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The Commentariat -- July 1, 2016
Mario Trujillo of the Hill: "President Obama on Thursday signed into law a bill to strengthen the government's open records laws. The legislation to update the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) made it over the finish line after years of delays, which were partly blamed on behind-the-scenes opposition in the administration. The changes would put the force of law into a 2009 Obama directive urging agencies to err on the side of disclosure when handling open records requests." ...
... CW: I don't get that part about "behind-the-scenes opposition in the administration," & Trujillo doesn't bother to explain it. If President Obama signed a directive consistent with the bill, why was his administration against it?
Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter repealed the Pentagon's long-held ban on transgender people serving in the military Thursday, ending a year-long process that was bogged down by internal conflict and concerns among senior service officials about how the change could be made. Carter said at a news conference that the policy change will take place over the next 12 months.... Beginning Thursday, however, service members can no longer be involuntarily separated from the services solely on the basis of being transgender, he said. Carter said. 'We have to have access to 100 percent of America's population for our all-volunteer forces to be able to recruit from among them the most highly qualified -- and to retain them.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Akhilleus: Screaming to start in....3, 2, 1.
Tom LoBianco & Ryan Browne of CNN: "A devastating new report by military investigators released Thursday found that the 10 sailors captured by Iranians in January suffered from 'failed leadership' at all levels on a mission that was plagued by mistakes from beginning to end. 'This incident was the result of failed leadership at multiple levels from the tactical to the operational,' investigators wrote in the detailed, partially redacted, report. The report found the crews were poorly prepared, their boats not properly maintained, communication almost entirely lacking, and their conduct after being captured by the Iranians wasn't up to military standards." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "Nine officers and enlisted sailors -- including a captain and the commanding officer of the boats -- face discipline, with some being relieved of command because of the episode, which embarrassed the service and occurred just hours before President Obama gave his last State of Union address." -- CW ...
... Akhilleus: But this incident, at least partially the fault of "failed leadership" on the part of Navy commanders, was used as a screaming point by a horde of right-wingers. Louie Gohmert (R-Texit) wanted to go to war, and without waiting for any clarification or additional information, demanded that we start bombing Iran "immediately". Contrast that and similar childish meltdowns with the measured and adult responses to a vastly more dangerous situation back in 1968, the taking of the USS Pueblo by the North Koreans. Although there was much consternation over the event, no one of either party demanded we start a war in order to assuage their personal pique.
Emily Atkin of Think Progress: "There will be a vote on gun control in the House of Representatives. On Thursday -- one week after nearly 170 House Democrats staged a historic sit-in protest on the House floor demanding a vote on on gun control legislation -- Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) said he will allow a vote on a bill to prevent suspected terrorists from buying guns.... Exactly which bill the House would take up was unclear.... If the bill is too weak, there is a possibility that House Democrats will continue to protest in one way or another until a better bill is brought to a vote." --safari
Dana Milbank: "A day after the House Benghazi committee released a final report that left Hillary Clinton relatively unscathed, conservative activists ... [met to criticize] Chairman Trey Gowdy for failing to deliver the goods.... Herein lies a lesson for Republicans who are perpetually trying to appease the far right: It's a fool's errand.... John Boehner named the Benghazi committee because activists were dissatisfied that seven previous congressional investigations had failed to uncover major scandal material. Now an eighth has produced more of the same -- and the agitators are as agitated as ever.... [One accused] Gowdy himself [of being] in on the Benghazi conspiracy." -- CW
Paul Glasteris of the Washington Monthly: "[S]traight off her high-profile campaign appearance Monday with Hillary Clinton, Sen. Elizabeth Warren gave a keynote address about industry consolidation in the American economy.... [S]he extended her critique to the entire economy, noting that, as a result of three decades of weakened federal antitrust regulation, virtually every industrial sector today ... is under the control of a handful of oligopolistic corporations...." Glasteris thinks the nature of speech in its synthesis of economic policies, "has the possibility of changing the course of the [presidential] campaign." Includes video and text of the speech. --safari
Mitch Smith & Erik Eckholm of the New York Times: "A federal judge on Thursday blocked an Indiana law that would have banned abortions based solely on a fetus's disability or genetic anomaly, suggesting that it was an illegal limit on a woman's long-established constitutional right. Judge Tanya Walton Pratt, of Federal District Court for Southern Indiana, also held up a state ban on abortions motivated solely by a fetus's race or sex. In the preliminary injunction, Judge Pratt said limiting the reasons for an abortion was 'inconsistent with the notion of a right rooted in privacy concerns and a liberty right to make independent decisions.'" CW: Pratt is an Obama appointee.
