The Commentariat -- August 17, 2015

Internal links removed.

CW: I've added two news feeds -- the New York Times & Google News-- in the right column & have updated the Reuters feed to make it more readable. The Google feed is on a continuous crawl, but you'll have to refresh Reality Chex to update the other two feeds. (I found the crawl rather distracting, & now that I look at it, I think it may repeat the same crawl until you refresh the page -- not sure.) Together, the feeds should keep you up-to-the-minute on major news.

[Expecting brutal interrogations to extract good intelligence is like] banging a hammer on a radio to get a better signal. It doesn't enhance cognition. It only makes it worse. -- psychiatrist & former CIA officer Andy Morgan ...

** ... Peter Aldhous of BuzzFeed: "... there's little evidence that adversarial interrogations work -- unless your goal is obtaining a high rate of false confessions.... Over the past five years, a small group of researchers has pulled together a body of evidence about what works in getting people to give up their secrets. It has nothing to do with abuse and coercion. Instead, it borrows methods from psychotherapy to get suspects talking and uses the science of how our brains process information to separate truth from lies.... Rather than focusing on stress, the new interrogation research program has concentrated on interviewing techniques that help people remember details about events -- and make it harder for liars to keep their story together." Congress has an opportunity this year to write the well-researched interrogation techniques into the Army Field Manual. But it's Congress.

     ... BTW, Jeb! and other GOP candidates (Trump, Graham, Rubio, Carson) evidently get their policy views from watching teevee shows, because in recent weeks they have assured us that torture works.

Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: Sen. Chuck Schumer's (D-N.Y.) claim that "At non-designated sites it will take 24 days to get an inspection" is not true. "... that's the maximum, not the minimum.... It's also important to recognize that this provision was intended to strengthen the system of enhanced inspections and limit Iran's ability to hide unauthorized activities." Its purpose is to exact consequences; i.e., sanctions, on Iran & make it tougher for them to hide nuclear activity.

Jelani Cobb of the New Yorker: Hurricane "Katrina didn't usher in a new narrative about race in America as much as it confirmed an old one.... Hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods are natural phenomena; disasters, however, are often the work of humankind." Cobb recounts Herbert Hoover's response to the Great Flood of 1927. ...

... Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "In Louisiana's Caddo Parish, where Shreveport is the parish seat, a study to be released Monday has found that prosecutors used peremptory challenges three times as often to strike black potential jurors as others during the last decade. That is consistent with patterns researchers found earlier in Alabama, Louisiana and North Carolina, where prosecutors struck black jurors at double or triple the rates of others. In Georgia, prosecutors excluded every black prospective juror in a death penalty case against a black defendant, which the Supreme Court has agreed to review this fall."

Garrett Epps of the Atlantic: "... religious freedom is ... not a right to be a county clerk and decide which citizens you will serve and which you won't.... If a person can perform the duties of a job with some adjustment for religious belief, that's an accommodation. If they're not willing to do the job, they have to leave. That's not just a requirement of law; honor requires it as well. Government in particular has an obligation to dismiss any employee who claims a right to discriminate against citizens.... Government serves everyone, and the preferences of its employees aren't relevant in that regard.... Human equality is as important as religious freedom, and any sane discussion has to balance the two."

... ** "Maybe They'll Change the Law." Garrett Epps remembers Julian Bond.

Michael Shear & Gardiner Harris of the New York Times: President Obama "is preparing for his postpresidency with the same fierce discipline and fund-raising ambition that characterized the 2008 campaign that got him to the White House.... The president, first lady and a cadre of top aides [are] map[ping] out a postpresidential infrastructure and endowment they estimate could cost as much as $1 billion."

Amazon a Great Place to Work, Sez Amazon. Nick Gass of Politico: Former White House press secretary, "Jay Carney, [now] Amazon's senior vice president for corporate global affairs, defended the company Monday after a report in The New York Times found the Seattle-based retail giant to have a 'bruising,' uncompromising workplace with a high turnover rate and lofty expectations.... Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos also responded to the story in an email, writing to employees that the Times article 'doesn't describe the Amazon I know' and that he would leave a company that treated its employees the way the piece characterized its practices...." ...

... The aptly-named Peter Kafka of re/code republishes Bezos' e-mailed response to "Amazonians." CW: Now let's hear from Justin Dickens.

Republicans More Likely than Democrats to Be in Denial. David Leonhardt of the New York Times: Two professors write that "Among married people between the ages of 20 and 60, 67 percent of Republicans report being 'very happy' with their marriages. Among Democrats, the share was 60, as it is among independents.... That gap shrank [to 3 percent] when the researchers factored in demographic differences between parties. Whites and the religiously observant are both more likely to be Republicans and more likely to report having happy marriages.... Even among people with the same demographic profile, Republicans are slightly more likely than Democrats to say they are happily married." ...

     ... CW: Okay, a misleading headline. I do think, tho, that conservatives are constitutionally less forthcoming & less willing to admit (even to themselves) that all is not well. In addition, they tend to face stronger cultural pressures to maintain a good front. Ergo, a more definitive study would look beyond direct Q&A as the means to determine "happiness" quotients. All this study demonstrates is that Republicans are slightly more likely to report they are in happy marriages, not that their marriages are actually happier than Democrats'.

