The Commentariat -- March 25, 2016
If you are interested in taking over Reality Chex -- that is, owning it to do with as you will -- please contact me. I am looking forward to discontinuing my work on the site but would like to see it continue "under new management." I'll help you get started. Thank you to all who have contributed over the years. If I don't find a suitable "buyer," I'll close down next Friday, April 1. -- Constant Weader
Afternoon Update -- GOP Not-Sex Report:
Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "Ted Cruz on Friday accused 'Donald Trump and his henchmen' of planting the seeds behind a 'garbage' National Enquirer report alleging that the Texas senator has had extramarital affairs. 'This National Enquirer story is garbage. It is complete and utter lies,' Cruz said after a campaign event in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. 'It is a tabloid smear, and it is a smear that has come from Donald Trump and his henchmen.'” ...
... CW: Earlier today, I seriously considered skipping the reports of the National Enquirer story, but it seemed to be part-and-parcel of the Nasty Boys' Sleaze-Throwing Fight, so I didn't want to deprive readers of the escalation of said fight. If I made an error, Cruz has retroactively justified my error by addressing it. (And I don't think he had a choice.) If it was just crap earlier; it's crap news now.
Howard Koplowitz of AL.com: "A complaint into possible misuse of state property by Gov. Robert Bentley and potential violations by his alleged mistress and senior political advisor, Rebekah Caldwell Mason, was filed Friday by State Auditor Jim Zeigler. Both Bentley and Mason have denied an affair, although the governor admitted earlier this week that he made sexually inappropriate remarks to his senior political advisor after audio of Bentley's side of the conversation was leaked."
MEANWHILE, in Congress. Charles Pierce: "... there's some serious McCarthyite damage being done to medical research by a congressional committee chaired by a member of Congress whose brains are leaking out of her shell-pink ears. You should pay attention if you or any members of your family has been struck by diseases like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's or ALS. I think, at this point, former NFL football players should take special note, too." The anti-choice wackos have "moved on from the people who actually perform abortions to the people who use fetal tissue in medical research." CW: This perversion of Congress, people, also is all about sex. They're just pretending it's something else.
*****
"There Is No Biden Rule." Kathleen Hennessey of the AP: "Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday tried to clear his name and tout his record on Supreme Court nominations, calling Republican branding of his past remarks on the subject 'ridiculous' and casting himself as a longtime advocate of bipartisan compromise in filling seats on the high court. In a speech at Georgetown Law School, Biden issued a broad warning that Republicans' election-year blockade of President Barack Obama's nominee 'can lead to a genuine Constitutional crisis' and sought to distance himself from the strategy. He argued Republicans have distorted a 1992 speech in which he seemed to endorse the notion of blocking any Supreme Court nominee put forward in the throes of the election season. Republicans have labeled their strategy the 'Biden rule.'... But there is division within the ranks on that front. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., made the case earlier this week that [Judge Merrick] Garland should get a vote":
... Nick Gass of Politico: "A top conservative group threatened to back a primary challenger against Sen. Jerry Moran on Friday, days after the Kansas Republican told constituents that he was calling upon the Senate to take up Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court." CW: Because the Tea party reveres the Constitution, but only in a special, secret form that can morph to fit their needs of the day. I think they're still solid with the 3/5ths solution, tho. ...
... Jeff Toobin of the New Yorker games out the likely path of Garland's Supreme dreams (not going to happen this term) & sees this: "Merrick Garland’s nomination will prove consequential indeed if it helps usher the filibuster to its long-overdue demise." CW: You'll have to read his post to see how Toobin reaches his conclusion, but it seems plausible, to me, too. Until Democrats control of the House, I don't see how that body will function, but if the Senate eventually dropped the filibuster (and individual holds!), it might start legislating.
Mary Walsh of the New York Times: "Politicians in Washington are coalescing around a financial plan to rescue Puerto Rico, just weeks before an expected major default on bond payments that would spread more turmoil through the island’s shaky economy. The plan, being drafted as legislation by House Republicans, would not grant Puerto Rico’s most fervent request: permission to restructure its entire $72 billion debt in bankruptcy. It would, however, give the island certain crucial tools that bankruptcy proceedings can offer — but only if it first comes under close federal oversight and meets other conditions."
