;)
The Commentariat -- Jan. 12, 2016
Josh Lederman of the AP: "President Barack Obama will deliver a final State of the Union address Tuesday brimming with optimism -- far more than most Americans possess."
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court seemed poised on Monday to deliver a severe blow to organized labor. The justices appeared divided along familiar lines during an extended argument over whether government workers who choose not to join unions may nonetheless be required to help pay for collective bargaining. The court's conservative majority appeared ready to say that such compelled financial support violates the First Amendment.... The best hope for a victory for the unions had rested with Justice Antonin Scalia, who has written and said things sympathetic to their position. But he was consistently hostile on Monday." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... ** Dana Milbank: "Just in time for the 2016 election, the Roberts Court has found yet another way to stack the deck in favor of the rich. By all appearances at Monday's argument, the five Republican-appointed justices are ready to upend a 40-year precedent guiding labor relations in favor of a new approach that will deplete public-sector unions' finances and reduce their political clout. The case, from California, involves arcane issues of 'agency fees' and member opt-outs, but make no mistake: This is about campaign finance, and, in particular, propping up the Republican Party.... The only real counterweight to Republican super PACs in this new era is union money. And the Supreme Court is about to attack that, too." Read the whole column.
Maura Dolan of the Los Angeles Times: "A military veteran persuaded a federal appeals court Monday to overturn his conviction for wearing a medal he didn't earn. An 11-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said a portion of a federal law that made it a crime to wear an unearned military medal violated freedom of speech rights. The panel found that wearing a medal conveys a message, which is protected by the 1st Amendment."
Jared Bernstein in the Washington Post: "One of the most destructive ideas in poverty policy is what supporters, such as House Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, call 'opportunity grants' and what the rest of us call block grants.... The main reason this idea is so destructive is that it undermines the essence of the safety net.... So back off Jeb! et al. SNAP works. In fact, it ... works for a lifetime, as research tracking children who received nutritional support when they were kids finds a spate of positive outcomes in adulthood...." ...
... Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post:In reality, block-granting is just a way federal politicians can strip poor people of much-needed services without actually taking the blame for the resulting suffering.... In recent decades, Washington has created 13 block-grant programs targeting low-income Americans. According to a recent Center on Budget and Policy Priorities study, in all but one case the program shrank substantially in inflation-adjusted terms. This happened despite initial assurances that block-grant programs would get the same funding as the programs being replaced.... Just throwing up your hands and telling the states 'I dunno, you fix it' isn't leadership. It's cowardice."
Niraj Chokshi of the Washington Post: "From Republican front-runner Donald Trump to evangelical Franklin Graham, many on the political right are pointing to the shocking wave of sexual assaults in Germany as a justification of their concerns of Muslim immigration." See also Tim Hume's CNN report linked under Way Beyond the Beltway.
Michael Ruane of the Washington Post: "Almost 75 years after they were killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor, the remains of five U.S. sailors who perished when their battleship was sunk have been identified, the Pentagon said Monday. The five men, who were exhumed last year from their graves in Hawaii and examined in special military laboratories, were among 429 sailors and Marines killed when the USS Oklahoma was torpedoed and capsized. They had been buried as 'unknowns.'" (Also linked yesterday.)
Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times: "The father of the billionaires Charles G. and David H. Koch helped construct a major oil refinery in Nazi Germany that was personally approved by Adolf Hitler, according to a new history of the Kochs and other wealthy families. The book, 'Dark Money,' by Jane Mayer, traces the rise of the modern conservative movement through the activism and money of a handful of rich donors: among them Richard Mellon Scaife, an heir to the Mellon banking fortune, and Harry and Lynde Bradley, brothers who became wealthy in part from military contracts but poured millions into anti-government philanthropy." ...
... Nazi Boyz. Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: "... Mayer writes that the family patriarch, Fred Koch, admired German discipline so much in the 1930s that he hired a fervent Nazi as a governess for his eldest boys. 'Dark Money' suggests that the experience of being toilet trained by a Nazi may have contributed to Charles Koch's antipathy toward government today."