Presidential Race

Ana Marie Cox interviews Bernie Sanders for the New York Times. ...

... Darren Sands of BuzzFeed: "After protests twice derailed campaign events in recent weeks, the Bernie Sanders campaign has asked to meet with Black Lives Matter activists in Washington. In an email obtained by BuzzFeed News, the campaign's African-American outreach director, Marcus Ferrell, told a group of activists that Sanders wanted a more formal interaction. As a sitting U.S. senator, the meeting could be arranged as a means of 'possibly introducing legislation and making a constitutional change. We would like to know what YOU would like to see happen.'... On Sunday, Sanders told Meet The Press that the message had been sent out without his knowledge by a staffer, that the campaign was reaching out to all kinds of groups, that Black Lives Matter was important, and that he did not think the campaign needed to apologize for the delay in officially reaching out."

Chuck says Bernie was the most popular candidate at the fair:

Ruby Cramer of BuzzFeed: "... how Hillary Clinton's campaign tries, fails, and sometimes succeeds to make the candidate available to the people outside the literal human barrier -- reporters, cameras, photoseekers, security agents, and hecklers -- that follows wherever she goes." If you want to talk to Clinton, you have to know somebody who knows somebody ...

... OR you could go to a relatively small-buck Clinton fundraiser on the Vineyard. ...

... Amy Chozick of the New York Times on the same topic: "The challenge for Mrs. Clinton today is that she cannot entirely shed the layers of staff and security -- and the news media mob -- that come with being Hillary Rodham Clinton. It does not help that she is often compared with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, who was known for his ability to connect with voters, and who has the capacity to upstage the former first lady at joint appearances." Also, too, reporters keep asking about those damned e-mails.

** Paul Krugman: "What's puzzling about the renewed Republican assault on Social Security is that it looks like bad politics as well as bad policy. Americans love Social Security, so why aren't the candidates at least pretending to share that sentiment? The answer, I'd suggest, is that it's all about the big money.... By a very wide margin, ordinary Americans want to see Social Security expanded. But by an even wider margin, Americans in the top 1 percent want to see it cut.... What this means, in turn, is that the eventual Republican nominee -- assuming that it's not Mr. Trump -- will be committed not just to a renewed attack on Social Security but to a broader plutocratic agenda. Whatever the rhetoric, the GOP is on track to nominate someone who has won over the big money by promising government by the 1 percent, for the 1 percent."

CW: I was wrong about who won the most important political debate since Lincoln-Douglas. Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "... we can, as objectively as possible, declare a winner: Ben Carson, who saw a five-point jump in the polls -- a 71 percent increase over where he was two weeks ago.... Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) also saw a big jump, rising four points. Carly Fiorina gained three -- impressive because it more than doubled her support. She clearly won the early-bird debate." Both Carson & Cruz spoke at a higher grade-level (8th- & 9th-grade, respectively) than Trump (4th grade) & Kasich (5th). ...

"Aggregating the Wacko Bird Vote." Ed Kilgore: "... 53% of respondents in that Fox News national poll support Trump, Carson, Cruz or Huckabee, which is more than twice the percentage supporting Bush, Walker, Rubio, Kasich or Christie combined. Of the four candidates commanding the majority, I'd have to say that at this point Ted Cruz is the 'moderate.' He's not, after all, threatening to unleash the military on women seeking an abortion like Huck or dismissing international rules against torture as 'political correctness' like Carson or talking about dunning Mexico for building a wall across the southern border after deporting 11 million people like Trump." ...

... CW: Might have something to do with 40 years of touting the edict of Ronaldus Maximus:

Brad Mielke of ABC News: Donald Trump shows up for jury duty in Manhattan.

Loaves & Fishes. Melinda Henneberger of Bloomberg attended a Trump event in Hampton, New Hampshire yesterday: "... very little of what the conservatives in the hall were going wild over could be characterized as conservative, and most of it wasn't political at all.... Sure, there's not a little paternalism in his promises: 'The women haven't been taken care of properly,' he said at the Iowa State Fair. But could it be that Republicans like the prospect of a free lunch as well as the next guy?" CW: Of course. They just want to make sure everybody at the free-lunch table looks just like them. ...

... Maxwell Tani of Business Insider: "Donald Trump went back and forth with NBC host Chuck Todd on Sunday in one of his most combative interviews since announcing his presidential candidacy earlier this summer. In a 37-minute conversation on 'Meet The Press,' Todd pushed Trump on a wide range of issues with which the real-estate magnate would presumably be confronted if he won the presidency in 2016. It forced Trump to be on the defensive on everything from his college record, to outsourcing, to the US role in NATO":

... Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says that undocumented immigrants 'have to go,' and he has vowed to undo President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The comments underscore how Trump, who has regularly stoked controversy with comments on illegal immigration and border security, is running a very conservative campaign centered on the issues -- and one that puts him to the right of some of his key primary opponents. On Sunday, Trump released a position paper on immigration and border security that called on Mexico to pay for a wall on the southern border of the United States and force the 'mandatory return of all criminal aliens' to their home countries. Trump made his comments during a wide-ranging interview with Chuck Todd airing Sunday on NBC's 'Meet the Press.'" ...

