;)
The Commentariat -- August 11, 2015
Internal links removed.
Beginning at 1:00 am today, I'm upgrading my cheap computer to Windows 10. I have no idea how long this operation will take or if I'll ever be able to get online again. So if the pickings are slim today (and tomorrow!) & the news is passing by unremarked, it's just because I'm busy yelling at an inanimate object. -- Marie
... Update: Looks as if it worked, with minimal disruption. I may get some surprises later. I'd recommend backing up your files before you convert, just in case, disabling Windows Firewall (& re-enabling it after you've installed Windows 10), shutting down all your apps & doing the conversion at a time you definitely won't need to use your computer.
Keep Your Government Hands Off My Medicare. Dylan Scott of the National Journal: "House Republicans will start working next year on drafting a Medicare 'premium-support' bill [to partially privatize Medicare], according to Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Chairman Kevin Brady." CW: Following well-established Republican tradition of slapping positive labels on bad deals, Brady calls his privatization plan "premium support" &/or the "personalized Medicare option." Wow! I can hardly wait to get my personalized! optional! premium! support! Thanks, GOP.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), in a New York Times op-ed: "... Republican control of Congress means constant crisis.... While Republicans have kept virtually none of their promises about how they would run Congress, one promise they have kept is their vow to use essential appropriations bills to manufacture even more crises.... Must-pass appropriations bills must not be hijacked for ideological or special-interest riders.... Senate Democrats have been calling on Republicans for months ... to sit down with us and work out a bipartisan path so that we can avoid another shutdown. So far, we've been met with nothing but silence."
Democrats, Too, Lose Fondness for Racist Icons. Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "For nearly a century, Democrats have honored two men as the founders of their party: Thomas Jefferson, for his visionary expression of the concept of equality, and Andrew Jackson, for his populist spirit and elevation of the common man.... But these time-honored rituals are colliding with a modern Democratic Party more energized by a desire for racial and gender inclusion than reverence for history. And state by state, Democratic activists are removing the names of Jefferson and Jackson from party gatherings.... The Iowa Democratic Party became the latest to do so last weekend, joining Georgia, Connecticut and Missouri. At least five other states are considering the same change since the massacre in June at an African-American church in Charleston, S.C.... [These moves] underscore one of the most consequential trends of American politics: Democrats' shift from a union-powered party organized primarily around economic solidarity to one shaped by racial and sexual identity."
Jonathan Chait: Some conservative opponents of the Iran nuclear deal -- Elliott Abrams, Eli Lake & others -- are now accusing President Obama of anti-Semitism."
** Peter Beinart of the Atlantic: "Over the past decade, the foreign-policy debate in [among] Washington [Republicans] has turned upside down.... Today, hawkishness is the hottest thing on the American right. With the exception of Rand Paul, the GOP presidential contenders are vying to take the most aggressive stance against Iran and the Islamic State, or ISIS." Beinart explains Republicans' creation of the "legend of the surge," a "story line [which] has squelched the doubts about the Iraq invasion that a decade ago threatened to transform conservative foreign policy [into something realistic].... According to the legend of the surge, Iraq's collapse stems from [President Obama's decision to withdraw all U.S. troops at the end of 2011.... The problem with the legend of the surge is that it reproduces the very hubris that led America into Iraq in the first place."
Shutting Down Is Hard to Do. Kristina Wong of the Hill: "The Pentagon said Monday it will submit a plan to lawmakers on closing the Guantánamo Bay detention facility 'sometime' after Congress comes back from its August recess. 'We would expect it to go up sometime after recess," said Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis. "It's still in progress, it's very close to completion.... On Monday, the Pentagon said [Defense Secretary Ash] Carter and the Pentagon "continue to support" the president's goal of closing the facility. " (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Earlier Monday. Tim Mak & Nancy Youssef of the Daily Beast: "The White House wants to quickly cut the number of detainees at Guantánamo Bay. One man is standing in the way: President Obama's Defense Secretary, Ash Carter. Carter and the White House are increasingly at odds about how to whittle down the number of detainees held in Guantánamo Bay, hampering the administration's push to close the detention center by the end of its term." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Adam Goldman & Missy Ryan of the Washington Post: "As part of the plan [for shutting down the Guantanamo prison], the administration had considered sending some of the 116 detainees remaining at the prison to either a top-security prison in Illinois or a naval facility in Charleston, S.C. But during a recent video teleconference among top administration officials, Scott Ferber, senior counsel to the deputy attorney general, said the Justice Department could not support the use of the federal prison in Thomson, Ill., according to the officials according to [anonymous] officials.... Ferber said the Justice Department had made a public commitment in 2012 when it purchased the facility from the state of Illinois that it would not relocate detainees to Thomson.... [Former AG Eric] Holder's commitment, made during sworn testimony [before the Senate Judiciary Committee], was apparently overlooked by officials when the most recent plan was drawn up. Thomson is no longer being considered, and the White House is again looking at other federal facilities, officials said."
