New York Times: “A body believed to be of the suspect in a Kentucky highway shooting that left five people seriously injured this month was found on Wednesday, the authorities said, ending a manhunt that stretched into a second week and set the local community on edge. The Kentucky State Police commissioner, Phillip Burnett Jr., said in a Wednesday night news conference that at approximately 3:30 p.m., two troopers and two civilians found an unidentified body in the brush behind the highway exit where the shooting occurred.... The police have identified the suspect of the shooting as Joseph A. Couch, 32. They said that on Sept. 7, Mr. Couch perched on a cliff overlooking Interstate 75 about eight miles north of London, Ky., and opened fire. One of the wounded was shot in the face, and another was shot in the chest. A dozen vehicles were riddled with gunfire.”
To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.
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Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.
New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~
~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”
New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”
Click on photo to enlarge.
~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI."
Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”
New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”
Washington Post: “An early Titian masterpiece — once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries — caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective, and returned. This week, the oil painting 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for more than $22 million at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice. Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as'the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.'”
Washington Post: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare material, has undergone a major renovation. "The change to the building is pervasive, both subtle and transformational."
Washington PostEditors: The House's transportation bill robs the Federal Reserve's piggy bank. That's a banana-republic move. And Paul Ryan is proud of it.
Who could have guessed this was coming? Maureen Dowd: "I am here, my puzzled readers, to help interpret the latest Oedipal somersaults of our royally messed up Republican royal family. Like many uptight, upper-class families, the Bushes seem oddly unable to directly confront tensions and resentments and talk to each other candidly.... It's remarkable that two presidents who went to war with the same Iraqi dictator can bluntly talk to each other only through a biographer."
Jack Ewing of the New York Times: "Volkswagen is expected to offer cash to the owners of diesel cars in the United States this coming week as it steps up an effort to recover some of the good will it lost after admitting in September that the vehicles were programmed to cheat on emissions tests."
Eric Schmitt & Michael Gordon of the New York Times: "As the United States prepares to intensify airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria, the Arab allies who with great fanfare sent warplanes on the initial missions there a year ago have largely vanished from the campaign.... Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have shifted most of their aircraft to their fight against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. Jordan, reacting to the grisly execution of one of its pilots by the Islamic State, and in a show of solidarity with the Saudis, has also diverted combat flights to Yemen. Jets from Bahrain last struck targets in Syria in February, coalition officials said. Qatar is flying patrols over Syria, but its role has been modest."
Presidential Race
Liar, Liar, Liar, Liar. Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "Deep disregard for the news media has allowed candidates to duck, dodge and ridicule assertions from outlets they dislike and seek the embrace of those that are inclined to protect them. Today, it seems, truth is in the eyes of the beholder -- and any assertion can be elevated and amplified if yelled loudly enough.... In many ways, Mr. Trump has set the tone for the embroidery: His grandiose and sweeping claims have generated an entirely new category of overstatement in American politics. Several of his statements are so outlandish that they cannot even be disproved.... Mr. Trump, to be sure, utters plenty of refutable claims. (PolitiFact has rated 40 percent of his statements 'false.')"
"Gifted Grifter," Ctd. Kevin Drum on why Ben Carson tells those whoppers: "He needs to exaggerate how violent he was when he was young. And after he finds God, he needs to exaggerate how great everything turned out. This culminates in the absurd story about his psychology class [detailed in Drum's post, in the Wall Street Journal & elsewhere]. No one who's not an evangelical Christian would believe it for a second. But evangelicals hear testimonies like this all the time. They expect testimonies like this, and the more improbable the better. So Carson gives them one.... Not all of Carson's deceptions follow this pattern. But several of them do. And they were far from unnecessary. Carson needed to sell his story to evangelicals, and that required a narrative arc as formulaic as any supermarket romance novel. So he gave them one." CW: It was all a con to sell books; now it's a con to sell himself as POTUS. ...
... That Time I Saved the White Kids. Emma Margolin of MSNBC: "As Republican presidential front-runner Dr. Ben Carson plays defense on accounts that he was offered a full scholarship to West Point and had been a youth so troubled that he once tried to stab a friend, new reports of biographical inaccuracies are coming to light and threatening to undo the core of his campaign. During the aftermath of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, for example, Carson -- then, a junior at Detroit's Southwestern High -- claims to have heroically protected a few white students from anger-fueled attacks by hiding them in the biology lab, where he worked part time. But The Wall Street Journal could not confirm the account through interviews with a half-dozen of Carson's classmates and his high school physics teacher. All of the students remembered the riot, but none could recall white students hiding in the biology lab." And so forth. ...
... Sarah Posner of Religion Dispatches: "Carson seems certain that using the 'secular progressive' straw man to insulate himself from criticism will work with voters.... It may work with a Republican base conditioned to distrust the media as shills of the left and enemies of religion.... As Ed Kilgore and David Cornhavedocumented, many of Carson's beliefs have long roots in the conspiratorial American right dating back to the Cold War, so he's tapping into a deep well. But as Heather Parton [digby] has repeatedly pointed out, Carson's method of attacking his perceived enemies (even the National Review!) undermines his reputation as a soft-spoken, reliably nice guy, the crucial underpinning of his candidacy." ...
... Dave Weigel ... in defiance of the facts, [Ben] Carsonprofessed ignorance on the debate stage about any 'relationship' with [Mannatech, a snake-oil "dietary supplement" company]. He spent two days following the debate denouncing the questions about Mannatech as 'propaganda.' And his most ardent supporters don't care.... The commercial breaks on talk radio and the sidebars of conservative Web sites brim with products that promise life without diabetes, memory improvement and the elimination of stubborn belly fat. Some companies, like Mannatech, come off as merely overzealous in the promise of what some nutrients can do. Others spin amazing yarns about cures foretold in the Bible or suppressed by the government." Meanwhile big PhARMA & "secular progressives" are "suppress[ing] the truth about medicine." CW: Neither logic nor reason, neither facts nor scientific evidence will stop Doc Ben. He & his followers do not live in the same world I do.
