The Commentariat -- August 26, 2014
Internal links, defunct video removed.
Mark Landler & Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "President Obama has authorized surveillance flights over Syria, a precursor to airstrikes there, but a mounting concern for the White House is how to target the Sunni extremists without helping President Bashar al-Assad." ...
... Oren Dorell of USA Today: "British intelligence said a London rapper who traveled to Syria last year to fight with Islamist militants is suspected of beheading American journalist James Foley last week, according to the British newspaper The Sunday Times.... A spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department said U.S. intelligence officials have yet to confirm the killer's identity on the video showing the killing and continue to work the case.... British intelligence agencies MI5 and MI6 identified the killer and named Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, 24, as a key suspect, The Sunday Times reported, citing unnamed officials. Abdel Bary, also known as L Jinny or Lyricist Jinn in London, left a budding music career that included appearances on BBC Radio in 2012, several British newspapers reported." ...
... Luke Harding & Fazel Hawramy of the Guardian: "The United Nations said on Sunday it had evidence that fighters from Islamic State (Isis) had killed as many as 670 prisoners in Mosul and had carried out further abuses in Iraq that amounted to crimes against humanity. Navi Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said Islamic State and allied fighters were committing 'grave, horrific human rights violations' on a daily basis. These included, including targeted killings, forced conversions, abductions, trafficking, slavery and sexual abuse, Pillay said." ...
... The hawks on the Washington Post editorial board call for "boots on the ground" against ISIS.
Harriet Sherwood of the Guardian: "An American journalist who was freed after almost two years of captivity in Syria is believed to be in the custody of the US embassy in Tel Aviv, where he is likely to be undergoing medical checks and preliminary debriefing. Peter Theo Curtis, 45, was handed over to UN peacekeepers in the village of al-Rafid, close to the boundary between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Syria. He had been held by Jabhat al-Nusra, an affiliate of al-Qaida, since autumn 2012."
David Kirkpatrick & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "Twice in the last seven days, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have secretly launched airstrikes against Islamist-allied militias battling for control of Tripoli, Libya, four senior American officials said, in a major escalation of a regional power struggle set off by Arab Spring revolts. The United States, the officials said, was caught by surprise: Egypt and the Emirates, both close allies and military partners, acted without informing Washington, leaving the Obama administration on the sidelines. Egyptian officials explicitly denied to American diplomats that their military played any role in the operation, the officials said, in what appeared a new blow to already strained relations between Washington and Cairo." ...
... CW: As contributor Haley Simon asks, "Anybody else wondering how it was that the US had 'no idea' that Egypt and the Emirates were bombing Libya given their worldwide surveillance of everybody? We surely do suck at whatever it is that the NSA is doing."
Connie Bruck has a long piece in the New Yorker on AIPAC, which has captured nearly every legislator in Washington, a fearsome fact given Israel's right-wing, militaristic government. CW: Another reminder that we will never have representative government without a Constitutional amendment on campaign finance reform.
** Stephen Ohlemacher of the AP: "The Veterans Affairs Department says investigators have found no proof that delays in care caused any deaths at a VA hospital in Phoenix, deflating an explosive allegation that helped expose a troubled health care system in which veterans waited months for appointments while employees falsified records to cover up the delays." ...
... Jim Kuhnhenn of the AP: "Three months after a veterans' health care scandal rocked his administration, President Barack Obama is taking executive action to improve the mental well-being of veterans. The president was to announce his initiatives during an appearance before the American Legion National Convention that is fraught with midterm politics. The president's address to the legionnaires Tuesday in Charlotte, North Carolina, is the latest administration response to the health care lapses that led to the resignation of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki in May."
The Tie Goes to the Republicans. Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times: "... more than 200 times in the past six years that the [Federal Election Commission] has split votes, reflecting a deep ideological divide over how aggressively to regulate money in politics that mirrors the partisan gridlock in Congress. But instead of paralyzing the commission, the 3-to-3 votes have created a rapidly expanding universe of unofficial law, where Republican commissioners have loosened restrictions on candidates and outside groups simply by signaling what standards they are willing to enforce." The rule is: it's legal if the members of the commission vote 3-3.