Jon Swaine, et al., of the Guardian: "The city of Ferguson, Missouri, is being forced by the Obama administration to return two military vehicles that it obtained from the Pentagon, amid widespread concern and criticism over the deployment on American streets of equipment intended for war zones. The US Department of Defense will reclaim a pair of Humvees that were given to the beleaguered St Louis suburb under a controversial program to distribute surplus weapons, vehicles and other gear, according to several government officials.... Such vehicles returned on Sunday night to West Florissant Avenue ... after a black 18-year-old was shot by officers when he allegedly opened fire on their unmarked SUV following a gunfight with several other men." ...
... Molly Redden of Mother Jones: "Documents Reveal the Fearmongering Local Cops Use to Score Military Gear From the Pentagon. Confronting school shooters and terrorists? More like patrolling Packers games, pot-heads, and the local beach."
Eliza Collins of Politico: "After an argument that ended in gunfire, a White House staffer and her boyfriend, who works for the Capitol Police, have been put on leave from their jobs.... The domestic dispute reportedly took place on the evening of Aug. 6. Barvetta Singletary, a member of the White House legislative affairs team, sent her boyfriend, who works on the dignitary protection detail, a text that invited him over, according to Roll Call. The two then got into a dispute and Singletary allegedly reached into her boyfriend's bag. According to reports, she pulled out two cellphones and his gun -- then she allegedly fired one round. It's not clear whether she had intended to shoot at her boyfriend. Neither was injured."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Ed Kilgore on how a both-sides-do-it mindset "manipulates the narrative." Kilgore cites a New York Times headline, via Jim Fallows, & an NBC blog post, whose lead writer was Chuck Todd. Both implied or accused President Obama of picking a fight with opponents of the Iran nuclear deal. CW: In the particular NYT headline Kilgore cites, via Jim Fallows, it manipulated me away from the story. I decided, based on the headline alone, that I didn't want to read another story based on the premise that Everything Is Obama's Fault. Misleading headlines work in more than one way. As for the Tuck Chodd post, I never read it.
Bill of Portland, Maine, in Daily Kos tells us today is Presidential Joke Day. He recounts some past presidents' quips.
Presidential Race
New York Times: "On Tuesday morning, [Harvard Prof. Lawrence] Lessig will announce that he will explore a protest bid for the Democratic nomination. If he can raise $1 million in small donations by Labor Day, Mr. Lessig said, he will run.... In an interview, Mr. Lessig said that after years of unfulfilled promises by Democratic candidates on the issue of money in politics, he was driven to mount a candidacy built around it."
Charles Pierce: "Shouting down Bernie Sanders does nothing to solve any problem worth fighting against.... What happened in Seattle was an embarrassment to the tradition of public protest. It was a hysterical piece of performance art that accomplished absolutely nothing toward whatever goals its performers sought to achieve. Rage is not an excuse. Frustration is not an excuse. This was a simple act of public vandalism, aimed (again) at the wrong target." CW: While I agree with Pierce, his characterization of women protesters as "hysterical" (albeit the women protesters in particular behaved horribly), is sexist. Pierce would not know this, or if he does, would defend it, because he is comfortable repeating sexist stereotypes, a point I have made before to protests among the Commentariat. ...
... Michael Kruse & Manu Raju of Politico Magazine: Bernie Sanders is "seeking the nomination of a party he caucuses with in the Senate but is not a part of, isn't a registered member of and has never been a registered member of -- a party he's spent his 40-year career beating at the polls and battering in the press.... 'I am not a Democrat,' he told the Progressive [less than two years ago], 'because the Democratic Party does not represent, and has not for many years, the interests of my constituency, which is primarily working families, middle-class people and low-income people.'"
Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "... Hillary Rodham Clinton ... signed a statement over the weekend declaring 'under penalty of perjury' that she has turned over to the government all of the e-mails that were federal records. The statement, submitted Monday by the State Department to a federal court, matches what she and her campaign have been saying for months about her exclusive use of a private e-mail account and server to conduct public business." ...
Jess Bidgood of the New York Times: "Hillary Rodham Clinton had planned to spend her campaign stop at a high school [in Manchester, N.H.,] on Monday focusing mainly on her plan to make college more affordable. But, like most candidates for president, she also had to take questions about the latest headline-grabbing comments from Donald J. Trump." ...
... Ed Kilgore: "If people still associate 'Clintonism' with small, narrow, incremental proposals that offer more bark than bite, then the college affordability initiative [Hillary Clinton] unveiled today in New Hampshire isn't very 'Clontonian.'"
I thought what [Donald Trump] said was offensive.... But I think if we focus on that, we’re making a mistake. What a lot of the men on that stage in that debate said was offensive.... When one of their major candidates, a much younger man, the senator from Florida, says there should be no exception for rape and incest, that is as offensive and as troubling a comment as you can hear from a major candidate running for the presidency. So the language may be more colorful and more offensive, but the thinking, the attitude toward women, is very much the same. -- Hillary Clinton, Monday, in Exeter, New Hampshire
... Here's Clinton's presser following her presentation of her college affordability plan. Unfortunately, you can't hear the questions:
... Joan Walsh of Salon adds, "... Marco Rubio, repeatedly refused to denounce Trump on 'Meet the Press' Sunday. 'I've made a decision here with Donald Trump,' he told Chuck Todd. 'If I comment on everything he says, my whole campaign will be consumed by it. That's all I'll do all day.' Of course Rubio criticized Trump for calling undocumented Mexican immigrants 'rapists and criminals' and said his comments about Sen. John McCain 'disqualified him as commander in chief.' But he won't attack Trump's misogyny. Makes sense: Rubio's apparently decided to surrender the women's vote by coming out against exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother in abortion bans." ...
