The Commentariat -- April 28, 2016
Afternoon Update:
Sarah Wheaton of Politico: "President Barack Obama is opening a new front in the gun control debate, readying a big push for so-called smart gun technology -- an initiative that the gun lobby and law enforcement rank and file is already mobilizing against." -- CW
Gardiner Harris of the New York Times: "In an unannounced visit shrouded in secrecy, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. came to Iraq on Thursday for the first time in almost five years, hoping to help a weak prime minister and bolster the military campaign against the Islamic State. The intense security and clandestine nature of the trip reflected the challenges Iraq still faces 13 years after the United States-led invasion. Mr. Biden arrived for the visit, which was under discussion for months, at a moment when the country's political leadership is mired in yet another crisis." -- CW
Jack Ewing of the New York Times: "The chief executive of personally apologized to President Obama this week for cheating on vehicle emissions tests, while making what amounted to a plea for mercy as the German carmaker negotiates penalties with United States officials." -- CW
said on Thursday that heMatt Flegenheimer of the New York Times: The "alliance" between Ted Cruz & John Kasich has hit a new low. "... taking the stage at a convention hall [in Indiana], Mr. Cruz told voters that Mr. Kasich had no path to victory. 'John Kasich has pulled out,' he said, omitting any further context. 'He's withdrawn from the state of Indiana.'... But as Mr. Cruz spoke, Mr. Kasich's chief strategist, John Weaver, tapped out a semicryptic message on Twitter: 'I can't stand liars'." -- CW
Amber Phillips of the Washington Post: "At a town hall Wednesday at Stanford University, [former House Speaker John] Boehner called [Ted] Cruz 'Lucifer in the flesh.'... I've never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life,' he added. Boehner even suggested he would vote for Donald Trump, but not Cruz." -- CW ...
... Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Ted Cruz fired back at former speaker John Boehner on Thursday, accusing him of allowing 'his inner Trump to come out.'... He tethered Boehner to Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump over and over again." -- CW
*****
Jessica Firger of Newsweek: "The number of teenagers in the U.S. giving birth is at an all-time low, ... In recent years, the CDC and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have provided resources for local communities to implement programs that provide evidence-based sex education and offer access to free birth control," which appear to be working, especially the long-acting and reversible contraception such as intrauterine devices. Abstinence programs, not so much. -- LT
Presidential Race
Yamiche Alcindor of the New York Times: "... Bernie Sanders is planning to lay off hundreds of campaign staffers across the country and focus much of his remaining effort on winning the June 7 California primary.... Despite the changes, Mr. Sanders said he would remain in the race through the party's summer convention and stressed that he hoped to bring staff members back on board if his political fortunes improved."
... Cartoon by Clay Jones: Didn't Ted Cruz lose FIVE primaries Tuesday night?... Cruz announcing his veep selection is like bringing office decorations to your job interview. If he loses Indiana next week is he going to start appointing ambassadors?" Via LT. ...
... Jonathan Martin, et al., of the New York Times: "Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, desperate to alter the course of a presidential primary fight in which Donald J. Trump is closing in on victory, announced Wednesday that Carly Fiorina would be his running mate if he won the Republican nomination." -- CW
... "That Face!" Nick Gass of Politico: "Picking Carly Fiorina to be his running mate would be a bad choice on the part of Ted Cruz, Donald Trump opined Wednesday, remarking that the former Republican presidential candidate 'did not resonate' and that it would further hurt the Texas senator's case." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Well, this could get awkward: Remembering the time Carly Fiorina stated that Ted Cruz cannot possible beat Hillary Clinton... --safari
... Paul Waldman: "If you tuned in to their event, you saw Fiorina, a former corporate CEO who got a golden parachute worth $40 million after nearly driving her company into the ground and laying off tens of thousands of people, talking about how money and power are concentrated in too few hands in America today. Inspiring! -- CW ...
... CW: You may not forgive me for this, tho the part near the beginning, where Fiorina seems to forget Ted Cruz's name, is a bright spot. The rest should creep you out. It reminds me of those horror movies where the evil babysitter is about to murder the children. As the video plays out, it's easy to picture Fiorina slowly walking up the stairs of the Cruzes' darkened mansion, weapon in hand, while the pretty little girls lie sleeping in their beds:
Julia Azari of 538: "... as much as Cruz's move defies campaign convention, it fits perfectly into a brief but depressing tradition: choosing a female running mate as a desperation move." -- CW
Together, they form the most loathsome pair in America. -- Dawn Laguens, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood, on the Cruz-Fiorina ticket -- CW
... Charles Pierce: "Cruzorina! Feel the galvanic energy of a torrent of complete flopsweat." -- CW ...