... Nick Gass: "Donald Trump's immigration plan: mass deportation.... Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), an immigration hard-liner with whom Trump consulted on the issue, praised it as 'exactly the plan American needs.'... Meanwhile, Trump's fellow GOP candidate Sen. Lindsey Graham slammed his immigration position in an appearance on CBS' 'Face the Nation' on Sunday. 'Our leading contender, Mr. Trump, is going backward on immigration,' Graham remarked. 'And I think he's going to take all of us with him if we don't watch it.'" ...

     ... CW: In supporting Trump's mass deportation plan, Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III said that "a governing elite" has "shunned" "loyal, everyday Americans." Apparently the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee (the committee that incidentally voted against his nomination for a federal judgeship in 1986) does not qualify as a member of the "governing elite." ...

... When a Vanity Candidacy Gets Real. Greg Sargent: "... Donald Trump rolling out a new, and highly specific, immigration plan has been more than a little unsettling: It shows that Trump is now genuinely playing in the GOP primaries to win, and reveals in stark relief how exactly he intends to go about doing that.... One crucial component of his plan is the justification for it. He is absolutely clear in blaming the suffering of American workers on immigration policies."

I watch the shows. -- Donald Trump, explaining how he gets his foreign policy acumen, "the shows" being "Press the Meat," et al.

... I mean, I really see a lot of great – you know, when you watch your show and all of the other shows and you have the generals.... Yeah, probably there are two or three. I mean, I like [former UN ambassador John Bolton]. I think he's, you know, a tough cookie, knows what he's talking about. -- Donald Trump, elaborating on his foreign policy views

Let's see. Would you rather have a president who gets his advice from Tuck & the Talking Generals or one who turns to Dubya & the Neocon Band? -- Constant Weader

Alexandra Jaffe of NBC News: "Donald Trump said it would be a 'miracle' if Hillary Clinton is able to continue her run for president in the wake of the controversy surrounding her use of a private email server ...." ...

General Petraeus, his life has been destroyed. And he did 5% of what she did. So assuming she's able to run -- which would be absolutely, to me, a miracle at this point -- I will beat her. -- Donald Trump

John Amato of Crooks & Liars: "Ben Carson joined Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday.... His entire appearance was of the head banging, brain cell destroying variety.... Carson believes that if you disagree with his policy positions regarding Israel, you're anti-Semitic." Wallace asked Carson to defend his Jerusalem Post op-ed in which Carson claimed President Obama , during a "diatribe," repeatedly used "coded innuendos employing standard anti-Semitic themes." Here's how Carson's defended his claim to Wallace: "I think anything is anti-Semitic that is against the survival of a state that is surrounded by enemies and by people who want to destroy them. And to sort of ignore that and to act like everything is normal there and that these people are paranoid, I think that's anti-Semitic." ...

... Walking It Back. Rosie Gray of BuzzFeed: "Asked by BuzzFeed News whether his comments Sunday morning suggesting that by negotiating the Iran deal, President Obama is anti-Semitic, were really meant to to accuse Obama himself of being anti-Semitic, Carson said no, but, 'The things that were being said that are accusatory -- I have an article coming out tomorrow, you can read all about it.'" CW: What a refreshing approach to mudslinging: (1) sling mud, (2) pretend you didn't know it was mud, (3) put the mud back in the bucket. ...

     ... Anyway, it matters because "Carson was mobbed at the fair.... Carson is, suddenly, a main contender in Iowa, where according to recent polling he's second behind Donald Trump ... -- some people arrived two hours early in the blazing sun to get seats for Carson's speech -- indicated that the enthusiasm is very real, and that Carson is not the only beneficiary of this year's surge of anti-Washington sentiment."

Paul Mulshine of the New Jersey Star Ledger outlines the myriad reasons he thinks Chris Christie should return to his day job. ...

... In another Requiem for a Candidate, Dave Weigel of the Washington Post remembers the "libertarian moment": "One year ago, in a flag-planting cover story for the New York Times magazine, Robert Draper asked whether a 'libertarian moment' had come at last.... The memorable art for the story was a fuzzed-out image of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), patterned after a hardcore show flyer, with a date of 11/8/16. Election Day. The image made sense at the time; increasingly, it looks like a nostalgia piece. This August has tagged Rand Paul's presidential bid as officially 'embattled.'"

Beyond the Beltway

Florida Officials Discover Frivolous Lawsuits Are Expensive. Anna Phillips of the Tampa Bay Times: "After losing its yearslong defense of Florida's same-sex marriage ban, the state is arguing it shouldn't have to pay the full cost of its crusade. Last week, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi objected to a motion concerning legal fees from lawyers who represented gay couples seeking to have their marriages recognized in Florida.... Bondi's response came three days after Gov. Rick Scott agreed to pay a Tallahassee lawyer $700,000 in settlement costs for a public records lawsuit."

