The Commentariat -- May 20, 2015
Internal links removed.
Mitch Folds. Donna Cassata of the AP: "The Senate will vote on legislation that ends the National Security Agency's bulk collection of millions of Americans' phone records as Congress scrambles to renew the Patriot Act before it expires on June 1. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has opposed the House bill to reauthorize the post-Sept. 11 law while significantly changing the NSA's bulk collection, preferring to simply renew the Patriot Act. But he told reporters Tuesday that he will allow a vote on the measure that passed the House overwhelmingly last week and has the backing of the Obama administration.... Congress must deal with the law's fate before lawmakers leave town for the weeklong Memorial Day recess." ...
... Scott Shane of the New York Times on Ed Snowden's virtual "travels" & his successes in altering even Members of Congress's views of NSA bulk collection of phone records.
When Confederate "Values" Are Inconvenient. Robert Pear of the New York Times: "Both houses of Congress are moving to guarantee greater access to contraceptives for women in the military, actions that lawmakers say are prompted in part by concern about unplanned pregnancies in the armed forces. The annual defense policy bill, passed on Friday by the House, says military clinics and hospitals must be able to dispense any method of contraception approved by the Food and Drug Administration." CW: Pretty amazing how pliable the old boys' "values" are. Of course they let Democratic women sponsor the bills, then they quietly went along.
Here's some more confederate "values" for you. David Badash of the New Civil Rights Movement: "Ten minutes after President Barack Obama announced he would be personally tweeting from his new Twitter account, the right began calling him a 'n*gger.'... Of course, the 'n' word wasn't the only ugly slur the right threw at @POTUS. We counted eleven instances of tweets calling @POTUS a 'fag,' five with 'faggot' or 'faggots,' and you can imagine the rest of the tweets from the right." Stupidly, Facebook took down Badash's report on the tweets. CW: Values voters, my ass. Via Jonathan Capehart. ...
... Oh, there's more. Brian Fung of the Washington Post: "A reader points out that if you enter a search for 'N***** king' -- which contains a particularly offensive racial epithet for African Americans — Google Maps will point you to the White House. We tested the claim on Tuesday night and confirmed that, yes, this is a thing. It even zooms the camera in, automatically.... Other reports suggest that you get the same result if you search for 'n***a house.' We've tested this, as well. 'Some inappropriate results are surfacing in Google Maps that should not be, and we apologize for any offense this may have caused,' said a Google spokesperson. 'Our teams are working to fix this issue quickly.' A mounting list of such pranks has led Google to suspend people's ability to submit edits to Google Maps for the time being."
Peter Sullivan of the Hill: "Doug Elmendorf, the director of the nonpartisan CBO at the time of the law's drafting and passage, says the idea that the subsidies would be limited to states creating their own exchange was never brought up while his office was estimating the cost of the law. 'It was a common understanding on the Hill, again on both sides of the Hill, on both sides of the aisle, in late 2009 and early 2010, that subsidies would be available through the federal exchange as well as through state exchanges,' Elmendorf said in an interview...." CW: It would have been nice if the DOJ had bothered to interview Elmendorf before King v. Burwell -- the case challenging this aspect of the law -- had its final hearing in the Supreme Court. Of course as Sullivan points out, "... congressional intent is not the entire consideration.... The more conservative justices are more inclined to look at the plain text of the law itself, which the challengers argue clearly limits the subsidies to state exchanges." When it suits them.
Ken Vogel of Politico: "Bill Clinton's huge post-White House paydays loomed over a congressional panel's vote on Tuesday to slash taxpayer-funded benefits to former presidents.... Clinton's post-presidential earnings, which have dogged the presidential campaign of his wife Hillary Clinton, provided the backdrop for consideration of the Presidential Allowance Modernization Act, and seemed to be on the minds of Republican committee members.... Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wisc.) [said,] 'The thing I like about this bill is that, if people begin to earn outside income trading on their office, the income that we give them begins to drop and hopefully it will restore some dignity to the office of ex-president.' After the mark-up, Grothman's office acknowledged that he was, in fact, talking about Bill Clinton.... Clinton and his office by Election Day 2016 will have received more than $16 million through the Former Presidents Act, according to a Politico analysis.... Since former George W. Bush left office in 2009, though, he has outpaced Clinton in the value of total benefits received through the program...."