... Jessica Valenti of the Guardian details some of the sexist moves & remarks the other GOP candidates have made, even as they have "between them ... enacted legislation curbing women's rights, voted against equal pay, and shamed women for having sex." CW: Mind you, this is a partial list. ...
... Laurence Lewis of Daily Kos: As Walsh reminds us, "Jeb Bush couldn't manage to criticize Trump for the ugliness of his comments, rather he focused on how Trump might hurt the party. Priorities.... The reality is that Donald Trump isn't a fringe sideshow, and while Bush is right that Trump is a threat to the Republican brand, it's not in the way he wants people to think. Trump's popularity among Republican voters reveals Republican ideology for what it is, and Republican insiders have for years played to and fueled it. What Republican insiders fear about Donald Trump isn't his own ugly misogyny, it's that he is revealing their own." ...
Kevin Cirilli of the Hill: "Donald Trump is riding several strong post-debate polls into a full schedule of campaign stops this week as he seeks to solidify his lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Trump will campaign this week in Michigan, New Hampshire and Iowa, where a new poll found him leading the GOP race with 19 percent, compared to 12 percent for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. The survey from the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling [conducted August 7-9] was one of several that suggested Trump has been boosted further by his performance at Thursday's first GOP debate, bolstering confidence in an already bullish-sounding campaign." ...
... Paul Waldman: Trump supporters "have a pretty good idea of who he is, and they're behind him precisely because he doesn't talk like other politicians and he doesn't care who he insults. They aren't troubled by the prospect of him running as an independent, because they don't think too highly of their own party. And when party bigshots criticize him, they take it as evidence that he's doing something right. Trump [will] ... fall behind only when somebody else pulls ahead. That probably won't happen until a few candidates drop out and voters begin to coalesce around a small number of main contenders. As long as 16 other candidates are splitting the vote, Trump can remain on top, even if his support is finite. In other words, it's going to be a while." ...
... Alex Griswold of Mediaite: "Donald Trump finally laid out his plan for dealing with Iran (or ISIS?) on Fox & Friends Tuesday, recommending that the United States 'knock the hell out of them' and then 'take the oil.'" ...
... Making the Party of War More Bellicose. Steve M. "Then ... [Trump] pivots to Saudi Arabia, and implies that he might wage war on the Saudis.... And this from the guy who still says -- in the [same interview], in fact -- that he opposed the Iraq War. He's going to be the guy who makes multiple full-scale wars in the Middle East the minimal acceptable position for Jeb Bush, or whoever the eventual nominee is.... Though I should add that, given the American public's habitual amnesia with regard to the failures of the War Party..., and given Democrats' habitual incompetence at selling policies of moderation..., I'm not sure that a 'total war everywhere' policy would even be a political liability in November 2016." ...
... Jonathan Easley of the Hill: "Fox News Channel anchor Megyn Kelly said on Monday night that she would not apologize to Republican presidential contender Donald Trump for questioning him at last week's presidential debate on past comments he had made concerning women. 'I certainly will not apologize for doing good journalism,' she said on her program." ...
... The New York Times story, by Jeremy Peters & Daniel Victor, is here. ...
... Two SOBs Make Peace. Gabriel Sherman of New York: Donald Trump & Roger Ailes of Fox "News" have mended their differences. Monday "morning, Trump tweeted that Ailes called to assure him that Fox will cover him 'fairly' going forward. According to two high-level Fox sources, Ailes's diplomacy was the result of increasing concern inside Fox News that Trump could damage the network.... In recent days, Ailes got a glimpse of what a Trump-less Fox News would look like...." Fox received a boatload of pro-Trump mail, & Twitter users mostly favored Trump. "In a phone conversation, Trump told Sean Hannity that 'he was never doing Fox again.'... Trump has agreed to interviews on Fox & Friends and Hannity [Tuesday]." ...
... Jonathan Easley : "Fox News Channel president Roger Ailes says all is well between himself and Donald Trump after the real estate mogul spent days lambasting the network and anchor Megyn Kelly for the questions he received at the first Republican debate. Ailes said in a memo obtained by CNN that he had a 'blunt but cordial' conversation with Trump on Monday. 'Donald Trump and I spoke today,' Ailes said in the statement. "We discussed our concerns, and I again expressed my confidence in Megyn Kelly. She is a brilliant journalist and I support her 100 percent.'" ...