Katleen Gray of the Detroit Free Press: "While much has been written about the extramarital affair and alleged bizarre cover-up of the relationship between state Reps. Todd Courser [RTP] and Cindy Gamrat [RTP], their work life in Lansing and in their districts also is coming under increased scrutiny.... Even before news of the affair and alleged cover-up surfaced, constituents in their districts ... were unhappy with how the two were performing their jobs back home.... On Saturday, Courser released a 1,900-word, scripture-laden confessional on his Facebook page.... The Republican parties of both Lapeer and Allegan counties are meeting Thursday to take up resolutions calling on the two lawmakers to resign."

CW: With all due respect to native Americans, I'm think that baby-jumping is not the safest rite of passage. Via Driftglass, who expects to see GOP hopefuls adopt the practice in the next debate -- in an effort to clinch the AmerIndian vote, no doubt:

News Ledes

NBC News: "Attorneys for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev appealed his conviction and death sentence on Monday, arguing that publicity made it impossible for him to get a fair trial in the city and that capital punishment is unconstitutional."

Bloomberg: "Northwestern University football players cannot form a union, the National Labor Relations Board ruled, overturning a March 2014 decision and ending the players' bid to change the college sports landscape. In its unanimous decision, the labor board skirted the issue of whether the players are employees and left open the door to other college athletes winning the right to unionize."

New York Times: An Indonesian spotter plane on Monday photographed the wreckage of a commercial aircraft that crashed in stormy weather in a remote area of the eastern province of Papua the previous day, probably killing all 54 people aboard, an official said, but search operations were halted because of darkness."

AP: "A bomb exploded at a popular shrine near a key political protest site in central Bangkok on Monday evening, the government said, reportedly killing more than a dozen people and injuring many others."

AP: "A U.S. Army skydiver who had served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan died Sunday from injuries suffered in a midair collision with another jumper during a stunt at the Chicago Air & Water Show, authorities said. Sgt. 1st Class Corey Hood of Cincinnati, Ohio, who had recently turned 32, was pronounced dead Sunday afternoon at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, said Mario Johnson, a Cook County medical examiner's investigator."

The Commentariat -- August 16, 2015

Internal links removed.

AP: "Julian Bond, a civil rights activist and longtime board chairman of the NAACP, died Saturday night, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. He was 75. Bond died in Fort Walton Beach, Florida after a brief illness, the SPLC said in a statement released Sunday morning." (Link updated.) ...

     ... Update. Mr. Bond's New York Times obituary is here.

Julia Angwin, et al., in the New York Times: "The National Security Agency's ability to spy on vast quantities of Internet traffic passing through the United States has relied on its extraordinary, decades-long partnership with a single company: the telecom giant AT&T. While it has been long known that American telecommunications companies worked closely with the spy agency, newly disclosed N.S.A. documents [from the Ed Snowden cache] show that the relationship with AT&T has been considered unique and especially productive. One document described it as 'highly collaborative,' while another lauded the company's 'extreme willingness to help.'... AT&T's 'corporate relationships provide unique accesses to other telecoms and I.S.P.s,' or Internet service providers, one 2013 N.S.A. document states."

Jodi Kantor & David Streitfeld of the New York Times: Amazon ... "is conducting a little-known experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers, redrawing the boundaries of what is acceptable. The company, founded and still run by Jeff Bezos..., has ... designed what many workers call an intricate machine propelling them to achieve Mr. Bezos' ever-expanding ambitions.... At Amazon, workers are encouraged to tear apart one another's ideas in meetings, toil long and late..., and held to standards that the company boasts are 'unreasonably high.' The internal phone directory instructs colleagues on how to send secret feedback to one another's bosses. Employees say it is frequently used to sabotage others." ...

... CW: How refreshing to know that Bezos is as cruel to white collar personnel as he is to factory workers.

Nahal Toosi of Politico: "On Saturday, Sen. Jeff Flake [Az.], possibly the only Republican in Congress open to supporting the agreement, said he won"t."

Vicki Needham of the Hill: "Sen. Sherrod Brown(D-Ohio) said Friday that he will block a trade nominee's Senate floor vote until the Obama administration makes the text of a sweeping transpacific agreement available to eligible staffers. Brown said he put a hold on the Marisa Lago, whose nomination for deputy U.S. trade representative cleared the Senate Finance Committee earlier this month but awaits a final confirmation vote from the full Senate."

Lawrence Hurley of Reuters: "A U.S. federal appeals court on Friday threw out a lawsuit brought by an Arizona sheriff who argued that President Barack Obama's executive actions on immigration were unconstitutional. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld a district court judge's finding that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio did not have grounds to sue."

** Esther Allen in the New York Review of Books: "... the United States is already part of Cuba, embargo or no embargo, and has been for a long, long time."

