The Commentariat -- June 6, 2016
Presidential Race
Danica Coto & Lisa Lerer of the AP: "Hillary Clinton overwhelmed Bernie Sanders in Puerto Rico's Democratic presidential primary on Sunday, putting her within striking distance of capturing her party's nomination. After a blowout victory Saturday in the U.S. Virgin Islands and a decisive win in the U.S. territory, Clinton is now less than 30 delegates short of the 2,383 needed to win the nomination, according to an Associated Press count." -- CW
John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "he Democratic primary season comes to a climax on Tuesday, when six states will vote: California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, and South Dakota. The biggest prize is California, where the race appears to be tightening.... Even though [the California results are] unlikely to affect who gets the nomination, it could have a major impact on where the Democratic Party goes from here -- toward unity or discord." -- CW
Ed Kilgore: "With Hillary Clinton drifting towards a majority of pledged delegates, it wasn't so clear California would matter that much to Democrats.... But the thing to remember is this: a narrow Sanders win will be mainly of psychological value...A big net delegate harvest for Sanders will require a big popular vote victory, and the polls just don't show that as remotely likely -- barring some really strange pro-Bernie turnout dynamics. So the current din of hype over who will 'win' California is largely a shuck." --safari
E. J. Dionne: "Hillary Clinton gave the speech about Donald Trump that, with a few changes, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) could have given. And he should have.... Instead of sticking to his vaunted principles, Ryan forged a link between the Republican Party and Donald Trump that may endure in public consciousness long after this campaign is over.... [Republican] party leaders have decided that Trump's nativism and racism, his utter disrespect for the judicial system, his soft spot for foreign dictators and his latent authoritarianism matter far less to them than holding on to power in Congress. It will be up to the voters to decide how big a price Ryan, Mitch McConnell & Co. should pay for this." -- CW
Judging Trump. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump said Sunday that a Muslim judge might have trouble remaining neutral in a lawsuit against him, extending his race-based criticism of the jurist overseeing the case to include religion and opening another path for Democrats who have criticized him sharply for his remarks.... [John] Dickerson [of CBS's 'Face the Nation'] asked Mr. Trump if, in his view, a Muslim judge would be similarly biased because of the Republican presumptive nominee's call for a ban on Muslim immigrants. 'It's possible, yes,' Mr. Trump said. 'Yeah. That would be possible. Absolutely.'" ...
... CW: We know Drumpf's sister is a federal judge, but I'll bet he doesn't think women "look judicial," just as he says Hillary Clinton "doesn't even look presidential," so let's rule out female judges, too. And why not "the blacks," (acknowledging as we do that Trump has "his African-American"). So pretty much the only kind of person who is fit to sit in the Trials of Trump are white, European-heritage, Christian guys (though maybe we'd better rule out judges of Spanish or Portugese heritage. Italians? Greeks? I'm not sure.) Also, too, they should probably be Republican appointees. Of course, any judge, no matter his pedigree, is unfaaair the minute he rules against a Trump motion. ...
... Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "In May, Trump released a list of potential Supreme Court nominees in a Trump administration. Every single person on his list is white." -- CW ...
... Philip Bump of the Washington Post adds to the list: "Let us ... try to isolate which judges Donald Trump would like to bar from overseeing any future legal disputes involving his get-others-rich-quick schemes.... Judges from the Democratic party.... Judges who are immigrants.... Judges who are women.... Judges who are black.... Judges with physical disabilities." -- CW ...
... Chas Danner of New York: "In other news, RNC chair Reince Priebus has assured the Washington Examiner that Trump's rhetoric regarding Hispanics is likely to evolve between now and the election.... Of course, that theory of evolution is not yet supported by evidence outside the minds of establishment Republicans who now find themselves chained to the Trump Express." On Bump's list, Danner writes: "(It's probably also worth excluding otherwise eligible men who have low energy, have wives who aren't tens, or are named Mitt Romney.)" -- CW ...
... CW: As the list of "unqualified" judges grows, it will become apparent that the only person capable of judging Trump is Trump Himself. So if you think digby is exaggerating when she writes that if Trump is elected, "we will have our very own Putin," you might want to have another think. ...