** Peter Mancuso in the Washington Monthly. The militarization of police forces in only part of the story: "That larger story begins many years before our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It involves a tit-for-tat escalation of armaments between criminals, citizens, and police departments that has been egged on by America's arms manufacturers and gun rights groups.... [The] call to increase police officer fire power was further exacerbated by the fact that state legislatures failed miserably in the face of the gun lobby to curb the sale of some of the most powerful and lethal firearms that posed threats to police officers across the country in the first place.... New huge profits for weapons makers [by opening up the law enforcement market for heavier firepower] meant increased contributions from these same firearms manufacturers to the National Rifle Association, (NRA).... The NRA's unabated, vigorous, and highly successful marketing strategy, wrapped the whole sales pitch in 'Second Amendment' parchment and a 'Red, White, & Blue' ribbon for the American public market." Read the whole post. ...
... Ed Kilgore: "It’s actually a bit worse than Mancuso suggests. The arms race between police departments and lawbreakers created an atmosphere of spectacularly lethal violence (even as violent crime rates actually went down) that made it easy for the gun lobby and its paymasters to argue that every single citizen needed to become his or her own police force, as heavily armed as the cops and robbers. 'Army of One' indeed. So we aren't just witnessing the consequences of the 'militarization of the police.' It's the militarization of America, which happens when you deliberately destroy the state monopoly on means of lethal violence.... [This is an] angle that libertarian folk like Rand Paul do not want to pursue: cops bulking up with military hardware as part of an arms race created by Second Amendment absolutism."
Cristina Marcos of the Hill: "House Republicans have hired D.C. law firm BakerHostetler to provide legal representation to sue President Obama. House Administration Committee Chairwoman Candice Miller (R-Mich.) signed a contract on Monday for BakerHostetler to represent the House in the civil action lawsuit in a U.S. district court against the president.... The contract authorizes the House general counsel to pay BakerHostetler $500 per hour for 'all reasonable attorney time expended in connection with the litigation.' However, the contract states that the legal costs will not exceed a 'firm cap' of $350,000 that 'will not be raised.'" ...
... CW: There is some good news here. It turns out that Miller, who is the only woman committee chair -- appointed after multiple news sites noted that all of the House committee heads were white guys -- actually gets to do something more substantial than keeping the coffee room stocked & ironing her colleagues' shirts. Always look on the bright side.
Richard Perez-Pena of the New York Times: "As the shaded quadrangles of the nation's elite campuses stir to life for the start of the academic year, they remain bastions of privilege. Amid promises to admit more poor students, top colleges educate roughly the same percentage of them as they did a generation ago. This is despite the fact that there are many high school seniors from low-income homes with top grades and scores: twice the percentage in the general population as at elite colleges.... As Anthony P. Carnevale, director of Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce, put it, 'Higher education has become a powerful force for reinforcing advantage and passing it on through generations.'" ...
... Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post: Our educational system is largely to blame for the lack of gender & racial diversity in high-tech companies.
Vauhini Vara in the New Yorker: "The problem with [the DOJ's multi-billion-dollar settlements with big banks] isn't that banks' relief efforts don't have a wider scope; it's that by describing the settlements in grandiose terms, banks and officials risk misleading the public about the scope, which, at best, can confuse people and, at worst, can set them up to fall victim to fraud." CW: Actually, the point seems to be to mislead the public.
The Whopper Challenge. Danny Vinik of the New Republic: "The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday evening that Burger King is seeking to buy Tim Horton's, the Canadian coffee and donut chain, to lower its U.S. tax bill.... The deal is structured as a 'tax inversion' which allows Burger King to switch its official tax jurisdiction from the United States, where the federal corporate tax rate is 35 percent, to Canada, where it is 15 percent.... If it sounds ridiculous that an American company can purchase a foreign firm and suddenly avoid the U.S. corporate tax system, that's because it is." ...
