The Commentariat -- Nov. 15, 2015

Internal links & defunct video removed.

The Sydney Opera House. Buildings & other structures around the world took on the colors of the French flag.

David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "President Obama opened two days of talks with world leaders [in Antalya, Turkey,] Sunday by vowing to help France in 'hunting down the perpetrators' of the terrorist attacks in Paris, amid questions about how the United States and its allies will respond to the mass killings carried out by the Islamic State. Shortly after arriving, Obama met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erogan, who is hosting the Group of 20 Summit here, and they presented a united front in a brief appearance before reporters after a discussion that lasted more than an hour." ...

... Anthony Faiola & Souad Mekhennet of the Washington Post: "French police took seven people in for questioning Sunday in connection with the deadly siege that killed at least 129 people on Friday night, expanding an international dragnet and investigation that now stretches from the Aegean Sea to the teeming Paris suburbs. The seven people taken into custody were relatives of Omar Ismail Mostefai, a 29-year old French national with a criminal record and one of seven assailants who died during Friday night's deadly siege...." ...

... Adam Nossiter, et al., of the New York Times: "Three teams of Islamic State attackers acting in unison carried out the terrorist assault in Paris on Friday night, officials said Saturday, including one assailant who may have traveled to Europe on a Syrian passport along with the flow of migrants." The Times' liveblog is here. ...

... The Washington Post's main story, by Anthony Faiola & others, is here. The Post's live updates are here. ...

... Joe Mozingo, et al., of the Los Angeles Times: "... authorities said evidence suggested at least some of the attackers had come from Syria and Iraq. Six of them detonated suicide vests and a seventh was shot to death by police.... Friday's operation apparently began with a small extremist cell around Brussels, where French authorities believe the attack was planned and financed, according to two U.S. law enforcement officials who have been advised about the French investigation. The French newspaper Le Monde reported the terrorists came from the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek.... French prosecutor Francois Molins said three teams of terrorists, carrying AK-47 assault rifles and wearing explosives vests with identical detonators, appeared to have carried out the attacks.... Authorities across Europe moved swiftly Saturday to identify possible accomplices to the seven attackers, with Belgian authorities announcing they had made several arrests." ...

Daniel Kreps of Rolling Stone: As hundreds of mourners gathered outside Paris' Bataclan venue, where a terror attack at an Eagles of Death Metal show resulted in the death of 118 people, an unknown musician set up a grand piano outside the concert hall and delivered a poignant, instrumental take on John Lennon's 'Imagine.'" ...

... CW: President Obama is getting a lot of grief for claiming, in an interview first aired hours before the Paris attacks, that ISIS has been "largely contained" in Iraq.:

     ... CW: BUT I think Obama was right. In fact, it's reasonable to assume that the reasons for the attack that killed 43 people in Beirut last week & the coordinated attacks in Paris are the result of that containment. Frustrated in their quest to maintain their "Islamic State" in Iraq, ISIS is reaching outward to further establish their creds as bloodthirsty nihilists & to recruit new soldiers. As Tobin Harshaw wrote in Bloomberg, "The euphoria after the taking of Mosul in June 2014 has faded, and the conquering of Falluja last summer has yielded no real strategic advantage. Indeed, it has begun to unite Islamic State's fractious enemies: the Iraqi military, Iranian-backed militias and Kurdish forces.... These developments may cut deeply into the narrative of scriptural inevitability that Islamic State uses to attract and keep its followers. The problem with a doomsday cult is that you have to keep your followers on edge, believing that the Apocalypse is just around the corner even though the sun keeps rising every day."

Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "The United States has broadened its fight against the Islamic State, targeting the group's senior leader in Libya on Friday night, the Pentagon announced on Saturday. The airstrike against the Islamic State commander took place shortly after the attacks in Paris began, but had been in the works for several days and was not related to the events in France, American officials said. Western officials have been warning for months about a growing threat from militants in Libya aligned with the Islamic State." ...

     ... Update: Missy Ryan of the Washington Post: "U.S. airstrike is believed to have killed the leader of the Islamic State affiliate in Libya, Pentagon officials said on Saturday, in a mission that did not appear to be related to the terror attacks claimed by the group in Paris. Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said the strike took place on Friday and targeted Wisam al Zubaidi, also known as Abu Nabil al-Anbari, who commands what is the Islamic State's strongest branch outside of Iraq and Syria, according to U.S. intelligence officials."

Joshua Keating of Slate: "A day after the attacks in Paris underlined the global danger posed by the continuing violence in Syria, Russia, the United States, and governments in Europe and the Middle East agreed at talks in Vienna to a road map for ending the devastating and destabilizing war. The proposal, which appears to draw heavily from a Russian peace plan circulated before the talks, sets Jan. 1 as a deadline for the start of negotiations between Bashar al-Assad's government and opposition groups. Within six months, they would be required to create an 'inclusive and non-sectarian' transitional government that would set a schedule for holding new, internationally supervised elections within 18 months."

"Because It's 2015." Derrick Clifton of the Daily Dot, republished in Salon: "When announcing the selection of his new cabinet, made up of 15 men and 15 women (a 50-50 split), one reporter asked [Canadian PM Justin] Trudeau why he felt it was important to build his team with gender equity in mind. His short, sweet response urged everyone to get comfortable with a new reality: 'Because, it's 2015.' Those three words took a life of their own on Twitter, where his quick, off-cuff response set off a number of inspired hashtags like #BecauseIts2015, affirming the need for governments to ensure that the people in power represent the population they've sworn to serve. The move was simple, but the impact was profound -- and it sends a message to other countries, including the United States, about an easy way to address gender disparities in government, starting at the highest executive levels."

Anu Narayanswamy of the Washington Post: "Black Americans are more than twice as likely as white Americans to experience non­fatal force or the threat of force from police, according to a new Justice Department study. The study, which was released Saturday, found that an annual average of 44 million U.S. residents older than 16 had at least one face-to-face contact with police between 2002 and 2011. About 75 percent of those who had encountered force from the police perceived the force to be excessive."

** Philip Galanes of the New York Times has a conversation with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg & Gloria Steinam. CW: If you or someone you know is a woman younger than they are, read the transcript. Many young women have no idea what life was like for women who are now of a certain age.