Campbell Robertson of the New York Times: "A federal judge blocked -- less than an hour before it was to go into effect at 12:01 a.m. Friday -- a Mississippi law that would have given a wide range of special protections only to those who oppose same-sex marriage. In a 60-page ruling, Judge Carlton W. Reeves of United States District Court said the law created 'a vehicle for state-sanctioned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.' And by setting aside particular beliefs for protection as opposed to religions conviction in general, the law unconstitutionally 'put its thumb on the scale to favor some religious beliefs over others.' He concluded by issuing a preliminary injunction against the law from taking effect." CW: Judge Reeves is an Obama appointee. ...
... Dear Sanders Hardliners: Had the judges in the above two cases been Republican appointees, there's a good chance the decisions would have gone the other way. Get off your high horses & vote for the e-mail gal. -- Constant Weader
Hilarious Hypocrisy. Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress: "On Wednesday, the conservative Heritage Foundation announced what appeared to be an abrupt shift in position on one of the most contentious issues in American constitutional law. Heritage now supports a 'constitutionally protected right to privacy.'... Heritage's Edwin Meese, who previously served as attorney general under President Reagan, labeled the right to privacy 'nonconstitutional.' This has been the position of Roe v. Wade's most prominent opponents for as long as most lawyers can remember -- a principled position that the Fourteenth Amendment right to privacy is not protected by the Constitution, and that it should be scrapped by the Supreme Court. And now they have abandoned that principled position. Because they don't like trans people." --safari
On Populism. Jonathan Chait: "There are innumerable reasons to object to Donald Trump as a human being and prospective president of the United States. But yesterday, President Obama picked a strange one: that Trump is a phony populist.... Obama's assumption is that populist means a politician who promotes economic and social opportunity. But that is not really what the term means. The ideological definition of populist means traditionalist on social issues and interventionist on economic policy -- the opposite of libertarianism.... Populists believe the government has been captured by evil and/or corrupt interests, and that it can be recaptured by a unified effort by the people (or, at least, their people).... Is Trump a populist? The substantive definition is difficult to measure, since Trump is so slippery about his positions.... Even less convincing is Obama's attempt to define himself as a populist -- a label I have never heard him claim before, and for good reason." --safari
Bill Vlasic & Neal Boudette of the New York Times: "... the driver of a Tesla Model S electric sedan was killed in an accident when the car was in self-driving mode. Federal regulators, who are in the early stages of setting guidelines for autonomous vehicles, have opened a formal investigation into the incident, which occurred on May 7 in Williston, Fla. In a statement, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said preliminary reports indicated that the crash occurred when a tractor-trailer made a left turn in front of the Tesla, and the car failed to apply the brakes." -- CW
Garrison Keillor, in the Washington Post: "It's enlightening to see that Brits can be just as dense as anyone else.... And will we be next? The Trumpster went around banging his dishpan, whooping it up for ignorance and superstition.... Anyway. Now we shall turn to celebrating our Amerexit of 1776.... There is a new generation coming of age that is not so interested in race, sexual identity, ethnic origin, religion, all the hot buttons that demagogues have successfully pushed for years. While Britain tries to build back the old walls, the Northern Irish can join up with the Republic of Ireland and thereby rejoin the E.U., as they evidently wish to do. That would be something to behold.... Don't give up hope. The Trumpists shall pass. God save America." -- CW ...