... Joe Weisenthal of Business Insider: "There has been talk of legislation to limit tax inversions, but in this political climate, the idea of anything actually passing both houses of Congress seems very slim. So earlier this month, the White House said it may use an executive order to limit tax inversions, though it remains unclear how much teeth any executive order would have.... Greg Valliere of Potomac Research says that Burger King's actions are a direct statement to the White House and the Treasury, basically daring them to back up their warning with action." ...
... AND This Tidbit. Richard Rubin of Bloomberg News: "Two top Republican lawmakers profited from a corporate tax-avoidance maneuver that the U.S. Treasury Department is seeking to curb. While U.S. House Speaker John Boehner and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp have resisted calls for a crackdown on companies adopting overseas addresses to pay lower taxes, both have made money off one of the deals. They also have investments at risk of losing value because of government action.... Their actions are legal.... Still, the two lawmakers, who have more sway over tax policy than any other House members, are invested in deals that Obama and other Democrats say are wrong and unpatriotic."
Libertarian Ascending? Hah. Ed Kilgore: Pew Research Center discovers even "self-identified libertarians aren't much 'libertarian,' either." Here's a funny bit: "These findings of the non-particularity of 'libertarian' views, mind you, is after Pew has melted the category down from 17% of the public to 11%, since a lot of 'libertarians' could not accurately distinguish 'libertarian' from 'communist' or -- get this -- 'Unitarian.'"
... The Pew Research findings are here:
Self-described libertarians tend to be modestly more supportive of some libertarian positions, but few of them hold consistent libertarian opinions on the role of government, foreign policy and social issues... In some cases, the political views of self-described libertarians differ modestly from those of the general public; in others there are no differences at all.
Charles Pierce reviewed the Sunday shows yesterday, & he remains unkind to Chris Jansing, who filled in as host for the rudderless "Press the Meat": "... the Dancin' Master's old place ... was later turned into a Rand Paul infomercial by guest DJ Chris Jansing. Prior to that, of course, Jansing let [Rep. Mike] Rogers [R-Mich.] deliver the kind of old boogedy-boogedy that's going to make his new show a hit among the canned-peach shut-ins of his target audience." ...
... CW: It occurs to me that Chuck Todd's new show may not be a hit with "the canned-peach shut-ins." Maybe the NBC Chipmunk has the same "problem" David Gregory had: he's just too young to connect with the shut-ins. Ergo, the most popular Sunday morning show today is anchored by "onetime military advisor to the House Of Rurikovich Bob Schieffer." If a network want an actual audience for its Sunday news show, it would have to turn over the airwaves to the likes of John Oliver or Jon Stewart. This week's guest host: Chris Rock. No, it's not gonna happen. The networks, aware that they are dying, have advanced along the Kubler-Ross model to Stage 5 (acceptance), whereas many viewers are stuck at an earlier stage -- anger or depression. ...
... CW Update: Oh, I must have been wrong. It turns out the new & improved "Press the Meat" will have "more edge":
The show needs more edge. It needs to be consequential. I think the show had become a talking shop that raked over the cold embers of what had gone on the previous week. The one-on-one conversation belongs to a decade ago. We need more of a coffeehouse conversation. -- Deborah Turness, President of NBC News
... CW: Wow! I'm really looking forward to hearing a "coffeehouse conversation" between Newt Gingrich & Mary Matalin. I guess Chuck will play the part of the hippie waiter. Maybe a bona fide newsmaker like Dick Cheney will drop by & order a cup of GI Joe. It will be like SNL just carries right through to Sunday morning. Eddddgy! ...
... [Emmy Awards host] Seth Meyers made a sardonic joke about network television holding an awards show and giving all the trophies to cable and other services. 'That would be crazy,' he said. 'Why would they do that?' ...
... TeeVee for the Well-Heeled. Alessandra Stanley of the New York Times: "There is an exhilarating confluence of talent and opportunity at places like HBO and Showtime. Shows like 'Breaking Bad' and 'True Detective' are more inspired than movies, telling stories that are a complete vision rather than a committee-dulled compromise. But it's increasingly obvious that the most rewarded series are also the ones that penalize audiences with costs that add up and count many viewers out."
Beyond the Beltway
Here is the Washington Post liveblog of the Bob & Maureen McDonnell corruption trial.