Presidential Race

We haven't come up with an exact number yet, but it will not be as high as the number under Dwight D. Eisenhower, which was 90 percent. I'm not that much of a socialist compared to Eisenhower. -- Bernie Sanders, on the top tax bracket ...

... David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "Former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton faced sharp attacks -- about her closeness to Wall Street, and her vote for the Iraq War -- from two more aggressive rivals, in the second Democratic presidential debate Saturday night." ...

... Over at Politico's Daily Racing Form, Katie Glueck picks out the key moments of the debate. ...

... Ben Kamisar of the Hill: "Hillary Clinton broke with President Obama during Saturday's Democratic primary debate when she said that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria can't just be 'contained,' a phrase Obama used in a Friday interview that aired just hours before the Paris terror attacks. 'We have to look at ISIS as a leading threat of an international terror network, it cannot be contained, it must be defeated,' the former secretary of State said during CBS's debate." With video. ...

     ... Amber Phillips of the Washington Post elaborates. ...

... Katherine Krueger of TPM: "Asked if Sanders still believes climate change greatest is the gravest national security threat, as he did in the first Democratic debate, he responded 'absolutely.' 'In fact, climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism. And if we do not get our act together and listen to what the scientists say, you're going to see counties all over the world ... they're going to be struggling over limited amounts of water, limited amounts of land to grow their crops, and you're going to see all kinds of international conflict,' Sanders said." With video. ...

... Rebecca Traister of New York: "... these candidates' bona fides and infinite superiority to any of the Republicans in contention were established during the first debate. What was notable tonight was that it laid everything bare -- not just the good, but the bad of what the Democratic party and its contenders for the presidency have to offer.... The contrast between [Sanders & Clinton] wasn't flattering to either: one candidate appeared out of his depth, the other in way too deep." Traister also is amazed that in both debates, the issue of reproductive rights did not come up. (Traister writes extensively on women's rights.) "It was almost as though women's rights to control their reproduction and family size were not fundamental to their economic, social, professional and political equality. Democrats' failure to make issues of comprehensive reproductive justice central to their primary is also strategically stupid, since now is the time when the Republicans are trying to out-do each other with insane litmus tests over which one of them would more effectively force rape and incest survivors to carry their unwanted pregnancies to term." ...

... Amy Davidson of the New Yorker: "Clinton ... managed, in a couple of sentences, to simultaneously open herself up to the charge that she sees ISIS as someone else's war and that she rushed into wars too readily. Those notions feel paradoxical, and yet they both feed into a critique of Clinton as someone who does not always embrace responsibility." Davidson details other Clinton missteps. ...

... Fred Kaplan of Slate: "The question of the evening -- of our time -- is how to defeat ISIS, but Clinton, the candidate with the deepest résumé on foreign policy, never said what she would do beyond what President Obama is already doing." ...

... Jamelle Bouie of Slate: "... thanks to sharp questioning from my colleague John Dickerson -- we can see weaknesses that weren't apparent before. The discussions went at the heart of each candidacy. And Hillary Clinton, who is running for the general election as much as she is the primary, needs to improve her game." ...

... The Guardian's liveblog of the debate is here. ...

... Annie Karni of Politico: "In a conference call with all three campaigns hours after the attacks in Paris, executives with CBS ... suggested changing the format of the forum to carve out more time to discuss the suddenly-imperative issue of keeping the violence in Europe from lapping over to U.S. cities, campaign sources said. But [Bernie] Sanders' team forcefully opposed any changes -- and, to the amazement of the network and the other Democrats who decried his tone-deafness, crowed publicly about limiting the foreign policy component to spend more time discussing economic inequality and other issues central to the Vermont senator's candidacy." ...

... Bill Curry of Salon: "I still don't see establishment media types grappling with the seeming mystery of how a 74-year-old socialist outperforms a centrist front-runner in those general election match-ups. Here's a hint: the Democrats' real opponents are anger, apathy and fear. With just three months till Iowa, Bernie Sanders is still the only candidate addressing anger, fear and apathy in a responsible, effective way.... Voters agree so strongly [with Sanders' economic message] even Republicans cry 'crony capitalism,' but they're just kidding. Clinton still doesn't get it. Raising billions from big business and floating boatloads of new programs is a bad strategy. Voters look at government and see a car with a cracked engine block. Until it's fixed they won't let anybody drive it."

Patrick Healy of the New York Times: "A dark portrait of America -- impotent against Islamic State militants, vulnerable against shadowy, undocumented refugees, and isolated in a world of fraying alliances -- emerged from the Republican presidential field on Saturday as candidates seized on the Paris attacks to try to elevate terrorism into a defining issue in the 2016 election. Leading Republicans like Donald J. Trump, Ben Carson and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas called on the Obama administration to halt plans to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees next year. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, warning that the Islamic State would leverage the Paris attacks to add recruits and raise money, said the United States needed to move immediately to assemble a stronger coalition to fight the militants." ...

... Katie Zezima of the Washington Post: "In the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) said President Obama is not interested in protecting the United States. 'I recognize that Barack Obama does not wish to defend this country,' Cruz said on 'Fox and Friends' 'He may have been tired of war, but our enemies are not tired of killing us. And they’re getting stronger.'" ...

... AP: Speaking at a campaign rally in Beaumont, Texas, "... Donald Trump says the terror attacks in Paris would have been 'a much, much different situation' had the victims been armed with guns. And he says the United States is 'insane' to accept any refugees from Syria in the wake of the attacks.... He began the event with a moment of silence in honor of the victims of the attacks."

Beyond the Beltway

Alice Ollstein of Think Progress: "On Friday morning, Alabama and the federal Justice Department reached an agreement to bring the state in compliance with the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), a law passed in 1993 requiring states to make it easier and more convenient for residents to register to vote ... [by] giving residents who visited the state's DMVs the opportunity to register.... The new agreement, however, does not force the state to reopen the more than two dozen DMVs in majority-black counties that recently shut down...."

News Ledes

New York Times: "At least 15 Sudanese migrants trying to cross from Egypt into Israel were shot and killed at the border early Sunday, possibly by Egyptian police officers, according to security officials and news reports. The death toll, if confirmed, would be one of the highest in years for migrants and asylum seekers making the treacherous journey across the Sinai Peninsula into Israel. People coming from Sudan, Eritrea and other countries in East Africa have been tortured by traffickers, beaten or shot by the Egyptian security services and have faced open-ended detention by the Israeli authorities, according to human rights groups."

