;)
The Commentariat -- July 3, 2015
Internal links removed.
Michael Schmidt & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "... this Fourth of July weekend has spawned particularly strong warnings about a potential [terrorist] attack as the federal authorities and national security experts say the United States is more susceptible now because of tactics chosen for recent terrorist strikes by the Islamic State. Officials cite an increased effort by the Islamic State to galvanize its sympathizers in the United States and elsewhere since Memorial Day and during this Ramadan season to carry out acts of violence on their own -- so-called lone-wolf attacks. Those potential plots by individuals are harder for the authorities to detect and disrupt, senior American officials say, and have led the F.B.I. to put more Americans under investigation for suspected ties to terrorist groups than at any point since Sept. 11."
Jerry Markon of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration has begun a profound shift in its enforcement of the nation's immigration laws, aiming to hasten the integration of long-term illegal immigrants into society rather than targeting them for deportation, according to documents and federal officials. In recent months, the Department of Homeland Security has taken steps to ensure that the majority of America's 11.3 million undocumented immigrants can stay in this country, with agents narrowing enforcement efforts to three groups of illegal migrants: convicted criminals, terrorism threats or those who recently crossed the border." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Gardiner Harris of the New York Times: "President Obama came to [La Crosse, Wisconsin,] on the Mississippi on Thursday and launched a frontal assault on Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who filed papers earlier in the day that moved him closer to joining a crowded Republican presidential field. ...
... Jim Kuhnhenn of the AP: "Wading into presidential politics, President Barack Obama on Thursday promoted his brand of middle-class economics by drawing sharp contrasts with 'mean' Republicans in the state where the GOP governor was preparing to enter the vast 2016 presidential field. 'They're good people,' Obama said of Republicans. 'It's just their ideas are bad.' Obama leveled some of his sharpest criticism of Republicans, who disagree with him on most matters, on the issue of health care....'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
I've lost count how many Republicans are running for this job. They'll have enough for an actual 'Hunger Games.' -- President Obama, in La Crosse
Jeffrey Jones of Gallup: "In the second quarter of 2015, Democrats regained an advantage over Republicans in terms of Americans' party affiliation. A total of 46% of Americans identified as Democrats (30%) or said they are independents who lean toward the Democratic Party (16%), while 41% identified as Republicans (25%) or leaned Republican (16%)."
Terry Gross of NPR interviews Adam Liptak of the New York Times on this past Supreme Court term. CW: Watch out for Liptak's claims about how "liberal" the term was. (I haven't listened, so I might be wrong.) Thanks to Haley S. for the lead:
Julia O'Donaghue of the Times-Picayune: "Following a court ruling ordering it to do so, Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration agreed Thursday (July 2) afternoon to allow the state Department of Vital Records in downtown New Orleans to issue the marriage licenses. Every other marriage license office in the state began doing so earlier this week." ...
... Matt Volz of the AP: "A Montana man said Wednesday that he was inspired by last week's U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage to apply for a marriage license so that he can legally wed his second wife. Nathan Collier and his wives Victoria and Christine applied at the Yellowstone County Courthouse in Billings on Tuesday in an attempt to legitimize their polygamous marriage. Montana, like all 50 states, outlaws bigamy ... but Collier said he plans to sue if the application is denied.... Yellowstone County chief civil litigator Kevin Gillen said he ... expected to send a formal response to Collier by next week. 'I think he deserves an answer,' Gillen said, but added his review is finding that 'the law simply doesn't provide for that yet.'"
Tim Egan: "The current heat [in Washington state] is a precursor, an early peek at a scary tomorrow. [Sen. Jim] Inhofe's ignorance could have a direct effect on the place we leave our grandchildren."
AP: "Greece' finance minister says an agreement with the country's creditors 'is more or less done' as European officials have put forward 'very decent proposals' to the Greek government his week. Yanis Varoufakis has told Ireland's RTE radio Friday that this 'has not been a dead week in terms of negotiations' despite European officials stating publicly that there would be no further talks until after Sunday's referendum." ...