... Tim Egan: "... on this upcoming Independence Day, at a time when Trump's response to our better angels is to go small, mean and tribal, an American ideal is in peril. Not open borders, which is something the United States hasn't had since 1875, but open minds.... The sun never sets on a stupid idea. And [the Brexit] vote to stop the spinning globe and get off at 1952 is among the stupidest. Britain is cracking up now because it followed the crackpots. The United States could make the same mistake -- rejecting free trade, and rejecting a welcome mat for free people.... [Trump is] counting on the same contagion of stupidity that infected Britain to carry him." -- CW
Presidential Race
TarmacGate. Predictable (and Predicted). Mark Landler of the New York Times: "An airport encounter this week between Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch and former President Bill Clinton has welled into a political storm, with Republicans asserting that it compromised the Justice Department's politically sensitive investigation into Hillary Clinton's email practices while she was secretary of state." ...
... Right Wing World Rule: If two or more Democrats speak to each other, it's a conspiracy. Congressional investigation Recusal required. -- CW ...
... Update. Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "... Loretta E. Lynch plans to announce on Friday that she will accept whatever recommendation career prosecutors and the F.B.I. director make about whether to bring charges related to Hillary Clinton's personal email server, a Justice Department official said. Her decision removes the possibility that a political appointee will overrule investigators in the case. The Justice Department had been moving toward such an arrangement for months ... but a private meeting between Ms. Lynch and former President Bill Clinton this week set off a political furor and made the decision all but inevitable." ...
... CW: Really? FBI Director Comey is a political appointee: President Obama nominated him. But, you know, Comey is a Republican, so that makes it all okay ...
I do not believe my impartiality can reasonably be questioned. If it is reasonable to think that a Supreme Court Justice can be bought so cheap, the Nation is in deeper trouble than I had imagined. -- Justice Antonin Scalia, 2004, refusing to recuse himself from a case about Vice President's Dick Cheney's failure to turn over documents, a case the Court agreed to hear three weeks after Scalia & Cheney went on an extended hunting trip ("In the end, Scalia supported Cheney.")
... They Misunderestimated. Julian Hattem of the Hill: "The Obama administration on Thursday asked a federal court to delay until October 2018 the release of 14,000 pages of emails from aides to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In a court filing on Wednesday, administration lawyers said the State Department miscalculated the amount of material it would need to process the documents as part of a lawsuit with the conservative organization Citizens United." -- CW
In fact, that could be a Mexican plane up there. They're getting ready to attack. -- Donald Trump, speaking in Manchester, New Hampshire, as a plane flew overhead
... Rebecca Savransky of the Hill: "... Donald Trump on Thursday pointed to a plane flying above his event and said it could be a Mexican plane preparing to attack." The event was in New Hampshire. ...
... Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "... there is a concern among many in the party that no matter how much Mr. Trump's aides try to harness his message, there are limits to how much he will adjust.... Corey Lewandowski, the campaign manager who had championed a 'let Trump be Trump' approach and whom Mr. Trump fired less than two weeks ago, showed up at the speech, startling reporters. It wasn't clear whether Mr. Lewandowski, a New Hampshire resident, had met with Mr. Trump." ...
... CW: Trump must be unaware that Mexico is an ally & that the President of Mexico Enrique Peña Nieto met to sign a climate accord with President Obama the previous day. Otherwise, why would he posit that a plane observed flying over New Hampshire, for Pete's sake, might be a stealth Mexican warplane, apparently undetected during its trip across the U.S.? This might be the first time in American history that a major party's (presumptive) nominee accused a friendly government of opening armed hostilities against the U.S.