** Margo Kaplan, in a Washington Post op-ed: "Fertility clinics destroy embryos all the time.... The disparity between how the law treats abortion patients and IVF patients reveals an ugly truth about abortion restrictions: that they are often less about protecting life than about controlling women's bodies. Both IVF and abortion involve the destruction of fertilized eggs that could potentially develop into people.... Abortion restrictions use unwanted pregnancy as a punishment for 'irresponsible sex' and remind women of the consequences of being unchaste.... IVF patients make less-attractive targets because we don't challenge the expectation that women want to be mothers. Abortion, on the other hand, thwarts conservative ideals about a woman's proper role as a wife and mother.... Unlike IVF patients, who are primarily wealthy and white, women who have abortions are disproportionately poor and women of color, groups it has always been popular to condemn and regulate."

Kristina Wong of the Hill: "Vice President Joe Biden on Saturday gave a moving tribute to the four Marines and one sailor killed last month in the Chattanooga attack, drawing upon the experience of the loss of his own late son Beau, an Army major. 'I wish I were not here, for I have some sense of how hard it is for you to be here,' Biden said to their families at a memorial service in Chattanooga, Tenn., for the troops."

Ali Breland of Politico: Presidents Barack Obama & Bill Clinton "golfed with [Vernon] Jordan, the financier and lawyer, and Ambassador Ron Kirk at the Farm Neck Golf Club, according to pool reports, playing a leisurely foursome ahead of Saturday night's festivities, which will see the Obamas and the Clintons cross paths at Jordan's 80^th birthday celebrations." ...

... Mark Hensch of the Hill: Presidents Obama & Clinton also had a chance meeting at the golf club on Friday.

Presidential Race

Ben Jacobs of the Guardian: Both Hillary Clinton & Bernie Sanders "appeared at the [Iowa State F]air.... But only Sanders ... held a formal event. Appearing on the Des Moines Register soapbox, he addressed a crowd of approximately a thousand.... In marked contrast, Clinton spent about an hour walking the fairgrounds, without making a speech.... Both Democratic contenders also had to contend with ... Donald Trump, complete with helicopter, [who] made a campaign appearance. The chopper buzzed over Clinton, who looked up as people shouted 'Trump!' Sanders had to contend with more noise [from Trump's helicopter] as he spoke." ...

... Video of Sanders' speech is here. ...

... Bernie's Challenge. John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "... one of the most surprising things about Sanders's rise is how little impact it appears to be having on Clinton's base.... While the former Secretary of State's popularity among the electorate at large has fallen recently, the vast majority of Democrats still think positively of her, surveys suggest.... Sanders will struggle mightily once the first two primaries are out of the way and attention switches to places like South Carolina, Nevada, and the twelve states -- eight of them in the South -- that will vote on 'Super Tuesday,' March 1st.... In trying to move beyond his white liberal base, Sanders faces a huge challenge, but it would be folly to underestimate him." ...

Rachel Bade of Politico: "... Clinton put herself out at the Iowa State Fair Saturday, embracing the masses that engulfed her. The 2016 Democratic contender shook hands and took selfies with total strangers, listened to Iowans' personal stories of struggle and even met a young boy's show cow. She gave people hugs, patted babies on the head, munched on a grease-dripping pork chop and waved to cheering crowds on balconies as they called out her name. It's a world of difference from Clinton's last White House bid, when she was criticized here for seeming too-cool-for-school to mingle with what she now calls 'everyday Americans.'" ...

... Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "Hillary Rodham Clinton hit back at Jeb Bush on Saturday over his accusation that the Obama administration's handling of the withdrawal of 10,000 troops in Iraq had facilitated the rise of the Islamic State now sweeping violently through Syria and Iraq." ...

... John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Hillary Rodham Clinton picked up an endorsement Friday from the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the third union to weigh in on a Democratic primary fight in which labor finds itself divided. The decision by the union, which represents 600,000 members, came just days after National Nurses United, the country's largest nurses union, sided with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)...."

MEANWHILE, Edward-Isaac Dovere, et al., of Politico: "With his blessing, confidants to Vice President Joe Biden have begun strategizing about travel to early primary states and identified potential donors who could bankroll a campaign even as he remains undecided about whether to pull the trigger on a late-entry 2016 run for president. The moves are a sign that after months of speculation, Biden is taking a few significant if small steps toward a presidential campaign, according to sources familiar with the discussions. Biden's strategy, the sources say, would be to focus on South Carolina while almost writing off New Hampshire, where both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have considerable footholds."

David Sanger of the New York Times: "If the diverse group of candidates competing for the Republican presidential nomination agree on one thing when describing how they would engage with the world if they made it to the White House, it is this: If only the United States were stronger, and more feared, the country would not feel threatened by the Islamic State, manipulated by Iran or challenged by a rising China.... But after that, finding any consensus on how they would exercise American power differently from President Obama, or a Democratic opponent in 2016, much less how they would define an alternative Republican foreign policy, gets a bit messy."

... Jesse Byrnes of the Hill: "Billionaire businessman Donald Trump offered kids helicopter rides in a show of wealth as he bragged Saturday that he is willing to spend $1 billion on his presidential campaign. 'I'm turning down so much money,' Trump said at a press conference kicking off his weekend trip to Iowa to visit the State Fair, with his black helicopter emblazoned with 'Trump' and children standing in the background." ...