Patrick Clark of Bloomberg: "It's been more than 15 years since Congress increased funding for the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, the government's primary method for encouraging construction of affordable housing. On Thursday, Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) is to announce a plan that calls for Congress to spend 50 percent more on the program, enough to build as many as 400,000 homes over the next decade. That makes the Democrat's plan an ambitious attempt to increase the stock of affordable rental housing, one that comes in the face of potential opposition by a Republican majority, along with the legislative gridlock of a presidential election year. It’s also just a drop in the bucket."
Nick Gass: "Dianne Feinstein's office on Friday released a blistering rebuttal to the latest book from former CIA Director Michael Hayden, slamming numerous examples of what it characterizes as misrepresentations or plain falsehoods related to the use of enhanced interrogation techniques. The 38-page document from the staff of the California Democrat, who is vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, methodically goes over statements from Hayden's 464-page book released in February, titled 'Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror.'"
** Gene Demby of NPR: "... the tug of war over who gets to enjoy the benefits reserved for 'real Americans' has always been all tied up with racial politics. People of color were overwhelmingly excluded during the 'glory days' that so many white voters this election cycle look back on as better times. That's why Trump's 'Make America Great Again' mantra reads so menacingly to so many — whiteness seems to be a necessary precondition for that nostalgia." Via Paul Waldman. ...
... CW: Demby's essay also helps explain -- tho he doesn't discuss this -- Paul Ryan's new disavowal of his infamous "makers & takers" dissection. This was not a moment of self-reflection & correction on Ryan's part; rather, it was another GOP con -- an appeal to the white working-class "takers"/voters who have fled to Trump. A proper translation would be, "Yo, yahoos! My party is your party. You don't need Trump when you've got me, Paul Ryan -- elite, brilliant wonk -- on your side. (P.S. Never mind that just this week I used elite brilliant wonkish jargon to secretly endorse tax breaks for the rich & screw you undeserving yahoos.)" ...
... Digby, in Salon: "... while [Ryan] may be softly chastising Donald Trump for his rudeness and bad manners, it’s highly unlikely that anything fundamental in the GOP has changed. All these modern Republicans, whether Rand-loving 'intellectuals' like Ryan, power-mad hawks like Dick Cheney, anarchic nihilists like Cruz or vulgarians like Trump come from the same toxic ideological swamp."
CW: I'm late with this link, but Graciela Mochkofsky, writing in the New Yorker, provides some essential context for President Obama's declassification of American documents that may reveal the U.S.'s involvement in the Argentine coup that ushered in the infamous junta. (Note to Hillary: You may not want to mention again how much Henry Kissinger likes you.)
Mr. & Mrs. Kelley Learn Their Lawyers Are Not Their Friends. Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "A Florida couple on Thursday dropped a lawsuit over the federal government’s disclosure of their identities in connection with the investigation that uncovered evidence that , the C.I.A. director at the time, was having an affair.... This month, [Jill] Kelley’s lawyers told a federal judge that they would no longer represent the couple, citing irreconcilable differences.... In a statement, Ms. Kelley said she had difficulty finding a new lawyer because her previous ones had demanded that they be paid $7 million of any money she received."
Presidential Race
Nick Gass: "Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are effectively tied among Democratic voters, according to the results of a [national] Bloomberg Politics poll released Thursday. Of the 311 people who indicated that they have voted or will vote in their state's Democratic primary or caucus, 49 percent said they support Sanders, while 48 percent indicated that they prefer Clinton and the remaining 3 percent said they are not sure." CW: This is just one poll, so nothing to get excited about. But it is a reminder that Clinton, assuming she prevails in the delegate count, can't ignore half of her party. Sanders' popularity makes it impossible -- or at least stupid -- for her to Etch-a-Sketch out his platform.
Harold Meyerson of the American Prospect: "Are all these experienced activists even right in hoping that this time will be different, that this time a powerful social democratic left might just take root in America’s political soil? I think they are. Chiefly because Bernie Sanders’s campaign didn’t create a new American left. It revealed it.... At first glance, this new socialist presence just seems to have sprung up, unsummoned, unannounced. And yet, it clearly has been building for years. Its emergence was foretold by Occupy Wall Street...." ...
... CW: Meyerson may be dreaming, but his essay is heartening. Read it & smile.
Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "Bernie Sanders’ campaign on Thursday officially served the Democratic National Committee with a lawsuit, alleging the organization unfairly revoked its access to voter file data. Sanders’ campaign initially filed a suit in December and was facing a Thursday deadline to serve the committee with the suit. The allegations stem from a controversy late last year in which Sanders staffers improperly accessed information from Hillary Clinton's data file after a firewall between the campaigns' information was inadvertently dropped."