World's Greatest Businessman Unable to Subtract 9 - 4. Christina Wilkie of the Huffington Post: "Donald Trump on Thursday responded to a landmark Supreme Court ruling earlier this week on abortion, telling radio host Mike Gallagher that if Trump had been president, the court would have reached a different decision. 'Now if we had -- Scalia was living, or if Scalia was replaced by me, you wouldn't have had that, OK? It would've been the opposite,' Trump said of the ruling, which struck down a restrictive Texas abortion law. The death in February of Justice Antonin Scalia left the high court with only eight justices.... The remaining justices issued three rulings this spring that were deadlocked, 4-4. But the abortion decision Trump was talking about wasn't one of them." The decision was a 5-3 split. If Trump had nominated a rabid anti-abortion yahoo to replace Scalia, the decision would have been 5-4 against Texas. -- CW...
... Also, Unfamiliar with Elementary Statistics. We have thousands of people standing outside trying to get in, and they're great people and they have such spirit for the country and love for the country, and I'm saying, you know, "Why am I not doing better in the polls?"... But you know, you have to understand, your show, no, but many shows it's just a constant hit from mainstream media, no matter what you do, it's always a negative. -- Donald Trump, Thursday
CW Translation: Thousands of people come to my rallies, so polls showing me losing the presidential race are the products of a media conspiracy.
Nasty & Nastier. Robert Costa & Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump's campaign has begun formally vetting possible running mates, with former House speaker Newt Gingrich emerging as the leading candidate, followed by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. But there are more than a half dozen others being discussed as possibilities, according to several people with knowledge of the process.... The contenders under the most serious consideration ... have been asked by attorney Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr. to answer more than 100 questions and to provide reams of personal and professional files that include tax records and any articles or books they have published. Culvahouse, a former White House counsel who is managing the vetting for Trump,... vetted then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for the GOP vice-presidential nomination...." CW: I'm sure he'll do a good job. Among the questions: "How many New Jersey Mooslums cheered from the rooftops on 9/11?" (possible advantage: Chrisco) & "What is the raunchiest thing you did with your wife?" (advantage: Newt). ...
... Eric Levitz of New York: "Donald Trump is vetting New Jersey governor (and possible Trump hostage) Chris Christie as a potential running mate, according to separate reports for CNN and the New York Times. Normally, an established politician with a national platform wouldn't tie his brand to a figure 70 percent of the country despises. Generally speaking, presidential nominees don't select running mates who could actually hurt the ticket's standing in their home states. But Donald Trump and Chris Christie are two men with no good options." --safari ...
... Steve M. studies history & discovers why Trump is leaning toward Cap'n. Chrisco (and, I would add, Newt). Once asked by an "Apprentice" producer why he didn't fire a fat contestant "who was a buffoon and a fuckup," Trump said, "Everybody loves a fat guy. People will watch if you have a funny fat guy around. Trust me, it's good for ratings." -- CW
Ed Kilgore of New York: "With [Wednesday]'s remarkable shrieking diatribe about the perfidy of globalization and international trade deals, tellingly delivered in a former Pennsylvania steel town, Donald Trump seems to be making a big strategic gamble. Without question, this speech deeply offended, perhaps terminally, a lot of the old Chamber of Commerce type Republicans.... Offsetting that, Trump presumably believes, could be a crucial sliver of the vote in trade-impacted Rust Belt states..., voters who might have even supported Bernie Sanders or similar anti-trade labor-oriented Democratic pols in the recent past.... The bottom line is that Trump better hope he can convince the millions of business-oriented Republicans who imbibed free-trade ideology from infancy to vote for him on other issues. Otherwise his big Rust Belt gamble is likely to fail." --safari
Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "Long before Mr. Trump announced his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, roiling the 2016 election with his pugnacious style and speeches in which he has branded many undocumented immigrants as rapists and murderers, he had proved himself in New York as an expert political provocateur with an instinct for racially charged rhetoric." -- CW ...