** Kevin Drum: "My Right to Die."
Susan Svrluga of the Washington Post: "George Washington University's president announced Monday that the honorary degree presented to Bill Cosby in the 1990s would be revoked,... GW's decision was an about-face from the position the university took in the fall...."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. The Whims of a Wealthy Young Man. Ravi Somaiya of the New York Times: "Chris Hughes, the Facebook co-founder who bought The New Republic in 2012 and prompted a revolt among staff members and contributors when he tried to remake it, said on Monday that he had decided to put the magazine up for sale." ...
... "Chainsaw Chris." Josh Marshall of TPM: "... it's hard not to see this as a perfect inversion of the classic private equity model: a few years of transformative ownership in which his team managed to radically increase costs while completely destroying the company's brand equity.... The New Republic, as anything like what it's been for a century, was never going to be a profit-making operation, certainly not a vertically integrated media cineplex or whatever they were trying to make it.... I will say that having decided to upend the entire operation and trigger a radical disruption and disjuncture with its history going back a generation, it seems a bit precipitous and unlovely for Hughes to kick it to the corner now and deprive it of the deep pockets which is now really its only asset." ...
... Scott Lemieux in LG&M: "... it's not a shock that [Hughes's] attempt to bring a TOTALLY DISRUPTIVE new proactive paradigm to a field he knew nothing about was a spectacular failure on its own terms. (I hope his next move isn't to get involved with higher ed.)"
Presidential Race
Lauren Gambino of the Guardian: "Hillary Clinton ... and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who are locked into close primary races in Iowa and New Hampshire, sharpened their attacks on one another over gun control, tax policy and Wall Street reform at the Iowa Black and Brown Forum, hosted by Univision at Drake University in Des Moines on Monday.... Yet the presidential forum drew as many laughs as contrasts.... When asked if it was 'off-brand' for a democratic socialist to live in a mansion like the White House, Sanders replied: 'I would consider it more like public housing.'" ...
... Making Up Stuff. Abby Phillip & Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "After days of attacking Sen. Bernie Sanders over his record on guns, Hillary Clinton on Monday expanded her critique of the Vermont Senator to include his health-care plan. Speaking at an event in Iowa, Clinton pointedly contrasted her health-care plan with Sanders's, claiming that his proposal would turn over health insurance to Republican governors." ...
... Paul Waldman: "Sanders says he has no idea what she's talking about, because he hasn't proposed turning health insurance over to the states, other than a general commitment to a federal single-payer program. Indeed, he doesn't have an actual health care plan at all. Also strange: I always assume that when Clinton comes out with a new line like this, her campaign has polled it within an inch of its life, but I find it hard to believe that a single-payer plan isn't quite popular with Democratic voters." ...
... Gabriel Debenedetti of Politico: "Intensifying her gun control argument against Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton will accept the endorsement of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence at a campaign stop in Ames, Iowa on Tuesday, according to a campaign aide." ...
... Bernie Becker of Politico: "Hillary Clinton [Monday] proposed a 4 percent surtax on the highest-earning Americans, as she seeks to boost taxes for the wealthiest Americans. The proposal, which she announced in Iowa, would raise an estimated $150 billion over a decade, a Clinton aide said, and comes after the Democratic front-runner said that she would build on the so-called Buffett Rule that seeks to ensure that the middle class doesn't pay a higher tax rate than top earners.... Clinton's camp says she will roll out more proposals this week to force the wealthy to pay more in taxes." CW: Obviously, the latest intra-party polls shook up Hillary. ...
... Update. CW: Gee, Bernie agrees with me. (He so often does.) Liz Goodwin of Yahoo News: "Sen. Bernie Sanders accused Hillary Clinton of taking an increasingly aggressive stance against him because she's nervous that he is beating her in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. 'It could be that the inevitable candidate for the Democratic nomination may not be so inevitable today,' Sanders said at the Iowa Brown & Black Forum in Des Moines Monday night."