Here's Trump's SNL monologue. CW: Couldn't stand to listen. I'll wait till next week when SNL invites Ole Doc to host. He'll probably tell Bible stories instead of delivering a regular monologue; then appear in a skit where he plays Jeremiah Wright predicting the End Times & condemning Barack Obama to hell; then in another where he plays a grizzled old codger sitting out on his rocker (or off his rocker, whatever) & blowing up at all the liberal lies he's reading in his daily newspaper: climate change, ObamaCare is working, the old folks love their Medicare. I'm pretty sure he could pull it all off & still be standing to smile that creepy benign grin of his at sign-off. Meanwhile, thanks, SNL, for giving the Donald more publicity. He really needed it:
... This seems to be the media critics' a/k/a political reporters', consensus: Michael Barbaro & Emily Palmer of the New York Times: "... it was a stilted and sometimes unfunny performance, suggesting Mr. Trump is most at ease when hosting his own, seemingly never-ending TV show, rather than appearing as a guest host on somebody else's."
Jeremy Peters, et al., of the New York Times: "Newly released credit card statements from the years when Senator Marco Rubio was a young Florida legislator on the fast track to leadership show a pattern of falling behind on payments while mingling personal and political spending, disclosures that reinforce the image of a politician who has long struggled with messy finances, at home and in his career." ...
... Marc Caputo of Politico: "On Saturday, [Marco] Rubio released his 2005 and 2006 [American Express] statements that showed he only spent $65,000 on party business. That's far less than other Republican leaders who succeeded him in the Florida House. And it's just about half of the $117,000 Rubio himself charged on his party credit card after he became Florida House speaker in 2007-08.... Including that previously leaked batch of charges and the $65,000 worth of expenses Rubio disclosed today, he spent a total of $182,000 over the four years he had the card from January 2005 until November 2008. From swank Las Vegas hotel rooms to Disney World conferences to pricey dinners, the charges show the perks of professional politicking as well as the pitfalls encountered by the at-times financially careless young legislator during a boom-time economy." ...
... Michelle Lee of the Washington Post: Rubio's credit card "scandal" isn't much of a scandal.
Callum Borchers of the Washington Post: "Entertainment shows are usually a safe haven for presidential candidates .... That's not exactly how it went for Republican Carly Fiorina on ABC's 'The View' on Friday. Fiorina got major pushback from the show's all-female cast when responding to a question about how she can be both pro-women and anti-abortion rights...." Video segments are embedded in yesterday's Commentariat.
Beyond the Beltway
Laura Vozzella of the Washington Post: "Gov. Terry McAuliffe [D-Va.] intends to make another push for Medicaid expansion despite intense opposition from Republicans, who retained full control of the General Assembly in elections last week.... When asked if his plan involved a new hospital tax, McAuliffe said it was too soon to share details. But he indicated that it would require hospitals to contribute money in some way, which would then be leveraged to bring a larger amount back to the hospitals."
Campbell Robertson of the New York Times:Mississippi Confederates are still loving their Confederate state flag.
News Lede
New York Times: "After five decades of military rule and a series of rigged or canceled elections, voters in Myanmar took part in what many described as their first genuine election."
** Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "President Obama on Friday announced that he had rejected the request from a Canadian company to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline, ending a seven-year review that had become a flash point in the debate over his climate policies. Mr. Obama's denial of the proposed 1,179-mile pipeline, which would have carried 800,000 barrels a day of carbon-heavy petroleum from the Canadian oil sands to the Gulf Coast, comes as he is seeking to build an ambitious legacy on climate change." CW: Thanks to Akhilleus for the heads-up. AND thanks to John Kerry, who nixed the pipeline. President Obama's announcement is worth a listen. (Also linked yesterday.)
... Big Surprise. Nick Gass & Eliza Collins of Politico: "Republican presidential candidates reacted forcefully to President Obama's announcement rejecting the construction of TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline Friday, calling it politically motivated acquiescence to environmentalists and damaging the U.S. economy." ...
... ** Bill McKibben in the New Yorker: "The fossil-fuel industry -- which, for two centuries, underwrote our civilization and then became its greatest threat -- has started to take serious hits. At noon today, President Obama rejected the Keystone Pipeline, becoming the first world leader to turn down a major project on climate grounds. Eighteen hours earlier, New York's Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced that he'd issued subpoenas to Exxon, the richest and most profitable energy company in history, after substantial evidence emerged that it had deceived the world about climate change." Read on. ...
... Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York City said this week that he would run millions of dollars in political television ads against four state attorneys general who are suing the Obama administration over regulations on power plant emissions.... [The ads] amount to a defense of the White House over its Clean Power Plan, which has been met with opposition, primarily -- but not only -- from Republican officials.... The ads will run in Missouri, Florida, Michigan and Wisconsin, and target Republicans and Democrats. The lone Democrat in the group, Chris Koster of Missouri, is running for governor next year."
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Friday announced that it would again address a clash between religious freedom and access to contraception. The case concerns regulations under President Obama's health care law that require most employers to provide free insurance coverage for contraceptives to female workers. The regulations say the insurance must cover preventive services, including all forms of contraception approved for women by the Food and Drug Administration." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Rebecca Riffkin of Gallup: "Americans' satisfaction with the way the healthcare system works for them varies by the type of insurance they have. Satisfaction is highest among those with veterans or military health insurance, Medicare and Medicaid, and is lower among those with employer-paid and self-paid insurance. Americans with no health insurance are least satisfied of all." CW: Gee, maybe somebody could think up a way for everybody to have a government-backed healthcare plan so millions & millions of Americans could be happier (Bernie Sanders).
Ashley Halsey of the Washington Post: "As investigators search for the cause of a plane crash that killed 224 people over the Sinai Peninsula on Saturday and Russia suspends all flights to Egypt, U.S. officials said they are taking unspecified precautionary measures to enhance the security of flights from the Middle East."
Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times: "Children of same-sex couples will not be able to join the Mormon Church until they turn 18 -- and only if they move out of their parents' homes, disavow all same-sex relationships and receive approval from the church's top leadership as part of a new policy adopted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In addition, Mormons in same-sex marriages will be considered apostates and subject to excommunication, a more rigid approach than the church has taken in the past."
Presidential Race
Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "Because the Democratic National Committee has not approved [an] event [Friday evening] as an official debate, the First in the South Presidential Candidates Forum, hosted by the South Carolina Democratic Party and Representative James E. Clyburn, cannot present the candidates onstage at the same time. Instead, the moderator, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, will question each candidate individually." Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders & Martin O'Malley will participate. It will begin at 8 pm ET. ...
... Update. Ben Jacobs of the Guardian: "Hillary Clinton moved to the left on Friday night as the Democratic frontrunner took stronger and more impassioned stances than in the past on police violence and corporate influence in the United States. Before a lively crowd of nearly 3,000 in South Carolina, the former secretary of state struck some of her most populist tones of the campaign while participating in what was possibly the strangest televised live event of the election season so far. In a format that was three parts talk show to one part game show, the candidates faced probing inquiries as well as random questions pulled from sealed envelopes as they sat almost knee-to-knee with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow in front of a boisterous campus audience." ...
... Update. Amy Chozick: "Senator Bernie Sanders used a Democratic primary forum in South Carolina on Friday to try to reach out to black voters and make the argument that he is the candidate best suited to address the needs of a demographic that overwhelmingly favors Hillary Rodham Clinton, his chief rival for the nomination." ...
Let's Watch the E-MailGate Hotair Balloon Fizzle. Josh Gerstein of Politico: "The U.S. intelligence community has retreated from claims that two emails in Hillary Clinton's private account contained top-secret information, a source familiar with the situation told Politico.... Concerns about the emails' classification helped trigger an ongoing FBI inquiry into Clinton's private email setup." ...
... CW: I'll bet Trey is having a sad today. Say, where's Michael Schmidt of the New York Times? He broke the story -- and it was a story, as in tall tale -- that two inspectors general had requested a criminal inquiry into Clinton's e-mails on accounta her sending top-secret info to her yoga-class friends & a wedding planner. You might think Schmidt & the Times would be all over this new "wrinkle." But apparently Schmidt's sources are limited to Trey Gowdy & Trey Gowdy. Because not a peep from the Times 12 hours after Politico dropped the Gerstein post.
** "Gifted Grifter." Every Day a New Lie. Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Ben Carson's campaign on Friday admitted, in a response to an inquiry from Politico, that a central point in his inspirational personal story was fabricated: his application and acceptance into the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.... West Point ... has no record of Carson applying, much less being extended admission.... Also, according to West Point, there is no such thing as a 'full scholarship' to the military academy, as Carson represented in his book.... When presented with these facts, Carson's campaign conceded the story was false.... Carson has said he turned down the supposed offer of admission because he knew he wanted to be a doctor and attending West Point would have required four years of military service after graduation.... Carson repeated his West Point claim as recently as Aug. 13, when he fielded questions from supporters on Facebook." CW: Read the whole story: it's a typical boy's pipedream, not one a man relates as a factual event of his youth. The fact that Carson has continued to repeat it makes me think he came to believe his boyish pipedream. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Update 1. Steve Eder of the New York Times: "In an interview with The New York Times on Friday, Mr. Carson said: 'I don't remember all the specific details. Because I had done so extraordinarily well you know I was told that someone like me -- they could get a scholarship to West Point. But I made it clear I was going to pursue a career in medicine. It was, you know, an informal "with a record like yours we could easily get you a scholarship to West Point."'... , In a Facebook post in August responding to a question, he wrote that he had been 'thrilled to get an offer from West Point.'" (Also linked yesterdzay afternoon.)
... Update 2. Rachel Stoltzfoos of the Daily Caller: "'The campaign never "admitted to anything,"' a spokesman for Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson told The Daily Caller News Foundation in response to a hit by Politico claiming his campaign admitted to 'fabricating' a key point about his West Point story. 'The Politico story is an outright Lie,' Doug Watts told TheDCNF." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Update 3. The Emperor Strikes Back. Steve Eder: "On Friday night, in a combative news conference in Florida in which he showed rare flashes of anger, Mr. Carson gave no ground and challenged the news media on its ethics and balance. In a mocking tone, he said reporters had not investigated President Obama, as a candidate in 2008, so intensely. 'Don't lie,' Mr. Carson said, cutting off a reporter asking a question about West Point. He predicted that the scrutiny would be a boon to his campaign, saying voters 'understand that this is a witch hunt'":
... Eder, Ctd.: "... just a couple of hours after the news conference, another report, in The Wall Street Journal, challenged events Mr. Carson has recounted. One of them, recalled in 'Gifted Hands,' involved a psychology class he said he had attended at Yale University, called Perceptions 301. Mr. Carson described the professor's conducting an honesty experiment on the class and wrote that he was the only one who passed, prompting The Yale Daily News to take his picture. But no photo identifying Mr. Carson as a student appeared in the newspaper's archives, The Journal reported, and a Yale librarian told the newspaper that there was no psychology course by that name or class number during Mr. Carson's years at Yale." ...
... Eliza Collins of Politico: "Ben Carson, in an agitated press conference Friday night, denied that he had ever claimed receiving a 'full scholarship' from West Point. 'I never said that I received a full scholarship. Nowhere did I say that,' Carson said. 'Politico as you know, told a bold-faced lie.'... But the retired neurosurgeon did say he got a scholarship offer -- more than once. In his 1996 autobiography 'Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story,' Carson wrote on page 67 that after a dinner with a prominent U.S. general he was 'offered a full scholarship to West Point.'... " He repeated the remark, in those same words, a few grafs later. "In an October interview with TV host Charlie Rose, Carson said he 'was offered full scholarship to West Point.'" ...