... Shakezula of LG&$: "Oh yes. I predict this will be the most successful decision in the history of decision making since Sen. John McCain looked up the number of Alaska's governor." -- CW
... Steve M.: "Whatever Trump says about Fiorina will reinforce Hillary Clinton's message that a vote for Trump is a vote for misogyny. Cruz and Fiorina, in other words, are setting up to Trump to provide embarrassing Trump footage for Clinton attack ads." -- CW
Nick Gass: "Donald Trump laid out his broad vision for what American foreign policy would look like with him in the White House, vowing to chart a different course than the post-Cold War order that has 'lacked a coherent policy.' Trump's speech on Wednesday offered little in the way of policy details, instead riffing on a series of his past comments about temporarily banning Muslim refugees, vowing to wipe out the Islamic State and make allies pay their fair share. He also rebuked President Barack Obama and laced into Hillary Clinton, who is increasingly becoming the target of his barbs as he starts to focus on the general election." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... The New York Times story, by Mark Landler & Ashley Parker, is here. -- CW ...
... Michael Crowley of Politico: "... across the ideological spectrum, and even among natural allies, Trump's speech received a failing grade for coherence and drew snickering and scorn from foreign policy insiders who remain unconvinced that Trump is up to the job.... He declared that 'America First' would be the 'major and overriding' theme of his presidency moments before hailing America's role in World War II -- which was opposed by the isolationist America First movement of the early 1940s...." -- CW
... New York Times Editors: "No one's fears are likely to be allayed by [Trump's] speech, which was clearly worked up by his new campaign advisers and read from a teleprompter. It did not exhibit much grasp of the complexity of the world, understanding of the balance or exercise of power, or even a careful reading of history.... Mr. Trump repeatedly states outright falsehoods, often based on wrong assumptions.... Mr. Trump did not display any willingness to learn or to correct his past errors. For someone who claims he is ready to lead the free world, that is inexcusable." -- CW ...
... Eric Levitz of New York: Donald "Trump's foreign policy caters to an underserved market, one that rejects the long-standing bipartisan consensus on matters of immigration, trade, and military intervention. Trump speaks to an American middle class that is less concerned with the details of his counterterrorism strategy than with the overriding sense that their government puts the interests of foreigners ahead of their own.... And then there was his plan for defeating ISIS, which reads like a book report from a sixth-grader who didn't do the reading." --safari ...
... Dana Milbank: "Trump, who routinely mocks President Obama and Hillary Clinton for using a teleprompter and who said that presidential candidates 'should not be allowed to use a teleprompter,' used a teleprompter. He carefully read a speech somebody else had written, demonstrated both by his lack of familiarity with the content -- he pronounced Tanzania as 'Tan-ZANY-uh' -- and by its un-Trumpian phrases such as 'the false song of globalism' and 'the clear lens of American interests.'" -- CW ...
... Fred Kaplan of Slate: "Donald Trump's 'major foreign policy address' on Wednesday (...) may stand as the most senseless, self-contradicting foreign policy speech by any major party's presidential nominee in modern history." --safari
Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress: "Randy who? [T]he ongoing Republican primary presents GOP voters with a choice between Trumpism and the vision expressed in [Randy] Barnett's new book, Our Republican Constitution: Securing the Liberty and Sovereignty of We the People....Barnett and Trump both share a deep disdain for America's longstanding democratic norms....while Barnett is nowhere near the household name that Donald Trump is, his vision is likely to be a much greater threat to America's democratic norms than the orange-haired presidential contender." -- LT
Their Best Ever? Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Donald Trump has passed Mitt Romney's popular vote total from four years ago and is on a trajectory that could land him more Republican votes than any presidential candidate in modern history -- by a lot.... That presents an uncomfortable reality for anti-Trump forces: they're attempting to thwart the candidate who is likely to win more Republican primary votes than any GOP contender in at least the last 36 years, and maybe ever." --safari
Peter Stone of the Guardian: "For almost four decades, Donald Trump's newly installed senior campaign adviser, Paul Manafort, has managed to juggle two different worlds: well-known during US election season as a shrewd and tough political operative, he also boasts a hefty résumé as a consultant to or lobbyist for controversial foreign leaders and oligarchs with unsavory reputations. But some former US State Department officials familiar with Manafort say his track record as an international adviser may create new headaches for a campaign that has already been criticized for its weak foreign policy credentials." --safari
E.J. Dionne: "On his most glorious night so far, [Donald Trump] again showed Republicans why choosing him would produce an avalanche of Democratic votes from American women -- and from many men who respect women more than Trump seems to.... Trump has yet to kick his habit of reinforcing for all but his most loyal supporters how unsuitable he would be as a nominee." CW: Oh, E.J., how can you say that? ...