Washington Post: "The Pentagon transferred five Yemeni detainees who had been held for more than a decade at the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the United Arab Emirates, U.S. officials announced Sunday."

New York Times: "The Japanese economy deteriorated more severely than expected in the third quarter, government data released on Monday showed, extending a downturn into a second consecutive three-month period and putting the country in technical recession."

The Commentariat -- Nov. 14, 2015

Internal links removed.

Adam Nossiter, et al., of the New York Times: "President François Hollande on Saturday blamed the Islamic State for the terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday, as the death toll rose to 127 victims, with 200 others hospitalized. He declared three days of national mourning, and said that military troops would patrol the capital. France remained under a nationwide state of emergency":

The Times' live updates are here. The Times is providing free digital access to its stories about the attack. From the liveblog at 10:02 am ET: President Obama will convene the National Security Council this morning ahead of his trip to Turkey, the Philippines and Malaysia. ...

... Rukmini Callimachi of the New York Times: "The Islamic State claimed responsibility on Saturday for the catastrophic attacks in the French capital, calling them 'the first of the storm' and mocking France as a 'capital of prostitution and obscenity,' according to statements released in multiple languages on one of the terror group's encrypted messaging accounts. The remarks came in a communiqué published in Arabic, English and French on the Islamic State's Telegram account and then distributed via their supporters on Twitter, according to a transcript provided by the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks jihadist propaganda."...

... The Local's liveblog for today is here. The Local's front page currently [9 am ET] has news on the reactions of other European countries to the Paris attacks. The Guardian's new liveblog is here. ...

... The Washington Post's liveblog is here. At 8:40 am ET: "The [U.S.] State Department says American citizens were among those injured in the Paris attacks.'

... Adam Nossiter & Rick Gladstone of the New York Times: "The Paris area reeled Friday night from a shooting rampage, explosions and mass hostage-taking that President François Hollande called an unprecedented terrorist attack on France. He closed the borders and mobilized the military in a national emergency." ...

... Friday, 10:04 pm ET: "The Paris police prefect, Michel Cadot, said all the assailants directly involved in the attacks around the city were believed to be dead, though they may have had accomplices who were still at large. It was not immediately clear how many attackers were involved in total." (from the Times liveblog) ...

... The Local's liveblog is here. The Guardian's liveblog is here. ...

... Francois Hollande declares a state of emergency & closes borders:

... President Obama reacts to the attacks:

... Timothy Cama of the Hill: "A Paris concert hosted by former Vice President Al Gore to advocate for global climate change action was suspended Friday as the city was hit by multiple terrorist attacks that killed dozens. The climate event near the Eiffel Tower was still happening around 6:30 p.m. eastern United States time, but it was stopped shortly thereafter. The web-based livestream for the event was replaced with a statement. 'Out of solidarity with the French people and the city of Paris, we have decided to suspend our broadcast,' it says." ...

... Jon Swaine of the Hill: "New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo late Friday directed the One World Trade Center's spire to light up in blue, white and red in solidarity with the French following multiple attacks in Paris."

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a challenge to a Texas law that would leave the state with about 10 abortion clinics, down from more than 40. The court has not heard a major abortion case since 2007, and the new case has the potential to affect millions of women and to revise the constitutional principles governing abortion rights." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... New York Times Editors: The "entire purpose [of the Texas law] -- like that of similar laws around the country -- is to end legal abortion services. At an anti-abortion rally before he signed the Texas bill, known as H.B. 2, Rick Perry, then the governor, said that an 'ideal world' is one without abortion. 'Until then,' he said, 'we will continue to pass laws to ensure that abortions are as rare as possible under existing law.'... First-trimester abortions, which account for the overwhelming majority of all abortions, are already among the safest medical procedures available. What endangers women's health is when legal abortions are made harder or impossible to obtain, because women will be forced to wait until later in their pregnancies.... The justices ... have the opportunity to make clear that courts cannot simply uphold clearly deceptive legislation without questioning its actual function, as the Fifth Circuit did." ...

... Steve M. has a conspiracy theory: "... the Roberts Court took this case with the understanding that it would drive voter turnout on ... the Republican side.... And what kind of decision would do that? Obviously a decision that rejects the conservative position.... I'm betting on a full or partial rejection of the Texas law."

Lydia Wheeler of the Hill: "The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Friday to review a case out of Virginia that questions whether state lawmakers unlawfully considered race when they drew congressional district lines."

Paul Ryan Turns Down Full-Time Job for Part-Time Work. Dana Milbank: "House Republican leaders this month ... declared that the people's representatives will be working only two days a week next year. The House will be in session just 111 days in 2016. This means the chamber will be closed more weekdays (150) than open, and many of the 111 are partial days. That's upward of 30 weeks of paid vacation for all 435 members of the House.... Worse..., lawmakers have awarded themselves essentially unlimited travel budgets so they can spend more time at home.... 'It's a great irony, really, that by every measurement it looks as if Congress is more out of touch with constituents than ever before,' [former GOP Rep. Vin] Weber said, 'and yet they've been back with their constituents more than they've ever been.'"

Griff Witte, et al. of the Washington Post: "The U.S. military is 'reasonably certain' that an American drone strike in Syria killed the Islamic State executioner known as 'Jihadi John,' an official said Friday as British and U.S. officials seek to confirm the details of the attack." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Charles Pierce was fairly unimpressed with the piece I linked yesterday, by Chris Whipple, on the Bush administration's failure to heed the CIA's pre-9/11 warnings about an imminent Al Qaeda attack because Pierce doesn't trust George Slam-Dunk Tenet & the Boyz. "This piece just reeks of score-settling and of ass-covering, and by the time it gets to Jose Rodriguez, the CIA's torture expert, who belongs in a fcking cell, and he starts talking about how what we did to people wasn't torture, it was all I could do to keep from throwing the laptop out the DB Cooper door at the back of the airplane. None of these guys -- from C-Plus Augustus on down -- is ready to accept responsibility for the worst national-security disaster since Pearl Harbor...." Pierce has a point.