AND now for a brief word from our Dumbest Senator. Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "Sen. Ron Johnson, the Homeland Security Committee chairman, says when it comes to a nuclear deal with Iran, he's 'not so sure' he trusts President Obama over the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 'Now, a President who was awarded the 2013 Politifact Lie of the Year, if you like your healthcare plan you can keep it, period. If you like your doctor you can keep it, period. They lied boldfaced to the American public repeatedly with Obamacare,' the Wisconsin senator said at a recent town hall in Cerdarburg, Wisconsin." ... CW: I suspect Sen. Dummkopf would be shocked to learn that Bloomberg & the World Health Organization both rated Iran's healthcare system better than the U.S.'s & that basic healthcare is a constitutional right in Iran. To guarantee healthcare to all Iranians, President Hassan Rouhani introduced "RouhaniCare" last year. Obummer. ...
... Nick Gass of Politico: "Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Wednesday that he would not tolerate 'unreasonable demands' from world powers during nuclear negotiations, making clear that he would not allow inspectors to interview the country's scientists." CW: Which is way okay, because Khamenei is probably more trustworthy than our own President.
Just a reminder that Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) is still kind of a jackass. Marc Caputo of Politico: "Florida Rep. Alan Grayson recently called his estranged wife a 'gold digger,' but a review of the potential Senate candidate's soap-opera divorce case shows he unsuccessfully tried to have her criminally charged for far less: ringing up grocery, gasoline and car-repair expenses on his credit card. Grayson's previously unreported effort to have Lolita Grayson arrested on credit-card fraud charges was revealed in one of her court filings that complained about the wealthy Democrat's tactics to withhold money from her."
Justin McCarthy of Gallup: "Sixty percent of Americans now support same-sex marriage, as the Supreme Court prepares to rule on its constitutionality next month. This is up from 55% last year and is the highest Gallup has found on the question since it was first asked in 1996." See also Ted Cruz's comments, linked under Presidential Race below. CW: Looks as if Gallup -- a traditionally conservative polling outfit -- is now part of the "liberal media" "obsessed with sex," Ted. Also, 60 percent of Americans. ...
... BTW, Ted, it isn't only MSNBC-indoctrinated lefties who are "obsessed with sex." Queerty: "Until 2 p.m. on Monday, the 'Our Church Staff' section of St. John's Lutheran Church and School's website described Reverend Matthew Makela as an associate pastor who enjoys, 'family, music, home improvement, gardening and landscaping, and sports.' Screenshots obtained by Queerty ... shed light on some of the Reverend's other favorite past times -- namely nude make out sessions and sex with other men." ...
... Gabrielle Bluestone of Gawker: "In the meantime, the church is urging its congregation not to read or turn on the television so that they might avoid inadvertently discovering what happened to that nice pastor man." Makela "resigned" his post.
Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "A federal grand jury has indicted six Chinese citizens for what authorities say was a long-running conspiracy to steal valuable technology from two U.S. firms for the benefit of the Chinese government."
Hugh Naylor of the Washington Post: "The fall of Ramadi amounts to more than the loss of a major city in Iraq’s largest province, analysts say. It could undermine Sunni support for Iraq's broader effort to drive back the Islamic State, vastly complicating the war effort.... A bloc of Sunni parties in the Iraqi parliament issued a statement Tuesday saying they 'blame the government' for Ramadi's capture by the Islamic State. The bloc, called the National Forces Union, demanded an investigation and called on the government to send arms to Anbar and pay salaries to pro-government fighters in the province." ...
... See also Dexter Filkins' assessment in the New Yorker. Filkins is a highly-knowledgeable, reliable reporter. Thanks to Victoria D. for the link.
Presidential Race
Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "For close to an hour on Tuesday, Hillary Rodham Clinton talked with owners of small businesses [in Cedar Falls, Iowa,] about the issues on their minds, like whether they would enjoy better access to credit if small local banks were given regulatory relief and whether a major trade deal up for debate in Washington could wind up hurting American workers. Then Mrs. Clinton, who is seeking the Democratic Party's nomination for president, took a handful of questions from reporters, and the topics were sharply different, and sharper in tone: her personal wealth, her use of a private email while she was secretary of state, her family foundation's acceptance of foreign donations and the 2003 invasion in Iraq. She called her own vote in the Senate to authorize the invasion 'a mistake.'" ...
... Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "Hillary Rodham Clinton broke a long drought to take a few questions from the traveling press [in Cedar Falls, Iowa,] Tuesday, distancing herself from President Obama's trade pact and defending the millions of dollars she and her husband have made from giving speeches.... Clinton also said in response to a reporter's question that she favors having the State Department release e-mails from her time as secretary of state as soon as possible: 'I want those e-mails out.'" ...