... Josh Gerstein of Politico: "A federal judge has dismissed a pair of lawsuits aimed at forcing the government to act more aggressively to recover emails that Hillary Clinton kept on a private server while serving as secretary of state. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled Monday that the suits filed by two conservative organizations are moot because the State Department and the National Archives have done all they are legally required to do to obtain messages pertaining to her four-year tenure as America's top diplomat." ...
... Josh Gerstein: "The State Department has agreed to process for public release an archive of 29,000 pages of emails longtime Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin sent or received on a private account while working as deputy chief of staff to Clinton from 2009 to 2013."
Nick Gass of Politico: "Donald Trump on Monday pleaded, with slight jest, for the FBI to go after Hillary Clinton for exclusively using a private email server which she was secretary of state, declaring that he would rather run against Bernie Sanders in the general election." ...
... Benjamin Wallace-Wells in the New Yorker: "In many ways, [Donald Trump's] argument is that government should be run more directly by élites. Trump's complaint with Washington is that it sends 'political hacks' to negotiate with foreign countries, rather than ... the smartest guys on Wall Street.' Trump's version of the Oval Office is one in which Carl Icahn will appear from behind a door to solve any crisis. What strange form of populism is this?"
David Corn of Mother Jones: "On Friday night, New York Times columnist David Brooks, a mild conservative, and I were on the PBS Newshour, and our discussion of [Ted] Cruz's recent surge in Iowa really ticked off some within the right-wing press.... I don't know about Brooks, but I was besieged on Twitter by conservatives who hurled angry how-dare-you tweets at me. Some accused me of committing a hate crime (the victims: Christians). But this was yet another exercise of false right-wing outrage, and a demonstration of rather poor reading comprehension on the right." ...
... CW: Okay, I guess I have to run this (I avoided it yesterday):
... ** UPDATE: In today's NYT column, Brooks eviscerates Ted Cruz. You wouldn't let Cruz take out your garbage or clean your gutters after reading Brooks' column.
Adam Nagourney of the New York Times: Jeb! was a lousy candidate in 1994, too, when he ran -- and lost -- for governor of Florida. Then, he had the excuse of being a rookie. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
And Then There Were Seven. Steven Shepard & Daniel Strauss of Politico: "Rand Paul and Carly Fiorina have been booted to the undercard in Thursday night's Republican primary debate as the number of main-stage candidates was cut to seven by stricter polling criteria. Paul, who is struggling to gain traction in the presidential race, immediately cried foul, and vowed to not participate in the event. Fox Business Network, which will televise the sixth GOP presidential debate this week, announced the debate fields on Monday evening, after weeks of speculation that Paul would for the first time not make the cut for the primetime event. The seven candidates who will appear on the main stage in North Charleston, S.C., are Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, and John Kasich. Kasich qualified as a result of his strength in New Hampshire." ...
... Speaking of Fiorina, as we seldom do nowadays ... Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "Carly Fiorina says she finds it odd it took so long for Ted Cruz to renounce his Canadian citizenship, and listed his renouncement in 2014 as one of the reasons people are so fed up with politicians."
Sahil Kapur of Bloomberg: "The super-PAC supporting Jeb Bush plans to spend nearly $3 million on a TV ad campaign painting Marco Rubio as 'just another Washington politician' who has repeatedly changed his mind on immigration. The ad campaign by Right to Rise PAC represents an escalation of a long-simmering feud between the two Floridians vying for the Republican presidential nomination. The ad will run starting Monday night in Iowa and South Carolina, and on Fox News nationally...."
CW response to D.C. Clark, in today's thread: Total disqualifer:
Beyond the Beltway
David Roberts of Vox: The Aliso Canyon gas leak "is widely being hailed as the worst environmental disaster since the BP oil spill. And SoCal Gas says the leak likely won't be contained until March at the earliest." Roberts explains the details. ...