... Dave Weigel & David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "The Politico story seemed to mischaracterize a small but key detail in the way Carson has told the story. In many cases, Carson implied only that he received a formal offer from West Point. He never said explicitly that he had been accepted or even that he had applied.... By mid-afternoon, Politico posted a new version of its story that no longer included the wording that Carson had 'fabricated' a part of his biography. Later in the day, the news site posted an editor's note stating that the story should have made clear that Carson never claimed to have applied for admission to West Point.... Carson also made a similar claim [in another book about another school].... 'The University of Michigan had offered me a scholarship, but I wanted to go farther from home,' he wrote in his 1999 book, 'The Big Picture.' A spokesman for the University of Michigan, Rick Fitzgerald, said he could not confirm that account. The university no longer has records from that time." ...
... Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: Carson's "story held up until now. But in retrospect, it is clear that it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. The process to getting into West Point requires applicants to obtain a nomination, most commonly from their congressman, senator or vice president of the United States. The secretary of the Army -- an appointed civilian leader -- also can nominate a student for consideration, but the service's four-star chief of staff -- Westmoreland from July 1968 through June 1972 -- is not eligible to do so." ...
... Ed Kilgore: "Now that the Carson campaign is hotly denying that it 'admitted' and 'fabrication' of facts to Politico, we're getting deeply into a crossfire of mendacity claims, with some conservatives who originally thought the 'story' might be a problem for Carson now backing into a posture of defending him and attacking Politico.... I suspect the real referees in this and similar disputes are the conservative evangelicals who know little or nothing of the man's Bircher ideology and just see him as a Christian servant-leader with a distinguished career and a common touch.... Something tells me they do not place a lot of faith in Politico." ...
... Kevin Drum: "... here's what [Carson] said in August: 'I was the highest student ROTC member in Detroit and was thrilled to get an offer from West Point. But I knew medicine is what I wanted to do.' Come on, folks. 'An offer from West Point' is the same as 'being accepted at West Point.' It's obvious what he was saying here, and it's equally obvious it isn't true." Friday, Carson told the NYT, "'Because I had done so extraordinarily well you know I was told that someone like me -- they could get a scholarship to West Point. But I made it clear I was going to pursue a career in medicine. It was, you know, an informal "with a record like yours we could easily get you a scholarship to West Point."'... But for the past two decades it's not what Carson has said. It's not even close. There's a world of difference between (a) someone telling you that you could probably get into West Point and (b) actually getting into West Point. Carson is a nutcase, a policy buffoon, and at the very least, a serial personal embellisher. With a guy like that, you just know more stuff is going to come out." ...
... CW: For more commentary on Cadet Carson, see afternoon updates to yesterday's Commentariat. ...
... CW: digby, in a post I also linked yesterday, highlighted an October exchange between Ben Carson & John Harwood. After Carson said President Obama reminded him of a psychopath because he lied about the unemployment rate (actually, Obama accurately cited Labor Department stats, but, you know, who cares?), Carson defined "psychopath": "... they tend to be extremely smooth, charming people, who can tell a lie to your face with complete -- it looks like sincerity, even though they know it's a lie." This describes Carson to a T. I do wonder how Carson became such an expert on psychopathology. ...
... Jeet Heer of the New Republic: "Ben Carson is fast becoming a tragic figure. He's a man of genuine merit, yet he's tarnished his reputation through his inability to resist fantastic ideas -- and to make up fantasies about his own life. He stands as proof of the fact that intelligence is unconnected to morality." Heer explains why that is. ...
... Don't Know Much About His-to-ry. Robert Schlesinger of US Newselaborates on how wrongCarson is about the Founders being "citizen-statesmen" with no experience in elected office. ...
... A model, dating to about 2200 B.C.E., of an actual Egyptian granary. In the British Museum. Via Binjamin Appelbaum of the New York Times. (Sorry, couldn't get the link to Appelbaum's Twitter account to work.) Commenter Wendy Morris thought the model appeared to be "a square-looking pyramid.") ...
... Like Appelbaum, Markos Moulitsasis not takingBen Carson seriously enough. (And that was before Carson's Friday Flameout 2.0.)
"Family Ties," Season 3, Episode 7: Jeb is stunned by a book about Poppy. Steve M.: How could Jeb not be prepared for the publication of [George H.W. Bush's biography]? How could he not have consulted with his father and learned what his father told [biographer Jon] Meacham, and then carefully crafted a response? For that matter, why did Poppy, a cagey old political pro, get into these matters with Meacham at all when he knew there were still presidential races to be run by the Bush family? This crisis in the Bush campaign was as predictable as the 'would you have invaded Iraq?' question. And, of course, Jeb bungled that as well. It seemed as if he had no idea it was coming. The same can be said for this book."
Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "Marco Rubio, looking to capitalize on a wave of momentum, is pushing to win the support of a former rival: Scott Walker.... Walker, though, is not planning on making an immediate endorsement of anyone in the GOP field.... While Walker has been courted by a number of Republican candidates since his exit, those close to the Wisconsin governor say Rubio is the first to formally ask him for his endorsement."
... Jordyn Phelps of ABC News: "Carly Fiorinadid not correct a New Hampshire man [Friday] who called President Obama a 'black Muslim.' 'He doesn't want this country to get ahead,' the man said to Fiorina as she shook hands with a group of mostly undecided voters at Foodee's restaurant in Milford. 'He doesn't. He's a Muslim. He's a black Muslim.' '"Well, uh, it's time to do something different in many ways,' Fiorina said before moving on to shake the hand of the next prospective voter."
Governor's Race
Greg Hilburn of Gannett News: "Democrat state Rep. John Bel Edwards has cut a TV ad attacking Republican U.S. Sen. David Vitterspecifically about Vitter's prostitution scandal for the first time during the Louisiana gubernatorial campaign.... Edwards' ad will run statewide beginning Saturday, which coincides with the early voting period. Election Day is Nov. 21.":
... Kevin Litten: "Louisiana Republicans are not happy with Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne's decision to endorse Democratic candidateJohn Bel Edwards for governor over Republican David Vitter."