... Maureen Dowd interviews Donald Trump. ...

... Trump shares his thoughts about his rivals -- Republican & Democratic -- with MoDo.

... Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: Donald "Trump's rise and persistence as a presidential candidate has been credited to name recognition, to voter anger and to a specific contempt for the Republican Party establishment. But he is also the candidate talking most directly about the loss of manufacturing jobs to foreign countries." This makes him attractive to working people, among them some Democrats.

Mahita Gajanon, et al., of the Guardian: "Jeb Bush has come under fire from human rights groups after declining to rule out the US resuming the use of torture if he became president. '[Bush is] wrong, and he's perpetuating a myth that torture works,' aid Sarah Dougherty, a senior fellow at Physicians for Human Rights. 'We have a very large, thoroughly exhaustive research report saying that torture did not work.'"

Beyond the Beltway

Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "Federal prosecutors on Friday said former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell should be sent to prison while he pursues a challenge before the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that his public corruption convictions had 'withstood searching and exhaustive review' and that he no longer deserved bail.... Prosecutors [said] that McDonnell's most significant argument -- that he neither performed nor promised to perform any so-called official acts for [Jonnie] Williams -- had been rejected 19 times and that the Supreme Court was unlikely to agree to review his case."

News Ledes

New York Times: "The United States said Sunday that it would withdraw two Patriot missile-defense batteries from southern Turkey this fall, a sign that the Pentagon believes the risk of Syrian Army missile attacks has eased since the Patriots were deployed in 2013. Officials said the antimissile systems would be needed elsewhere to defend against threats from Iran and North Korea.... If needed in a crisis, the batteries and their 250 troops could be rushed back to Turkey 'within one week' to fulfill an American and NATO commitment to Turkey's air defenses."

New York Times: "The Obama administration has delivered a warning to Beijing about the presence of Chinese government agents operating secretly in the United States to pressure prominent expatriates -- some wanted in China on charges of corruption -- to return home immediately, according to American officials. The American officials said that Chinese law enforcement agents covertly in this country are part of Beijing's global campaign to hunt down and repatriate Chinese fugitives and, in some cases, recover allegedly ill-gotten gains."

AP: "An Indonesian airliner carrying 54 people went missing Sunday after losing contact with ground control during a short flight in bad weather in the country's mountainous easternmost province of Papua...."

AP: "Authorities pulled more bodies from a massive blast site at China's Tianjin port, pushing the death toll to 112 on Sunday as teams rushed to clear dangerous chemicals and prosecutors prepared an investigation into those responsible for the disaster. More than 700 people were injured and 95 people, including dozens of firefighters, are missing after a fire and rapid succession of blasts late Wednesday hit a warehouse for hazardous chemicals in a mostly industrial area of Tianjin, 120 kilometers (75 miles) east of Beijing."

The Commentariat -- August 15, 2015

Internal links removed.

Witch Hunt Washout. Samantha Lachman of the Huffington Post: "The Planned Parenthood Federation of America stressed Friday that multiple investigations into its state affiliates have fallen flat, as the reproductive health organization battles allegations that it has illegally profited from fetal tissue donations for research.... Probes -- in Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts and South Dakota -- have found area Planned Parenthood affiliates to be in full compliance with state laws and regulations.... Probes in other states, like Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas, are unlikely to reveal evidence of illegal tissue donation practices, since those states' Planned Parenthood centers either don't participate in a tissue donation program, don't even have a center actively performing abortions in the state or are barred by state law from donating tissues in the first place." Via Paul Waldman. ...

... The War on Women, Ctd. Paul Waldman: "In the Planned Parenthood tapes, what one actually sees ... [is] a failed attempt at a sting.... Republican politicians ... have used the tapes as an opportunity to go after Planned Parenthood..., [not to stop] fetal tissue research.... You have to look at their motives to understand what they're up to.... Republicans have always hated Planned Parenthood, not only because it provides abortions but because it's a forthright advocate on behalf of women's rights to control their own reproductive lives.... Abortion opponents barely care at all about the 'babies' they supposedly want to save, because their real interest is in controlling women's lives and limiting their autonomy. Nothing is more horrifying to a certain kind of conservative than a woman who has sex because she wants to, and does so without being punished for her sin; witness the recent turn in conservative circles not just against abortion but even against contraception.... I'm guessing not too many of Ben Carson's fans will turn away from him now. He's as committed as ever to taking away women's reproductive rights, and that's what really matters." ...

... CW: I would add this. These Republicans especially want to control poor women's reproductive rights. Confederate control freaks take perverse pleasure in bullying not only women in general but specifically women who are least able to defend themselves. They hate Planned Parenthood particularly because it provides healthcare services to women who can't afford to get these services elsewhere. Most of these confederate men think it's quite all right for their own wives & girlfriends to practice contraception, or to get abortions if contraception fails. Republican women like Carly Fiorina have the same attitude; "There is no good reason for birth control to be free," she has said. That is, reproductive health care should be means-tested. Women & girls have to earn reproductive rights. Women's rights are human rights? Hah! In Right Wing World, some are more human than others.