... Eric Bradner of CNN: "Hillary Clinton took aim Tuesday at two core components of a massive free trade pact that President Barack Obama is negotiating — signaling some agreement with the deal's liberal critics. The Democratic front-runner in the 2016 presidential race said she wants to see rules included in the Trans-Pacific Partnership that would penalize countries for driving down the value of their currencies in order to give their exports a price advantage in the U.S. market. And she said she's concerned about a provision that would give 'corporations more power to overturn health and environmental and labor rules than consumers have.'" ...
... Jack Shafer of Politico is fairly pissed-off at President Hillary: "What the press still fails to appreciate about Hillary Clinton is that she’s not running for president, she's running as president, and all the usual rules about when and how she should speak don't apply to her. In her mind -- and who can blame her? -- she's the incumbent, this is a reelection campaign, and she occupies a place miles above the liquescent bogs of petty politics into which reporters would dunk her." CW: Anyhow, thanks, Jack, for teaching me a new word, which thanks to Merriam-Webster's audio, I can now even pronounce. ...
... AND of course Ron Fournier is in a lather over All Things Hillary. This time it's the e-mails. ...
... Laura Clawson of Daily Kos: "A federal judge said no to the State Department's plan to release Hillary Clinton's work-related emails to the public in January 2016. That's the date by which State said it could have reviewed all of the emails, but U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras said that instead, there should be a 'rolling production' of the emails." CW: Excellent. A horror story a week. And, as Clawson figures, "Look for House Benghazi Czar Trey Gowdy to come up with new demands about 10 minutes after each step of this process." ...
... Justin Fishel of ABC News: "With voracious campaign reporters and now Hillary Clinton herself demanding to know when her emails will finally be made public, deep within the State Department lies a small factory of workers tasked with the laborious task of sorting, reading, redacting and reviewing paper copies of what now amounts to hundreds of thousands of pages of documents."
... Dana Milbank: "... the fact that [Hillary Clinton] was unveiling her Citizens United litmus test [for nominees to the Supreme Court] with party fat cats at an exclusive soiree (four days later, she mentioned it to voters in Iowa) tells you all you need to know about Clinton's awkward -- and often hypocritical -- relationship with campaign-finance reform. Even as she denounces super PACs, she;s counting on two of them, Priorities USA Action and Correct the Record, to support her candidacy -- a necessary evil, her campaign says.... If she really thinks money is corrupting politics, she can take concrete steps right now." ...
... Benghaazi! Mark Hosenball of Reuters: "Congressional investigators have issued a subpoena demanding that former Clinton White House adviser Sidney Blumenthal testify next month before the House of Representatives committee investigating the 2012 attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya." CW: Not sure whom I'm rooting for. It's the Jerks versus the Jackass. ...
... Charles Pierce: "There are two things I can guarantee about this event. 1) Nothing will come of it except for some grandstanding by Gowdy's committee because there's really nothing there.... 2) Blumenthal will say or do something before the hearings or during the hearings that will make matters worse." ...
... Margaret Talev of Bloomberg: "Iowa Democrats are rallying around Hillary Clinton with pragmatic enthusiasm, acknowledging distaste and concern over some of her tactics and ethics while embracing her strengths, experience, and policies heading into the 2016 presidential election. A focus group of 10 Democrats -- five women and five men -- assembled this week in Des Moines by Bloomberg Politics and Washington-based Purple Strategies was mostly willing to look past Clinton's paid speeches, her Wall Street ties, the controversy over her use of private e-mail while secretary of state, and her refusal so far to weigh in as a candidate on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement that has turned many Democrats against President Barack Obama."
Bernie Sanders has a little chat with Wolf Blitzer about what to do about income inequality. The segment begins about 1:15 min. in. I love Bernie!:
For a Big Guy, Chris Christie Can Do an Amazing Flipflop. Kira Lerner of Think Progress: "New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) said Monday that he does not support finding a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, making a complete shift from his previous position ahead of his likely presidential campaign announcement. The governor's comments come less than two years after he won re-election in his immigrant-filled state by reaching out to minorities and promising benefits for undocumented immigrants." Of President Obama's executive action to grant relief to an estimated 5 million undocumented immigrants, Christie said, "I think that's an extreme way to go. And I think that, quite frankly, what Hillary Clinton's doing right now is pandering. That's pandering." CW: Apparently nearly half of Americans, including millions of Republicans, are crazed immigration extremists. Good luck with your pander-free flipflop, Guv.
