;)
The Commentariat -- August 29, 2015
Internal links removed.
Campbell Robertson & Richard Perez-Pena of the New York Times: "Returning [to New Orleans] Friday 10 years after this city was inundated, former President George W. Bush painted a rosy picture of the recovery since Hurricane Katrina, saying that the devastation had 'sparked a decade of reform' in public schools and declaring, 'New Orleans is back, and better than ever.' Visiting one of the schools that became a charter in those early years after the storm, Mr. Bush focused on education, citing the failings of the city's public schools before Hurricane Katrina, and the marked improvement since." ...
... Campbell Robertson: In Mississippi, then-Gov. Haley Barbour took from the poor & uninsured to give to a pet project: renovating & expanding the Port of Gulfport. Barbour's administration "projected 2,586 permanent maritime jobs by 2015" in the renovated port. "According to its most recent federal filing, the port has roughly 470 fewer jobs than it had at the time of Mr. Barbour's 2007 request. Of the 1,300 direct new jobs the port is supposed to have created, it can claim 99." ...
... CW Projection: This is the kind of "jobs success" we can expect if the Keystone XL pipeline goes in. "A study by the Perryman Group, a firm commissioned by TransCanada to examine the potential economic impact of the project, predicts that anywhere between 250,348 and 553,235 permanent jobs will be created." Politifact puts the number of permanent jobs Keystone XL is likely to create at 50. So it's somewhere around half-a-million or 50. ...
... Peter Whoriskey of the Washington Post: "Starchitects" can't design cheap housing. Actor Brad Pitt's project to create affordable, attractive housing for New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward was a fail when it came to the contributions of top architects. "... the vast majority of the homes built so far came from designs created by other, lesser-known architects that Pitt hired." ...
... Here's a 2011 critique of the Pitt project by San Francisco architect Mark English. (Rebecca Firestone of English's firm did the write-up.) CW: I'm pretty damned sure that with a quadrille pad & a trip to the neighborhood & chats with residents, I could come up with a much cheaper, more pleasing design than any of these big shot pros did. And I wouldn't build them on site; I'd prefab them in a big old, convertible warehouse right there in the Ninth. In fact, Habitat for Humanity & other charity groups did just that (albeit they used Chinese drywall, & eventually did major renos to remove & replace the corrosive sheetrock.)
Ha Ha! Just kidding. Occupants way more equal than you.Mark Sherman & Sam Hanenel of the AP: "The Supreme Court ... can keep protesters off its marble plaza without violating their constitutional rights, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. The inviting 20,000-square-foot, open-air plaza can remain a protest-free zone because the court has an interest in preserving decorum and the idea that judges are not influenced by public opinion and pressure, said a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.... The decision reversed a lower court ruling that declared unconstitutional a law prohibiting protests on the plaza." ...
... CW: Funny how it's okay for protesters to right smack-dab get in the faces of private individuals entering a Planned Parenthood clinic to seek medical attention, but it's not okay to get even within potential earshot of the public officials who are the Supremes. Because decorum. There's an inverse relationship between the power of the protested & the free-speech rights of the protester.
Julian Hattem of the Hill: "A federal appeals court on Friday overturned a lower court ruling against the National Security Agency's controversial collection methods. The ruling from the three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals reverses the lower court's decision, which in December of 2013 declared that the NSA's bulk phone data collection was unconstitutional." CW: Two of the judges on the three-judge panel are Reagan appointees (one an infamous partisan) & one a Dubya appointee well-known for her winger views.
Timothy Easley of the AP: Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk Kim Davis wants the Supreme Court to absolve her from having to do her job of issuing marriage licenses. Because gay people. According to her lawyer, Davis wants "asylum for her conscience." "Davis cannot be fired because she is an elected official. The Legislature could impeach her, but that is unlikely given that many state lawmakers share her beliefs. The Republican president of the state Senate spoke at a rally last week in support of Davis." CW: Oh, please. If you're a vegan clerk, should you be granted "asylum for your conscience" so your county can quit granting fishing & hunting licenses? Should a Roman Catholic building inspector be "forced" to grant a church construction permit to a band of heathen Baptists? Davis has a right to her bigoted beliefs & her religious convictions, but she does not have the right to enforce them on others.
