;)
The Commentariat -- April 27, 2015
Internal links removed.
CW: I won't be doing much this week, & this weekend, probably nothing.
NEW. Tom Junod has a long piece re: drone warfare in Esquire titled "The Lethal Presidency of Barack Obama." CW: I take it Junod is horrified by the practice.
E. J. Dionne: "The world's democracies, perhaps especially our own, face a peculiar set of contradictions that are undermining faith in public endeavor and unraveling old loyalties.... This is a big problem for self-government, since aggregating sustainable majorities is the first task of politicians in democratic countries. They are not doing a very good job, and the unfolding 2016 campaign doesn't inspire much confidence that they'll do better." ...
... ** Paul Krugman: "... we live in an age of unacknowledged error.... Refusing to accept responsibility for past errors is a serious character flaw in one's private life. It rises to the level of real wrongdoing when policies that affect millions of lives are at stake." ...
... CW: I would like just one or two prominent ObamaCare opponents to stand up & say, "ObamaCare is working pretty well. And no wonder: it was a Republican idea."
Michael Cohen of the Boston Globe: "WikiLeaks has done far more damage to privacy than the NSA.... Wikileaks has been a huge supporter of [Edward] Snowden and various other leakers, on the grounds that we need to hold governments accountable. Yet Wikileaks' actions this week are in the direct service of those who originally hacked Sony -- the totalitarian rulers of North Korea."
The Price of Packer's Ennui. Corey Robin in Salon: George "Packer belongs to a special tribe of ideologically ambidextrous scribblers -- call them political romantics -- who are always on the lookout for a certain kind of experience in politics.... They want a feeling. A feeling of exaltation and elation, unmoored from any specific idea or principle save that of sacrifice, of giving oneself over to the nation and its cause." What they're really looking for is violence & war.
Presidential Race
Evan McMurry of Mediaite: "linton Cash author Peter Schweizer appeared on This Week and faced a very skeptical George Stephanopoulos, who argued that his accusations that Hillary Clinton exchanged favorable treatment from the U.S. State Department for multimillion dollar donations to the Clinton Foundation were unsubstantiated." ...
... Mistakes Were Made. Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "The acting chief of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation acknowledged in a new statement that the global philanthropy launched 15 years ago by the former president has made missteps -- but defended the organization's charitable work and its commitment to transparency." ...
... Here's the statement, by Maura Pally, acting CEO of the foundation.
Margaret Hartmann of New York: "The 2016 campaign has barely begun and Jeb Bush has already uttered what's likely to be the most ironic statement of the whole cycle. 'I don't think you need to spend a billion dollars to be elected president of the United States in 2016,' Bush said on Sunday.... Bush made the remark at a press conference in Miami Beach, where he's just kicked off a two-day conference for 350 of his top campaign bundlers.... Bush told donors on Sunday night that he believes Right to Rise[, a Bush superPAC,] has raised more money in 100 days than any modern Republican campaign.... Presumably Bush won't need to raise a billion for his actual campaign fund if he simply lets super-PACs handle his advertising, data gathering, and get out the vote efforts." ...
... Jason Horowitz & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Former President George W. Bush offered rare, and broad-ranging, remarks Saturday night about current national security threats and the 2016 presidential campaign to a large audience of Jewish donors, suggesting that sanctions on Iran should not be lifted, that his last name was a burden to his brother, the likely presidential candidate Jeb Bush, and that Hillary Rodham Clinton, while 'formidable,' was beatable." ...
... Matea Gold of the Washington Post: "Former president George W. Bush plans to stay off the 2016 campaign trail as his younger brother prepares to mount a presidential bid, telling a group of Republican Jewish donors here that he does not want to fuel an anti-dynastic backlash."
Martin Hensch of the Hill: "... at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition summit in Waukee, Iowa..., [Ted] Cruz said same-sex marriage had produced rabid zealotry in Democratic ranks. This ideology, he argued, was excluding people of faith. 'Today's Democratic Party has become so radicalized for legalizing gay marriage in all 50 states that there is no longer any room for religious liberty.'" ...