... ** Phillip Inman, et al., of the Guardian: "The International Monetary Fund has electrified the referendum debate in Greece after it conceded that the crisis-ridden country needs up to €60bn (£42bn) of extra funds over the next three years and large-scale debt relief to create 'a breathing space' and stabilise the economy.... With days to go before Sunday's knife-edge referendum that the country's creditors have cast as a vote on whether it wants to keep the euro, the IMF revealed a deep split with Europe as it warned that Greece's debts were 'unsustainable'." ...
... Paul Krugman: "... if it weren't for the nightmare in southern Europe, the troubles facing the Finnish economy might well be seen as an epic disaster. And Finland isn't alone. It's part of an arc of economic decline that extends across northern Europe through Denmark -- which isn't on the euro, but is managing its money as if it were -- to the Netherlands.... What all of these economies have in common ... is that by joining the eurozone they put themselves into an economic straitjacket." P.S. to Greeks -- Vote "No." ...
... According to the AP, polling shows the vote is close.
Presidential Race
Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Jim Webb, the former Virginia senator and Reagan-era secretary of the Navy, announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday, bringing his antiwar credentials to the field in what many consider a long-shot campaign for the presidency. Mr. Webb's announcement caught some political observers by surprise -- the politician was the first to form a presidential exploratory committee among both Democrats and Republicans, but he has been barely visible ever since." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... The Washington Post story, by Rachel Weiner, is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Here's Webb's announcement statement. ...
... David Graham of the Atlantic: "In a different era's Democratic Party, Jim Webb might be a serious contender for the presidential nomination.... As surprising as Bernie Sanders's rise in the polls has been, he looks more like the Democratic base than Webb does.... Webb's statement essentially saying he had no problem with the Confederate battle flag flying in places like the grounds of the South Carolina capitol may have been the final straw." ...
... Ed Kilgore: "In a pretty clear indication that he doesn't care much for the advice of people like me, former Senator Jim Webb leapt into the 2016 presidential race without further clarifying his rather anachronistic views on the display of Confederate emblems, or for that matter, doing much of anything else in preparation."
Dan Roberts of the Guardian: "Bernie Sanders has more than halved the gap with Hillary Clinton in the early-voting state of Iowa, according to a new poll which shows the leftwing insurgent building on his recent record-breaking public appearances with growing support among key Democratic voters.... The latest survey in Iowa, carried out by Quinnipiac University, shows him trailing her by 33 to 52 percentage points among likely Democratic participants in the state caucuses on 1 February. This compares with Clinton's 60-15 point lead, more than twice as large, in the last Quinnipiac poll on 7 May...." ...
... Brian Mahoney of Politico: "In a memo this week to state, central and area divisions of the labor federation..., the AFL-CIO chief [Richard Trumka] reminded the groups that its bylaws don't permit them to 'endorse a presidential candidate' or 'introduce, consider, debate, or pass resolutions or statements that indicate a preference for one candidate over another.'... The memo comes amid signs of a growing split between national union leaders ... and local officials and rank and file, who are increasingly drawn to the Democratic Party's growing progressive wing, for whom [Sen. Bernie] Sanders is the latest standard-bearer. The South Carolina and Vermont AFL-CIOs have passed resolutions supporting Sanders, and some local AFL-CIO leaders in Iowa want to introduce a resolution at their August convention backing the independent senator from Vermont."
Nick Gass of Politico: "Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker will officially announce his bid for the White House on July 13 in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha."
Matea Gold, et al., of the Washington Post: "Shortly after Jeb Bush left the Florida governor’s office in 2007, he established his own firm, Jeb Bush & Associates, designed to maximize his earning potential as one of the country's more prominent politicians. Tax returns disclosed this week by the Republican's presidential campaign revealed that the business not only made him rich but also provided a steady income for his wife and one of his sons.... The returns show that the company set up a generous and well-funded pension plan now rare in corporate America, allowing Bush to take large tax deductions while he and his wife built up their retirement portfolio."