... Brian Stelter of CNN: "Donald Trump and the Fox News Channel are about to televise their dispute. Trump has been booked for a 7 a.m. Tuesday interview on 'Fox & Friends,' co-host Steve Doocy said on Twitter on Monday afternoon.... Fox has dramatically ratcheted down its coverage of Trump. It has barely covered Trump's criticisms of [Megyn] Kelly and the two other debate moderators, Chris Wallace and Bret Baier." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Jon Karl of ABC News: "Donald Trump may soon do what Republican leaders have been asking the billionaire candidate to do -- pledge not to run as an independent candidate for president, a senior Trump adviser told ABC News." CW: Uh-oh, Donald is about to tell another "senior adviser," "You're fired." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "... Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky ... laid into [Donald] Trump in an afternoon conference call [Monday], calling him 'a bully' and an 'empty suit,' and comparing him to the 'emperor with no clothes.'... He started the Republican presidential debate on Thursday evening with a verbal assault on Mr. Trump's integrity, accusing him of pretending to be conservative and cozying up to the Clintons. He followed that with an op-ed in IJReview listing Mr. Trump's history of liberal positions and calling on Republican voters to fire Mr. Trump and pick a serious candidate. On Monday evening, Mr. Trump responded on Twitter, comparing Mr. Paul to a 'spoiled brat' and saying he 'was terrible at DEBATE!' [Paul's] debate performance was panned and recent polls have shown him slipping into the bottom tier of candidates."
Paul Waldman: "Jeb Bush will be making a speech on foreign policy today, and if the excerpts that his campaign released to reporters beforehand are any indication, it will embody all the thoughtfulness, nuance and sophistication that have characterized Republican foreign policy thinking in recent years.... It's looking a lot like the return of the Bush Doctrine, just with a different Bush.... [All of the GOP candidates' foreign policy prescriptions are lame.] For instance, if you read this recent manifesto from Marco Rubio, you'll learn that he plans to lead with strength, so America can be strong and full of leadership. And also strength, because that's what America needs to lead."
I think in general if anyone focuses on racial discord we're going to get more. If we focus on unity we're going to get more of that. The families of the massacre in Charleston showed us the way. -- Scott Walker, in South Carolina on the anniversary of the police killing of black teen Michael Brown
... Igor Bobic of the Huffington Post: "Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) says the proper way to address racial issues in America is by concentrating on what brings people together rather than focusing on "racial discord." Doing the latter, the presidential candidate argued Sunday, could risk generating even more unrest.... Other presidential candidates -- Republican and Democrat -- have called for a broader conversation about systemic racism in the nation's justice system in the wake of high-profile shootings of unarmed black men across the country. Bipartisan calls for criminal justice reform have also grown in and out of Washington...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... CW: You're so right, Scottie. If you don't talk about black people, they will go back to their quiet places, singing hymns at the church by the old plantation. Of course, they might get stopped, booked or shot by the cops on their way to church, but well, let's not mention that. ...
... Jay Bookman of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "The idea that politicians such as Rubio and Walker should be granted the authority to tell tens of thousands of other couples how they must proceed ... if confronted with a life-threatening pregnancy..., without knowing anything about their individual medical situation, family life or religious belief, is horrendous.... Let's not overlook the fact that in the world that Rubio, Walker, Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz and others want to create, abortion would be outlawed in cases of rape and incest as well.... The increasingly lonely 'moderate' position is represented largely by Jeb Bush, who would still grudgingly allow abortion in cases of rape and incest and to protect the life of the mother, but who showed no compunction about enlisting the full power of government to impose his own personal 'pro-life' belief system on the tragic Terri Schiavo and her family."
Adios, MoFo. Shane Goldmacher of the National Journal: "Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry's campaign team in South Carolina is no longer being paid by his presidential campaign...." ...
... "If At First You Don't Secede." Jonathan Chait: "... politics are not always fair.... [Rick Perry's] new persona of reasonably thoughtful mainstream conservative has gone over no better than his old persona of overmedicated secessionist." ...
... Ed Kilgore: "At the same time, Super PACs associated with Perry reportedly still have plenty of money (they together raised $17 million), and will try to compensate for what the official campaign cannot do. So we are seeing an early test of two questions many have been asking: (1) Will failing to make the Fox News debate cut last week doom the candidates left behind (Perry just barely missed the cut)? and (2) Can a broke campaign be saved by a flush Super PAC without illegal coordination?"
Wendell Potter of the Center for Public Integrity, in Newsweek: "When It Comes to Health Care, the GOP Wannabes Know Nothing."
Congressional Race
Todd Spangler of the Detroit Free Press: "Actress Melissa Gilbert, best known for her portrayal of Laura Ingalls Wilder on NBC's 'Little House on the Prairie' in the 1970s and '80s, said Monday she will run for Congress in Michigan's 8th District -- though her campaign will have to tamp down questions about a tax bill. Gilbert, who lives in Livingston County with her husband, actor Timothy Busfield, is running as a Democrat in a district that has been a Republican stronghold in recent elections...."
Beyond the Beltway
Jon Eligon & Mitch Smith of the New York Times: "St. Louis County declared a state of emergency Monday, and braced for possible unrest, as prosecutors filed charges against an 18-year-old who was shot and critically wounded by the police overnight on the periphery of demonstrations commemorating the killing a year ago of Michael Brown, a black teenager, by a white officer. The declaration, by the St. Louis County executive, Steve Stenger, allows the county police chief, Jon Belmar, to take control of police emergency management in and around Ferguson." ...
... Update: "Although nightfall brought intermittent clashes between protesters and the police -- the St. Louis County police said the authorities had made 23 arrests along West Florissant Avenue -- there were few signs of widening turmoil that might draw a sterner response by local officials or Gov. Jay Nixon, who last year deployed the National Guard here." ...