Another American Tragedy. Paul Kix of the New Yorker on how a wrongful conviction in Texas led to criminal justice reform. And Rick Perry signed the bills!
Kate Mather of the Los Angeles Times: "Los Angeles police Chief Charlie Beck has recommended criminal charges against an officer who killed an unarmed homeless man in Venice, marking the first time as chief that Beck has called for charges in a fatal on-duty shooting. LAPD investigators concluded that Brendon Glenn was on his stomach, attempting to push himself off the ground, when Officer Clifford Proctor stepped back and fired twice, hitting the 29-year-old in the back, Beck told The Times." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Luke Hammill of the Oregonian: "Militants presiding over an armed occupation of a federal bird sanctuary destroyed a portion of a fence Monday afternoon that they said was installed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service -- using the agency's own equipment." ...
... Fedor Zarkhin of the Oregonian: "Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward accused militias Monday of harassing law enforcement officials and federal employees. Though there haven't been physical threats, he said, the alleged behavior is clearly meant to intimidate.... Since the occupation began, there have been reports of law enforcement being followed home or watched, Sheriff Ward said in a written statement."
The LePage Fan Club Has a New Member. Sara Jerde of TPM: "Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke on Friday said Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) was right to say that drug dealers, who Duke referred to as 'Puff Diddies,' who travel from New York defile white women in the state."
Way Beyond
Tim Hume, et al., of CNN: "Gangs of men have attacked and injured two Pakistanis and a Syrian man in Cologne, Germany, in the aftermath of an unprecedented wave of mob sex assaults on women in the city on New Year's Eve. Cologne police said a gang of 20 men attacked at least six Pakistani nationals Sunday, with two of the victims hospitalized. Five men later attacked and injured a man of Syrian descent, police said." CW: So now I'm waiting for Donald Trump & Franklin Graham to propose banning German immigrants -- or maybe Christian immigrants, if we find out members of these gangs are Christians. Oh, hell, just build that wall around the whole damned country.
News Ledes
AP: "Mexico is investigating the meeting that then-fugitive drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman held with Sean Penn and actress Kate del Castillo in October to see if any crimes were committed."
AP: "A suicide bomber detonated a bomb in the heart of Istanbul's historic district on Tuesday, killing 10 foreigners -- most of them German tourists -- and wounding 15 other people in the latest in a string of attacks by the Islamic extremists targeting Westerners.... Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the bomber was a member of IS and pledged to battle the militant group until it no longer 'remains a threat' to Turkey or the world."
Los Angeles Times: "Oil prices tumbled to their lowest level in 12 years Tuesday -- at one point dropping below $30 a barrel -- in response to fears of slumping demand in China and a strengthening U.S. dollar."
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Reader Comments (25)
...OBAMAS TO STAY IN D.C. PAST JANUARY, 2017 - He'll finally have the chance to check out the Meridian Hill drum circle and just hang. Christina Sturdivant: "While President Obama can’t serve another four-year term in the White House (though he has said he'd win if allowed to run), it looks like he’s staying another two more years in the District, according to Paul Brandus. Brandus, an award-winning member of the White House press corps, tweeted today that the First Family is staying in D.C. until the youngest Obama graduates high school...According to Brandus, the Obamas favor Kalorama and Embassy Row. Last October, Jim Bell of Beasley Real Estate told the Washington Business Journal that the Obamas could spend approximately $5 million to $7 million to accommodate all of their housing requirements." [DCist] ." (From Huff Post)
This is what I would have guessed. My husband thinks he will eventually end up on The Street. I am so hoping he does not. I still see Barack Obama as the Jimmy Carter of this generation--without the religion and self-sacrifice. I think he is an honest, moral and decent human being. Of course, he wants enough money to live well, but he and Michelle will earn that from the books they write. In my still idealistic mind, I truly believe he wants to make a difference--and unlike the Clintons--does not want to play a high-stakes big-money game!