Ben Terris & Stephanie Kirchner of the Washington Post tell the heartbreaking story of the Binder twins, the boys conjoined at the head whom Ben Carson separated. The operation made Carson a star, but the boys never developed normally. "Years later, neither boy could get around on his own, nor feed himself.... [Their mother] brought them to a home for disabled children, where they became wards of the state.... Patrick Binder died sometime in the past decade.... Benjamin is 28 now and still cannot speak but ... is doing 'relatively well.'... 'My job as a doctor is to make sick people well, and when I fail to do that, regardless of exactly why, I still failed, Donlin Long, the former head of neurosurgery, said in a phone interview about the Binder surgery. 'So in that way, the simple answer is no, I do not think it was a success.'"

Presidential Race

Emily Steel of the New York Times: "In the hours after the deadly attacks in Paris, CBS News significantly reworked its plans for the Democratic presidential debate it is hosting [in Des Moines, Iowa,] on Saturday night to focus more on issues of terrorism, national security and foreign relations." ...

... Date Night with Bernie, Hil & Marty. Gail Collins: "This weekend's Democratic debate is going to be a tough sell. Two hours on a Saturday night, and not a single candidate who appears to be certifiably deranged. There are only three Democrats left in the contest, and none of them has compared the competition to a child molester. None seems to have an unusually creative theory on why the pyramids were built. Yawn." ...

... Reminder. Noah Weiland of Politico: "The second Democratic presidential debate will be Saturday, Nov. 14, live from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.... The debate will last two hours and begin at 9 p.m. Eastern time.... The debate will air on CBS and stream for free at www.cbsnews.com/live/. No cable subscription is necessary. CBS will also air the debate on its radio affiliates...." (Also linked yesterday.)

Brian Beutler: "The cardinal imperative of electing a Democrat in 2016 is to prevent Republicans from consolidating control of government and using it to regressive ends. Against that backdrop, the question of who's best equipped to advance progressive goals fades into near-irrelevance, behind the less-inspiring question of which candidate has the best chance of winning.... If Clinton can best O'Malley and Sanders on the electability question, or fight them to a draw, subsequent questions become much less tricky for her. If she's the most electable candidate, her appeal to Democrats is obvious. And if all three candidates are electable, then the argument that Democrats should nominate another male candidate, rather than the first female major-party candidate, becomes a very tough sell. (Point, Hillarybots.)"

Hadas Gold of Politico with another Hillary conspiracy theory: the Democratic National Committee Debbie Wasserman Schultz scheduled all the Democratic debates at a time hardly anyone would watch "since having fewer viewers reduces the chances of a rival delivering a serious blow to front-runner Hillary Clinton.... A broadcast network executive, speaking on background, said broadcast networks are much more limited on time slots than cable, so they have to work within the schedule in place. Wasserman Schultz insisted that the DNC's goal was to reach more viewers" by airing the debates on broadcast networks rather than on cable.

Ezra Klein: "Anyone watching the fourth Republican debate would be excused for thinking America is mired in a deep recession -- that the economy is shrinking, foreign competitors are outpacing us, more Americans are uninsured, and innovators can't bring their ideas to market.... They would be surprised to find that unemployment is at 5 percent, America's recovery from the financial crisis has outpaced that of other developed nations, the percentage of uninsured Americans has been plummeting even as Obamacare has cost less than expected, and there's so much money flowing into new ideas and firms in the tech industry that observers are worried about a second tech bubble.... Republicans are stuck between a description of the economy that seems increasingly detached from the reality of the recovery and a set of economic plans that actually worsen many of the problems Republicans say they want to solve. It's a pickle." ...

... Kevin Drum: Klein is "completely correct, but ... Republicans aren't really talking about the economy when they adopt this 'apocalyptic' rhetoric. In fact, so far this hasn't been an election about the economy at all.... It's a culture war election. The topics that have really driven the campaign so far are illegal immigration, political correctness, abortion, Obamacare, Vladimir Putin, the war on Christianity, and so forth." ...

... CW: The GOP has nothing to sell. Scapegoating Mexicans or gay couples or Starbucks works only if the economy totally sucks & there's no hope of recovery. Democrats are suggesting myriad ways to improve the personal financial positions of middle- & lower-income Americans; Republicans are saying a minimum living wage is too damned high. I had this argument with my neighbor today: he too thought $15/hour was too high, & I conceded that I didn't know what the exact best figure would be. But I said (a) everybody who is willing to do what the boss tells him to do should earn a living wage for doing it, even if the skill & experience level required to do the job is low; & (b) right now you're subsidizing WalMart & McDonalds, etc. whose low-wage employees only get by with the help of food stamps & other social services. Most of the people who use social welfare programs are working, I said. Why should your taxes, I asked my neighbor, go to feeding WalMart employees when the Waltons are the wealthiest people in the U.S.? (My rant was longer than that, but that was the gist of it.) Oh yeah, sez he.

Greg Sargent: Donald Trump's "meltdown [at an Iowa rally Thursday] represents something much greater than merely a cringeworthy spectacle. In a way Trump's rambling monologue amounts to an indictment of the fundamental stupidity and arbitrariness of American politics in general. And as such, we may look back at this moment and see it in a different light, as crossing from sheer buffoonery into a semi-poignant glimpse into the foibles of human vanity.... Trump is right to rail at the profound absurdity of the Carson spectacle. But the problem is that in so doing, he's also railing at the same absurdities that have been holding him aloft, too." ...

... Lisa Lambert of Reuters: "... Ben Carson recommended praying for rival Donald Trump after the real-estate mogul..., in a 95-minute rant in Iowa, likened him to a child molester, Carson's business manager said on Friday."When I spoke with Dr. Carson about this yesterday how we should respond, you know he was so sad about it. He said: 'Pray for him." He feels sorry for him because he really likes Mr. Trump,' Armstrong Williams, who often acts as Carson's surrogate in the media, told CNN. 'To see him just imploding before our very eyes - it's just sad to watch,' Williams said." ...

... Bethany Karn, in a Washington Post op-ed: "Ben Carson the doctor saved my daughter's life, but now I worry that Ben Carson the president could put others' lives in jeopardy.... Like most of the Republican field, he promises to repeal the Affordable Care Act. But Carson has outdone the others, calling it 'the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery.'... As we prepared my daughter for brain surgery eight years ago, Carson was right to tell me not to worry about insurance. No one should worry about cost when a child's life is on the line. Indeed, that was the whole point of the ACA, which Carson and his rivals pledge to undo." ...

... Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: "... the more fundamental question -- the scarier question -- about Carson isn't whether the retired neurosurgeon is a fabulist, and therefore whether he has the right character to be president. It's whether he has the knowledge and understanding to be president. The evidence is rather conclusive that he doesn't.... Carson doesn't just need fact-checking. He needs thought-checking.... The tripartite architecture of [Carson's] non-answers [to debate questions] has become apparent: duck the actual question; revert to a comfortable, if irrelevant, talking point; finish with patriotic platitude." ...

... Ben Carson Knows Guys Who Know. Katherine Krueger of TPM: "Carson said his campaign would release 'some material on that' before the end of the weekend when asked about National Security Adviser Susan Rice saying there's no evidence to support his claims that the Chinese are involved in Syria. 'I have several sources that I've got material from, I'm surprised my sources are better than theirs,' he told reporters after a town hall event." ...

     ... CW: What's the trait most dominant here: arrogance or delusion? Ole Doc's assumption is that a few of his crackpot friends have more reliable information than the Pentagon, the CIA & the NSA combined. I'll bet the "material" Carson releases "before the end of the weekend" is a grainy photo of a guy who works at Damascus's all-you-can-eat China Buffet. ...

... We discovered that we were so much alike and shared the same values and principles that govern our lives. -- Ben Carson, in a 2007 letter to the court in support of Alfonso Costa, after Costa pled guilty to health insurance fraud ...

... Tom McCarthy of the Guardian: "Ben Carson is continuing to stand by his business associate and 'best friend' Alfonso Costa following revelations that Costa pleaded guilty in federal court in 2007 to healthcare fraud. Costa, a former dentist from Pittsburgh, is a self-employed real estate speculator.... 'Al Costa is my very best friend. I know his heart. I am proud to call him my friend. I have always and will continue to stand by him. That is what real friends do!' [Carson said in a statement.] Carson and Costa are also business associates, with Costa's firm managing a suburban Pittsburgh office building owned by Carson that last year earned the former neurosurgeon between $200,000 and $2m, according to financial disclosure forms cited by Mother Jones.... In a break from the campaign trail earlier this fall, Carson spent a week at one of Costa's properties, a villa on Italy’s Amalfi coast.... Carson has for years been a frequent visitor to the villa, which rents for between $30,000 and $50,000 per week...." In a 2012 book, Carson alleged that the Justice Department unfairly targeted Costa because "the lead agent was either jealous of his success or incorrectly concluded that he had organized crime connections that produced his wealth." (CW: i.e., Costa was a victim of racial stereotyping). ...

... Here's Costa, giving a tour of the villa. Carson claimed Costa "lives modestly compared to the lifestyle he could have had if he so desired.":

Director Judd Apatow supports Carson for president. Sarah Burris of Salon elaborates:

Doctor Ben Gets Something Right (and Indirectly Criticizes Jeb!). Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "After speaking at a Republican Party conference [in Orlando, Florida,] on Friday, a reporter asked Carson what he thought of the infamous [Terry Schiavo] case.... 'We face those kinds of issues all the time and while I don't believe in euthanasia, you have to recognize that people that are in that condition do have a series of medical problems that occur that will take them out,' he said. 'Your job [as a doctor] is to keep them comfortable throughout that process and not to treat everything that comes up.' When the reporter asked whether Carson thought it was necessary for Congress to intervene, he said: "I don't think it needed to get to that level. I think it was much ado about nothing.'"

Sabrina Siddiqui of the Guardian: "Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz on Friday took a sharp turn to the right by laying out a plan that would place new limits on legal immigration, increase deportations of undocumented immigrants, end birthright citizenship and build a wall along the US-Mexico border. The Texas senator unveiled his proposal at a fiery campaign rally in Orlando, Florida, where he echoed the hardline immigration rhetoric of Republican frontrunner Donald Trump." CW Translation: Nobody's gonna out-asshole me. P.S. to the GOP base: When Donald Deport'em's meltdown is complete, I'm your guy. ...

... Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: "In an interview while taping a 'Candidate Cafe' segment for radio station WMUR in New Hampshire, Mr. Cruz acted out an entire scene from the movie" "Princess Bride." CW: If Ted had pursued an acting career instead of becoming the conniving creep he is today, you might even like him (although I have a feeling directors would typecast him in villain roles):

Jeb! Visits a Home He Can't Recall. Tom Dart of the Guardian on the Bush family home in Midland, Texas, which is now a shrine (you can visit!) to George W. Bush. CW: Look for the threads of this story (which I liked) in an upcoming MoDo column.

Beyond the Beltway

Kim Chandler of the AP: "The conservative Republican governor of Alabama, a Deep South state where 'Obamacare' is often reviled, said Thursday that his administration is mulling an expansion of the state's Medicaid program under the federal health care law. Gov. Robert Bentley, a dermatologist turned governor, emphasized that he was in the exploratory stages -- and said funding the state's share of costs could be a major stumbling block -- but his comments were the strongest to date about the possible acceptance of expansion dollars in the deeply red, high-poverty state."

Sandhya Somashekhar of the Washington Post: "A Utah judge has put a hold on his order to remove a foster child from the home of a married lesbian couple, whom he had said were unfit to keep the girl because of their sexual orientation.... The original order to remove the child from the home of the Carbon County couple drew an outcry from around the country, with former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton chiming in and even the state's Republican governor declaring himself 'puzzled' and concerned that Johansen was not following the law." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Mark Tracy of the New York Times: "Saying that he has cancer and wants to focus on his family and his treatment, the head coach of the University of Missouri football team, Gary Pinkel, announced his resignation Friday. The move shocked the campus after racial protests had put it in the national spotlight and Pinkel had backed his players' threatened boycott of a coming game."

License & Registration, Please. Dana Hedgpeth of the Washington Post: "Beep, beep. A Google driverless car was pulled over in California. The problem? It was going too slow. An officer in Mountain View, Calif., apparently saw traffic backed up behind the little, white vehicle. The car was traveling 24 mph in a stretch where the posted speed limit was 35 mph.... It was unclear whether a ticket was issued." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Way Beyond

Victor Mather New York Times: "Russia was provisionally suspended from track and field on Friday by the sport's world governing body in the wake of sweeping doping allegations against the country's athletes, coaches, trainers, doctors and officials."