... Update 2. Jon Swaine & Oliver Laughland of the Guardian: "Police clashed with hundreds of protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, for a second night on Monday after a day of intense protests over the use of deadly force by American law enforcement that saw 144 people arrested." ...
... Inah Oh of Mother Jones: "As demonstrators gathered in Ferguson to continue commemorating the one year anniversary of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown on Monday, five heavily-armed men belonging to a vigilante group called the Oath Keepers were spotted patrolling the streets. According to reports, the Oath Keepers said they were on the scene to provide voluntary protection to a journalist working for the site InfoWars, the conspiracy mill run by noted lunatic Alex Jones.... St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar called the group's presence on Monday both 'unnecessary and inflammatory.'"
... Mark Berman of the Washington Post: "A Washington Post reporter who was arrested at a restaurant last year while reporting on protests in Ferguson, Mo., has been charged in St. Louis County with trespassing and interfering with a police officer and ordered to appear in court. Wesley Lowery, a reporter on The Post's national desk, was detained in a McDonald's while he was in Missouri covering demonstrations.... 'Charging a reporter with trespassing and interfering with a police officer when he was just doing his job is outrageous,' Martin Baron, executive editor of The Post, said in a statement Monday. '... Wes Lowery should never have been arrested in the first place. That was an abuse of police authority.'" ...
... Scott Lemieux: "I'm not one to place a great deal of confidence in our judicial system, but there's no way this survives a First Amendment challenge. But the kind of authoritarians we're dealing with just don't care." ...
... Update. Ravi Somaiya & Ashley Southall of the New York Times: "Two reporters who were arrested while covering the protests in Ferguson, Mo., last August, were charged with trespassing and interfering with a police officer, their outlets said on Monday. The reporters, Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post and Ryan J. Reilly of the Huffington Post, were arrested at a McDonald's restaurant while covering nightly demonstrations that followed the fatal shooting of Michael Brown....
... Ryan Grim & Sam Stein of the Huffington Post: "The Huffington Post condemns the charges filed by St. Louis County against our Justice reporter, Ryan J. Reilly, while covering the protests in Ferguson last year. Ryan has the full support of The Huffington Post in fighting these charges.... If Wesley Lowery and Ryan J. Reilly can be charged like this with the whole country watching, just imagine what happens when nobody is." ...
... Charles Pierce: "In other words, Wesley Lowery is going to court for sitting around with intent to report something, while a platoon of armed vigilante yahoos walk the streets as though they're in Anbar Province and nobody can do anything about it except wring their hands and mumble about freedom. (Chief Belmar sounds like a pillar of Jell-O.)" ...
... Daniel Victor of the New York Times: "A police officers' group in Columbia, Mo., proclaimed 'Darren Wilson Day' on Sunday, the one-year anniversary of the officer's fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.... The effort to recognize Mr. Wilson attracted condemnation from local officials, including the chief of Columbia's police department. Robert McDavid, the mayor of Columbia, called the post 'insensitive and divisive.'" CW: What could possibly wrong with recognizing the anniversary of a young man's death by celebrating his killer? -- a killer who also has pretty well proved, in his own words, that he was a racist cop who killed his victim because of his racial bias?
Shawn Cohen & Bruce Golding of the New York Post: "NYPD cops fed up with vagrants making life miserable in the city are ... snapping photos of quality-of-life scofflaws and posting them online. The Sergeants Benevolent Association is spearheading the effort, emailing a letter to members Monday urging them and their families and friends to take pictures to document the decline of the city. 'As you travel about the city of New York, please utilize your smartphones to photograph the homeless lying in our streets, aggressive panhandlers, people urinating in public or engaging in open-air drug activity, and quality-of-life offenses of every type,' says the letter from SBA President Ed Mullins, a major critic of Mayor Bill deBlasio.... Noting that more cops are being recorded on the job, Mullins wrote, 'Shouldn't accountability go both ways?'" ...
... Robert Gebelhoff of the Washington Post: "The police union's campaign has come under fire on social media, with some criticizing the police for shaming homeless people. Others have said it might help raise awareness about the issue. Homelessness has been on the rise in New York City, rising sharply under the administration of former mayor Michael Bloomberg."
David Eggert of the AP: Rep. Todd Courser (RTP)] said he won't resign after sending an email to supporters falsely claiming he was caught having sex with a male prostitute and said in a statement released Monday "he was the target of a blackmail attempt.... 'My actions in and around these events in the email that was sent to misdirect attention were my doing both in planning and execution,' Courser said in a nearly 30-minute audio file posted on his campaign website.... He blames former staffers for conspiring with others to bring him down and vowed to learn the identity of the alleged blackmailer." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... CW: Doncha just love the way these micreants always see themselves as the victims? ...
