a sign of some real problems on the horizon. UnitedHealth Group announced on Thursday that it has lost $425 million on the policies it has been selling through the Obamacare exchanges. The reason is pretty simple, according to Stephen Hemsley, the company's chief executive officer: UnitedHealth hasn't attracted a sufficiently balanced mix of healthy and sick customers." CW: As Reality Chex commenters pointed out yesterday, we should not be crying for UnitedHealth's profits. Hemsley walked home with $66mm last year. So boo-fucking-hoo. ...
... Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post: "Federal health officials Friday proposed changes to the rules for health coverage sold through insurance exchanges, including a possible floor for how many doctors and other providers each plan must include. The rules are intended to make it easier for consumers to compare their options in the marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act. They would define standard deductibles and co-payments, and allow insurers to sell plans with that specific benefit design."
** Andrew Higgins of the New York Times: "For a man who saved the world, or at least helped ensure that Adolf Hitler never got hold of a nuclear bomb, 96-year-old Joachim Ronneberg has a surprisingly unheroic view of the forces that shape history. 'There were so many things that were just luck and chance,' he said of his 1943 sabotage mission that blew up a Norwegian plant vital to Nazi Germany's nuclear program. 'There was no plan. We were just hoping for the best,' Mr. Ronneberg, Norway's most decorated war hero, added."
Jeremy Stahl of Slate: Now that spy Jonathan Pollard has been released from prison, his lawyers are contesting the terms of his parole.
Maureen Dowd in the New York Times Magazine on women in film. There are too few of them, they don't get paid enough & they get to make too few films.
Presidential Race
Ben Kamisar of the Hill: "Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called for a new accord between America, its closest allies and Russia as well as Arab nations as a major plank on how to destroy the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). 'We must create an organization like NATO to confront the security threats of the 21st century -- an organization that emphasizes cooperation and collaboration to defeat the rise of violent extremism and importantly to address the root causes underlying these brutal acts,' the Democratic presidential candidate said Thursday during a speech at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C." ...
Charles Pierce compares the proposals of Hillary Clinton & Marco Rubio to destroy ISIS. Both candidates say they'll do what President Obama is doing, only more so. Except for the refugee thing. The major difference is in their tone. Oh, & Marco also makes up stuff.
... Ben Schreckinger of Politico: "Donald Trump went on a Twitter rampage late Thursday after Politico revealed that a GOP group was planning to spend at least $2.5 million on an ad campaign aggressively targeting the real estate mogul, whose four-month stint atop the Republican primary polls has alarmed many in the party establishment." ...
... Jesse Byrnes of the Hill: "Republican operative Liz Mair is planning a 'guerrilla campaign' aimed at knocking Donald Trump out of the GOP presidential race, The Wall Street Journal is reporting. Mair, a former online communications director at the Republican National Committee who also worked on behalf of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's presidential campaign earlier this year, has formed Trump Card LLC 'to defeat and destroy' Trump's candidacy, according to the report." CW: The Walker campaign fired Mair for disparaging Iowa voters. Anyway, good luck with your guerilla campaign, Liz.
Maggie Haberman & Richard Perez-Pena of the New York Times: "Under assault from Democrats and Republicans alike, Donald J. Trump on Friday drew back from his call for a mandatory registry of Muslims in the United States, trying to quell one of the ugliest controversies yet in a presidential campaign like few others. In a post on Twitter, Mr. Trump complained that it was a reporter, not he, who had first raised the idea of a database. And his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, insisted that Mr. Trump had been asked leading questions by the NBC reporter under 'blaring music' and that he had in mind a terrorist watch list, not a registry of Muslims. Still, nowhere, even on Friday, did Mr. Trump, who has rarely acknowledged being at fault in a campaign predicated on his strength as a leader, clearly state that he was opposed to the idea of a registry of Muslims." CW: Also, too, the reporter who asked the question about the difference between Trump's plan & registering Jews in Nazi Germany asked the same question four times. Trump appears to hear every word the reporter said, "blaring music" or not. This portion of the conversation begins at about 1 min. in. There is no music playing when Trump expounds on his "good management" of the registry data:
... CW: If Trump can't manage conversations with reporters, how is he going to manage threats of terrorism? ...