Here is hoping!
@Kate M.: The original post you cited has been updated:
"(Update: Paul Brandus has deleted the tweet, telling DCist this: We should have clarified to say, 'They have hinted earlier that they are likely to stay in Washington,' as opposed to saying, 'They're staying' - which is different.)"
I hope President Obama ends up on the Supreme Court. Of course the Senate's confirmation hearings would make Congress's Benghazi kangaroo courts look tame.
Marie
Gonna make a bumper sticker:
"2020 Vision -- Michelle for President"
Uh... she was born in the USA, wasn't she? Ever seen wearing a headscarf?
Here's some thoughts: Since regarding the next Republican debate (Rand Paul & Fiorina didn't make the cut)...there'll be:
"...appearing on the main stage in North Charleston, S.C., ... Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, and John Kasich. (Kasich qualified as a result of his strength in New Hampshire.)" ...
Just thinking—the debate after this one who else will be among those eliminated? Ben Carson, probably. Kasich, likely. BUT, WHAT IF JEB!'s poll numbers don't cut it?
According to Jeb! : "Sad Jeb Bush Doesn’t Know, Doesn’t Care Why He’s Doing So Badly" Wonder what Bar & Pappy Bush are thinking!
See: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/01/sad-jeb-bush-doesnt-care-anymore
Then this winnows down to Drumpf, Crudz, Christie, & Rubio. Can things get any scarier?
@Haley Simon In response to your question on January 5,
I wasn't intending to watch "Making a Murderer" — but, decided to check it out and ended up sticking through the ten episodes. Not the most wonderful real life cast of characters, but...quite a statement on the antics within the criminal justice system! The Special Prosecutor! What a creep!
I actually read Brooks column today for the first time in years. He pathetically states that he disagrees with Obama on lots of things but admits he did a great job. Then calls "This Trump-Cruz conservatism looks more like tribal, blood and soil". And running strong among evangelicals. Why? Because religion is simply the fear of reality and the deeper you hide from the truth the more dangerous you become.
And on another matter, NJ is looking forward to the State of the State NH address today being presented in Trenton.
The Brooks puts me in mind of an odd piece in this week's New Yorker.
The review of some recent John Birch Society histories concludes with a plea for understanding. Don't lump all conservatives together, please, the author says. After all, not all of them are crazy. Witness Bill Buckley's principled stand when he publicly kicked the Birchers out of the conservative movement. They were just too loony and they peed on the Persian rugs so Buckley banned them from the conservative mansion.
But despite that definitional distinction, today all conservatives (even the genteel ones who wear expensive suits and have plenty of money) are being tarred with the same broad brush by the establishment press as ignorant, anti-science, gun-loving racists, and it's just not fair.
Notice to Brooks (today's Buckley edition). YOU DIDN'T KICK THEM OUT OF THE HOUSE! YOU INVITED THEM IN AND TOLD THEM TO MAKE THEMSELVES AT HOME.
So don't whine when they pee on the rug.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/01/11/a-view-from-the-fringe
( I did enjoy the review. I now know who John Birch was, and am not surprised that fundamentalist religion warped him, too. But that's the stuff martyrs are made of--most often by others.)
Yup, Marvin, I, too, had to read Brooks who takes you on his good ship Lollipop but just when the sailing is good, he makes a wrong turn and you slam up against the rocks. Those gentle, loving Evangelicals are the ones who condemn homosexuality, want government off their religious backs, want to close down Planned Parenthood, etc. So Cruz is talking to these people in their language––no mystery here and if they continue to rally round him they'll end up against the rocks wishing they had gotten into a different boat.
To continue with the sailing metaphor: I am pleased as punch to learn of Chris Hughe's drowning at the TNR. Since his takeover the magazine has taken a plunge. It would be great if the great ones (journalists of yore) would come back and start over.