Rosalind Helderman, et al., of the Washington Post: "A pivotal moment in the corruption trial of Robert F. McDonnell and his wife began Monday as a prosecutor aggressively opened his cross-examination of the former Virginia governor. In a series of rapid-fire questions, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Dry asked whether McDonnell denied key facts about his relationship with businessman Jonnie R. Williams Sr. -- who prosecutors say bribed the first couple in an effort to curry favor for his onetime company." ...
... Here's the blow-by-blow by Washington Post reporters.
Elisa Crouch of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "Hundreds of mourners gathered at a St. Louis church this morning for the funeral of 18-year-old Michael Brown...." ...
... The Washington Post story, by Darryl Fears, et al., is here. The New York Times story, by Monica Davey, is here. ...
... Annals of Journalism, Ctd.
... CW: I can't help it -- I love the way Fox "News" covered Brown's funeral. Here's the headline: "More White House officials at Michael Brown's funeral than Thatcher's." Here's the lede: "The White House sent three officials to attend Monday's funeral for Michael Brown in St. Louis -- three more than it sent for former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's funeral last year. The administration's handling of the Brown funeral already has started to raise comparisons between the two." Yessiree, the first think I thought of in regard to Michael Brown's funeral was how many Obama administration attended Margaret Thatcher's funeral. "Started to raise comparisons"? I wonder who might be doing the comparing. It appears Fox "News" has launched a new school of journalism: self-referential reportage.
... Erik Wemple of the Washington Post with a few of the "outraged" responses to the New York Times' profile of Michael Brown (profile linked here yesterday). ...
... Margaret Sullivan of the New York Times: "Two words -- 'no angel' -- have become a flash point for many of the difficult, contentious, entrenched issues that have arisen in Ferguson, Mo. On Twitter, in my email queue and across the Internet, many Times readers are angry and disappointed about the use of those words, which have become yet another Ferguson-related hashtag. Let's get the obvious out of the way first: That choice of words was a regrettable mistake." ...
... CW: All-in-all, I'm with Steve M. on this: "I read John Eligon's New York Times profile of Mike Brown this morning and came away with the impression that it was a largely positive portrait. Then I went online and realized that I was supposed to be appalled by it." ...
... CW: I do think the Times made two mistakes, neither of which was the fault of the piece's author, John Eligon, who is a young black man. (1) The Times published the Brown profile on the day of Brown's funeral; ergo, readers are looking for an obituary-type remembrance, not a warts-and-all profile. Obituaries, unless the subjects are primarily famous for their notoriety, tend to be rather kind glosses. (2) The Times published the Brown profile side-by-side with one of Brown's killer Darren Wilson, & that piece found no specific fault with Wilson; rather, it seemed to explain the factors that might have led to his wantonly shooting dead a black man. Max Read of Gawker highlights the problem with that ill-conceived editorial decision. ...
... ** Matthew Yglesias of Vox: "Michael Brown didn't do anything as a teen that I didn't — but only one of us got killed.... But since the officer who apprehended us managed to handle the situation without killing us, the NYPD and the New York Times never felt the need to air our dirty laundry in public.... Angels, it turns out, are pretty rare. But if you look the right way, you don't need to be one to survive into adulthood." CW: This is the same point that Aqua Buddha boy -- and others -- have made. Acting like a jerk, including doing illegal things, is something in which probably most young men & many young women engage. It's a rite of passage. Some get caught by law enforcement. Few of the youthful miscreants end up dead or even with a criminal record. That small percentage goes way up for young black offenders. ...
CNN plays an audio recording of the shots that killed Michael Brown. Holly Yan of CNN: "In the recording, a quick series of shots can be heard, followed by a pause and then another quick succession of shots. Forensic audio expert Paul Ginsberg analyzed the recording and said he detected at least 10 gunshots -- a cluster of six, followed by four." ...
... Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post: "... the average black person's friend network is 8 percent white, but the average white person's network is only 1 percent black. To put it another way: Blacks have ten times as many black friends as white friends. But white Americans have an astonishing 91 times as many white friends as black friends.... A full 75 percent of whites have 'entirely white social networks without any minority presence.' The same holds true for slightly less than two thirds of black Americans." ...