Beyond the Beltway
James McKinley of the New York Times: "At a time when most city and state agencies are struggling with budget constraints, [Manhattan D.A. Cyrus] Vance[, Jr.,] has secured a windfall of $808 million from criminal penalties against three international banks accused of violating United States sanctions — HSBC, Standard Chartered and BNP Paribas.... Because by law it must be spent on criminal justice projects, it has transformed Mr. Vance into a kind of Santa Claus for the law-enforcement world, with a sack filled with new programs and equipment."
Liam Stack of the New York Times: "Two police officers have been arrested on charges of second-degree murder in connection with the shooting death of a 6-year-old boy during a pursuit of his father in a sport utility vehicle in central Louisiana, the state police said Friday. The officers, Norris Greenhouse Jr. and Lt. Derrick Stafford, who were placed on administrative leave after the chase on Tuesday, also face charges of attempted second-degree murder...."
Isaac Stanley-Becker & Susan Svrluga of the Washington Post: Yale University decides Black Lives Matter, after all.
Way Beyond
Austin Ramzy of the New York Times: "President Xi Jinping of China met withMa Ying-jeou, the president of Taiwan, on Saturday in the first ever encounter between the leaders of the neighbors and longtime rivals, an act both sides described as a breakthrough gesture meant to promote peace and mutual prosperity.
News Lede
Washington Post: "A former aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin and prominent political figure was found dead on Thursday in a Dupont Circle hotel room, according to the Russian Embassy in Washington. The spokesman confirmed Russian media reports that Mikhail Lesin, a former press minister and ex-executive of Gazprom-Media, died in D.C." Cause of death unknown.
** Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "President Obama on Friday announced that he had rejected the request from a Canadian company to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline, ending a seven-year review that had become a flash point in the debate over his climate policies. Mr. Obama's denial of the proposed 1,179-mile pipeline, which would have carried 800,000 barrels a day of carbon-heavy petroleum from the Canadian oil sands to the Gulf Coast, comes as he is seeking to build an ambitious legacy on climate change." CW: Thanks to Akhilleus for the heads-up. AND thanks to John Kerry, who nixed the pipeline. President Obama's announcement is worth a listen:
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Friday announced that it would again address a clash between religious freedom and access to contraception. The case concerns regulations under President Obama's health care law that require most employers to provide free insurance coverage for contraceptives to female workers. The regulations say the insurance must cover preventive services, including all forms of contraception approved for women by the Food and Drug Administration."
** "Gifted Grifter." Every Day a New Lie. Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Ben Carson's campaign on Friday admitted, in a response to an inquiry from Politico, that a central point in his inspirational personal story was fabricated: his application and acceptance into the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.... West Point ... has no record of Carson applying, much less being extended admission.... Also, according to West Point, there is no such thing as a 'full scholarship' to the military academy, as Carson represented in his book.... When presented with these facts, Carson's campaign conceded the story was false.... Carson has said he turned down the supposed offer of admission because he knew he wanted to be a doctor and attending West Point would have required four years of military service after graduation.... Carson repeated his West Point claim as recently as Aug. 13, when he fielded questions from supporters on Facebook." CW: Read the whole story: it's a typical boy's pipedream, not one a man relates as a real event of his youth. The fact that Carson has continued to repeat it makes me think he came to believe his boyish pipedream. ...
... Update 1. Steve Eder of the New York Times: "In an interview with The New York Times on Friday, Mr. Carson said: 'I don't remember all the specific details. Because I had done so extraordinarily well you know I was told that someone like me -- they could get a scholarship to West Point. But I made it clear I was going to pursue a career in medicine. It was, you know, an informal "with a record like yours we could easily get you a scholarship to West Point."'... , In a Facebook post in August responding to a question, he wrote that he had been 'thrilled to get an offer from West Point.'"
... Update 2. Rachel Stoltzfoos of the Daily Caller: "'The campaign never "admitted to anything,"' a spokesman for Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson told The Daily Caller News Foundation in response to a hit by Politico claiming his campaign admitted to 'fabricating' a key point about his West Point story. 'The Politico story is an outright Lie,' Doug Watts told TheDCNF." ...
... Carson gets the best honesty grades among top candidates [of both parties], a positive 62 - 24 percent. -- Quinnipiac poll, November 4
... Kevin Drum: "Evangelicals love stories of youthful rebellion followed by redemption and a full Christian life. They do not like serious lies told many years after finding God. They especially don't like lies about military service. If Carson's fans blow this off, then he's truly invulnerable.... He told this lie in 1992, when he was 39 years old and already director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He wasn't running for president at the time, so he figured no one would ever check up on it. He deliberately invented a story just because it made him look good. Ben Carson is either a serial liar or else he lives a very rich fantasy life. At this point, I'm honestly not sure which." ...
... Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "Friday afternoon, conservative talkers like Rush Limbaugh, Hugh Hewitt, and Sean Hannity criticized the coverage that had made Carson out as a dissembler." ...
... Steve M.: "Many right-wing commentators concluded that this was real trouble for Carson's campaign.... But then the right remembered: Hey, wait. This is from the liberal media. We hate the liberal media. So it must be a lie! And now they're in the process of talking themselves into that.... Carson's going to get a lot more scrutiny, and there are going to be more skeletons in his closet, but the right is living in a post-truth environment, so it'll all be a liberal media plot." ...
... digby: "So, if you combine the weird stuff he said about how he would behave in the presence of a disturbed gunman (lead others to run into the line of fire like he's Audie Murphy), his unverified story of how he was a violent potential mad dog killer in his youth and now this fake story about getting a scholarship to West Point, Carson appears to be someone who is very insecure about his macho bona fides. (Most of his friends from school remember him as a smart nerdy kid which makes sense.) It's just sad since his verifiable real life story is truly great and needed no embellishment. On the other hand he's got a lot of nerve saying President Obama reminds him of a psychopath for 'lying' about the unemployment rate."