... Paul Egan of the Detroit Free Press: Michigan Gov. Rick "Snyder [R] said House Speaker Kevin Cotter, R-Mt. Pleasant, is handling the situation appropriately and proactively by ordering an investigation by the House business office, which began Friday. 'This is something that does need to be investigated, very clearly,' Snyder told reporters. A possible affair between [state Rep. Cindy] Gamrat [RTP] and [state Rep. Todd] Courser [RTP], though 'not something that should happen,' is an issue for voters, not the state, to decide, Snyder said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Julie Turkewitz of the New York Times: Colorado's Animas River "has been grievously polluted with toxic water spilled from one of the many abandoned mines that pockmark the region -- a spill for which the Environmental Protection Agency has claimed responsibility, saying it accidentally breached a store of chemical-laced water. On Sunday, anger over the spill boiled over after the agency announced that the amount of toxic water released was three times what was previously stated - more than three million gallons rather than one million -- and that officials were still unsure if there was a health threat to humans or animals.... Testing by the E.P.A. -- an agency typically in the position of responding to toxic disasters, not causing them -- found that the wastewater spill caused levels of arsenic, lead and other metals to spike in the Animas River."
News Ledes
New York Times: "The Greek government said on Tuesday that it had reached a deal with its international creditors for a third bailout, though a number of European officials expressed caution. The rescue plan, outlined in a 20-hour negotiating session in an Athens hotel, would provide aid worth up to 86 billion euros, or about $94.4 billion, to Greece in exchange for harsh austerity terms."
New York Times: "As China contends with an economic slowdown and a stock market slump, the authorities on Tuesday sharply devalued the country's currency, the renminbi, a move that could raise geopolitical tensions and weigh on growth elsewhere."
Missed this. New York Times (August 9): "Tyler S. Drumheller, a former senior American intelligence official who publicly asserted that President George W. Bush's administration had knowingly hyped fabricated evidence of Iraq's arsenal of biological weapons to justify the 2003 invasion, died on Aug. 2 in Falls Church, Va. He was 63.... Three years after the invasion and after his retirement from the Central Intelligence Agency, where he had been chief of the European division, Mr. Drumheller took the unusual step of publicly saying that he had warned his superiors that an Iraqi defector who claimed Iraq was equipped with mobile, lethal germ factories was mentally unstable."
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Reader Comments (17)
Not sure if this has already floated around on RC, but here's a pretty decent survey to see which Presidential hopefuls you most agree/disagree with. I'm 98% on the Bernie train, but eerily 33% a Bushie (I'm scheduling my psych appointment tomorrow...). Then again, any of the GOPers just freely flip flop to pander to whomever they're talking to, so I'm sure the survey has some trouble reconciling so much Bull Shitting.
http://www.isidewith.com/
I upgraded to Windows 10 as soon as I bought an inexpensive laptop two weeks ago. First attempt failed. I rebooted and tried again. Second attempt worked out fine, but it was a long process. I hope it works as well for you, Marie.
Marie, there may be a problem with your Windows installation -- for some reason the name "Trump" is showing up with a higher than normal frequency.
Also ... again ... thanks for doing what you do here. I really appreciate how you bring reality into the day, and imagine that it takes a good deal of work. Thanks.
ARRRRGGHGHHH!
I'll accept the role of onomato-peon rather than unleash the lengthy string of expletives that arise like automatic writing from the pits of hell whenever I see the name "Elliott Abrams" connected to anything other than a rap sheet.
How is this guy even worthy of anyone's consideration anymore? He's a convicted liar, a war criminal and a glutinous, noxious, and apparently ineradicable stain on the nation's honor.
Running operations in Central America for Ronald Rayguns, operations that included support for black ops, death squads, nun rapists and murderers, Abrams and the entire Reagan operation was found to be in violation of international law by the International Court of Justice. Abrams was later found guilty of lying to Congress as he tried to cover up his involvement in the Iran-Contra scheme. Poppy Bush cleared his slate for him so he didn't have to serve time. Another reason to admire the Bush clan.
After being kicked out of the second worst, most criminally liable administration in American history, the Reagan Gang, he was later, of course, because of his skill at fomenting chaos and murder around the world, invited in with open arms by the "leader" of the absolute worst, most criminally liable administration in American history, the Bush Gang.
While working for the Decider, Abrams went back to his old tricks of murder, mendacity, and fucking things up royally through incompetence, partisan zealotry, and viciousness. Bush tagged him to help start a civil war among the Palestinians in order to weaken Hamas. The whole clusterfuck backfired (as all of Abrams' schemes have done) and, instead of pushing Hamas to the sidelines, made it stronger than ever. In fact, the outcome was so bad, so antithetical to the stated goals, that a pissed off official in Defense, according to an article on this mess in Vanity Fair, said, after seeing how stupidly the whole thing was handled "Who the fuck recommended this?"
Well, let's see. A plan cooked up by congenital douchebags Bush and Cheney and implemented by sniveling piece of shit Elliott Abrams. What could possibly go wrong?
So pay no attention to his calls of anti-Semitism. It's a standard ploy of his. He's tried it many times in the past, most recently against Chuck Hagel for which his boss smacked him upside the head and told him to sit down and shut up.
He's a lying asshole. And how can you tell he's lying? He's not dead. As former Senator Thomas Eagleton said, after listening to a lengthy lia-a-thon by Abrams as he tried to weasel his way out of a jail sentence during the Iran-Contra hearings, “I’ve heard [your testimony], and I want to puke.”
But this also demonstrates that no amount of perfidy, mendacity, criminality, murderous intent or incompetent behavior is a barrier to repeatedly being invited into the center of power by Republicans.