... ** Garrett Epps of the Atlantic: "At its rawest, [Trump's] claim amounts to, 'Who are you -- African American, woman, Jews, "Mexican" -- to judge a real citizen, a white man?'... The re-introduction of this crude, explicit racism into politics is repellent. More repellent yet, in a sense, is the effort now beginning -- by figures like [former U.S. Attorney General Alberto] Gonzales, Joel Pollack of Breitbart, The Daily Caller, and other conservative outlets -- to mainstream this dangerous deviancy." -- CW
** Larry Summers in the Washington Post: "On June 23, Britain will vote on whether to remain in the European Union. On Nov. 8, the United States will vote on whether to elect Donald Trump as president.... Both could yield outcomes that would have seemed inconceivable not long ago. Both pit angry populists and nationalists against the traditional establishment.... Yet, as great as the risks of Brexit are to the British economy, I believe the risks to the U.S. and global economies of Trump's election as president of the United States are far greater. Indeed, if he were elected, I would expect a protracted recession to begin within 18 months. The damage would in all likelihood be felt far beyond the United States." Summers explains why. And for once he writes in plain English. -- CW
Goofy Elizabeth Warren, sometimes known as Pocahontas, bought foreclosed housing and made a quick killing. Total hypocrite! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet, May 25
The overall pattern demonstrated in the 25 real estate transactions don't support Trump's claim that she made a 'quick killing' out of foreclosed homes. Instead, Warren mainly helped family members by purchasing or financing homes that were then held for years. Her family members did appear to profit from some transactions, but only modestly. This ... fits the profile that has been portrayed by Warren and her aides -- a sister helping out her brothers and other relatives, mainly through loans. There's nothing hypocritical about that. -- Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post
Other News & Views
Anne Usher of Politico: "[E]ven if Trump is elected, taking down Paris is going to be a lot harder than he thinks. That's certainly the view of Jonathan Pershing, President Obama's new climate envoy, who's rushing to Trump-proof America's commitment to the pact -- minimizing ways in which a President Trump could obstruct the global carbon reduction plan." --safari
Gardiner Harris of the New York Times: "There are few relationships between President Obama and another world leader more unlikely than the one he has with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India. The two have a public warmth -- or 'chemistry,' as the Indian news media like to describe it -- and that is likely to be on display Tuesday when Mr. Modi visits the White House for the second time in two years. It will be the seventh time the two leaders will have met." CW: This is one of those stories where the writer stakes out a storyline, then goes on to refute it. It is interesting, though, for some of the content.
Brian Beutler: "It is ... the Republican Party's plainly stated intention to preserve a Supreme Court vacancy so that Trump might fill it. The notion that Trump, through network effects, political pressure, and use of the Senate confirmation power, would nominate movement conservatives to positions of power is the connective tissue binding Republican leaders to a candidate they nearly all understand to be a political and moral wrecking ball. Trump's power as president to fill Supreme Court vacancies (which arise relatively infrequently) would accompany the power to fill scores and scores of other vacancies across the federal bench. That means more [bigoted judges], the GOP hopes and assumes, and more opportunities for a conservative Supreme Court to overturn liberal policy, whether on the basis of conservative theories of jurisprudence, rank opportunism, or thinly veiled bigotry." CW: You'll have to read the whole post to see how Beutler builds his case.