@Marie: It is my hope as well that Obama will serve on the Supreme Court. Of course, that depends on who occupies the presidency. It will be entertaining to see the Republican clown caucus interview Obama and try to establish that this ex-POTUS, ex Constitutional law professor lacks the qualifications to serve on the Court. Pass the popcorn.
On another matter, it strikes me as odd that Iowa, a state which in so many ways is unrepresentative demographically of the country , is the focus of so much attention as the first caucus. Des Moines, the largest city, has a little over 200,000 residents, and the state was 92% white (2014 figures). For a hilarious look at the situation, see The Good Wife latest episode which follows the Florrick family and their entourage as they cruise (or stumble) through Iowa seeking to gain traction for Peter's presidential bid. I'm sure a lot was exaggerated, but there was certainly an element of truthiness.
@Marie. I'd love to see Obama on the Court, but I think its more likely he would gravitate toward the UN. He seems like a person who understands the the complexities of the world and would rather work toward global solutions. He must be exhausted from being the recipient of all the toxic shit which has been thrown at him for 8 years.
Kate,
I had never thought of the president going the K St. route but I don't think that suits him either temperamentally or intellectually. I don't see him whoring around in tasseled shoes like some hip Tom DeLay. It will be interesting to see what he does with himself when he no longer has to worry about maintaining some kind of balance with the Troglodytes. We've gotten to see a little bit of that over the last year or so since he finally realized that Republicans were ready to screw him even if he found the cure for cancer and decided that attempts at cross-aisle partnerships were tantamount to self-flagellation.
I also don't see him going the Bush route of taking exorbitant speaking fees in order to burnish his horrible record in office.
Or painting his toes in the bathtub.
The model of an ex-president of the United States. He sucked in office and he sucks out of office.
Obama will likely display far more Jimmy Carter style class than Bush style solipsism.
So Koch Daddy trafficked with the Nazis?
We know he also worked hand-in-hand with Stalin. So where's the surprise?
American corporatists have a long history--easily traced back to the Revolution-- of pursuing profit above patriotism, while publicly wrapping themselves in the gaudy flag of the homeland.
For many corporatists home is where the money is. Period. And Koch Daddy was and is hardly alone. See Henry and Edsel Ford's connections to Nazi Germany.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1445822/Ford
And now we have the TPP, another border-busting commercial agreement that has nothing to do with what is best for most people who happen to live in the land of the ole Red, White and Blue.
Guess there's at least one wall the Right doesn't want built, one they would prefer not to talk about.
Re trafficking with Hitler.
Never addressed better than in this great scene:
https://youtu.be/AjCGpBUCOOM
D.C.,
Great clip and an excellent choice for these times.
Let's apply this monologue about extended guilt and foreknowledge of intentions to the current presidential race. We already know what Republicans intend to do. Cruz intends to crush his enemies, send nuclear warheads toward the desert, he promises apocalyptic aggression against Americans and foreigners alike who don't side with him. Trump is already tossing people out of his campaign events whose mere presence offends him, and he's instructing his goons to send them out into the freezing night with no coats to teach them a lesson in going up against The Authority in the room. His intentions toward the many groups he has vilified are clear. If we elect these pricks we have only ourselves to blame for the havoc they wreak.
Granted this isn't Nazi Germany, but Germany wasn't Nazi Germany either before 1933. There are likely more stops on unbridled power in this country, but so far few have stepped up to call Trump or Cruz on the barbarity of their rhetoric, very few in the MSM and none in the Republican Party.
This may be what wingers like Brooks are worried about now that it appears more than a possibility that Trump or Cruz could win the nomination, and given the propensity for the Republican Party to shiv its opponents, possibly go all the way. He is realizing that not speaking up, as he declined to do during the Bush Debacle, will taint him as well.
And all of us too. And any Democrat or Independent who declines to vote because they don't have an ideal candidate at hand or want to show their displeasure at the choices before them will bear the responsibility for a Cruz or Trump presidency as surely as all who opted to shun Al Gore and vote for the egomaniac Ralph Nader.