Jennifer Liberto of Politico: "As a tumultuous week in the markets came to a close, central bankers meeting in the Grand Tetons on Friday to discuss inflation confronted an unfamiliar sight: Hundreds of critics from the left and right gathering to attack the central bank's policies at its summer getaway in the mountains. The shocking appearance of activists at the usually quiet retreat is a sign of a growing battle over when and whether the Fed should raise interest rates."
CW: I haven't been covering Bobby Jindal much because he's as likely to be our next president as are Jim Gilmore and I, but I'm sorry I missed this:
It is therefore with disappointment that I read of the White House's plans to make this visit part of a tour for your climate change agenda. I understand that your emphasis in New Orleans will -- rightly -- be an economic development, the temptation to stray into climate change politics should be resisted.... While you and others may be of the opinion that we can legislate away hurricanes with higher taxes, business regulations and EPA power grabs, that is not a view shared by many Louisianans. -- Bobby Jindal, in a letter to President Obama, reported August 26
... Well, President Obama disappointed Bobby, & Charles Pierce is very unkind to the governor with an advanced degree in science from Oxford U.
Griff Witte & Anthony Faiola of the Washington Post: "Pressure to change Europe's dysfunctional asylum system grew on Saturday as the continent awoke to an impassioned call from the United Nations Secretary General [Ban Ki-moon] for governments to do more to address a never-before-seen influx of men, women and children that shows no sign of abating despite the rising risks.... In an implicit rebuke to European leaders who have squabbled for months while doing little to resolve the crisis, he called for governments to offer 'comprehensive responses, expand safe and legal channels of migration and act with humanity, compassion and in accordance with their international obligations.'" ...
... The New York Times series on the migrants continues.
White House staff say the boss is having an eventful late-term presidency. CW: They're not wrong:
... CW: Your Weekly Hagiography is usually so saccharine that I don't embed it, but if you can ignore the rah-rah, these videos -- which usually are published on Fridays -- are often fairly interesting.
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. CW Mea Culpa. Orin Kerr of the Washington Post, with whom I often disagree, is right about this: Adam Liptak's New York Times story, linked here yesterday, on Justice Clarence Thomas's heavy reliance on other people's writing was misleading. I looked at Liptak's "evidence" & thought so, too, but I linked the story anyway because I'm a partisan hack. I should have at least noted that where Liptak presented the basis for his analysis, the data showed that while Thomas was the most-copying justice, the difference between his practices & those of other justices was pretty small, in fact, no more than "a rounding error," as Kerr puts it, in one statistical analysis. So I apologize. Liptak was unfair. So was I. This was crap journalism & crap linking. And I know better.
Presidential Race
Patrick Healy of the New York Times: "Hillary Rodham Clinton staked her claim on Friday to lead Democrats in 2016 and beyond, delivering a fiery speech to hundreds of party officials in which she attacked Donald J. Trump and other Republicans for 'hateful' remarks -- 'The party of Lincoln has become the party of Trump,' she said acidly -- and pledged to rebuild the Democratic political machine to help candidates win races nationwide. But if Mrs. Clinton was seeking to unify Democrats behind her, two of her rivals for the nomination -- Martin O'Malley, the former Maryland governor, and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont -- ... used their speeches at the Democratic National Committee's summer meeting to aim unusual broadsides at the party overtly and Mrs. Clinton implicitly." ...
... Patrick Healy: "Taking his outsider message into the heart of the Democratic establishment, Senator Bernie Sanders ... challenged hundreds of the party's leaders on Friday to embrace his candidacy, warning that the huge crowds of supporters he has drawn may not vote for Democratic candidates in 2016 unless he is at the top of the ticket." ...
... Patrick Healy & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Martin O'Malley ... deliver[ed] a fiery speech Friday that condemned his party's leadership for what he called a process 'rigged' to help Hillary Rodham Clinton -- namely, curtailing the number of presidential primary debates. Accusing party leaders of trying to keep Democratic ideas hidden as the Republican presidential candidates spew 'racist hate' from their debate lecterns, Mr. O'Malley ... questioned the decision to hold 'four debates and four debates only' before the first four states finish voting." ...
... Bradford Richardson of the Hill: "Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) believes the Democratic Party is using its limited primary debate schedule to rig the nomination process. 'I do,' Sanders reportedly responded when asked Friday whether he agrees with former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley's assertion that the debate system is 'rigged.' The two Democratic presidential candidates were speaking at the summer meeting of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in Minneapolis on Friday. 'This sort of rigged process has never been attempted before,' O'Malley said in his speech earlier Friday."