Ben Brody of Bloomberg: "Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry accused his party of trading its 'moral legitimacy' for political pragmatism in abandoning the cause of African Americans and, along with it, the black vote. 'We found that we did need it to win,' the former Texas governor said. 'But when we gave up trying to win the support of African Americans we lost our moral legitimacy as the party of Lincoln, the party of equal opportunity for all.'... Perry also ... [said Donald] Trump's recent disparaging comments about Mexico and Mexican immigrants do not 'reflect the Republican Party.'" ...
... digby: "I'll just point out that Rick Perry lost all moral legitimacy with the human race when he blithely signed more death warrants than any governor in history.... Also too: African Americans comprise only 12% of the population of Texas, but they comprise 39.8% of death row inmates." ...
... CW: Even if Perry had not signed a single death warrant, he has "lost all moral legitimacy" by his policies that so often are aimed to hurt racial minorities (& other vulnerable people, like seniors, gays & women): his economic policies & proposals such as a flat tax & opposition to minimum wage laws; his opposition to the ACA, to the point of refusing to accept the Medicaid expansion; his opposition to Social Security; his successful efforts to close clinics that perform abortions; his advocacy for voter suppression (successful here, too!) -- look at his record & you'll probably find plenty of other policy positions he supports that negatively affect minorities more than they do wealthy white guys. Sorry, Rick, platitudes don't trump policies.
When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. -- Donald Trump, presidential candidacy announcement
Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "... it's worth noting the two hallmarks of classic Donald Trump that emerged from his response [to the furor his [remarks caused]. First, he unfailingly stood by the comments.... And second, he's wrong. On CNN on Wednesday night, he offered a defense to anchor Don Lemon. 'If you look at the statistics, of people coming ... I didn't say about Mexico, I say the illegal immigrants -- if you look at the statistics on rape, on crime, on everything, coming in illegally to the country, they're mind-boggling,' he told Lemon. Every part of that is incorrect. He did say his comments about Mexico -- explicitly. And data show that new immigrants -- including illegal immigrants -- are actually less likely to commit crime, not more." (Emphasis added.) Read the whole post. ...
... Jamelle Bouie of Slate: "... just because Trump is an unqualified vanity candidate doesn't mean he's unimportant in the story of the 2016 GOP presidential primary....While Trump was out-of-bounds of mainstream conversation, he was well in the bounds of Republican Party politics and the kinds of rhetoric used there about Mexican and Latin American immigrants.... His rhetoric -- a revanchist stew of foreign policy belligerence, small government ideology, anti-elite agitation, and raw bigotry -- reflects and appeals to a meaningful part of the Republican electorate." ...
... OR, as digby puts it, "They love him for saying what they all believe."
Beyond the Beltway
CW, via the Raw Story: If you're a white guy who organizes a plot to massacre members of a Muslim community -- gathering guns, ammo & "recruits" -- you might not be a terrorist; you might just be mentally ill or drunk or something. The federal judge, who ruled that prosecutors had to produce evidence that defendant Robert Doggart was "a true threat," is a Clinton appointee. And he's black. Here's the Chattanoogan story.
Tania Eiserer of WFAA Dallas-Fort Worth: "The criminal investigation against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has taken a more serious turn, with special prosecutors now planning to present a first-degree felony securities fraud case against him to a Collin County grand jury, News 8 has learned. Special prosecutor Kent Schaffer told News 8 Wednesday afternoon that the Texas Rangers uncovered new evidence during the investigation that led to the securities fraud allegations against the sitting attorney general.... Schaffer ... said the securities fraud allegations involve amounts well in excess of $100,000." ...
... CW: This is the same Ken Paxton who last week was fighting the Obergefell decision with everything he had & calling the decision "lawless."
Bethania Markus of the Raw Story: "Chaos broke out in a Brooklyn, New York park when an anarchist group burned both the Confederate and American flags. Bystanders and counter-protesters angered by the event showed up to defend the stars and stripes."
Whatever Happened to Scott Brown? The last we heard, the once-and-former-handsomest-man-in-the-Senate was working an unpaid job learning to change a bicycle tire since changing a car tire was way beyond his skill level. Now he has a -- presumably -- paying job as a salesman for what is probably a phony, reportedly dangerous, "weight-loss" dietary supplement. Olivia Nuzzi of the Daily Beast has the story. Brown is apparently unsure how long he's been taking the supplement: either it's a few months or ten years. Something like that. But look out, Maine, your native son is now really fit to run for Senate.