The Party of Criminals.
So nice to see that Trumpy the Trumpet and Roger Ailes have mended fences. Two bullies setting things straight between them so they can both go back to bullying everyone else. Also because money.
Ain't capitalism grand?
Of course there's nothing that says that any capitalist has to do anything to make the country or the world a better place, but actively working to make things worse? To spreading misinformation and lies, propagating a ghastly world view suffused with hatred and suspicion and paranoia? And making money off the misery and suffering of others? Misery and suffering you go out of your way to support and promote?
Now and then I just run out of words...
Safari,
Interesting survey, thanks for the link.
I got Sanders 93%, Clinton 87%, O'Malley 77%. No surprises there. Repubes ranged from 40s to teens with Christie and Bush leading, I suppose because they have occasionally had lucid moments on a few issues. But like you, I don't know how the producers of the survey picked those few out of the smear and sneer, slander and pander, bluster, blather and bullshit routine.
@safari: Thanks. The quiz was fun. Here were my results: Sanders 99%, Clinton 97, O'Malley 78, Christie 46 (say what?), Jeb! 30, Trump 19, Li'l Randy 13, Scottie 10, Carson 4, Cruz 0. I am the Anti-Cruz.
Marie
A couple ideas worth mentioning regarding the Iran deal:
Even if Congress somehow capitulates and runs the deal into the ground by bypassing Obama's veto, this diplomatic process has completely moved the goalposts on the issue. Diplomacy to deter war is front and center, and within our grasp if we choose that path.
Despite the blithering rhetoric of the GOP gasbags screaming "Bombs Away!" on "day one" of their Presidency, I find it extremely hard to believe, even considering our comatose electorate and spineless media, that the warmongers could foment an Iraq Redux given this new reality. After coming so close to a diplomatic freeze in the war rhetoric, lighting up that burner is going to take multiple administrations IMHO unless something seriously goes awry. Tom Cotton is just going to have to pull out his GI Joes and play war games in his bathtub. Maybe he can invite Lindsey Graham.
The second idea ties into the first, because it looks at it from the international perspective. I'm amazed at how the press has been covering this issue with such an insulated, bilateral analysis, as if the only major players were the US Hegemonic SuperPower and mischievous, untrustworthy Iran.
When comparing the minority defectors of the current deal as negotiated, we can include the whole of the GOP because Fuck Obama, and some bought and paid for AIPAC lackeys across the aisle. So the reality is, which the press has rarely if ever framed it like this, the deal has a favorability rating of the entire UN Security Council (United Kingdom, China, Russia, France) plus Germany, as well as some of the world's leading nuclear scientists (as linked here at RC), as well as a running list of Israel's top defense chiefs, intelligence officials, military.......and the non-favorable group comprises a small minoirty of old, white, American men with serious chips on their shoulders, and Apocalypse Bibi. AND the detractors have no better solutions, except maybe bombs in the future, because "We Win!"
Pathetic, really. But the shift in the international approach towards Iran is diluting the Chickenhawks' conscious and meticulous game of convincing the US public and the world that Iran needed to be weakened through military might. The continuing Iraq/Syria debacle clearly weakened that argument, but now with this agreement I feel like they're going to have to restart all over again, which they'll certainly try.
If you've been noticing, Tehran is now the place to be in the Middle East. And I'm convinced that they'll do what it takes to keep that status.
http://www.juancole.com/2015/08/nuclear-diplomatic-capital.html
Quiz was interesting to take!
For me: Bernie (97), Hillary (85), O'Malley (71), and Christie (33)!!! the rest were in the teens (Trump @ 17), single digits or zip for the rest.
Test results are in:
Sanders 98, Clinton, 88, O'Malley, 77, Christie, 36, Jeb!, 28 Bad Toupée, 20, Trumpy, 19, Carson, 10, Walker, 8, Cruz 0.
Guess we don't have to worry about Perry. He's stiffing his team in South Carolina so I guess he's resigned to coming up three different departments to close next time around.
@Thanks for the image of Tom Cotton playing war games in his bathtub. Especially if he invites Lindsey over to play, Maybe Dubya will memorialize the water war with one of his charming naive paintings.
Speaking of war games, actual thanks for the essay reminding us of the notorious career of Elliott Abrams. I had forgotten many of the highlights. Maybe the worst bit is that he began his most nefarious activities covering up atrocities as Reagan's Undersecretary for Human Rights. Human rights! Sometimes we forget how bad a president Reagan was. Then a Reagan administration veteran pops up & says something.
Marie
Interesting to find Michigan Rep Cindy Gamrat (RTP) in the news
again. She came to our little city after the same sex ruling by the
Supremes, thumping her bible and banishing us all to hell. Her plan
was to have only churches issue marriage licenses in Michigan so
they could say "NO" to those marriages that didn't fit into their
tax exempt plan. She must have been in the midst of her affair at
the time and still saying "marriage is between one man and one
woman". (But you're free to cheat and screw around all you want).
She wasn't well received here; we have a very high proportion of
GLBT to straight in this part of the state. But I'm sure her god will
see fit to forgive her and get her more votes from fellow bible
thumpers. Arrrrggggghhhhh!