... AND This Is Totally Believable. Michael Barbaro & Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times: "Ian Reisner, one of the two gay hoteliers facing boycott calls for hosting an event for Senator Ted Cruz, who is adamantly opposed to gay marriage, apologized to the gay community.... Mr. Reisner put the apology on Facebook, where a page calling for a boycott of his properties, the gay-friendly OUT NYC hotel and his Fire Island Pines holdings, had gotten more than 8,200 'likes' by Sunday evening.... 'I've spent the past 24 hours reviewing videos of Cruz' statements on gay marriage and I am shocked and angry.'" CW: Sorry, Ian, nobody is as ignorant as you claim to be. Your apology will not to CYA.
Beyond the Beltway
Giving Gruesome New Meaning to "Beat the Press." Evan Serpick of the City Paper: "City Paper Photo Editor J.M. Giordano was tackled and beaten by Baltimore City police outside of Western District headquarters last night while covering protests over the death of Freddie Gray in police custody. In a video shot by City Paper Managing Editor Baynard Woods you can see Giordano, wearing a green jacket, and a protester, both of whom had just been knocked to the ground by police, being beaten as Woods yells, 'He's a photographer! He's press!'" ...
... Kevin Rector of the Baltimore Sun: "A photographer for Reuters was detained and another for the Baltimore City Paper was thrown to the ground by Baltimore Police officers while covering protests over police brutality late Saturday, they said.... The City Paper is owned by the Baltimore Sun Media Group.... Police said there were 34 arrests citywide on Saturday and early Sunday in relation to the protests." CW: Sounds as if somebody should have arrested a few of the cops.
News Ledes
Washington Post: "Police on Monday clashed with protesters who tossed rocks and bricks at officers, looted stores and damaged police cruisers, injuring several officers. Police said that seven officers have been hurt in incidents that began near the Mondawmin Mall in the Reisterstown Road area. Some officers suffered broken bones and one officer was unresponsive, police said in an afternoon press conference.... On Monday evening, Governor Larry Hogan declared a state of emergency and announced he had activated the Maryland National Guard. The Baltimore Orioles announced they had postponed a game set for Monday evening against the Chicago White Sox." ...
... Baltimore Sun: "In a funeral service Monday that was both personal and political, family, friends and strangers alike said farewell on Monday to Freddie Gray, the Baltimore man whose death from injuries sustained in police custody has sparked a national furor."
... Here's the Sun's liveblog.
New York Times: Climbers at Mount Everest describe the earthquake & avalanche.
New York Times: "Jayne Meadows, a glamorous redheaded actress who starred on Broadway, in the movies and on television, but who was probably best known for her 46-year role as Steve Allen's wife, business partner and frequent co-star, died on Sunday at her home in Encino, Calif. She was 95."
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Reader Comments (14)
As Obama said on Saturday night, "I see Trump is here. Still"
According to NECN, as well as other media outlets such as the Portland Press Herald and the Concord Monitor, all have indicated that "Real Estate Mogul Donald Trump" to Return to New Hampshire "...is taking more steps toward a run than he has in the past, including hiring staff here and making plans to open a New Hampshire office."
Seriously, who takes him seriously?
GOT POT HOLES IN YOUR LOCAL? and they don't get fixed even though you've called Town Hall and complained? Then perhaps you may want to do as this mystery artist has done––spray paint large penises around the holes. It appears that got some attention: Instead of power of the people we could say it's the power of the penis!!!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/27/artist-penis-potholes-wanksy_n_7149810.html
Bruce Jenner evidently came out as transgender on Friday. I wouldn't give this a moment's thought, nor certainly mention it here except for the fact that he also came out as a...Republican. And this, too, deserves little mention in general. It was Jenner's specific comment about his conservative status that really irritated me. When asked by Diane Sawyer if he was a Republican, this was his response: "Yeah," he said with a smile. "Is that a bad thing? I believe in the Constitution." Conservatives have been trying to wrap themselves in the Constitution for a long time. Rather than just acknowledging that they support lower taxes, raping the environment and discrimination, they try to imply that they alone have read the founding document and apply its principles, rarely acknowledging that the issue isn't who believes in it (we all do) but how it is interpreted. It seems to be part of their messaging to wave the Constitution around all the time.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/25/politics/bruce-jenner-diane-sawyer-transgender-lgbt-republican-conservative/
MAG,
I, too, cannot take The Donald seriously. I highly doubt that anyone, not even he, takes him seriously. It's just another way for a guy with too much money to keep his name out there to maintain his celebrity.