Evil may hide behind banality as Hannah Arendt once posited, but the current hideous campaign is anything but banal. We know what these people intend. Even if a lot of it is campaign bombast, if they launch half of the fireballs they've promised, we will be in a bad way. A very bad way indeed.
Ken,
The Kochs and the Fords weren't the only wealthy American family to have benefited from Nazi business deals.
The Decider's family patriarch Prescott Bush was director of a banking group that did plenty of business with the Nazis and their supporters in Germany. He didn't stop even after the war started. It took an act of congress, the Trading with the Enemy Act, to get him to forswear the filthy Nazi lucre.
I don't think anyone really believes Prescott Bush himself was a Nazi any more than Daddy Koch was a communist when he helped Stalin in his rise to power (and, oops! just a teensy bit of genocide in there too--soooorry), nor was he a card carrying Nazi (at least I don't think so) when working with Hitler. They did it for the money which in many ways is much worse.
The list of people deserving perdition grows by the day.
Now there's a ticket: Bernie and Michelle Obama!
MAG,
Funny you bring up the documentary "Making a Murderer", a stunning look at judicial and law enforcement maliciousness and possibly misprision. I have only watched the first installment but my wife has been filling me in on the horrible details. If nothing else, it sounds like one of the worst cases of legal misconduct I've ever heard of. Every step of the way seems to be tainted and most certainly this man Avery seems to deserve a new trial, at the very least and likely a pardon.
But the first doesn't look likely and the second, thanks to Republican kindness and compassion, is impossible.
Scott (I woulda been president if only they'd left me alone!) Walker has come out and declared that he doesn't do pardons and will not consider one for Steven Avery. Even if a conviction is unfair or rife with illegal and malicious tampering, no pardons. That's the Law and Order Way of the Republican Party, dammit.
Our Miss Brooks has taken a closer look at another Republican contender for the White House, Ted Cruz, and is appalled by what's been going on while his head has been up his ass all these years:
"...Cruz’s speeches are marked by what you might call pagan brutalism. There is not a hint of compassion, gentleness and mercy."
This is news??
Well, don't look now Miss Brooks, but Cruz is not alone in his lack of compassion, gentleness and mercy. Not only is he not alone, he is the very avatar of the traits most desirable for success in the depraved world of the New Confederacy, the ideal candidate to destroy enemies, punish the poor, and screw political adversaries.
Paul Ryan wakes up at night worrying about ways to fuck the poor. The Supreme Court is sharpening their knives to take out the only other speed bump on the Citizens United Republican Victory Highway. Donald Trump has made a burgeoning industry out of brutal malignancy. Carly Liarina invents ever more ridiculous lies to screw poor working women out of healthcare. In Kentucky, new TP guv Matt Bevin announced yesterday that healthcare is not for the undeserving poor *sniff, sniff*. Let them eat aspirin if they have cancer, but don't bother real 'mericans (ie, baggers). He is ready to dismantle the most successful state healthcare system developed under the ACA and throw tens of thousands to the wolves, 'cause that's how Republicans roll.
These people all call themselves good, decent Christians (see comments yesterday about that joyless laugh) but their first commitment is to ideology, to damaging people, reveling in their misery, and minting political capital off their ruin.
We would all be Steven Averys in the world created by the Right.
That perdition list? We're gonna need a few more reams of paper.
Akhilleus wrote: "...Germany wasn't Nazi Germany either before 1933."
To which I'll add -- Germans in 1933 had a hell of a lot more to be fearful and unhappy about than Americans do today.
PD wrote:
"So Cruz is talking to these people in their language––no mystery here and if they continue to rally round him they'll end up against the rocks wishing they had gotten into a different boat."
But ya know what? I don't think they'll wish anything of the kind. And isn't that the problem? These people have been dying for Cruz's kind of true believer zealot, one who will brook no discussion with the "others" (and man, there's a boatload of those in their book), who holds high the fiery cross and promises no compromise with "the enemy" (all of us), who vows to crush their enemies under his heel and remake the country in their image, forcing all to bow to Jesus.