... Paul Waldman argues that Joseph the Pyramid Builder is a bigger story than the West Point lie: "Ben Carson's ideas about things like the pyramids, combined with what he has said about other more immediate topics, suggest not only that his beliefs are impervious to evidence but also an alarming lack of what we might call epistemological modesty. It isn't what he doesn't know that's the problem, it's what he doesn't realize that he doesn't know. He thinks that all the archeologists who have examined the pyramids just don't know what they're talking about, because Joseph had to put all that grain somewhere. He thinks that after reading something about the second law of thermodynamics, he knows more about the solar system than the world's physicists do. He thinks that after hearing a Glenn Beck rant about the evils of Islam, he knows as much about a 1,400-year-old religion as any theologian and can confidently say why no Muslim ... could be president. So what happens when President Carson gets what he thinks is a great idea, and a bunch of 'experts' tell him it would actually be a disaster? What's he going to do?" ...
... John Cole of Balloon Juice: "As a side note, IMHO, no profession has suffered more damage in my eyes in the last few years of enhanced wingnuttery than the medical profession. It's been eye opening how many doctors are just sociopaths."
*****
Michael Shear & Dan Bilefsky of the New York Times: "President Obama said Thursday evening that there was 'a possibility' that a terrorist bomb was responsible for the destruction of a Russian passenger plane that broke up last Saturday over the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. Mr. Obama said in a radio interview that there may have been a bomb on the plane, but he did not go as far as his counterparts in Britain, who have suggested that the destruction of the plane, and the death of all on board, was likely the result of a terrorist explosion." ...
... Neil MacFarQuhar & Dan Bilefsky of the New York Times: "President Vladimir V. Putin on Friday suspended all flights from Russia to Egypt, the most popular tourist destination for Russians, as several airlines imposed bans on checked luggage over concerns that a bomb in the cargo hold brought down the Russian charter jet that broke apart over the Sinai Peninsula on Saturday, killing all 224 people on board."
Keith Laing of the Hill: "The House approved a bill to spend up to $325 billion on transportation projects on Thursday after a weeklong vote-a-rama and an intense debate about federal gas taxes. The measure also includes a reauthorization of the controversial Export-Import Bank's charter, which has been held up in Congress since it expired in June. The extension, which was included in the Senate's highway bill and left unchanged by the House, reauthorizes the bank's expired charter until 2019. The House voted to approve the bill in a 363-64 vote. It calls for spending $261 billion on highways and $55 billion on transit over six years. The legislation authorizes highway funding for six years, but only if Congress can come up with a way to pay for the final three years. The measure must now be conferenced with a separate Senate measure...." ...
... Ron Nixon of the New York Times: "From coast to coast, the country's once-envied collection of bridges, dams, pipelines, sewage treatment plants and levees is crumbling. Studies have shown that a lack of investment in public infrastructure costs billions of dollars a year in lost productivity, as people sit in traffic or wait for delayed shipments. But experts ... say the economic measures obscure the more dire threat to public safety: Every year, hundreds of deaths, illnesses and injuries can be attributed to the failure of bridges, dams, roads and other decaying structures. On Thursday, the House overwhelmingly approved a highway bill that would make significant investments in transportation infrastructure over the next three years. But the bill, and a similar Senate version passed earlier in the year, still fall far short of what many infrastructure experts say is needed, both in terms of time and money."
Remember the Catfood Commission? It Was Way Worse than We Knew. Paul Krugman: "... there's growing evidence that we critics [of austerity policies] actually underestimated just how destructive the turn to austerity would be. Specifically, it now looks as if austerity policies didn't just impose short-term losses of jobs and output, but they also crippled long-run growth."
... CW: There's another irony here, which Krugman is too polite to mention: the co-author of a 1986 paper warning of the affects of austerity & of a new paper documenting the actual effects on the Great Recession was Larry Summers -- the guy who hid from the Christina Romer's counsel to go big on the stimulus & who drove economic policies that specifically hurt the jobs market (& helped Wall Street). The country is suffering now because President Obama listened to a man instead of a woman, a man who would be Fed chair instead of a women had not another woman led the fight to give the Fed job to a woman. Just saying.
Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Justin Gillis & Clifford Krauss of the New York Times: "The New York attorney general has begun a sweeping investigation of Exxon Mobil to determine whether the company lied to the public about the risks of climate change or to investors about how those risks might hurt the oil business. According to people with knowledge of the investigation, Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman issued a subpoena Wednesday evening to Exxon Mobil, demanding extensive financial records, emails and other documents.... The bitter irony of the story is that this catastrophic policy was undertaken in the name of long-run responsibility, that those who protested against the wrong turn were dismissed as feckless." ...
... Clifford Krauss: "The opening of an investigation of Exxon Mobil by the New York attorney general's office into the company's record on climate change may well spur legal inquiries into other oil companies, according to legal and climate experts, although successful prosecutions are far from assured." ...
... "Fossil Fools." Tim Egan: "It's not surprising, given its army of first-rate scientists and engineers, that Exxon was aware as far back as the 1970s that carbon dioxide from oil and gas burning could have dire effects on the earth. Nor is it surprising that Exxon would later try to cast doubt on what its experts knew to be true, to inject informational pollution into the river of knowledge about climate change. But what is startling is how a deliberate campaign of misinformation -- now disavowed by even Exxon Mobil itself -- has found its way into the minds of the leading Republican presidential candidates.... Trump calls climate change 'a total hoax.' He arrived at this position, judging by several tweets, after experiencing a couple of especially cold winter days in New York.... And here's Carson: 'I'll tell you what I think about climate change,' he said earlier this year. 'The temperature is either going up or down at any point in time, so it really is not a big deal.'... In trying to win the support of the Koch brothers, Senators Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul have signed a pledge to do the bidding of the billionaire oil industrialists, promising to 'oppose any legislation relating to climate change' that would involve higher taxes or fees."