News Ledes
Hill: "France has rejected an asylum request from Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks. In a statement reported by Channel News Asia, Prime Minister Francois Hollande's office explained the rejection by saying that Assange is in no immediate danger. Assange, who has been holed up in Equador's embassy in London, requested asylum in a letter."
AP: "A Wisconsin man is being detained in a mental health facility after authorities say he told a security guard he planned to kill President Barack Obama. A warrant was issued Thursday for 55-year-old Brian Dutcher of Tomah, the same day Obama was in La Crosse touting a proposal to make more workers eligible for overtime pay."
New York Times: "The health insurer Aetna said on Friday that it had agreed to acquire its smaller rival Humana for $37 billion in cash and stock, signaling the start of what may become a flurry of consolidation in the sector. The deal would bring together two of the United States' biggest health insurers. The combined company would have estimated operating revenue of $115 billion this year and more than 33 million consumers."
Washington Post: "A U.S. drone strike has killed Tariq al-Harzi, a senior Islamic State militant in Syria, in an attack that took place a day after another American aircraft killed his brother, also an influential militant, in neighboring Iraq, the Pentagon said Thursday. Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said the strike that killed Tariq al-Harzi occurred June 16 in Shaddadi, Syria...."
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Reader Comments (13)
George Takei calls Justice Thomas "A Clown in Black Face" and backs it up beautifully:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/03/george-takei-clarence-thomas-clown-in-blackface_n_7719110.html
@PD Pepe: Thomas is right that no outside entity, including the federal government, can deprive a person of her dignity. As as argument for permitting or promoting inequality, it is outlandishly specious. Whether lynching or mass incarceration or race-based internment (as Takei's family suffered) or sexual harassment or unequal protection of any nature, the victims can die or suffer in dignity, but that doesn't make such indignities morally or Constitutionally correct. It is shocking that Thomas may be stupid enough to believe his own twisted logic.
Takei is a private citizen, & with some exceptions, he can say any boneheaded thing he wants. If anyone described a person of color as "a clown in blackface" in a Reality Chex comment, I'd delete the comment as racist, whether or not I agreed with the general substance of the writer's remarks.
Marie
More lunacy from the Wisconsin legislature: after decades of priding ourselves on openness in government, we have pissed off the Republicans with our efforts to see what they are up to. Now, they are inserting into the budget a provision which will limit our ability to view records. We won't know who introduced bills or how they were discussed. These are the same guys who made their own party members sign a secrecy statement before they were allowed to see re districting proposals.
http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/republicans-vote-to-dramatically-scale-back-oversight-of-lawmakers-other/article_8901f2df-1ec2-5e74-b6ea-4a1f006aacf5.html
Fans of Bernie Sanders have wanted more mainstream press coverage of their candidate and today they sorta got their wish. The Times published a front page piece detailing Bernie's "revolutionary roots" that spared no stereotype of wild- eyed 60s radicalism. There was also no context or content to humanize Sanders; in fact it read like oppo research.
Victoria,
Corporate America, and that includes the Times, now that Bernie Sanders has attracted enough serious attention to seem like a threat, will be coming for him. As long as he remained a quirky sideshow character, someone they could brush off, as Fox tries to do, with screams of "Socialist!", he didn't worry the suits.
But now that he's attracting 10,000 at a pop and raising millions from true grass roots efforts, they simply cannot allow him to say bad things about their plans for Americans, which is to pick their pockets, siphon off tax money while not paying their fair share, revel in Republican adoration as "job creators" and "makers" even as they ship American jobs overseas, fire American workers, take away their benefits, and shrink their options, and continue with business as usual, buying up politicians to act as their congressional lackeys.
Bernie is not cool with this and they are not going to let him get away with saying so.
Marie posts a link to a Tim Egan piece in which he refers to Jim (Flat Earth) Inhofe as a dangerous idiot spreading the idea of climate change as a hoax. (But you already knew that.)
Well, speaking of hoaxes and Inhofe, how's this for a knee slapper?