They wouldn't have it any other way. This kind of intransigent obduracy has been coming on for a while. Evangelicals have been hearing promises for many campaign cycles about the demise of the infidels and the irreligious and about how they would be raised up to the heights of power where they belong and where they can finally lord it over evil secular scum who don't think pre-marital sex (or any other kind of sex for that matter) is a crime punishable by an eternity of sulfuric retribution.
And the CS Cruz (confederate ship) going down with all hands to a watery grave will only stiffen their resolve, renew their hatred, and encourage them to apply a new poultice of victimhood to their pious wounds.
D.C.,
Unemployment in Germany in 1933: 30%
Unemployment in the US, November, 2015: 5%
But still the Cruzes and Trumps bray about how horrible it all is. We're on the verge of economic collapse. Oh, you mean collapse like what happened last time a Republican was in charge of the economy? That kind of collapse?
And speaking of Germany and the economy, in 1928, German unemployment was less than 7%. After the US stock market crash, unemployment in Germany skyrocketed. Hitler, still in his fringe loony stage, predicted widespread unemployment and promised, Trump-like, that he could fix it all and Make Germany Great Again. After that he wasn't considered a loony anymore. The rest is, well, you know what they say...
You could say that capitalist adventurism, of the kind preached by Trump and practiced by Bush and Reagan, created the conditions for Hitler, the Holocaust, and WWII. Economic privation has been a huge factor in the rise of ISIS, a group founded in part by Bush and Cheney.
Elections matter.
Just in:
http://links.newyorker.mkt4334.com/ctt?kn=2&ms=ODQyNTk3NAS2&r=MjczNzc0ODkyMDQS1&b=0&j=ODQxMzQ5Njg4S0&mt=1&rt=0
@AK: Oh, say it ain't so! I so want that boatload of T.C.'s followers to regret sailing with this arrogant, carpet bombing numskull. But I fear you are correct.
By the by, Lawrence Tribe back on O'Donald last night reiterated his stance on the problems Cruz will have re: the natural citizen thingy. This time, however, he went a bit further in calling out Cruz's arrogance.
D.C.,
Ahhhhh.....My fervent wish for tonight is that, at some lull in the proceedings, the PRESIDENT instructs past SOTU address attendee Confederate douchebags like Joe (I'm an asshole) Wilson and Sam (My asshole is much bigger) Alito, employing the best R. Crumb/Mr. Goodbar idiom, to "Go fuck yourself. Do it today!"
"Yeah, and each and every day until your asshole bleeds like a gunshot wound from an NRA gun fondler's bullet to the throat."
Akhilleus
was that a tad over the top? cause I was gonna be a whole lot more unpleasant.
One more thing: Thanks Marie for posting that Kevin Drum " My Right to Die." I now know how to do it. So much easier than doing a Thelma and Louise over a cliff in the Badlands. Seriously––this is excellent information.
@ PD Pepe--Don't depend on helium. I sent that article to my 89-year-old father, who has been a member of Compassion and Choices for a few years. He said that tanks of helium now contain another gas as well so that they are no longer lethal. Final Exit used to--maybe still does--sell a bubble kit, but a law was passed so that it is illegal to ship it. He went on to say that a good friend of his was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last year. A week later he shot and killed himself. His wife found his body. My father lives in Florida and said he thinks it will be tough to get a euthanasia law passed there.
And @ D.C.--My mom would be the first to slap your Michelle 2020 bumper sticker on her car. She sent an email to family after reading Michelle's biography last month and made that prediction--that the First Lady would run in 2020. Wouldn't that be something?
Meanwhile, up here in NH, no one I know answers their phone anymore unless they know who's calling. I must get 10-12 calls a day from campaigns and polls. Yard signs are slowly appearing, very few bumper stickers. Bernie is the most common.