... Gail Collins discusses Trump's accusing Hillary Clinton of "playing the woman's card," whatever that is. -- CW ...
... Julie Ioffe has a long profile of Melania Trump in GQ. --
CW:This was Paul Waldman's favorite part:
To the twice-divorced Donald, Melania is terrific. He's never heard her fart or make doodie, as he once told Howard Stern. (Melania has said the key to the success of her marriage is separate bathrooms.) He can trust her to take her birth control every day, he boasted to Stern.... She has the perfect proportions -- five feet eleven, 125 pounds -- and great boobs.... Stern once asked Trump what he would do if Melania were in a terrible car accident, God forbid, and lost the use of her left arm, developed an oozing red splotch near her eye, and mangled her left foot. Would Donald stay with her? 'How do the breasts look?' Trump asked. 'The breasts are okay,' Stern replied. Then, yeah, of course Trump stays. 'Because that's important.' ...
... Adele Stan of the American Prospect can't help note the irony that the Misogynist-in-Chief "could lose the biggest game of his life -- to a woman." -- CW Frank Rich on the Republican race. -- CW Senate Races Charles Pierce: "Tuesday night was a terrific night for two prominent Democratic politicians: the president and Senator Chuck Schumer. In two vital Democratic senatorial primaries, in Pennsylvania and Maryland, their preferred candidates held off what were supposed to be very strong challenges from candidates located various distances to their left." -- CW Other News & Views Julie Davis of the New York Times: "The White House on Wednesday said that President Obama would travel to Flint, Mich., next week to hear from residents affected by the water crisis there and get a briefing on federal response efforts." -- CW CW: I was going to link this big ole feature currently on the front page of today's online NYT, even though it was by that self-important, three-named Andrew Ross Sorkin, but when I read the first self-important line, I stopped: "Two months ago, across an assembly-room table in a factory in Jacksonville, Fla., President Barack Obama was talking to me about the problem of political capital." That really should be Andrew Ross Sorkin III. Robert Barnes & Laura Vozzella of the Washington Post: "Supreme Court justices on Wednesday seemed highly skeptical of former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell's 2014 corruption conviction for actions he took on behalf of a businessman who provided his family with more than $175,000 in benefits. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. suggested that the law used to convict McDonnell might be unconstitutionally vague. Justice Stephen G. Breyer said he worried about prosecutors having too much power in deciding when politicians cross the line from political favors to criminal acts, even if it 'will leave some corrupt behavior unprosecuted.'" -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ... ... Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell had a surprisingly strong outing at the Supreme Court on Wednesday, as the majority of the court appeared to lean in the direction of overturning the corruption convictions a jury returned against him two years ago." --safari ... ... Dahlia Lithwick: "Two big themes emerge on Wednesday in McDonnell v. United States, the appeal of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell of his felony public corruption conviction. The first is that if lawyers across ideological lines agree that McDonnell was wrongly convicted under a vague and unfair ethics statute, they must be correct.... The other big theme: It seems obvious to the justices that public corruption and ethics rules are adorable, antiquated, and unenforceable because everybody does it." -- CW Linda Greenhouse discusses the U.S. v. Texas, where "the issue ... is whether the Obama administration has the authority to defer deporting the millions of unauthorized immigrants who are parents of American citizens and of children with permanent resident status.... I now think the case stands or falls on whether the court concludes that DAPA changed the law." -- CW Monica Davey, et al., of the New York Times: "J. Dennis Hastert, once among this nation's most powerful politicians, was sentenced to 15 months in prison on Wednesday for illegally structuring bank transactions in an effort to cover up his sexual abuse of young members of a wrestling team he coached decades ago. Mr. Hastert, 74, who made an unlikely rise from beloved small-town wrestling coach in Illinois to speaker of the House in Washington, sat in a wheelchair in a federal courtroom here as a judge announced his fate." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ... ... New Rules for Hastert. Matt Ford in the Atlantic: "Describing the longest-serving Republican speaker of the House as a 'serial child molester,' a federal judge in Chicago sentenced Dennis Hastert to 15 months in prison on Wednesday for lying to investigators and evading federal banking regulations as part of a scheme to cover up decades-old sexual abuse. Judge Thomas Durkin also imposed two years' supervised release, a $250,000 fine, and attendance in a sex-offender treatment program." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ... ... Akhilleus: Old Hastert Rule: Democracy is only for Republicans. New Hastert Rule: Orange jump suits are for lying pederasts. ... ... Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "The events that led to Hastert's election as speaker overlapped with the impeachment of then-President Bill Clinton. That impeachment centered on Clinton's own sexual misconduct -- albeit legal conduct with an adult.... On Dec. 18, 1998, Hastert -- a month away from taking the gavel as speaker -- rose to address the topic.... Hastert's reference to his 'conscience' and scolding remarks about abuse of the public trust..., knowing that Hastert had in his past ignored his conscience to abuse trust in a more significant way, the speech is jarring in its hypocrisy." -- CW Capitalism is Awesome, Ctd. Alexandra Stevenson & Matthew Goldstein of the New York Times: "It is a time of turbulence for the hedge fund industry, where some of the biggest names have reported double-digit losses.... That so many hedge funds remained bullish on Valeant [Pharmaceuticals] despite months of turmoil -- as questions were raised repeatedly about its accounting practices -- reflects the difficulty managers sometimes have with changing course." CW: Don't worry, folks. I'm sure they mostly just lost other people's money. Lauren Fox of Talking Points Memo: "OOPS! GOP Rep's Gotcha Amendment On Drafting Women Actually Passed. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) is deeply opposed to women in combat so he introduced an amendment requiring women [to] register for the draft. Unfortunately for Hunter, a lot of Members on the [House Armed Services Committee] thought requiring women to sign up for the draft was a pretty good step forward on the equality front." --LT Beyond the Beltway Noah Remnick of the New York Times: "Despite decades of fervent student protests that reached a peak last fall, the president of Yale announced on Wednesday that the university would keep the name of a residential college honoring the 19th-century politician and white supremacist John C. Calhoun. The president, Peter Salovey, also said the university would name its two new residential colleges for Anna Pauline Murray and Benjamin Franklin. The selection of Ms. Murray, a legal scholar and civil rights activist who graduated from Yale Law School in 1965, represents the first time the school has honored either an African-American or a woman with the naming of a college." -- CW ... ... Alice Ollstein of Think Progress: "Alabama is currently celebrating Confederate Heritage Month.... This week..., Alabama's Secretary of State John Merrill lamented recent calls to remove Confederate symbols from government buildings. 'The next question that has to be asked is so what's the next thing you are going to do,' he asked, 'are you going to take a bulldozer to the monument and forget what people fought for to preserve a way of life that makes us special and unique?'" -- CW Doug Stanglin of USA Today: "Robert Durst, the one-time fugitive New York real estate heir who faces a murder charge in California, was sentenced Wednesday in New Orleans to seven years and one month in prison under a plea deal on a firearms charge." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) Way Beyond Juan Cole splashes some very cold water on Saudi Arabia's recently announced economic transition. "So it seems to me that the Vision for 2030 is mostly smoke and mirrors. It has been a great party since the 1940s; it is going to be a hell of a hangover." --safari News Ledes NBC News: "The county sheriff investigating the death of Prince is asking for help from the Drug Enforcement Administration, federal law enforcement officials told NBC News on Wednesday. The officials say prescription painkillers were found in his possession when he died and in his house in Minneapolis, though officials have yet to say what role, if any, those medications may have played in his death." Washington Post: "Airstrikes on rebel-held areas in the Syrian city of Aleppo destroyed a hospital supported by Doctors Without Borders, the aid group said Thursday, killing at least 14 patients and staff in the latest attacks that have all but unraveled a cease-fire accord." -- CW