... Maggie Haberman & Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump's remarks Thursday that he would 'absolutely' institute mandatory registration of Muslims drew sharp condemnation from Democrats on Friday, and a number of other Republican rivals spoke out against the idea in more muted tones.... In a Twitter post linking to an article about the remarks, Hillary Rodham Clinton wrote, 'This is shocking rhetoric. It should be denounced by all seeking to lead this country.' The post was signed with an 'H,' signaling that the candidate, and not her staff members, had written it." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Greg Sargent: Jeb "Bush unequivocally declares Trump's intentions towards Muslims to be 'wrong,' and doesn't shy away from labeling them demagoguery. Rubio's approach suggests a reluctance to call out Trump in this fashion, which perhaps also reflects a desire to avoid alienating conservative voters. Of course Rubio is rising among GOP voters, and Bush is falling, so maybe Rubio's apparent calculation is right.... The problem with tiptoeing around Trump's various prescriptions is that he is perpetually engaging in 'demagoguery inflation,' which is to say that he's always calling for something worse than what preceded it." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Kay Steiger of Think Progress: "Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) seems to be going further than even Republican frontrunner Donald Trump in advocating the crackdown of U.S. Muslims. He doesn't just want to consider shutting down mosques, as Trump says, but wants to shut down 'any place where radicals are being inspired.'" ...
... digby: "Now we have the leading establishment candidate saying we have to 'shut down' not just mosques but websites, cafes, diners --- anyplace where radicals are being inspired. He left out libraries and book stores but surely that was an oversight." ...
... Nick Gass of Politico: "The United States should have a database on every immigrant who enters the country, Ben Carson said Friday, addressing comments from Donald Trump that he would not rule out creating a registry of Muslims to track for terrorist activity. At the same time, he called Trump's call for tracking and targeting Muslims specifically as something that would be 'setting a pretty dangerous precedent.' '"Well, I think we should have a database on everybody who comes into this country,' the retired neurosurgeon told reporters at a media availability in Concord, New Hampshire, after filing for the state's Feb. 1 primary election. It was unclear whether Carson was referring to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency...." CW: It was "unclear" because Carson seems to have no knowledge whatsoever of ICE & its existing "database." Listening to Carson's "ideas" is like listening to the guy at the end of the bar: he knows almost nothing, but he has an opinion on everything.
Tim Egan explains to Republicans the difference between civilization & a cult. It's a difference most of us knew intuitively; yet it is lost completely upon most of the GOP candidates & half the Congress.
Eric Bradner of CNN: CNN announces their criteria for selecting GOP candidate eligibility for the fifth set of debates.
Gubernatorial Race
Julie O'Donoghue of the Times-Picayune: "In what is anticipated to be the closest governor's race in more than a decade, Louisiana voters head to the polls Saturday (Nov. 21) to pick the next man to lead the state. State Rep. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, and U.S. Sen. David Vitter, a Republican, are both vying to replace Gov. Bobby Jindal, who has headed up the state for the past eight years. Polling stations are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. The ballot also includes two other statewide races for attorney general and lieutenant governor as well as some local elections. Incumbent Attorney General Buddy Caldwell and former U.S. Rep. Jeff Landry, both Republicans, are running to be the state's top lawyer. Former Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser, a Republican, and Baton Rouge Mayor Kip Holden, a Democrat, are competing to be second-in-line to the governor."