Tierney Sneed of TPM: "In blocking an Alabama requirement that abortion providers have admitting privileges -- an anti-abortion mandate that is closing clinics in states across the country -- a federal judge pointedly used a line from Justice Samuel Alito during this year's Supreme Court lethal injection case. The opinion issued Thursday evening by U.S. District Judge Myron H. Thompson, a Carter appointee, was a narrow one: it gave a single abortion clinic in Tuscaloosa temporary relief from the state's admitting privileges requirement. 'By closing down operations at the Center, the regulation seems to impose severe and, in some cases insurmountable, obstacles on women who seek abortions in this State in several ways,' Thompson ruled." Justice Alito's comment came in the Court's ruling on the use of drugs in executions.

White House: "In this week's address, the President spoke about the work the Administration is doing to enhance trust between communities and law enforcement in the year since the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson":

Adam Goldman & Greg Miller of the Washington Post: "The leader of the Islamic State personally kept a 26-year-old American woman as a hostage and raped her repeatedly, according to U.S. officials and her family. The family of Kayla Mueller said in an interview Friday that the FBI had informed them that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the emir of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, had sexually abused their daughter, a humanitarian worker.... The disclosure that Mueller was raped by Baghdadi adds to the grim evidence that the exploitation and abuse of women has been sanctioned at the highest levels of the Islamic State. The sexual enslavement of even teenage girls is seen as religiously endorsed by the group and regarded as a recruiting tool."

Anna Fifield & Yuki Oda of the Washington Post: The emperor & prime minister of Japan appear to disagree on the country's military future. "Japan's emperor expressed his 'deep remorse' Saturday over his country's actions during World War II, strengthening his usual statement of regret on the anniversary of the end of a particularly ignominious period in Japanese history.... In previous addresses, [Emperor Akihito has appeared to voice his displeasure with [Prime Minister Shinzo] Abe's efforts to reinterpret Japan's constitution and put the country on what he calls a more 'normal' military footing by allowing Japanese troops to fight abroad in certain circumstances."

William Branigin of the Washington Post: "U.N. human rights experts expressed grave concern Friday about Iran's continued detention of Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian and called on authorities in Tehran to release him immediately."

Presidential Race

Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: The Iowa State Fair provides a soapbox for presidential candidates. Hillary Clinton & Donald Trump will attend the fair today, but both are skipping the soapbox, Trump because it's sponsored by the Des Moines Register, a paper with whom he's feuding. Sixteen other candidates have showed or will shop up at the fair.

Michael Schmidt & David Sanger of the New York Times: "F.B.I. agents investigating Hillary Rodham Clinton's private email server are seeking to determine who at the State Department passed highly classified information from secure networks to Mrs. Clinton's personal account, according to law enforcement and diplomatic officials and others.... To track how the information flowed, agents will try to gain access to the email accounts of many State Department officials who worked there while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state, the officials said. State Department employees apparently circulated the emails on unclassified systems in 2009 and 2011, and some were ultimately forwarded to Mrs. Clinton. They were not marked as classified, the State Department has said, and it is unclear whether its employees knew the origin of the information. The F.B.I. is also trying to determine whether foreign powers, especially China or Russia, gained access to Mrs. Clinton's private server.... " ...

... CW Note: I don't think it's coincidence that when the Times put a grown-up reporter -- David Sanger -- on the story, the onus shifted from Clinton to others at State. ...

... Carol Leonnig, et al., of the Washington Post: "The controversy over [Clinton's] private e-mail setup has moved into a new and, potentially, more serious phase. What had begun five months ago as a relatively narrow question about proper archiving of public records has become a bigger, more politically dangerous one: Whether the then-secretary of state and her close aides, in choosing to use a private e-mail system, disregarded common sense and may have put sensitive information at risk of falling into the wrong hands.... The issues around Clinton's e-mails have also intensified as it has become clear that a number of her statements defending her actions now appear to be false." ...

     ... CW: If you missed out on some developments in the continuing e-mail saga, the WashPo piece linked above provides a good overview &, IMO, a fair assessment. ...

You may have seen that I recently launched a Snapchat account. I love it. Those messages disappear all by themselves. -- Hillary Clinton at the Wing Ding Dinner in Clear Lake, Iowa

... Amy Chozick of the New York Times: Four Democratic presidential candidates -- Clinton, Sanders, O'Malley & Chafee -- showed up at the annual Clear Lake, Iowa, Wing Ding Dinner, a Democratic fundraising event, to ding the GOP candidates. Democrats are doing the Iowa State Fair this weekend, too.

Jason Horowitz of the New York Times asks Bernie Sanders & his colleagues to assess Sanders' role as a legislator.