The Commentariat -- Nov. 13, 2015

Internal links & defunct videos removed.

Afternoon Update:

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a challenge to a Texas law that would leave the state with about 10 abortion clinics, down from more than 40. The court has not heard a major abortion case since 2007, and the new case has the potential to affect millions of women and to revise the constitutional principles governing abortion rights."

Sandhya Somashekhar of the Washington Post: "A Utah judge has put a hold on his order to remove a foster child from the home of a married lesbian couple, whom he had said were unfit to keep the girl because of their sexual orientation.... The original order to remove the child from the home of the Carbon County couple drew an outcry from around the country, with former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton chiming in and even the state's Republican governor declaring himself 'puzzled' and concerned that Johansen was not following the law."

Griff Witte, et al., of the Washington Post: "The U.S. military is 'reasonably certain' that an American drone strike in Syria killed the Islamic State executioner known as 'Jihadi John,' an official said Friday as British and U.S. officials seek to confirm the details of the attack."

License & Registration, Please. Dana Hedgpeth of the Washington Post: "Beep, beep. A Google driverless car was pulled over in California. The problem? It was going too slow. An officer in Mountain View, Calif., apparently saw traffic backed up behind the little, white vehicle. The car was traveling 24 mph in a stretch where the posted speed limit was 35 mph.... It was unclear whether a ticket was issued."

*****

** Tim Egan: "... let's try to pull some larger meaning from perhaps the most absurd moment of 2015: that professor at one of the nation's top journalism colleges who threatened to use force against a student journalist for doing the things taught in that school.... [This episode] goes to a more troubling trend -- the diminishment of a healthy, professionally trained free press.... The true media elites are in talk radio and right-wing television -- multimillionaire gasbags from Rush Limbaugh to Sean Hannity. Every day, nearly every hour, they attack reporters, using verbal assaults more consequential than the muscle play by an amped-up academic.... The main reason that Republican politicians sound so crazy of late is because they get their information, and validation, from the twisted world of partisan media outlets."

Paul Krugman: "... what we saw in Tuesday's presidential debate was something relatively new...: an increasingly unified Republican demand for hard-money policies, even in a depressed economy. Ted Cruz demands a return to the gold standard. Jeb Bush says he ... is open to the idea. Marco Rubio wants the Fed to focus solely on price stability, and stop worrying about unemployment. Donald Trump and Ben Carson see a pro-Obama conspiracy behind the Federal Reserve's low-interest rate policy. And let's not forget that Paul Ryan, the new speaker of the House, has spent years berating the Fed for policies that, he insisted, would 'debase' the dollar and lead to high inflation.... This turn wasn't driven by experience. The new Republican monetary orthodoxy has already failed the reality test with flying colors...." CW: Sounds like GlennBeckonomics to me. Invest in gold! Hide it under your mattress! Get a shotgun!

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Obama awarded the Medal of Honor on Thursday to a soldier who rushed a suicide bomber in Afghanistan in 2012 and saved perhaps dozens of American and Afghan lives at a devastating cost to his own. The soldier, Capt. Florent A. Groberg, has spent much of the last three years recovering from 33 surgeries, but he stood at attention in the East Room of the White House as the commander in chief bestowed on him the highest commendation available to members of the American military":

Michael Gordon & Rukmini Callimachi of the New York Times: "Kurdish and Yazidi fighters retook Sinjar on Friday morning, on the second day of a major offensive to retake this city in northern Iraq, which has been under the brutal domination of the Islamic State for more than 15 months." ...

... Michael Gordon & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "The United States and its allies have sharply increased their airstrikes against the sprawling oil fields that the Islamic State controls in eastern Syria in an effort to disrupt one of the terrorist group's main sources of revenue, American officials said this week."

Eric Schmitt: "The Pentagon said late Thursday that it had targeted Mohammed Emwazi, a member of the Islamic State often referred to as Jihadi John, in an airstrike near Raqqa, Syria. Peter Cook, the Pentagon press secretary, said in a statement that the military was 'assessing the results' of the strike to determine if Mr. Emwazi had been killed. Mr. Emwazi, considered the most prominent British member of the militant group, was shown in videos in late 2014 and early 2015 killing several American and other Western hostages." ...

... Brian Ross, et al., of ABC News: "The ISIS terrorist dubbed 'Jihadi John', who oversaw the brutal executions of American and Western hostages, was hit by a U.S. air strike Thursday night and is believed to have been killed, U.S. officials told ABC News." ...

... BUT. Sewell Chan & Kimoko de Freytas-Tamura of the New York Times: "Secretary of State John Kerry and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain said on Friday that they did not yet know the outcome of an airstrike the American military launched on Thursday to kill Mohammed Emwazi, the Islamic State's most notorious executioner."

Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "Secretary of State John F. Kerry on Thursday called the Islamic State 'the gravest extremist threat faced by our generation and the embodiment of evil in our time,' describing the group as combining 'medieval and modern fascism' and comparing it to the enemies the United States faced in last century's world wars."

Bryan Bender of Politico: "Defense Secretary Ash Carter has fired his top military aide after learning about 'allegations of misconduct,' he said in a statement late Thursday, and has asked the Pentagon's inspector general to investigate the matter. 'Today I made the decision to remove my Senior Military Assistant Lieutenant General Ron Lewis from his position after learning about allegations of misconduct,' Carter said, without divulging the details of the allegations. Fox News, citing an unnamed defense official, reported the allegations involved an 'improper relationship.'" ...

... MEANWHILE, Peter Hermann of the Washington Post: "A Secret Service officer has been charged with soliciting a minor for sex after authorities said he texted an undercover detective posing as a 14-year-old girl. Court documents say he admitted to sending some of the texts from his job at the White House. Lee Robert Moore ... faces a federal charge of attempted transfer of obscene material to a minor. He surrendered to the Maryland State Police on Monday...."

Gregor Aisch & Josh Keller of the New York Times: "In response to mass shootings in the last few years, more than 20 states, including some of the nation's biggest, have passed new laws restricting how people can buy and carry guns. Yet the effect of those laws has been significantly diluted by a thriving underground market for firearms brought from states with few restrictions. About 50,000 guns are found to be diverted to criminals across state lines every year, federal data shows [sic!], and many more are likely to cross state lines undetected."