Presidential Race
Chuck Lindell & Tony Plohetski of the Austin American-Statesman: In a 60-page motion to dismiss, Rick Perry's lawyers argued that "The two-count indictment ... defies common sense and should be dismissed 'immediately if not sooner' as a violation of the U.S. and Texas constitutions.... The wide-ranging attack argued that Perry's criminal charges were based on state laws that are unconstitutional or, at the very least, were misinterpreted -- constituting an improper attempt to criminalize politics and limit gubernatorial power in 'intolerable and incalculable' ways." ...
... Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post followed Rick Perry around New Hampshire for two days. Here's what he learned about Perry: He really wants to run for president again.... The dude is stylish.... He's decided which foreign policy lane he wants to occupy in 2016. Perry wants to be the hawkish, authoritative voice on national security.... He likes retail politics." ...
... Brian Beutler: Rick Perry's biggest gaffe in the 2012 primary debates, in the eyes of the GOP faithful was "Not the time he drew a blank, under pressure, about his desire to abolish the Department of Energy, but the time he called Republicans who oppose in-state tuition for so-called DREAMers heartless." He's making up for that now in his border antics & is setting the bar for all Republican presidential hopefuls: "Perry is helping to establish a theoretical baseline -- militarized border, maximum deportation of low-priority offenders -- that will become policy if a Republican manages to win the presidency in 2016."
Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) is gearing up for a presidential primary challenge against Hillary Clinton and hopes to capitalize on Democratic concerns over Clinton's coziness with Wall Street banks. Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Senate Democrats, plans to travel to two crucial presidential battleground states next month."
Senate Races
Larry Sabato, et al., in Politico Magazine: "... the midterms are far from over. In every single one of the Crystal Ball's toss-up states, (Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana and North Carolina), the Republican Senate candidate has not yet opened up a real polling lead in any of them. Democratic nominees have been running hard and staying slightly ahead, or close to, their Republican foes.... As we've said many times, 2014 should be a Republican year, with GOP gains in both houses of Congress. Yet Republicans have a terrible record of beating incumbent Democratic senators, going back to their last good year in this category, 1980."
News Ledes
New York Times: "The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index reached a milestone on Tuesday, closing above 2,000 for the first time ever, if just barely. It was a lazy day of trading that picked up on some encouraging signs in the United States economy, but not enough for sustained optimism in the market."
ABC News: "A third American hostage held by ISIS has been identified as a 26-year-old American woman who was kidnapped a year ago while doing humanitarian relief work in Syria. The terror group is demanding $6.6 million and the release of U.S. prisoners for the life of the young woman, whom a representative for the family requested not be identified."
New York Times: "A 33-year-old American who was fighting for the militant group the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria was killed in recent days in a battle with a rival group in Syria, a senior American official said on Tuesday. The authorities identified the man as Douglas McAuthur McCain, of San Diego. According to a human rights group that tracks the conflict in Syria, Mr. McCain was killed in a battle in Marea, a city in northern Syria near the Turkish border. Mr. McCain had been on a watch list of potential terrorism suspects maintained by the United States government...."
New York Times: "Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday reached a long-term cease-fire after seven weeks of fighting, according to officials on both sides, halting the longest, bloodiest battle either side has experienced in years -- but without resolving many of the bigger issues underlying the conflict."
New York Times: "Burger King Worldwide agreed on Tuesday to buy the Canadian restaurant chain Tim Hortons for about $11.4 billion, creating one of the biggest fast-food operations in the world -- with a little help from Warren E. Buffett. As part of the transaction, however, the American burger giant will move its home to Canada, where the combined company's biggest market will be."
Washington Post: "Ukraine said Tuesday its forces detained a group of Russian paratroopers who crossed the border into eastern Ukraine, and the U.S. ambassador to Kiev warned of a possible 'Russian-directed counteroffensive' by pro-Moscow separatists, raising tensions between the two countries as their presidents attended a regional summit."