The Washington Post editors cite these GOP candidates for signing Grover Norquist's "make-believe" no-new-taxes pledge: Gov. Chris "Tell It Like It Is" Christie (N.J.), "Ben Carson, Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.), businesswoman Carly Fiorina, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), former Texas governor Rick Perry, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and former senator Rick Santorum (Pa.)." They credit Jeb! with refusing to sign (so far & in the past). No mention whatsoever of the current frontrunner Whatsizname. "To sign a pledge is to make a reckless promise that locks politicians into an arbitrarily restrictive budget policy, no matter what circumstances time brings, and ignores the reality that is bearing down on the nation."

Jeb! Joins Torture Team. Simon Maloy of Salon: Jeb! says he won't rule out torturing our perceived enemies; Marco Rubio, John Kasich & Rick Perry say torture is an excellent technique, Ben Carson says whom we torture is our business. Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Lindsey Graham, all say "torture is immoral and entirely unjustified." CW: Donald Trump is totally into torture, telling ABC News earlier this month that waterboarding "doesn't sound very severe."

Philip Rucker & Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "When Jeb Bush stepped up onto the fabled soapbox at the Iowa State Fair on Friday, fairgoers pelted him with questions about the legacy of his brother.... And his father.... And one of his foreign policy advisers, Paul D. Wolfowitz, the architect of his brother's war in Iraq. And about the war itself.... This was supposed to be the week when Bush would finally lay out his own thoughts on how to combat the Islamic State terror group and put Hillary Rodham Clinton on the defensive -- and wrest himself from his family legacy in the process. But over several days, it has become evident that his ideas on the subject are remarkably similar to George W. Bush's ideas and that he firmly believes that Democrats ... deserve the blame for the unrest in Iraq and neighboring Syria.... Most Americans still believe the Iraq war was a mistake and are opposed to new military engagement -- making Jeb Bush's approach to national security risky." ...

... Larry Wilmore examines Jeb!'s foreign policy:

Freeedom! Carly & the Crazy. Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "GOP presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina said Thursday that parents should not be forced to vaccinate their children against [communicable] diseases like measles and mumps, although she added that public school systems can forbid unvaccinated children from attending.... Fiorina's comment came in response to a question from a mother of five children who said that because of her religious beliefs, she will not allow her children to receive any vaccines that were created using cells from 'aborted babies.'... Fiorina said that when it comes to 'these more esoteric immunizations' for diseases that are not contagious or communicable, school districts should not be allowed to mandate that children receive the vaccination." CW: Because what parent wouldn't prefer have her children get sick & die rather than submit to the horrors of medical research?

Citizen Trump. Liam Stack of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump ... has been summoned to serve [as a juror] in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, and plans to report there on Monday morning,said Michael Cohen..., special counsel to Mr. Trump."

Since some of the GOP's presidential candidates speak at grade-school level (see yesterday's Commentariat), it seems appropriate that Bill Maher has produced a new picture book that explains women to GOP men in childish verse. Thanks to Victoria D. for the link:

Beyond the Beltway

Mary Klas in the Tampa Bay Times: "Florida's legal bill to defend Gov. Rick Scott grew Wednesday, as the governor's office released documents showing he has agreed pay lawyers $300,000 for defending him in two open government cases that were settled. The legal fees are on top of the nearly $1 million taxpayers have already spent to defend the governor and Cabinet in the cases. This month, Scott agreed to pay Tallahassee attorney Steven R. Andrews $700,000 to end a lawsuit alleging that the governor and several members of his staff violated state law when they created private email accounts to shield their communications from the public and then withheld the documents.... In June, Scott and the Cabinet agreed to pay $55,000 to St. Petersburg lawyer Matthew Weidner as well as public records advocates and media organizations, including the Tampa Bay Times, to settle another lawsuit.... The two settlements were the first time a sitting governor has used taxpayer money to end public records cases pending against him. The decision has outraged public records advocates and others." Thanks to Akhilleus for the link. ...

... Bill Cotterell of Reuters: "'He's playing fast and loose with our Constitution and we're paying the cost, both literally and figuratively,' Barbara Petersen, president of the First Amendment Foundation, said of Scott. Petersen noted that Scott, a wealthy former hospital executive, spent about $71 million of his own money getting elected." ...

... CW: Scott made those millions ripping off federal taxpayers in "the largest Medicare fraud in the nation's history." Do you expect him to treat state taxpayers any better?

Inscription on the monument Bobby Jindal is trying to save.

John Stanton of BuzzFeed: "Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's presidential campaign Thursday defended his plan to block New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu's efforts to remove statues to confederate soldiers -- including one which celebrates a white supremacist insurrection that left 32 people dead, including a number of police officers.... The Battle of Liberty Place is unique in that it specifically celebrates the efforts of white supremacists to overthrow the post-war government."

Andrew Kirell of Mediaite: "One month after their video of a Kentucky clerk refusing to issue a marriage license went viral, gay partners David Ermold and David L. Moore returned to that same government office, cameras in tow, and filmed yet another rejection."

Josh Replogle of the AP: "An internal affairs investigation was underway Friday after a 47-second video emerged showing a Miami police officer putting a handcuffed young man in the back of a cruiser and then jumping on top of him." Both the officer & the young man are black. ...