Bill Turque of the Washington Post: "About 20 percent of the 829 U.S. firefighter fatalities over the last decade occurred while firefighters were responding to or returning from calls, according to data from the National Fire Protection Association. Traffic accidents cause more firefighter deaths than smoke, flame or building collapses. Only heart attacks from overexertion kill more firefighters in the line of duty.... Risky driving practices, including excessive speed and dangerous passing maneuvers, are contributing factors, experts say."

** "My Brother Kept Us Safe." -- Jeb! Chris Whipple, in Politico Magazine: "By May of 2001, says Cofer Black, then chief of the CIA's counterterrorism center, 'it was very evident that we were going to be struck, we were gonna be struck hard and lots of Americans were going to die.' 'There were real plots being manifested,' Cofer's former boss, George Tenet, told me.... 'The world felt like it was on the edge of eruption. In this time period of June and July, the threat continues to rise. Terrorists were disappearing [as if in hiding, in preparation for an attack]. Camps were closing. Threat reportings on the rise.. The crisis came to a head on July 10." Read on.

Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Danielle Paquette of the Washington Post: "A Bloomingdale's ad encourages date rape. Also, buy Bloomie's pricey, sexy outfits. ...

... Oh, that reminds me. Here's Neiman's Christmas catalog. For $90,000, you & five friends can travel "to the edge of space" in the capsule tethered to what looks like a super-duper, sleek hot-air balloon. Better hurry; supplies are limited.

Presidential Race

Noah Weiland of Politico: "The second Democratic presidential debate will be Saturday, Nov. 14, live from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.... The debate will last two hours and begin at 9 p.m. Eastern time.... The debate will air on CBS and stream for free at www.cbsnews.com/live/. No cable subscription is necessary. CBS will also air the debate on its radio affiliates...."

Brent Budowsky of the Hill: "In a new McClatchy-Marist poll, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) leads Republican candidate Donald Trump by a landslide margin of 12 percentage points, 53 to 41. In the McClatchy poll, Sanders also leads former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) by a landslide margin of 10 points, 51 to 41."

Stephen Ohlemacher & Hope Yen of the AP: "Hillary Rodham Clinton has locked up public support from half of the Democratic insiders who cast ballots at the party's national convention, giving her a commanding advantage over her rivals for the party's presidential nomination." ...

... Sabrina Saddiqui of the Guardian: "Hillary Clinton on Thursday unveiled a $30bn plan to help America's coal communities adjust to a climate agenda increasingly driven by renewable energy sources." ...

... Rachel Bade of Politico: "Several companies that worked on Hillary Clinton's private server are refusing interview and document requests from congressional investigators, even as they are cooperating with the FBI." CW: Seems mean, doesn't it?

Steve M. finds out from reading the Right Wing News that the reason the Democratic candidates are so old is that all the liberal moms back in the day aborted the 17 other potential candidates.

Worse Than Hillary. We're potentially careening down this road of nominating somebody who frankly isn't fit to be president in terms of the basic ability and temperament to do the job. It';s not just that it could be somebody Hillary could destroy electorally, but what if Hillary hits a banana peel and this person becomes president? -- Anonymous Republican strategist

... As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap. Philip Rucker & Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "Less than three months before the kickoff Iowa caucuses, there is growing anxiety bordering on panic among Republican elites about the dominance and durability of Donald Trump and Ben Carson and widespread bewilderment over how to defeat them.... There are similar concerns about Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who is gaining steam and is loathed by party elites, but they are more muted, at least for now.... The party establishment is paralyzed. Big money is still on the sidelines." ...

... Anne Laurie of Balloon Juice gathers some humorous responses to GOP panic story. Possible white knights: Mitt (already suited up), Bob Dole, Warren Harding clone, Reagan zombie. CW: How could they forget Paul Ryan? He's already saved our beloved House of Representatives, he was second-runner up for the veep slot last time around, & he thinks he knows how to force everybody on his team to play nice.* Also, he's very, very smart & a wonk who knows everything there is to know about economic policy. Just ask Krugman. Also, he's very, very buff & can catch fish with his bare hands -- he can invite Putin to a Catfish Summit & solve all our international problems, too, with one deft swoop into the catfish pond. Draft Paul Ryan, Reluctant Hee-ro. ...

     ... * Or Maybe Not. Billy House of Bloomberg: "U.S. House Republican hard-liners who helped force out former Speaker John Boehner are readying their next act: a multi-point manifesto demanding quick action on long-time conservative priorities."

Arlette Saenz of ABC News: "Donald Trump's proposal to use a 'deportation force' to deport millions of undocumented immigrants is unrealistic, President Obama said in an exclusive interview today with ABC News' Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos. 'The notion that we're gonna deport 11, 12 million people from this country -- first of all, I have no idea where Mr. Trump thinks the money's gonna come from. It would cost us hundreds of billions of dollars to execute that,' the president told Stephanopoulos.... 'Imagine the images on the screen flashed around the world as we were dragging parents away from their children, and putting them in what, detention centers, and then systematically sending them out,' the president said." With video. ...

To have a leading candidate propose a new federal police force that is going to flush out illegal immigrants across the nation? That's very disturbing and concerning to me about where that leads Republicans. -- Dick Wadhams, former Colorado GOP chairman

... I never said what I said Tuesday & repeated Wednesday. -- Trump, Thursday. Eliza Collins of Politico: "Trump said on Tuesday night. 'Taxes too high, wages too high, we're not going to be able to compete against the world.' But on Fox News' 'Special Report' Thursday he insisted that he never said wages were too high, just that the minimum wage should not increase." CW: As Maggie Haberman of the NYT wrote Wednesday, "Donald J. Trump on Wednesday morning repeated a statement he made the night before in the Republican presidential debate: that wages are 'too high' in the United States, an argument he made to explain his opposition to raising the minimum wage." ...

Ben Carson never did what he said he did. -- Trump, Thursday. Maggie Haberman: "Donald J. Trump unleashed a torrent of insults on Thursday against his main rival, Ben Carson, comparing him to a child molester in a television interview and suggesting that the people of Iowa are 'stupid' if they believe Mr. Carson's claim that he tried to stab a close relative during his childhood." CW: I suppose Trump figures he is the only candidate permitted to lie thru his teeth.