However, he may actually consider himself a modern day Daniel Boone, call him Don'l Tromp. He's goin' ta hike thru the hinterlands of New Hamsha seeking followers back to the 1800's. Don'l looks just like Dan'l after all, except he's got a dead fox on his head instead of a dead raccoon. He's a big man, too.
@Victoria D. I doubt is Sawyer followed up on what was sort of a non sequitur, with an implication, though one which could be denied, that Democrats don't "believe in the Constitution." I'm not sure what that even means. Do Democrats not "believe" the Constitution exists in the way atheists don't believe god exists? Or what?
Anyway, Sawyer's first big job was working for Dick Nixon. She was probably pleased to learn Jenner was a "Constitution-believing" Republican.
Marie
After watching the Schweizer/ Stephanopoulus interview I couldn't help thinking of truffle hogs––the kind of pigs that sniff and sniff, sniffing out those delicious mushrooms. There is something porcine about Peter––especially when George tells him there is no evidence for his claims––then Peter's eyes look piggy and he pouts. No truffles found, sir, but keep digging. A sad display, I'd say.
The other sad display is something Victoria has addressed here––Bruce Jenner and the hoopla around his transitioning. The money that is being made around this and will be made (Bruce will have his own reality show in the future) is frankly troubling. I wonder whether this kind of media coverage (especially the negatives in many magazines) do a disservice to transgenders who suffer unnecessarily over this kind of display. If I had been Diane I think I would have asked Jenner WHY he's a Republican––believing in the constitution has nothing to do with it and he may embrace the Republican mandate, but I fear they do not embrace Bruce Jenner.
I'm not going to learn it today, but I just read a positive review of Sawyer's interview of Jenner, & I'm more confused than ever by what their sexuality means to transgender people. As nearly as I can figure out, Jenner is or is planning to become a lesbian.
Marie
The Baltimore police took down and beat a newspaper photographer yesterday. Today, Blow reports in the Times that the Baltimore police union president, Gene Ryan, compared those protesting the death of Freddie Gray to a "lynch Mob"
Some weeks ago I was chastised for saying we, meaning police, will keep killing your children 'til you make us stop. We are not being made to stop, cities and police departments are still tolerating and defending the sociopaths in their departments
Only when police brutality becomes a terrible economic burden and the safety of the community is at risk will change happen.
L.A. burned and changed. Ferguson burned and is changing.
There is evidence in today's papers that Baltimore is not changing.
Burn some of Baltimore?
Victoria and Marie,
I did catch that part of the Jenner interview and was similarly struck that so many people seem to interpret the phrase "I believe in the Constitution" as synonymous with "I'm a Republican". It would have been a natural question for any astute interviewer to employ the comeback "Does that mean that you think people who aren't Republicans don't believe in the Constitution?" This is a perfectly valid (and actually necessary) question, if one is talking about logical or material conditional statements which Jenner seems to have formulated (either that or he's simply parroting winger "logic" which has its own conditional problems).
The statement p→q (if p then q; if you believe in the Constitution, then you are a Republican) seems to be the logical construct of choice for Confederates, hoping that the implication, or contraposition: if not p then not q, is its logical equivalent (there are logical structures in which the negation would be invalid, for instance, a statement of the kind "there exists a Democrat who does not believe in the Constitution". Such a statement would be impossible to prove under rules of logic which, however, are rarely adhered to in Right Wing World anyway, where saying whatever the hell you feel like regardless of logic or reasonableness is a commonplace).