Nick Gass of Politico: Hillary Clinton told reporters she was trying to do a better job of "explaining to people what's going on" with her e-mails. CW: Yeah, the press could do a better job of this, too.
Eugene Scott of CNN: "Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told reporters Thursday that he attends a church in Manhattan, but the church released a statement saying the real estate developer is not an 'active member.'" CW: Despite Trump's & the media's history of scrutinizing & hypothesizing on President Obama's religious beliefs & practices, I find "investigative journalism" of this sort creepy & invasive even when Trump is the subject. It's true that Trump's attempts to bolster his religious creds deserve attention, but I think the Marble Collegiate Church erred in releasing information about Trump's affiliation with the church. Besides, one could attend a church every Sunday & not be a member, so the church statement isn't even dispositive. Also, many people "feel" they're affiliated with a certain religion or particular church, even if they never or seldom show up for services.
Ed Kilgore: Peggy Noonan talked to three Americans -- well, one of them is a Dominican-born deli-worker, & another a DJ on a Spanish-language station, so iffy Americans -- & found out "Trump is the Tribune of the People [Kilgore's characterization]. But it's not real clear which side she's on. Maybe neither, being an objective journalist and all." Also, the Dominican guy "says the Spanish-language call-in radio station he listens to is a hotbed of Trump support, and that listeners sided with The Donald in his altercation with Jorge Ramos, because they're legal immigrants and they hate the illegal kind." The DJ backed up Domincan guy. CW: Now, I'm sure Trump was right: he's going to get the Hispanic vote. All the "legals" -- the only ones who can vote except for all the "illegals"/voter-fraudsters -- love him! ...
... Keith Brekhus of PoliticsUSA: "On the same morning [Wednesday] that Trump was bragging that he would win the Hispanic vote, a newly released Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 81 percent of Hispanic voters had an unfavorable opinion of Trump, compared to just 13 percent who viewed him favorably." ...
... Still Feeling Those Good Vibrations. CW: Sorry, pollsters. I totally trust Pegs on this. Just as I did when, the day before the 2012 election, she predicted Romney would win, no matter what the Nate Silvers were saying because "All the vibrations are right.... There's the thing about the yard signs. In Florida a few weeks ago I saw Romney signs, not Obama ones. From Ohio I hear the same. From tony Northwest Washington, D.C., I hear the same." The Trump movement is not just vibes; it's fucking tectonic plate shifts: "Something is going on, some tectonic plates are moving in interesting ways."
Governor Yahoo!. Mark Katz of the WNYC: "Gov. Chris Christie has criticized Hillary Clinton in recent days over her use of private email to do State Department business. But the only email he provided to the Legislature last year came from his private Yahoo account.... Both New Jersey and federal guidelines say government business should not be conducted over personal email accounts.... But Christie insists Clinton's transgression is unique in that she maintained a private server...." CW: IOKIYAR. Also, too, a Yahoo! account could never be hacked & Yahoo would never share your e-mails with the NSA even if it cost them $250K a day in fines. I have no idea if Clinton's private server is "more private" than Christie's, but the odds are it is.
Rats Abandoning the Sinking Ship Doofus. Alex Isenstadt & Marc Caputo of Politico: "Three top Jeb Bush fundraisers abruptly parted ways with his presidential campaign on Friday, amid internal personality conflicts and questions about the strength of his candidacy, Politico has learned. There are different versions of what transpired."
Beyond the Beltway
Erik Ortiz of NBC News: "A former New Hampshire prep school student accused of raping a freshman girl as part of a campus tradition was acquitted Friday of the most serious charges against him. Owen Labrie ... was acquitted of the three felony rape charges and of misdemeanor simple assault. He was convicted on three counts of misdemeanor sexual assault, endangering the welfare of a child and a felony count of using a computer to seduce a minor under 16, which requires him to register as a sex offender." ...
... Mark Stern of Slate explains how New Hampshire's statutory rape law determined the verdict.
Annals of "Justice," Ctd. Jon Swaine of the Guardian: "A young black man arrested by police in Portsmouth, Virginia, on the same day that one of the city's officers fatally shot an unarmed black 18-year-old, has been found dead in jail after spending almost four months behind bars without bail for stealing groceries worth $5. Jamycheal Mitchell, who had mental health problems, was discovered lying on the floor of his cell by guards early last Wednesday, according to authorities. While his body is still awaiting an autopsy, senior prison officials said his death was not being treated as suspicious." CW: No, I guess not.