Democracy in Action. Eleanor Clift of The Daily Beast: "It should get our attention when a lone senator stops a popular piece of bipartisan legislation, blocking passage and opposing the prevailing opinion even in his own party. That's what Republican Senator Tom Cotton, a rising star in the GOP, has done and in a few weeks he'll have successfully killed the much needed and long overdue reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974.... The bill also has the backing of 5000 law enforcement agencies across the country, including dozens in Arkansas, and would have passed the U.S. Senate by unanimous voice vote earlier this year if Cotton hadn't stepped in with his 'hold.'" --safari
Eric Lipton & Julie Creswell of the New York Times: How "a stable of wealthy clients from the United States [hid millions of dollars in assets] are outlined in extraordinary detail in the trove of internal Mossack Fonseca documents known as the Panama Papers.... The Times's examination of the files found that Mossack Fonseca [-- a Panamanian law firm --] also had at least 2,400 United States-based clients over the past decade, and set up at least 2,800 companies on their behalf in the British Virgin Islands, Panama, the Seychelles and other jurisdictions that specialize in helping hide wealth.... For many of its American clients, Mossack Fonseca offered a how-to guide of sorts on skirting or evading United States tax and financial disclosure laws.... In 2001, Sanford I. Weill, then the chief of Citigroup, set up an offshore account called April Fool for his yacht." -- CW
Thanks, Fed! Paul Krugman: "... what is causing the economy to slow? My guess is that the biggest factor is the recent sharp rise in the dollar, which has made U.S. goods less competitive on world markets. The dollar's rise, in turn, largely reflected misguided talk by the Federal Reserve about the need to raise interest rates.... There are other policies that could easily reverse an economic downturn. And if Hillary Clinton wins the election, the U.S. government will understand perfectly well what the options are. (The likely response of a Trump administration doesn't bear thinking about. Maybe a series of insult Twitter posts aimed at China and Mexico?)" -- CW
John Oliver on low-life debt buyers and their multiple scams --safari
Sarah Carr of Slate: "If you want to know what America will look like in a generation, look at its classrooms right now. In 2014, children of color became the new majority in America's public schools...Right now, schools and school systems across the country are confronting a question that our society at large will need to answer in the coming years: Do Americans have the will and understanding to build a more inclusive, and less deeply segregated, nation? In many parts of America -- urban, rural, and suburban -- that will require a radical upending of the status quo." --safari note: interesting read, especially for you (ex)teachers out there.
Beyond the Beltway
Chris Kenning of the Louisville Courier-Journal: "A day after boxing titan Muhammad Ali died at age 74, his family announced his funeral would be held Friday in his hometown of Louisville and include a motorcade through the city, private burial at Cave Hill cemetery and a public memorial at the KFC Yum! Center with eulogies by former President Bill Clinton, Billy Crystal and Bryant Gumbel." -- CW
It Depends on How Long It Takes to Commit the Crime. Elle Hunt of the Guardian: "The father of a former Stanford University athlete convicted on multiple charges of sexual assault has said his son should not have to go to prison for '20 minutes of action'. Brock Turner, a former swimmer at Stanford University, was on Thursday sentenced to six months' imprisonment and probation for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman.... Turner was expected to spend only three months of a six-month sentence...." CW: How nice that the judge pretty much agreed with Pops. By their standard, drive-by shootings should not be prosecuted. Why waste the public's money building a case against somebody who should go to jail for maybe a couple of days tops for a crime that took only a second?
Way Beyond
Raphael Minder of the New York Times: "Swiss voters on Sunday overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to guarantee an income to Switzerland's residents, whether or not they are employed, an idea that has also been raised in other countries amid an intensifying debate over wealth disparities and dwindling employment opportunities. About 77 percent of voters rejected a plan to give a basic monthly income of 2,500 Swiss francs, or about $2,560, to each adult, and 625 francs for each child under 18, regardless of employment status, to fight poverty and social inequality and guarantee a 'dignified' life to everyone." -- CW
Jim Gomez of the AP: "The Philippine president-elect [Rodrigo Duterte] has encouraged the public to help him in his war against crime, urging citizens with guns to shoot and kill drug dealers who resist arrest and fight back in their neighborhoods.... If a drug dealer resists arrest or refuses to be brought to a police station and threatens a citizen with a gun or a knife, 'you can kill him,' Duterte said. 'Shoot him and I'll give you a medal.'...'If you're still into drugs, I will kill you, don't take this as a joke. I'm not trying to make you laugh, son of a bitch, I will really kill you,' Duterte said to loud jeers and applause." -- safari note: How long until Drumpf starts lauding this strongman, too?
News Lede
Weather Channel: "Tropical Storm Colin is located over the Gulf of Mexico as of early Monday morning and is expected to continue to move to the north-northeast. Colin is expected to make landfall along the Gulf Coast of Florida late Monday. This system is then expected to be somewhere near or off the coast of the Carolinas by later Tuesday." -- CW