Kevin Robillard of Politico: "A year after Louisiana voters booted their last Democratic statewide officeholder by double digits, the dirtiest political race in America comes down to whether a lurid but decade-old sex scandal is enough to pry Southern conservatives away from the Republican Party, even amid renewed fears of terrorism at home. After an in-the-mud, four-week runoff also full of loaded attacks on crime, race and religion, Republican Sen. David Vitter faces a potentially embarrassing rebuke in Saturday's election by voters in a GOP-dominated state."
Beyond the Beltway
Richard Fausset of the New York Times: "In Mississippi on Friday, luck smiled on a Democratic state representative, Blaine Eaton II, who had been forced, by state law, to draw straws for his seat after his race for re-election ended in a tie.... If [his Republican rival Mark] Tullos had won, his fellow Republicans would have gained a three-fifths supermajority in the State House of Representatives, the threshold required to pass revenue-related bills. At stake, potentially, was hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue. The three-fifths requirement has allowed the Democratic minority to block Republican tax-cut proposals in the past on the grounds that Mississippi needs the revenue to finance schools and other services."
Katherine Krueger of TPM: David Bowers, "the mayor of Roanoke, Virginia, apologized Friday for his recent remarks comparing the current threat of terrorism in the U.S. to the national mood after Pearl Harbor, invoking the internment of Japanese-Americans in his call to block Syrian refugees.... His unprompted statement came amid a wave of Republican governors saying they oppose the relocation of Syrian refugees to their states, citing the Paris attacks that left 130 dead. None of the suspects identified in those attacks have been Syrian refugees." Didn't intend to offend, blah-blah.
Dylan Matthews of Vox: "Leaving aside the broader question of whether [Woodrow] Wilson's name should be removed [from buildings & programs at Princeton University], let's be clear on one thing: Woodrow Wilson was, in fact, a racist pig. He was a racist by current standards, and he was a racist by the standards of the 1910s, a period widely acknowledged by historians as the "nadir" of post -- Civil War race relations in the United States. Easily the worst part of Wilson's record as president was his overseeing of the resegregation of multiple agencies of the federal government, which had been surprisingly integrated as a result of Reconstruction decades earlier." ...
... CW: I've changed my mind (see yesterday's Commentariat). Matthews does a good job of outlining what an "unreconstructed," vile ass Wilson was. There are racists & there are racists. Wilson was a racist. ...
... Corey Robin in Slate: "Too often in our debates about freedom of speech, we assume that it already exists and that it is campus activists, particularly over questions of race, who threaten it. But what Princeton's students have shown is that, before they came along, there was in fact precious little speech about figures like Wilson, and what speech there was, was mostly bland PR for tourists and prospective students. Even more important, Princeton's students have shown us that it is precisely the kinds of actions they have taken -- which are uncivil, frequently illegal and always unruly -- that produce speech. Not just yelling and shouting, but also informed, deliberative, reasoned speech."
Dora Scheidell of Fox "News": Students in ninth grade at Salem Junior High School [in Salem, Utah,] were given a homework assignment where they were told to draw a propaganda poster for a terrorist organization. After parents complained, the assignment was canceled."
Way Beyond
Anne Barnard & Neil MacFarquhar of the New York Times: "Exactly a week before Friday's siege in Bamako, Mali, the Islamic State ... shocked the world with attacks across Paris that killed 130 people. Militants linked to Al Qaeda took credit for the hotel attack [in Bamako]. And while the group cited local grievances as the rationale, it was also clear that the hostage-taking played into the growing and violent rivalry between the two groups. Once united under the Qaeda brand, they split over differing strategies in Syria. The Islamic State has since emerged as the most dynamic, popular force among radicalized Muslims, fueling a competition for recruits, cash and bragging rights among extremists who see bloodletting as the best way to advance an Islamist agenda. That competition has led to lethal one-upmanship that will be difficult to stamp out, given innumerable soft targets, even if armies can weaken the groups in their bases in the Middle East and Africa." ...