Speaking of the Iran deal, I'm getting mighty tired of all the attacks on anyone calling out Chuck Schumer for his (I won't say treasonous, but it's within shouting distance) feckless placation of AIPAC, and his ignoble accession to Bibi's demands that he side with Israel and against his own country. And it's not like he's a businessman, Sheldon Adelson type. He's a fucking senator, fer crissakes. And he's pulling this shit at the worst possible time, giving comfort and aid to assholes.
Maybe he made the (cynical) calculation that the deal would go through without him in which case he could mollify the AIPAC'ers threatening him with desertion if he went along with the president and leader of his party, and still keep his day job as one of the Democratic big shots in the Senate. Sorry. I hope very much those days are over.
He's certainly entitled to his own opinion, but, like the Republicans in congress who ARE traitors (don't forget their love letter to the mullahs), he has no viable plan B regarding Iran. And now that he's made his bed, I'm going to say that he will never, or should never, be put into the position as Democratic leader in the Senate. Between this and his unfailing sucking up to Wall Street Masters of the Universe, He's done. DONE.
And criticizing Israel's attempts to deep six this plan (also don't forget that their PM came here, whip in hand, to bully the President of the United States before the US congress, invited to do so by, again, traitors) does not automatically qualify as anti-Semitic.
Israel has their priorities but so do we. As much as Israel constantly bristles whenever they feel as if outsiders are trying to tell them how to conduct their business, they feel no compunction about butting in and monkeying with American foreign policy when it suits their purposes.
Maybe once Jonathan Pollard gets out of the slammer, he can go back to his old job of selling US intelligence to our old pal.
Some friend.
@Forrest Morris: Thanks for the personal note on Cindy Gamrat.
Besides being a ridiculous hypocrite & an obnoxious bigot, her little plan to End Marriage Equality Forever is full of flaws:
(1) There are plenty of men & women of the cloth, a portion of them gay of course, who will happily marry one man and one man or one woman and one woman.
(2) Besides failing to fulfill her intent to discriminate against gays, the plan would discriminate against nontheists, whom I suppose could never marry unless the neighborhood had a Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Finally, I don't see how any law that transferred responsibility for performing marriages to religious organizations could possibly be Constitutional because it puts the right to marry to a religious test. This would deprive hundreds of thousands of people of the civil benefits of marriage -- economic & otherwise -- not to mention the traditional societal benefits that the RTPs find so important.
So she isn't just a bigot & a hypocrite; she's also a dimwit.
Marie
Dateline: Ferguson, MO
Oaf Keepers At It Again.
Gun fondlers insert themselves into a local protest claiming to be demonstrating the importance of walking around in camo with combat gear, heavily armed, ready and willing to shoot them some black people who don't interpret the Constitution the same way they do. And did I mention the possibility of shooting black people?
The Oaf Keepers are back in Ferguson to protect white rights and to make sure no darkies get too uppity. As one woman tweeted, they were strolling around, heavily armed in front of police who had no reaction. If Twitter allowed her a few more words, I'm guessing she may have wondered if the cops would be quite so passive if a bunch of heavily armed black citizens were doing the same thing. Don't bother. We all know the answer.
One thing I find interesting is that none of these "protectors" will give identify themselves or give their full names. If they do, it's with a pseudonym or a first or middle name and nothing else. As Confederates are always saying, if you have nothing to hide, what's the problem? Hypocrisy, as Forrest and Marie pointed out earlier, never interrupts the inner dysfunctional and occasionally demonic activity in winger brain pans.
Oh, and by the way. Know who started the Oaf Keepers? A guy named Stewart Rhodes, friend and advisor to Ron Paul. No wonder they show up wherever there are black targets but never where the targets are white.
Anyone still think the Paul family is just a kindly, Libertarian bunch of good ol' 'mericans who only love freeeeedom and sit around of a Sunday aftanoon eating peach cobbler and praying to Jesus?
The Right is such a dank, fetid warren layered with incestuous interminglings of hatred, weird desire, officious patriarchy, intolerant religiosity, gun love, racism, misogyny, suspicion, paranoia, and violence.
Seriously kids, it scares the shit out of me.
And I guaran-fucking-tee you that not a single candidate for Confederate Presidency would find anything wrong with the appearance of unofficial, antagonistic, gun-toting idiots in the middle of an already difficult situation, especially people who don't live there but have taken it upon themselves to throw kerosene on a small brush fire.
Jeb Bush reportedly plans to give a speech tonight where he will whack Hillary for the "failed" Obama policy in Iraq ( because if we'd sent yet more troops in everything would be ducky).
I wonder if any of his three children served in the military ?
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=14447
Okay, that's my first attempt to link a very informative news clip on why the Greek dockworkers will be striking over the plan to privatize the Piraeus as an austerity measure imposed on them by the troika.
The speaker gives a concise description of what has happened with a partial privatization of the state run port; and why the austerity plan to privatize it all will destroy Greece.
If we think something like this could never happen in the USA, remember that foreign entities did try to get ownership of 2 southern states' ports during the Decider's reign. It was stopped, but only because the new owners would have been "middle eastern," not because anyone understood how destructive it would have been.
I believe this video is a description of what will happen once the TPP goes through.