Steve LeBlanc of the AP: "U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren waded deeper into the presidential primary debate Thursday, sharpening her criticism of Donald Trump and cheering on Bernie Sanders.... Warren said. 'He has put the right issues on the table both for the Democratic Party and for the country in general so I'm still cheering Bernie on.' Warren declined to say which candidate she voted for in the Massachusetts primary. She said she plans to make an endorsement, but not yet.... The Massachusetts Democrat described the Republican presidential front-runner as a failed businessman who inherited a fortune from his father and then maintained it 'by cheating people, by defrauding people, and by skipping out on paying his creditors through Chapter 11' bankruptcy protection." ...
... Jim Newell of Slate: "The Democrats won’t force [Bernie Sanders] out of the race, no; they’ll just smother him with smarmy condescension.... They’re asking Sanders to continue running for the nomination without really running for the nomination. It doesn’t work that way.... Sanders has earned the right to finish out his candidacy, just as Clinton had in 2008.... Clinton and her supporters, which include the vast majority of the Democratic Party apparatus, would like Sanders to back the hell off and not put her in any uncomfortable positions. Putting Clinton in uncomfortable positions is exactly what Sanders wants to do."
Drip, Drip. Julian Hattem of the Hill: "Conservative legal watchdogs have discovered new emails from Hillary Clinton’s private email server dating back to the first days of her tenure as secretary of State. The previously undisclosed February 2009 emails between Clinton from her then-chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, raise new questions about the scope of emails from Clinton’s early days in office that were not handed over to the State Department for recordkeeping and may have been lost entirely. Clinton’s presidential campaign has previously claimed that the former top diplomat did not use her personal 'clintonemail.com' account before March 2009, weeks after she was sworn in as secretary of State. But on Thursday, the watchdog group Judicial Watch released one message from Feb. 13, 2009, in which Mills communicated with Clinton on the account to discuss the National Security Agency’s (NSA) efforts to produce a secure BlackBerry device for her to use as secretary of State."
Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker on the fall of Rome -- and other places: "Today ... we find ourselves in the midst of the ascent of a figure right out of Petronius: an orange-colored vulgarian of meretricious display, right down to the trophy wives from Far Elsewhere — with an ambition to dominate, a cunning out of proportion to his wisdom, a contempt for truth coupled with a readiness to manipulate, and a personal arrogance combined with, and indifferent to, a universal understanding that he is utterly unfit to govern. Now that we are in possession of an honest-to-God demagogue of the classical model, old portents of doom seem pertinent.... Democracy remains more delicate than we imagine."
Katy Tur & Ari Melber of NBC News: "While [Donald] Trump publicly dismisses talk of a battle in Cleveland, he is quietly assembling a team of seasoned operatives to manage a contested convention. Their strategy, NBC has learned, is to convert delegates in the crucial 40 days between the end of the primaries and the convention - while girding for a floor fight in Cleveland if necessary. The outreach is already underway." ...
... Greg Sargent follows up : "If Trump is far ahead of both his two rivals in delegates, accepting him might look like the most plausible — or the least undesirable — path. Obviously this might not work, because GOP elites and delegates may continue to hold to their #NeverTrump resolve. But it might!"
Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "... it is with pleasure that we can present [RNC chair Reince] Priebus with a bit of good news.... There is someone even less popular than the Republican Party and less popular than Congress. That person is Donald Trump." ...
... Jamelle Bouie of Slate: "... Donald Trump is one of the most unpopular figures in national politics. He’s disliked (or despised) by a large majority of Americans. This isn’t because the public doesn’t know him. With nearly $2 billion in free coverage from news networks — dwarfing Hillary Clinton’s $746 million — the public knows him well. And they don’t like what they see. Far from scrambling political alliances in his favor, Trump may be the key to further gains for Democrats, from solidifying an advantage with Hispanics to making inroads with college-educated whites."
Tim Egan on the symbiotic relationship between Trump & terrorists: "The more people who are murdered by the savages from the Islamic State, the better it is for [Donald Trump]. The Islamic State is a gift to Trump. And he is a gift to them, playing into the grand scheme of the killers. He would make the world far less safe, and bring the Islamic State closer to the global clash of worlds that those monsters desire."