... ** Behold the Meltdown. Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "For an hour and 35 minutes, Republican front-runner Donald Trump vented about everything that's wrong with this country and this election. He said he would 'bomb the s---' out of areas controlled by the Islamic State that are rich with oil and claimed to know more about the terrorist group than U.S. military generals. He ranted about how everyone else is wrong on illegal immigration and how even the 'geniuses at Harvard' have now backed his way of thinking. He accused Hillary Rodham Clinton of playing the 'woman's card,' and said Marco Rubio is 'weak like a baby.' He signed a book for an audience member and then threw it off the stage. He forgot to take questions like he promised. And he spent more than 10 minutes angrily attacking his chief rival, Ben Carson, at one point calling him 'pathological, damaged.'" ...

... Kevin Drum: "Can you imagine what Trump would be like if he ever had a genuinely stressful job, like, um, you know?" ...

... Gregory Krieg of CNN: In an interview, "Donald Trump said on Thursday that Marco Rubio favors 'amnesty' for undocumented immigrants because the Florida senator and his parents are Hispanic." ...

... If you think the Donald was crazy-mad yesterday, wait till he hears this. Joanna Rothkopf of Jezebel: "Trump's 169-page Crippled America will debut on the nonfiction list at #5, one whole spot below Carson's A More Perfect Union, according to BuzzFeed News, which goes to show that Americans don't like to be told they are bad or dysfunctional -- they like to be told that they are perfect and will only get perfecter."

Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "The White House on Thursday pushed back against Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson's claim that China is involved in the conflict in Syria. 'I have not seen any evidence of Chinese military involvement in Syria,' National Security Adviser Susan Rice told reporters when asked about Carson's remarks. Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, who grinned when ABC News's Jonathan Karl asked the question, later appeared at the lectern and said China generally does not involve itself in Middle Eastern conflicts. 'It's worth stepping back and noting China makes it a practice to not get extended into military conflicts in the Middle East,' he said. 'Their policy over many years and decades has been to not be overextended in military exercises.'" ...

... Oh, Yeah? Caitlin Cruz of TPM: "Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson's business manager and adviser Armstrong Williams attempted to support Carson's bizarre debate claims on Syria during a Wednesday interview with MSNBC by assuring the anchor that the Chinese are, in fact, in Syria.... 'From our own intelligence and what Dr. Carson's been told by people who are on the ground who are involved in that region of the world, it has been told to him may times over and over, that the Chinese are there.' Williams said in the 'next few days' a story may come out to reinforce Carson's claim of a Chinese presence in Syria." CW: Just you wait. ...

... Kevin Drum: "Carson -- or Williams -- really ought to tell us who these experts are that keep briefing the campaign on foreign policy issues. Are these the same guys who told him that seizing the Anbar oil fields in Iraq could be done 'fairly easily' and that ISIS could then be destroyed in short order?"

Marco Rubio points out that Ted Cruz has supported some pro-immigrations legislation. CW: Because Ted is a reasonable man.

Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post on Ted Cruz's & Rand Paul's tax plans, both of which include a VAT tax (which they call something else, of course).

Everything Is Obama's Fault, Ctd. Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "Asked about the protests at the University of Missouri and Yale University, where complaints of racism or racial insensitivity have pitted students against administrators..., [Chris Christie] said that President Obama had created an atmosphere of 'lawlessness.'" It must have been very disappoint to Gov. Crisco that he couldn't think of a way to blame Hillary Clinton, too.

Beyond the Beltway

Sarah Larimer & Susan Svrluga of the Washington Post: "A onetime civil rights lawyer and longtime administrator at the University of Missouri's flagship campus will take over the helm of the university system, replacing a president who was forced out amid heated protests over racism and bigotry there. Michael Middleton, a lawyer and who served as deputy chancellor of the University of Missouri at Columbia before retiring this summer, will come back to serve as interim president, the Board of Curators announced Thursday afternoon."

Academic Freedom Is So Wrong. Massoud Hayoun of Al Jazeera: "A University of Missouri doctoral student plans to continue research for her dissertation on the effects of the state's recently imposed 72-hour waiting period for abortions, despite a state legislator's push to block the research, the student told Al Jazeera in an exclusive interview.... State Sen. Kurt Schaefer, a Republican from Columbia, Missouri, who chairs the Missouri state senate's interim Committee on the Sanctity of Life, sent a letter in late October to the University of Missouri calling [the] dissertation 'a marketing aid for Planned Parenthood -- one that is funded, in part or in whole, by taxpayer dollars.'... Schaefer called for the university to hand over documents regarding the project's approval and said that, because the University of Missouri is a public university, it should not fund research that he said would promote elective abortions. Missouri law prohibits the use of public funds to promote non-life-saving abortions." ...

... Zandar, in Balloon Juice: "It's pretty weird how that whole theocratic crushing of ideas thing kicks in for Republican Conservative Champions Of Free Speech whenever the subject turns to a woman's reproductive system.... Republicans have long stated that waiting periods, required counseling, forced ultrasounds, etc. before abortions are to be allowed are good for women.... Somebody finally decided to take that theory, which is a testable theory, and decided to research and test that theory scientifically as part of a doctoral research project at a university.... But instead of even waiting for the findings, Sen. Schaefer is effectively saying that research cannot even be done on this subject because it might support the notion that women may be harmed by all these restrictions."

Adam Chandler of the Atlantic: "On Thursday, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign reached a settlement with Steven Salaita, a professor who had a job offer revoked by the school after he tweeted incendiary statements about Israel during the country's war with Hamas in Gaza last summer.... Salaita's job offer is still off the table, but he will receive $600,000, in addition to $275,000 in legal fees."

News Ledes

CNN: "A pair of suicide bombings struck southern Beirut on Thursday, killing 43 people and leaving shattered glass and blood on the streets, Lebanese authorities said. At least 239 others were wounded, according to state-run National News Agency.... Lebanese intelligence believes the bombers could be part of a cell dispatched to Beirut by ISIS leadership, the source said, but investigators are still working to verify the surviving suspect's claim. The three other bombers were killed in the explosions."

New York Times: "Gene Amdahl, a trailblazer in the design of IBM's mainframe computers, which became the central nervous system for businesses large and small throughout the world, died Tuesday night at a nursing home in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 92."

New York Times: "Myanmar's election commission said on Friday that the party of the Nobel Peace laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi had won 348 seats in Parliament, giving her democracy movement a majority and the power to select the country's next president."