So as a simple "if then" conditional, Jenner's statement at the very least deserves some qualification which Sawyer declined to request. Now one could say that the interview was not political but personal, but this would not be reasonable given the fact that Sawyer opened that political door and Jenner happily stepped through it, but, as Marie suggests, maybe the Tricky One's legacy has made it difficult for Sawyer to tread too long in areas that make the GOP look bad.
The larger issue is not whether or not Republicans believe in the Constitution--although there is a superfluity of examples to the contrary--but whether they believe in the entire document and, as Victoria suggests, whether they are, within the limits of their belief system, okay with cherry picking a word of phrase here and there allowing them to elide and/or deform clear directions in order to arrive at a predetermined acceptable interpretation that aligns with their ideology.
And not for nothin' but I would pay money to see Jenner ask Cheeto Man, Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, or Juantio Arbuto for their support of LGBT rights. They wouldn't piss on him if he were on fire.
I'm pretty sure, if pressed on national television, few Republicans would come right out and say "If you're not Republican, then you don't believe in the Constitution", but that's what a lot of them think. But my answer to the implied question "If you believe in the Constitution, why aren't you Republican?" would be "Because I believe in the whole thing, not just the parts that suit me."
Interpretations of the Constitution that go against what I think is right don't cause me to deem that ruling illegal on its face, or against the will of god, or any other damned thing. I suck it up and hope that the balances built into the document will eventually work.
Because as the author in my link puts it, sure, Republicans believe in the Constitution. Just not ours.
Maybe it's just my mood (I just did something that required a little thought, which might have tired me out) but I don't care much what Bruce Jenner might or might not have meant when he said what he said.
Obviously it didn't make sense, and beyond the always fascinating question, discussed here from time to time, of why people so often believe nonsense (the question behind last night's Krugman column as well), I have little patience for parsing nit-wittery.
I suspect, too, that my morning mood is still affected by the two hours I spent Saturday at a memorial service for a college classmate and long-time friend. The memorial was held in a church, fundamentalist as heck in its own way, so of course the remarks made about the man and his certain afterlife, which included a lengthy letter from his first wife, a bright lady who graduated from a distinguished university and by my apparently limited lights should know better, didn't approach rationality. Sense was not just at arms length there; by definition, it was not allowed anywhere in the building.
I wondered if anyone who didn't know us and was watching me or my family might have thought we were nodding our heads in Amen agreement, but any involuntary head movement they might have detected was, believe me, of the I-can't-believe-this-nonsense ilk.
And, no, I don't understand Jenner's sex thing either.
Two things about the Clinton Foundation.....not even sure what to call it yet, kerfuffle, screw-up, invented scandal of the month, straw man, hippity hop at the barber shop.
First, the fact that Schweizer's collection of innuendo, could be, might be, and maybes, has not the merest acquaintance with fact based evidence has not prevented it from moving from what amounts to water cooler speculations by the office gossip who is known for simply making shit up, to the fifth gospel. As Charlie Pierce mentioned last week, once enough smoke is blown around, as during the execrable Whitewater "investigations" aka The Dry Hole, even people who consider themselves reasonable will begin to latch on to bits of ice cold fabrication and convince themselves that they're holding a burning coal.
And since we're on about logic today ("we" meaning me), how's this for a perfect piece of circular logic. Today on the Daily Beast, Eleanor Clift (you many recall Eleanor as the token centrist on the McGlaughlin Group Food Fight, who, surrounded for years by crazy wingers like Buchanan and Krauthammer and McGlaughlin himself, has put up with insults and mud pies for not always going along with the "Boys Who Know Best") defends Schweizer by invoking the mantle of the New York Fucking Times.
Eleanor, in her piece on the invented furor around "Clinton Cash", adopts the persona of the well meaning but slightly dim lady who lives down the block and who feeds all the neighborhood cats and goes out at two in the morning to water her roses with a flashlight, but is prone to saying things like "Well, they wouldn't have arrested that man if he was innocent." But she writes about hit man Schweizer as if he's just a misunderstood kid with a heart of gold.