Gene Robinson: "Donald Trump’s ignorance of government policy, both foreign and domestic, is breathtaking. The Republican Party is likely to nominate for president a man who appears to know next to nothing about the issues that would confront him in the job." ...
... CW: Yeah? So? Drumpf knows what he needs to know: like the beans on Heidi he's going to spill. ...
This Is What Republicans Call "Presidential"
"Your wife is a slut!" "Your wife is an ugly, angry nut-job."
Nolan McCaskill: "Ted Cruz blasted Donald Trump on Thursday, calling the Republican front-runner a 'sniveling coward' for bringing Cruz’s wife to the forefront of his presidential campaign. 'Donald, you’re a sniveling coward,' Cruz told reporters Thursday in Dane, Wisconsin, forcefully pointing his finger. 'Leave Heidi the hell alone.'” ...
... CW: As far as I can tell, based partly on a Google search, Cruz never disavowed the anti-Trump ad featuring Melania Trump in a nude pose. So his self-righteous "leave my wife the hell alone" is, like all of his temper tantrums, rather hollow dudgeon.
Jesse Byrnes of the Hill: "Donald Trump has intensified his feud with Ted Cruz over the Republican presidential rival's wife after she slammed his statements for having 'no basis in reality.' Trump shared an image on Twitter around midnight Wednesday comparing his wife, Melania, a former model, to Cruz's wife, stating, 'A picture is worth a thousand words.'... CNN’s Kate Bolduan sparred with a Trump adviser over the tweet during an interview Thursday.... 'As a woman, it’s demeaning to not only Ted Cruz’s wife, it’s demeaning to Melania Trump because she has a lot more going for her than just her looks, and you don’t see that in this retweet,' Bolduan said...."
Jose DelReal & Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "A nasty feud that escalated Thursday between Donald Trump and ... [Ted Cruz] over their wives set off a new wave of alarm among establishment Republicans, who fear the GOP front-runner would drive away female voters in a general-election fight with likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.... GOP strategist Katie Packer, who leads the anti-Trump Our Principles super PAC[, said,] 'Half of the reason why I’m fighting so hard to stop Donald Trump is because I think he’s a walking, talking stereotype of a sexist misogynistic pig.'”
Emma Green of the Atlantic: "Ted Cruz was ... always that guy ... who would look away as his allies circulated a naked picture of the wife of his enemy, and then suggest that 'real men don’t attack women.'... That guy who would suggest the only female Democratic presidential candidate in this race needs a spanking."
Women, you have to treat them like shit. -- Donald Trump, ca. 1990s
** Franklin Foer in Slate: "... there’s one ideology that [Donald Trump] does hold with sincerity and practices with unwavering fervor: misogyny.... In his view, treating women like meat is a necessary precondition for winning.... By winning, Trump means asserting superiority. And since life is a zero-sum game, superiority can only be achieved at someone else’s expense.... He relishes judging women on the basis of their looks, which he seems to believe amounts to the sum of their character.... Misogyny isn’t an incidental part of Donald Trump. It’s who he is."
CW: Like Karoli Kuns of Crooks & Liars, I don't buy the National Enquirer story that Ted Cruz found five attractive women who would have sex with him. (Okay, one is supposedly a sex worker, so maybe she was just doing her job.) "It feels to me like Trump dropped a whole lot of garbage over at the Enquirer to discredit Ted Cruz, and that sense is backed up even more by the fact that one of the lovely ladies is supposedly Donald Trump's spokeswoman. That's just a little too convenient.... It's hearsay at this point, but it leaves a nice pile of grist for the rumor mill." ...
... AND it's fun stuff in Twitter World. ...
Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "Ted Cruz says he declined to directly attack Donald Trump for much of the Republican primary because those who did ended up 'as roadkill.'... Cruz said Wednesday to radio host Charlie Sykes of WTMJ..., '... If you look at a number of the candidates that took on Donald Trump early on, they ended up as roadkill.... I am very strongly committed on the anti-roadkill approach.'”
Paul Krugman: "... Mr. Cruz has staked out positions on crucial issues that are, not to put too fine a point on it, crazy. How can elite Republicans back him? The answer is the same for Mr. Cruz and the elite as it is for Mr. Trump and the base: Leading Republicans support Mr. Cruz, not despite his policy positions, but because of them. They may not like his style, but they agree with his substance.... While his policy ideas are extreme, they reflect the same extremism that pervades the party’s elite. There are no moderates, or for that matter, sensible people, anywhere in this story."