Bobby Blanchard of the Texas Tribune: Sen. Ted Cruz "visiting Beaumont[, Texas,] to meet privately with county officials and others, got in a light sparring round with reporters, mainly working on his attacks on Hillary Clinton and defending his views on same-sex marriage. 'Is there something about the left -- and I am going to put the media in this category '' that is obsessed with sex?' Cruz asked after fielding multiple questions on gay rights. 'ISIS is executing homosexuals -- you want to talk about gay rights?...' 'With respect, I would suggest not drawing your questions from MSNBC. They have very few viewers and they are a radical and extreme partisan outlet,' Cruz told a reporter. He cited the expansion of 'mandatory same-sex marriage' as an assault on religious liberty in the United States." CW: Still waiting for "the government" to make me marry some lucky lady under the "mandatory same-sex marriage" rule. If I don't care for the match, I'm voting for Ted. Meanwhile, Bobby Jindal seems pretty "obsessed with sex." See Beyond the Beltway link below.
Gubernatorial Race
Kyle Cheney of Politico: "The bitter Kentucky Republican gubernatorial primary is going into overtime. Businessman Matt Bevin edged state Agriculture Commissioner James Comer by only 83 votes -- less than a tenth of a percentage point of the more than 214,000 votes cast -- with all precincts reporting, according to The Associated Press. Comer quickly declared his intent to request a recanvass, which will give election officials a chance to check their math. If he wants a full recount, Kentucky law requires him to post a bond to support the cost.The expected influx of absentee and military ballots could further complicate the process.... Democrat Jack Conway, the state attorney general ... cruised to his party's nomination on Tuesday.... Establishment Republicans have worried that Bevin is the actually the party's weakest option against Conway, suggesting he escaped serious scrutiny while his opponents focused on each other and never had to answer for the flaws that sank his [2014] Senate [primary] campaign [against Mitch McConnell] -- including revelations he attended a rally for cockfighting supporters."
Beyond the Beltway
Justin Moyer of the Washington Post: "On Tuesday, to the dismay of Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), Louisiana's proposed Marriage and Conscience Act failed in the state's house. The legislation ... would have prohibited 'the state from taking any adverse action against a person on the basis that such person acted in accordance with a religious belief or moral conviction about marriage.'" Jindal said he would issue an executive order "that will ... prevent the state from discriminating against persons or entities with deeply held religious beliefs that marriage is between one man and one woman." CW: Maybe this link should go under Presidential Race, but really, Bobby's "deeply held religious beliefs" have knocked him out of the running, if he was ever in it. ...
... The Times-Picayune story, by Emily Lane, is here. An updated story, by Lane, is here: "The order was issued Tuesday afternoon and went into effect immediately, said Jindal at a meeting with reporters in his office that evening." Jindal's order is here.
Peter Jamison & David Zahniser of the Los Angeles Times: "The Los Angeles City Council tentatively agreed Tuesday to raise the city's minimum wage to $15 per hour, joining a trend sweeping cities across the country as elected leaders seek to address stagnating pay for workers on the lowest rungs of the socio-economic ladder. The ordinance would boost the $9 an hour base wage to $15 by 2020 for as many as 800,000 workers, city officials say, and make L.A. the largest U.S. city to adopt a major minimum-wage increase. Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle already have adopted similar laws."
News Ledes
Washington Post: "Nearly 34 million cars and trucks nationwide were declared defective Tuesday because of deadly air bags made by auto-parts giant Takata, in what is expected to be the biggest recall of any consumer product in U.S. history. The expanded recall doubled the number of vehicles believed to have the air bags, which can blast out sharp metal shrapnel when deployed, a flaw that has been linked to six deaths and more than 100 injuries." ...
... The Post has a partial list of the vehicle makes that may have the dangerous air bags. "But neither automakers nor the government has made it easy to find out whether your car is included -- and how it should be fixed.... Consumers reported Tuesday that they got conflicting answers or no answers at all when they called dealerships about the recall. Meanwhile, car manufacturers said people should continue to drive their vehicles -- even those with the deadly defect -- until the parts arrive at their local dealerships." CW: Comforting. You can still get to work, but do watch for flying shapnel.
ABC News: "Vice President Joe Biden's son, Beau Biden, is undergoing treatment at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, the Office of the Vice President told ABC News."
Guardian: "Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has cancelled a pilot scheme banning Palestinian workers from Israeli buses in the occupied territories -- denounced as tantamount to apartheid -- only hours after it was announced. The plan had been approved by Netanyahu's defence minister, Moshe Ya'alon, but was cancelled amid fierce criticism from Israeli opposition figures, human rights groups and a former minister in Netanyahu's own party, who said it was a 'stain on the face of Israel' that would damage its international image."