... Kodji Siby, et al, of the Washington Post: "Security forces surrounded gunmen inside a luxury hotel in Mali&'s capital on Friday after attackers stormed past guards, killing at least 20 people and holding hostages as others among the 170 staff and guests fled for safety. Hours after the standoff began, it appeared many people had managed to reach safety outside the besieged hotel compound in a city that serves as a logistics hub for French forces helping fight Islamist insurgents. An al-Qaeda-linked group asserted responsibility." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) Story has been updated: "The State Department said a U.S. citizen was among the dead. A department spokesman had reported earlier that no Americans were killed or injured in the attack." ...
... Joe Heim & Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: Anita "Datar, a 41-year-old international development worker from Takoma Park, Md., is the only American known to have died in the attack.... Datar, the mother of an elementary-school-age son, was a senior manager at Palladium, an international development firm with offices in Washington."
... Dionne Searcey & Adam Nossiter of the New York Times: "A senior United Nations official said that as many as 27 people had been killed, with bodies found in the basement and on the second floor, according to a preliminary assessment of the devastating attack. An unknown number of gunmen, perhaps four or five, took 'about 100 hostages' at the beginning of the siege, said Gen. Didier Dacko of the Malian Army. He said soldiers had sealed the perimeter and were now 'inside looking for the terrorists.' By afternoon, there were no more hostages being held, said Colonel Salif Traore, Mali's minister of interior security, but the operation to retake the hotel was still underway. Two assailants had been killed, he said, and the remaining attackers were holed up in a corner of the hotel." Also linked yesterday afternoon. The story has since been updated. ...
... Mamadou Tapily, et al., of the Guardian: "A nine-hour hostage situation at a high-end hotel in Mali's capital is over after special forces stormed the building, officials said, but an unspecified number of attackers remain on the upper floors and are continuing to resist arrest." (Also linked yesterday.)
Michael Martinez, et al., of CNN: "Belgium has placed Brussels at the highest terror alert level, citing a 'serious and imminent threat that requires taking specific security measures as well as specific recommendations for the population.' The announcement by the Crisis Centre of the Belgian Interior Ministry is advising the public to avoid places where large groups gather -- such as concerts, sporting events, airports and train stations -- and comply with security checks. The rest of the nation will maintain its current terror level."
Our Friends in the Middle East. David Batty of the Guardian: "A Palestinian poet and leading member of Saudi Arabia's nascent contemporary art scene has been sentenced to death for renouncing Islam. A Saudi court on Tuesday ordered the execution of Ashraf Fayadh, who has curated art shows in Jeddah and at the Venice Biennale. The poet, who said he did not have legal representation, was given 30 days to appeal against the ruling." ...
... Kamel Daoud, in a New York Times op-ed: "The West's denial regarding Saudi Arabia is striking: It salutes the theocracy as its ally but pretends not to notice that it is the world's chief ideological sponsor of Islamist culture. The younger generations of radicals in the so-called Arab world were not born jihadists. They were suckled in the bosom of Fatwa Valley, a kind of Islamist Vatican with a vast industry that produces theologians, religious laws, books, and aggressive editorial policies and media campaigns.... All of which leaves one skeptical of Western democracies' thunderous declarations regarding the necessity of fighting terrorism. Their war can only be myopic, for it targets the effect rather than the cause." Thanks to Victoria D. for the link.
News Ledes
AP: "Bangladesh executed two influential opposition leaders on charges of war crimes during the country's 1971 independence war, a senior jail official said Sunday, despite concerns that the legal proceedings against them were flawed and threats of violence by their supporters."
Washington Post: "Austin H. Kiplinger, a Washington publisher, civic leader and philanthropist who sustained the growth of his family's media empire and whose interests ranged from raising wheat to collecting memorabilia of the city's history, died Nov. 20 at a hospice in Rockville, Md. He was 97."
New York Times: "Bringing to a close a tumultuous bargaining season with American vehicle manufacturers, the United Automobile Workers ratified contracts Friday with General Motors and Ford Motor."
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