The Commentariat -- April 11, 2015
Internal links removed.
** Tim Egan: "The great, nation-shaping accomplishments of Lincoln's day happened only because the South, always with an eye on protecting slavery and an estate-owning aristocracy, had left the union -- ridding Congress of the naysayers.... What unites the Republican Party, on this 150th anniversary of the murder of Lincoln, is that they are against the type of progressive legislation that gave rise to their party." ...
... CW: Wars are always mistakes, albeit sometimes unavoidable. The American Civil War was avoidable. It was Lincoln's Big Mistake. He should have let those people go.
"Karen DeYoung & Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "President Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro will hold a bilateral meeting Saturday on the margins of the Summit of the Americas here, the first such encounter between leaders of the two nations in more than 50 years, White House officials said. Planning for an Obama-Castro meeting has been a slow diplomatic choreography since December, when the two leaders announced that Cuba and the United States would restore diplomatic relations, including three rounds of lower-level negotiations over the mechanics of normalization." ...
... The New York Times story, by Julie Davis & Randal Archibold, is here. ...
... Josh Lederman of the AP: "The presidents of the United States and Cuba have spoken by phone for only the second time in more than 50 years, setting the stage for a historic encounter between the two leaders at a regional summit starting Friday in Panama. The call between President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro came on Wednesday, shortly before Obama departed Washington on his trip to Latin America and the Caribbean, the White House said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "The Obama administration is planning to impose a major new regulation on offshore oil and gas drilling to try to prevent the kind of explosions that caused the catastrophic BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, administration officials said Friday. The announcement of the Interior Department regulation, which could be made as soon as Monday, is timed to coincide with the five-year anniversary of the disaster, which killed 11 men and sent millions of barrels of oil spewing into the gulf. The regulation is being introduced as the Obama administration is taking steps to open up vast new areas of federal waters off the southeast Atlantic Coast to drilling, a decision that has infuriated environmentalists."
** Tim Egan: "The great, nation-shaping accomplishments of Lincoln's day happened only because the South, always with an eye on protecting slavery and an estate-owning aristocracy, had left the union -- ridding Congress of the naysayers.... What unites the Republican Party, on this 150th anniversary of the murder of Lincoln, is that they are against the type of progressive legislation that gave rise to their party." ...
... CW: Wars are always mistakes, albeit sometimes unavoidable. The American Civil War was avoidable. It was Lincoln's Big Mistake. He should have let those people go.
Emily Badger & Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post: "In case you are still skeptical that many of the non-poor -- and, in fact, a lot of the rich -- receive benefits from government, too (for which we don't make them pee in a cup or promise not to buy luxuries), we've rounded up some more examples below." CW: Tax week is upon us. Don't forget to take your yacht deduction. ...
... CW: Finally, a "welfare" benefit that I, too, find outrageous. Josh Hicks of the Washington Post: "Hundreds of Puerto Rico's residents qualified for federal disability benefits in recent years because they lacked fluency in English, according to government auditors. The Social Security Administration's inspector general questioned the policy this month in light of the fact that Spanish is the predominant language in the U.S. territory." ...
... Update: See today's Comments.
White House: "In this week's address, the Vice President laid out his and the President's plan to make two years of community college free for responsible students":
"The Laffer Swerve." Paul Krugman: "The question you should ask ... is why [Arthur Laffer's] always-wrong economic doctrine now has a stronger grip on the GOP than ever before.... And of course it's not just economic policy. What do we do in the face of a major party gone mad?" ...
... Steve Benen: "... the economic plan Laffer created for Kansas has resulted in debt downgrades, weak growth, and state finances in shambles.... Many Republican presidential hopefuls -- including the entire current top tier -- are eager to bring their economic plans in line with Laffer's discredited thinking. Or put another way, a wide variety of national GOP candidates are looking at recent developments in Kansas and thinking, 'How can I impose this model on the entire United States?'"
Manny Otiko of Salon: Lawrence Wilkerson, a Republican & former Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff on GOP warmongering & racism.
Keith Alexander & Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: 'An off-duty member of the Secret Service's uniformed division was arrested Friday morning and charged with trying to kick in the front door of his ex-girlfriend's apartment. Arthur E. Baldwin, 29, was charged with first-degree burglary and destruction of property."
Charles Pierce on how police racism makes us all less safe.
Ben Mathis-Lilley of Slate: "The White House released the Obamas' 2014 tax returns Friday.... The Obamas paid an effective federal tax rate of 18.8 percent ($93,362 on total income of $495,964). That's around normal for a household at their income level, per this chart, and is lower than the effective rates paid in many developed countries. It's also more than the 14.1 percent Mitt Romney famously paid in 2011." The President's & Vice President's tax returns are here.
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Hadas Gold of Politico: "Bloomberg Politics published a report about Nancy Reagan based off of fake news site NationalReport.net . The piece, headlined 'Nancy Reagan gives her endorsement to... Hillary Clinton,' quoted a supposed 'Drudge Report' saying that the former first lady told the History Channel series 'First Ladies In Their Own Words' that it's time for a female president.... The piece, which was published just before 5 p.m. on Friday, was deleted within minutes.... Bloomberg has reposted the article with a note that the piece has been retracted. 'This story has been retracted. We fell for a hoax. Apologies,' the note states." ...
... CW: Not anymore. The page has been 404'd as of 8:45 pm ET Friday.