** Michael Lind, in Politico Magazine: "... it's fair to say that the three great projects of the post-1955 right -- repealing the New Deal, ultrahawkishness (first anti-Soviet, then pro-Iraq invasion) and repealing the sexual/culture revolution -- have completely failed. Not only that, they are losing support among GOP voters. This is nothing less than a failure of conservatism itself.... But instead of fading from the scene and opening the way to new thinking, old-fashioned Buckley-Goldwater-Reagan movement conservatism came back, in an even more radical form in the 2000s, catching me (by then an ex-neoconservative) and others by surprise."
Joseph Goldstein of the New York Times: "At a news conference in Kabul on Thursday, [Doctors Without Borders] said that more than a month after the attack the United States military had yet to offer an explanation for why a clearly marked hospital was struck, other than to say it had been hit by mistake. 'A mistake is quite hard to understand and believe at this stage, [Christopher] Stokes[, the organization's general director,] said at the news conference. The organization shared more details of the attack and renewed its call for an independent investigation, which both the United States and Afghanistan have resisted so far. 'From what we are seeing now, this action is illegal in the laws of war. You cannot do this. You cannot bomb a hospital.'"
Steven Mufson of the Washington Post: "President Obama has concluded that a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians is beyond reach during his presidency and will press Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take steps to preserve the mere possibility of a two-state solution, senior administration officials said Thursday." ...
... CW: Yeah, when one party's likely top "diplomat" calls the President an anti-Semite & his chief negotiator a nincompoop, things might not work out. ...
... Jodi Rudoren of the New York Times: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel indicated Thursday night that he was reconsidering his choice for public diplomacy chief after a furor over the nominee's critiques of public officials, including a suggestion that President Obama was anti-Semitic and Secretary of State John Kerry had the intellect of a preteenager.... Mr. Netanyahu's pick for the post, Ran Baratz, is a conservative academic who lives in a settlement in the occupied West Bank. Just last week, he insulted Israel's president, Reuven Rivlin.... "
Presidential Race
Mahita Gajanan of the Guardian: "Hillary Clintondid not shy away from criticizing Republican candidates' platforms in an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Thursday. Watching the most recent GOP debate left Clinton 'a combination of being appalled and being amused'..., [she] said."
Daniel Strauss & Hadas Gold of Politico: "Chris Christie and Mike Huckabeefailed to make the cut for the main stage at next week's Fox Business Network/Wall Street Journal debate.... The two Republican candidates failed to meet the 2.5 percent average polling threshold, meaning they'll both be bumped to a 6 p.m. undercard debate on Tuesday, appearing alongside former Sen. Rick Santorum and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.... Sen. Lindsey Graham, former New York Gov. George Pataki, and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore failed to register enough in four recent national polls to participate in the Nov. 10 event at all. They needed to get just 1 percent support in one of those polls." ...
... So now the Demoted are all mad at their former BFFs -- Fox & the Wall Street Journal. I guess Fox & the WSJ are the new "liberal media." ...
... Greg Sargent: "... it's striking that four candidates with real governing experience are getting booted, while Donald Trump and Ben Carson will be at center stage."
Mythmakers. Elizabeth Wiliamson of the New York Times: "To run for president this year, it's not enough to be a neurosurgeon, a senator or a former secretary of state. One must be a neurosurgeon who chased his mother with a hammer as a child; a senator whose father was beaten toothless in prison and fled Cuba with $100 sewn into his underwear; or a former secretary of state whose mother went without food as a first grader.... Ever since Bill Clinton rode his hardscrabble history as an abused kid from Hope, Ark., into the White House, it has become increasingly fashionable for candidates to display authenticity by plumbing their family histories for (often questionable) examples of 'I made it, America, and you can, too.'"
Gene Robinson: "Majorities of Republicans do not favor deporting 11 million people, reject all gun control legislation or believe Obama is a psychopathic slave master. But enough do hold such views to make it unlikely that the Trump and Carson campaigns will collapse of their own weight. The outsiders look to be settling in for a long stay."
In today's Comments, bkeil writes, "Some Surgeons are the last of the 'Doctor as God' stereotype." CW: I'd say bkeil was onto something here.
... CW BTW: Six years later, when he made his Great Pyramids Speech, Carson boasted to the kidz that he had showed "a lot of courage" for dumping on his pro-life friends. But the facts Fahrenthold & Weigel lay out suggest that it was Carson's profound, inexplicable ignorance or confusion or something weird that forced him to reverse himself & denounce the anti-abortion group, not some heroic spasm of personal courage. His turnabout may have had something to do with the fact that he was advising his own patients to get abortions if he found fetal abnormalities. Courage had nothing to do with it. We need not wonder why Ben Carson does not want reporters delving into his history: his stories -- and his self-image -- are at odds with the facts.
... Tierney Sneed of TPM: "Ben Carsonis standing by his theory that the Egyptian pyramid theory -- that the pyramids were built by the biblical figure Joseph to store grain -- which has come under scrutiny since Buzzfeed surfaced a 1998 video of Carson referencing it. 'Some people believe in the Bible, like I do, and don't find that to be silly at all, and believe that God created the Earth and don't find that to be silly at all.' Carson told reporters in Miami during a stop on his book tour. 'The secular progressives try to ridicule it any time it comes up and they're welcome to do that.'" CW: Once again, "secular progressives" are at fault here. I don't know that Carson believes any of what he says. In the video embedded in the story, he closes his eyes every time he launches a new whopper. It's creepy. ...
... Turns out Ole Doc is not the only "pyramid truther." Tierney Sneed: "In the fringier corners of the Internet, variations of the pyramids-as-grain-storage argument has spawned entire blogs and a 30-minute documentary." BTW, the Good Book never says Joseph built graneries, much less pyramids, some of which, as Akhilleus pointed out in yesterday's thread, were built centuries before the era in which Christians place Joseph.