"Guns Everywhere." AP: "Authorities are investigating after a shooting at Savannah State University killed a student and prompted a lockdown at the Georgia school Thursday night. A statement posted on the university's website identified the deceased as Christopher Starks, a 22-year-old junior from the Atlanta area. The statement says he died at a hospital of gunshot wounds sustained during an altercation at the student union." ....
... Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "Christopher Jamal Starks, was in the Student Union at Savannah State University when he was shot during an altercation Thursday night, according to police." ...
... CW: In 2013, Georgia had the highest rate of gun deaths of any state in the nation. So in 2014 the Republican-led legislature passed the "Guns Everywhere Law," a/k/a the "Safe Carry Protection Act," & Gov. Nathan Deal (R) signed it into law in April 2014. I doubt the students at Savannah State are feeling safe & protected now. Another horrible, stupid waste of life.
Making Eye Contact with Police While Black. Leon Neyfakh of Slate: White Dayton, Ohio, police officer tails black driver because the driver had made "direct eye contact" with him. Of course, cops also will claim that avoiding eye contact with police is suspicious behavior. CW: I think there's a straight line from police assumptions about black people to the GOP Everything-Is-Obama's-Fault syndrome.
News Ledes
Washington Post: "Thai authorities arrested a foreign man Saturday they said had been holed up in a suburban apartment with bomb-making equipment and stacks of passports, the first possible breakthrough in the deadly bombing at a Bangkok shrine nearly two weeks ago."
New York Times: "An Egyptian judge on Saturday handed down unexpectedly harsh verdicts in the trial of three journalists from the Al Jazeera English news channel, sentencing them to at least three years in prison on charges that human rights advocates have repeatedly dismissed as political in nature. The journalists, Mohamed Fahmy, Baher Mohamed and Peter Greste, had said they were expecting to be exonerated or sentenced to time already served. Egyptian officials have strongly suggested they were eager to be rid of the case, which had become a source of international embarrassment for the government...."
Washington Post: "Tropical Storm Erika was losing its punch as it drenched Haiti and the Dominican Republic early Saturday, but it left devastation in its path, killing at least 20 people and leaving another 31 missing on the small eastern Caribbean island of Dominica, authorities said."
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Reader Comments (5)
Re: Keystone XL
According to TransCanada's own website regarding the Keystone XL
portion of their pipeline, which would run through 840 miles of the
USA and would connect the portions which have already been
completed, would provide 9,000 construction jobs. Also would
involve manufacturing (pipe, pumps, etc.) which may or may not
be manufactured in the USA (my assumption).
The 553,235 figure is laughable. That many people could almost
hold hands over the 840 miles, or form a bucket brigade of crude.
They're also building an extension from the refineries in
Nederland Tx to Houston. Sounds to me like there may be a
future plan to export this oil thru the port of Houston, even as
they claim the pipeline will lessen our dependence on foreign oil.
I've been called a doubting Thomas before.
What to think of crowdfunding for the immigrant father selling pens while holding his exhausted child? I last hear it has raised over $100K. I don't know the rules on crowdfunding, but when millions are in terrible, desperate situations isn't there a better way to provide some sanctuary, some relief for more refugees? Of all the pictures we have seen, why does this one provide us with the necessary connection? What would happen if this father is told he will only get a portion of all the funds raised for him and his daughter? How do we help all these people? And what about the immigrant fathers to this country and how we treat them? Christ. Yesterday on NPR, I heard of a migrant farm family paying $1400/mo. rent in California. The thrust of that story was the farmers were having a good year because of increased demand for their almonds while the laborers were having a bad year because the drought has reduced the amount of produce needing picking.
I'm glad I'm not young anymore.
@Haley Simon:
It's a known fact that one (1) almond grown in California takes
50 gallons of water which they can't spare. And where do we
think those almonds are going? The ones that aren't used here
go to China. I'm thinking there should be a better exchange,
like, China sends California a billion gallons of H2O and we
send them 10 lbs of almonds.
This in not as well referenced as it ought to be, but the Resnick's are notorious welfare farmers. And with your next sip of pinot noir, consider how many sips of water went into it.
Whyte Owen
Those two articles did not lighten my mood...