Presidential Race
All Hillary, All Weekend!
Anne Gearan & Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "Instead of a splashy launch event, Clinton's plan is a calculated understatement. She is scheduling a series of small roundtables and other give-and-take sessions with voters, first in Iowa and later in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada -- the states holding the first presidential primaries and caucuses early next year. The idea is to showcase Clinton's abilities as a problem-solver and crusader for the rights of those struggling to climb into or stay in the middle class.... Clinton's human-scale approach is modeled on the listening tour she conducted across New York state at the start of her successful 2000 Senate race." ...
... CW: The approach also is a concession to two factors: (1) Clinton can't give the stem-winding, ideologically-winger types of speeches that Ted Cruz & Rand Paul did. (2) She might find it tough to fill a hall with wildly-cheering enthusiasts (even going the Cruz route of assembling a crowd of the conscripted wouldn't work for her, as the detractors wouldn't just be a few fellows in Rand Paul T-shirts).
Brian Beutler of the National Journal: Hillary Clinton's run for the Democratic nomination, which may go virtually unchallenged, is "the source of genuine anxiety among liberals, who worry she'll enter the general election rusty and untested unless someone formidable dares to challenge her in the primary.... It may even be the case that some of these Democrats with rattled nerves are less anxious about Clinton's prowess against Republicans than about the fact that all of the party's hopes now rest on her shoulders. Her campaign has become a single point of failure for Democratic politics.... If she loses, it will be absolutely devastating for liberalism."
John McCormick of Bloomberg: "... nearly three-quarters of Democrats and independents in [a Bloomberg] survey said it would be a good thing for the Democratic Party if she were to face a 'serious' challenger for the nomination. Democrats and independents hold the same view, with 72 percent of both groups saying her party would be best served by a robust primary."
David Freedlander of the Daily Beast: "After [announcing her presidential run, Hillary Clinton's] nascent campaign will embark on a fundraising push that the Clinton camp says will dwarf anything seen in the history of presidential politics. 'They are going to raise in one week what some Republican presidential candidates are going to raise the entire cycle,' said one Clinton aide." CW: Great! I feel much better about the future of democracy now.
Stephen Koff of the Cleveland Plain Dealer: "Wasting no time, the Republican Party says it will launch Web ads critical of Hillary Clinton on Sunday, when she is expected to announce what the world has long expected: She is, in fact, running for the Democratic nomination for president in 2016."
CW: As the news of Hillary's campaign washed me in a bath of ennui, I began wishing for a third Obama term. Now I learn there is hope! (Not that I'm all that thrilled about the "nuclear destruction" part, mind you.) ...
... Apocalypse Soon! Hitler! Brian Tashman of Right Wing Watch: "In a WorldNetDaily column titled 'Is Iran Deal Part Of Obama-3rd-Term Scheme?,' conservative activist Alan Keyes writes today that President Obama has made a secret deal with Iran that allows the country to 'unleash nuclear destruction' since it would give him the justification to launch a Nazi-style 'coup d’état' here at home. Keyes, who was Obama's GOP challenger in the 2004 U.S. Senate race in Illinois, alleges that Obama is aiding both ISIS and Iran in order to create an excuse to illegally remain in power after his second term in office." CW: Thank you, Alan Keyes; I'm feeling better already.
Some Other Candidates
Li'l Randy Walks out on Guardian Reporter. Paul Lewis of the Guardian: "The Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul walked out of a live interview with the Guardian on Friday, in his third testy exchange with a journalist since launching his campaign for president three days ago. The Kentucky senator abruptly ended the interview when he was pressed over whether his campaign focus on the racial imbalances of criminal justice reform would win him support among Republicans." CW: Again, Randy lectured the reporter, in this instance Paul Lewis. With video. Maybe reporters will now quit writing Hillary-hates-the-press stories. So far, she hasn't shushed any reporters or talked over them to lecture them on talking over her. ...
... Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: "... it's the boring details of the organization that Paul is building that provide the best reason to take him seriously. If Paul's views are unusually idealistic, the ground game that his team is planning is pure realpolitik."
Charles Pierce on Scott Walker's serial mendacity & Politico's penchant for sugar-coating it.
New York Times Editors: "The use of [tax-exempt,] nonprofit groups for partisan politics has been growing in recent elections as the Internal Revenue Service has failed to draw firm lines against blatant politicking. The creation of a pro-Bush group floated by secret donors can only advance the nonprofit guise further, and rivals can be expected to match the deviousness with little to fear from the I.R.S. or the F.E.C."
Beyond the Beltway
Paloma Esquivel of the Los Angeles Times: "Ten San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies were placed on paid administrative leave Friday after TV news video showed them beating and kicking a suspect.... Also on Friday, the FBI opened a civil rights investigation into the incident....."
News Ledes
Reuters: "A man shot himself dead in front of the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, police said, sparking a temporary security lockdown at the complex on one of the busiest days for tourists in Washington."
Washington Post: "An Egyptian American citizen has been sentenced to life in prison for supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in the wake of a military coup that ousted the group from power in 2013. A Cairo criminal court issued the verdict against Ohio native Mohamed Soltan, 27, and 37 other defendants in a televised session Saturday. The judge also confirmed death sentences previously handed down to Soltan's father, Salah Soltan, and 13 others for 'inciting chaos' and planning anti-government demonstrations after the military takeover in July 2013."