I'm really big into conspiracy theories, so I think they were probably built by the aliens as grain silos, don't you think. -- Rand Paul, mocking Carson Thursday
Aliens make more sense, both as regards the construction of the pyramids and as regards a candidacy for president of the United States. -- Charles Pierce
... Katherine Krueger of TPM: "The Wall Street Journal called out Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson Thursday for wrongly claiming the Founding Fathers 'had no elected office experience.' In a Facebook post late Wednesday, Carson wrote: 'Every signer of the Declaration of Independence had no elected office experience...What they had was a deep belief that freedom is a gift from God.' The Journal pointed out the historical inaccuracy Thursday. Thomas Jefferson, Sam Adams, John Hancock and many other signer of the Declaration of Independence all held elected seats in colonial assemblies.... A spokesman for the Carson campaign, when asked about the error, told the paper that the retired neurosurgeon had since edited his post to clarify the signers has no experience in 'federal' office." ...
... CW: Right. Because there was no U.S. federal government before there was a U.S. & the founders established a federation -- on confederation. See, that's why they're called "founders." ...
... "A Tale of Two Ben Carsons." Um, maybe Carsoninvented even the stories he likes to tell about his violent acts as a teen. CW: Why would he do that? Well, the holy conversion from violent youth to successful, soft-spoken neurosurgeon makes his life story more compelling. It's all part of the grift.
... UPDATE: Eric Levitz of New York: Carson defends himself by asserting he did too try to kill a kid, only it wasn't a fellow student, it was a relative who does not wish to come forward. "'I would say to the people of America: Do you think I'm a pathological liar like CNN does? Or do you think I'm an honest person?' Carson said." CW: I vote for pathological liar. Although I have no idea if he tried to kill somebody or if he tried to hit his mother over the head with a hammer. I'm with Trump on this: "The Carson story is either a total fabrication or, if true, even worse-trying to hit mother over the head with a hammer or stabbing friend!" ...
... Ed Kilgore: Carson's campaign is placing the ad "in six 'urban markets' (code for African-American stations) in the South... You do have to wonder if the real 'target audience' isn't African-Americans likely to vote in upcoming Republican primaries (a very small audience, particularly if it's limited to rap aficionados), or if instead it's part of an effort to convince white conservatives that Carson is willing and able to cut into the overwhelmingly Democratic African-American vote in a general election. That's a pretty compelling electability argument, particularly for primary voters who are in no position to question its credibility. Maybe Ted Cruz should try to same gambit by running some ads with salsa music." ...
... ** Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Time: "Ben Carson is terrible for black Americans." Abdul-Jabbar counts the way. ...
... James Downie of the Washington Post runs down the list of recent remarks Carson has made that show "he doesn't know what he's talking about." But his "striking ignorance" doesn't stop him from arrogantly opining on matters about which he knows nothing or from criticizing people who know more about the subjects than he does. ...
... Dr. Carson's Traveling Medical Show & His Soothing Magical Elixirs. Charles Pierce: "... here is the most overwhelming irony of all as regards to what's happening with Doctor Ben Carson and his former career as a Mannatech shill. The entire Republican primary process has been rendered a travelling medicine show, and he's just one wagon in the caravan. After all, what is Republican economics, if not supply-side quackery and sleight of hand? All the candidates are playing the muscle men, flexing at Vladimir Putin and at Hafez al-Assad and at ISIL from across an ocean. Come early, bring the kids, watch the Magic Asterisk do its work, and make gold fall from the sky into your pockets! The process began with Ronald Reagan, the greatest patent-medicine salesman of them all."
CW: I don't know why we're mocking Ben Carson when we still have Rick Santorum to kick around. While we weren't looking, Santorum took on both ISIS & the Ladies of "The View." Meanwhile, Santorum reminds us, President Obama "doesn't have the guts to appear with Sean Hannity...."
Peter Baker of the New York Times: Former President George H.W. "Bush's assertion in a new biography that Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld undercut George W. Bush's presidency rattled the extended Bush political world, and forced the second Bush son now seeking the presidency, Jeb, to straddle an awkward line between family and politics.... Once again [Jeb] was compelled on Thursday to talk about his family.... 'My brother is a big boy,' Jeb Bush told NBC News. 'His administration was shaped by his thinking, his reaction to the attack on 9/11. I think my dad, like a lot of people that love George, want to try to create a different narrative, perhaps, just because that's natural to do.' Jeb Bush said that Mr. Cheney 'served my brother well as vice president and he served my dad extraordinarily well as secretary of defense.'" ...
... CW: I'm pretty sure that thumbing his nose at his own father in service of Dick Cheney will help Jeb!'s campaign a lot. ...
... I'm Not Arrogant; He's Senile. Claire Phipps of the Guardian: "Donald Rumsfeldhas dismissedGeorge HW Bush's criticism of him as 'arrogant', saying the former president 'is getting up in years'."
News Ledes
New York Times: "The American economy added 271,000 jobs in October, the government reported Friday, a very strong showing that makes an interest-rate increase by the Federal Reserve much more likely when policy makers meet next month. The unemployment rate dipped to 5 percent, from 5.1 percent in September. Average hourly earnings also bounced back, rising 0.4 percent in October after showing no increase in September; that lifted the gain to 2.5 percent over the last 12 months, the healthiest since 2009."
Washington Post: "Confusion reigned at the airport in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh on Friday as a British plan to quickly evacuate thousands of its citizens under emergency security rules was thrown into doubt. Despite repeated assurances from British officials that the airlift would go ahead as planned, the low-cost carrier EasyJet announced Friday that 'rescue plans that were put in place yesterday have been suspended by the Egyptian authorities.'"
;)
Campbell Robertson of the New York Times:Mississippi Confederates are still loving their Confederate state flag.
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