Pick Me! Pick Me! Jessie Opoein of the Madison, Wisconsin, Capital Times: "If the Republican Party finds itself with an open convention in July, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker believes the nominee may not be Donald Trump, Ted Cruz or John Kasich. 'I think if it’s an open convention, it’s very likely it would be someone who’s not currently running,' Walker told reporters Thursday."
David Schwartz of Reuters: "Phoenix's mayor on Wednesday urged a federal probe into the local county's handling of voting in Arizona's presidential nominating contest, questioning whether minority voters were granted a fair chance to cast their ballots. Greg Stanton asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate a decision by Maricopa County officials to slash the number of polling locations in Arizona's most populous county and leave minority-heavy areas with seemingly fewer sites. The Democratic mayor called the vote 'a fiasco after voters had to wait in line for several hours on Tuesday to cast their ballots." ...
... CW: Cutting down the number of polling places in "urban areas" & voter ID laws are two tricks among many in a well-stuffed Republican Voter Suppression Bag. Ask President Kerry. ...
... Fernanda Santos of the New York Times: "Days later, angry and baffled voters are still trying to make sense of how democracy is working in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous, where officials cut the number of polling places by 70 percent to save money — to 60 from 200 in the last presidential election. That translated to a single polling place for every 108,000 residents in Phoenix, a majority-minority city that had exceptional turnout in Tuesday’s Democratic and Republican primaries.... But beyond the electoral breakdown here, many observers saw Arizona as a flashing neon sign pointing toward potential problems nationally at a time that 16 states will have new voting restrictions in place for the first time in a presidential election." ...
... Eliza Collins of Politico: Bernie Sanders & the Clinton campaign weigh in on the Maricopa County voting scandal.
Senate Race
Alex Roarty of Roll Call: "Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson on Wednesday was endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an important sign of support for the business-friendly lawmaker ahead of a difficult re-election test this November. But it's unclear whether the behemoth business lobby -- and other well-funded Republican-aligned groups like it -- will actually spend big money on the GOP senator's behalf in a general election.... Early surveys of the race paint a grim picture for Johnson: Since April of last year, five of six polls from Marquette Law School have found [former Sen. Russ] Feingold sporting a double-digit lead, including a mid-February survey that found the Democrat winning by 12 points."
David Herszenhorn of the New York Times: "Republican leaders say they are taking a principled stand against election-year appointments rather than focusing on Judge [Merrick] Garland’s qualifications, [Sen. Ron] Johnson, without any pretense, is boasting that he and his Republican colleagues are preventing Mr. Obama from tilting the ideological balance of the court to the left. And he is attacking Judge Garland — without any basis, many legal experts say — as posing a grave threat to Second Amendment gun rights.... Democrats, including [former Sen. Russ] Feingold, say they are confident that Mr. Johnson is making a politically fatal mistake by playing to the ’s conservative base in a state that despite the party’s recent inroads has voted Democratic in the past seven presidential elections, and where pocketbook issues like jobs and trade are dominant."
Beyond the Beltway
signed a controversial abortion bill Thursday that, among other things, would ban the procedure if it is sought because the fetus was diagnosed with a disability or defect such as Down syndrome.... The law, which was passed by the legislature earlier this month, would make Indiana the second state in the nation, after North Dakota, to ban abortion in cases where a fetal anomaly is detected.... And it could make Indiana the first state in the country to require that fetal remains be buried or cremated, rather than treated like medical waste." ...
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R)... CW: Red State/Blue State. If you're a woman of child-bearing age, you don't want to live in a state governed by Republicans. In fact, any man who intends to be or is in a relationship with a young woman should consider getting the hell out of Red State America. ...
... Let's not forget North Carolina & Georgia:
is provoking a growing backlash from businesses and others who say the law is discriminatory. American Airlines, Wells Fargo and the National Basketball Association were among those to raise concerns about the law, which was introduced and passed Wednesday in a hastily called special session and signed by Gov. Pat McCrory (R) later that day." ...