Then she indulges a fondness for circular logic by informing everyone else on the block that we shouldn't automatically dismiss those things that nice Mr. Schweizer is saying just because he's been a proven liar and fabulist so often in the past, In fact, there must be something to what he's saying! Her reason? The New York Times would never have made that deal with him if what he's saying wasn't true, or at least held out the promise of some fire beneath all that flatulence.
An incidental rant on the perfidy of the Times for lending this charlatan a dollop of their rapidly evaporating credibility is warranted, but not necessary, I suppose, with this crowd.
But this is how it works, right? Some asshole comes out and says "Holy shit, did you hear about X?" and pretty soon everyone is talking about X. Even when the guy goes on national TV and admits that there is zero evidence for X, it still doesn't matter because the cat lady and hundreds like her are all "Well, but, but, the Times...." and next thing you know, everyone's joining the gospel choir.
The second thing is directed at the Clintons. Fer crissakes, haven't you learned by now? Dot those fucking i's, people. They all have the long knives out for you. Always have, always will. "Mistakes were made" is exactly what you don't want to have to say. I realize they'll make shit up anyway, but if you hand deliver a shred of anything that can be tarted up to look like truthiness then the cat ladies and the axe murderers will all look like they "have a point".
Please tell me why someone on the HRC team wasn't thinking about shit like this that could trip them up and taking care of it before now. Oh, don't forget about checking in on the Foundation where we take in HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF FUCKING DOLLARS!
Jesus!
Akhilleus, in re your "longknives" comment. I suspect Bill doesn't feel alive unless he's living on the edge. Unfortunately, he seems quite unconcerned about how his narcissism impacts other people, family or not. He's plenty smart enough to calculate the effects of his actions. I guess there's a bigger payoff for self indulgence. The 2016 election is frightening when you think about how much attention he demands. I really resent the enormous pile of dung I am being forced to shovel up in order to keep some version of a Democrat in the WH.
Diane,
The history of the Foibles of Bill completely supports your analysis of his particular pathology. I think we, as voters and pundits, and as (supposedly) meticulous observers, too often neglect to factor in personal predispositions and predilections when considering the overall electoral and governing gestalt of a candidate or incumbent.
For instance, one would think it impossible to overlook the vicious sociopathy of a Dick Cheney or the incurious sociopathy of a George W. Bush, preferring instead to flesh out our impressions with dangerously inaccurate and toxic inveiglements of All Americanism and alarmingly unearned trustworthiness, but that same perversion of accurate perception still holds today, years after their actions have proven to be both mendacious and self-serving. Both are ranked as personages whose opinions, which shouldn't ever reach the level of those offered by falling off the barstool drunks, are still considered valid.
That Bill Clinton can still be an egotistical asshole doesn't surprise me. What surprises me is that Hillary, who more than anyone, should know better, didn't put the hammer down two years ago when she knew she'd be running and insisted that the house be clean and ready to receive guests.
I suppose I'm at fault now for overlooking Hillary's particular predispositions.
Good thing I'm not worrying about the predilections of Ted Cruz and Little Randy. I'd be here all night.
@Ken: your "Maybe it's just my mood (I just did something that required a little thought, which might have tired me out) but I don't care much what Bruce Jenner might or might not have meant when he said what he said." is exactly what my mister said when I regaled him (he refused to watch it) with the interview. He finds the whole thing exploitive and money grubbing. And your experience in the church service is exactly like many of our dearly beloveds who in death "Sense was not just at arms length there; by definition, it was not allowed anywhere in the building." And I loved your "Nit-wittery"–––perfect!
@ Ak: Yes, I do, indeed, remember Eleanor Clift. Your full presentation of said dim lady and her cats tip toeing in her nighty mit flashlight in the dead of night watering the roses finished off my day with such laughs I cannot thank you enough. Hippity-hop at the barber shop––you betcha!!!!!