... Via Democracy Now, a conversation with Wayne Barrett, who has been following Trump's shenanigans since his arrival on the Manhattan scene. Keep these things in mind whenever Dirty Donald grumbles about "Crooked Hillary". --safari
Dirty Trickster-in Chief. Joseph Tanfani of the Los Angeles Times on Donald Trump's personal but secretive role in undermining an American Indian tribe's attempt to run a casino in New York, especially through the use of vicious and untrue attack ads. "Hundreds of pages of records from a New York agency's investigation into the ad campaign, obtained by the Los Angeles Times, reveal new details about Trump's covert fight against the tribe. It was unusual not only for how deeply involved he was, but for the sharp tone of the attacks and the elaborate attempt to conceal his role.... The ads hit hard, highlighting news about crimes involving Mohawks to question whether the tribe was fit to run a casino. 'Now the Mohawks want state approval of a $500 million casino ... opening the door for organized crime,' said one ad." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Akhilleus: The guy who regularly tries to insult Senator Elizabeth Warren by calling her "Pocahontas" isn't anti-American Indian. He just wanted to make sure that it was his mob guys who got all the gambling money from New York. Such a wonderful president he'll make.
Aram Roston of BuzzFeed: "At Mar-a-Lago, the Palm Beach resort he runs as a club for paying guests and celebrities, Donald Trump had a telephone console installed in his bedroom that acted like a switchboard, connecting to every phone extension on the estate, according to six former workers. Several of them said he used that console to eavesdrop on calls involving staff." He also allegedly listened to some conversations between staff & guests. -- CW
Michael Levenson of the Boston Globe: "... conspiracy theories have always been part of the American political landscape and are believed by more than 55 percent of the public -- a group that cuts across race, gender, income, and political affiliation, according to researchers and polls.... What’s unusual ... is to have the presumptive nominee of one of the two major political parties using his stature to push such theories out of the realm of supermarket tabloids and e-mail chain letters and into the political mainstream.... 'In my estimation, what he's doing is very scary,' said Joseph E. Uscinski, a political scientist at the University of Miami who noted that conspiracy theories are often espoused by despots. '... He has a lot of power..., and conspiracy theories in the hands of powerful people generally lead to deleterious consequences.'" -- CW
Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post: "Many [Trump supporters] proudly say he won them over by 'telling it like it is' and 'not being politically correct' with his racist, xenophobic and nativist presidential campaign. So, I'm hardly surprised that [Trump's] followers ... lead the pack in thinking that African Americans are 'less "intelligent" than whites' (32 percent), 'more "lazy" than whites' (40 percent), 'more "violent" than whites (nearly 50 percent) and 'more "criminal" than whites (nearly 50 percent).... Still, it stings when you see how little folks think of you and your people and how that manifests itself in harmful ways." -- CW
Beyond the Beltway
Christie Still Excels at Day Job. Samantha Marcus of NJ.com "Gov. Chris Christie late Thursday declared a state of emergency and ordered state officials to plan a shutdown of all ongoing work paid for by the nearly broke Transportation Trust Fund. Christie's order came at the end of a day where the state Senate refused to take action on his offer to raise the gasoline tax by 23 cents a gallon in exchange for a 1-cent reduction in the sales tax." -- CW
Way Beyond
Another Price of Brexit. James Stewart of the New York Times: "Unless Britain finds a way to undo its decision to leave the European Union, London's days as the pre-eminent global financial capital, ranked even ahead of New York, may be numbered. I spoke this week to several high-ranking executives at major financial institutions that collectively employ tens of thousands in London. While none of them have any immediate plans to move their European headquarters from Britain's capital, all agreed they would eventually shift a significant number of highly paid employees to cities that remain in the European Union." Stewart ranks the contenders. ...
... CW: Before reading Stewart's rankings, I picked Frankfort as the obvious choice. But Stewart made a better pick, for the reasons he states.
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