A new North Carolina law that bars local governments from extending civil rights protections to gay and transgender peopleis warning Georgia’s governor not to sign a religious-liberty bill into law — the latest to suggest that the state risks losing business over the measure. Actors, writers, producers, directors, movie studios and whole entertainment companies have weighed in on the debate, many calling the bill discriminatory and some threatening to sever ties with Georgia if it’s passed. The latest threat comes from a group of 34 individuals in the movie business, including celebrities Kristin Chenoweth, Lee Daniels, Anne Hathaway, Seth MacFarlane, Julianne Moore, Rob Reiner and Marisa Tomei. In a Thursday letter, they warn Gov. Nathan Deal (R) that they 'plan to take our business elsewhere' should he sign the bill, which passed the legislature last week. The Walt Disney Co. and its subsidiary movie studio, Marvel, said the same in a statement Wednesday.... At least 20 Fortune 500 companies — including Delta Air Lines, Google, Home Depot, IBM, Marriott, Microsoft, Nordstrom, Coca-Cola, Dow Chemical, UPS and Verizon — belong to a coalition urging Deal to veto the measure. The coalition has several hundred corporate members in all." ...
of the Washington Post: "Another industry... CW: Excuse me. That's no "religious liberty bill: "The bill protects religious leaders from being forced to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies and individuals from being forced to attend such events. It also allows faith-based organizations to deny use of their facilities for events they find 'objectionable' and exempts them from having to hire or retain any employee whose religious beliefs or practices differ from those of the organization." The first part is absolute nonsense; the First Amendment protects ministers from performing rituals they oppose, & who the hell thinks the government can require "individuals" to go to weddings? The second part isn't about "religious liberty," either; generally speaking, faith-based organization can hire whom they want to & rent their facilities to whom they want, unless they receive government grants.
Paul Gattis of Al.com: "A state audit released last month reported no issues with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, whose director was fired Tuesday by Gov. Robert Bentley after "several areas of concern" were discovered. Spencer Collier, the first director of the new organization designed to consolidate and streamline 12 state law enforcement agencies, denied any wrongdoing at a news conference Wednesday in which he outlined elements of what he described as an inappropriate affair between the governor and senior advisor Rebekah Caldwell Mason." ...
... CW: I have a feeling Bentley didn't quite know how to "keep his friends close & his enemies closer." He got right close with one friend, but he canned an enemy -- a guy who had the goods on him -- for no reason Bentley has been willing to make public, so perhaps for no good reason. Feeling up the help, if the help was willing, appears at this time to have been a lesser mistake. The story may evolve, but right now Bentley looks like an idiot.
Way Beyond
Matthew Lee of the AP: "At least two American citizens have been confirmed killed in this week’s attacks in Brussels, a U.S. official said Friday, as Secretary of State John Kerry is visiting the city to express his condolences to the Belgian people." CW: Hate to mention it to Republicans who said President Obama should drop everything & go give some speeches in Brussels, but elite snob John Kerry, unilike Obama, actually speaks one of Belgium's official languages.
Alistair Macdonald, et al., of Reuters: "Belgian police arrested six people in their probe of Tuesday's Islamic State suicide bombings in Brussels, while authorities in France said they thwarted a militant plot there 'that was at an advanced stage.' The federal prosecutor's office in Belgium said on Thursday that the arrests came during police searches in the Brussels neighborhoods of Schaerbeek in the north and Jette in the west, as well as in the center of the Belgian capital." ...
... Aurelien Breeden, et al., of the New York Times: "acknowledged Thursday that the authorities had erred by not acting on Turkey’s request last year that they take custody of a Belgian citizen arrested for suspected terrorist activity. The man was one of the Islamic State suicide bombers in the devastating Brussels attacks. The acknowledgments by the justice minister, Koen Geens, and interior minister, Jan Jambon, were the first high-level Belgian admissions of blunder in the aftermath of the bombings on Tuesday. The attacks have exposed missteps by European security officials and police, just four months after the Islamic State’s assault on targets in Paris."
’s justice and interior ministersLiz Sly of the Washington Post: "As European governments scramble to contain the expanding terrorist threat posed by the Islamic State, on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria the group is a rapidly diminishing force. In the latest setbacks for the militants on Thursday, Syrian government troops entered the outskirts of the historic town of Palmyra after a weeks-old offensive aided by Russian airstrikes, and U.S. airstrikes helped Iraqi forces overrun a string of Islamic State villages in northern Iraq that had been threatening a U.S. base nearby. These are just two of the many fronts in both countries where the militants are being squeezed, stretched and pushed back."