After last week's incredible victory for marriage equality, Inhofe, like so many other good winger goosesteppers, ripped the court for being outrageously liberal ("They haven't made a good decision in years!") and then said that--get this--lots of his GAY friends think it was a bad decision too.
Ha! Dunno how I missed that one. "Lots of my gay friends"....if Inhofe even knows any gay people, it's by accident. Maybe a waiter at his favorite restaurant whom he assumes is gay. And very likely his first instinct, if he thought the person really was gay, would probably be to shoot them.
But all my (actual, as in real) gay friends loved the decision, so I'm guessing Inhofe's "gay" friends are fictional, as in not real.
These fucking people think they can just make shit up and it will fly.
"My gay friends" Haaa....ha.ha.ha.ha.ha.....
What a card.
But this is in the same ballpark as immoral, grunting Confederate douchebag Rick Perry squawking about "morality legitimacy" and "Party of Lincoln" when he's neither moral nor legitimate. He thinks he can just toss around phrases like that and he's magically restored to the demesne of moral actors.
Again: these fucking people.
"...my gay friends..." HAAaaaaaaa....ha ha ha ha ha ha ha....Even better....LOTS of my gay friends....HAAAAA.....ha ha ha ha ha...
@Victoria D. You're right. Several weeks ago I linked the Mother Jones story that the NYT piece also links. I think you get the same idea from the Mother Jones story, though in more detail.
Neither story bothers to mention that when Bernie became mayor of Burlington, he put some of those "radical" ideas in place & made Burlington a model city. Thanks to policies Bernie put in place, today Burlington still consistently shows up on "best places to live" assessments.
I guess the Times didn't think a story titled "Bernie Sanders, America's Best Mayor," would be as clickable as "Bernie Sanders, Ne'er-Do-Well Radical Hippie."
Marie
Read the same NYTimes Sanders piece this AM, Victoria. I see your point, but it provoked in me a thought or two in other directions.
First was a little nostalgia for the good ole days when the hair was longer and the ideas fresher, maybe tinged by mildly embarrassed wonder at my own youth's naivete. Those were the days....
Your comment also made me think more of context's importance. Those of us old enough to have experienced the sixties have some. We know that "radical" was a wide brush, most often used as a pejorative. It covered everything from civil rights to long hair to tie-dying to anti-war to drugs to free love to communal living to the Weathermen. Mostly the sixties and early seventies were a departure from the briefly settled fifties, a time when many Boomer young tried to enact the ideals they had been taught. Idealism is always upsetting to the established order.
Younger voters do not have this detailed or nuanced context. They have heard a few cliches like "sex, drugs, rock and roll," and probably think that "radical" is somehow scary. They also likely don't have any idea how "radical" this American experiment in democracy really is and how much it depends on the radical renewal of its origins for its continued life.
So you're right. Mostly lovable as the portrait seemed to me, to the degree that Times readers don't have the required sense or knowledge of sixties' history, the biopic of Sanders' youth might come across as a hit piece.
But the actual account of Sanders' activities, his writing, his political positions read in the today's context make him seem like a pretty tame progressive.
Looked at that way it doesn't seem Sanders has changed so much as have the times we live in.
And I think that the post Bush War and Bush Crash world, both disasters having heightened people's sense that things are generally unfair, that only money calls the shots and that the common citizen is being shoved to the margins and is in every way taking it in the shorts, provides as context that explains the rising popularity of both Sanders and Warren.
Came back to post my thoughts on the 'radical' Bernie piece in the Times, but saw that Ken Winkes expressed it way better than I could. I keep liking Bernie more and more!
(P.S. meantime my iTunes blasts away in the background as I work at the computer. Just finished hearing: "House of the Rising Sun," preceded by "Soul Kitchen," and "Long, Cool Woman in a Black Dress"...all from my radical youth!)
Ahhh, redemption...Mahler's "Symphony No. 9 in D" is now up.
While you're on about Rick Perry don't forget the name of his family 'hunting' lodge, “Niggerhead,” it read. (http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/10/02/why-rick-perrys-racist-hunting-camp-sign-matters/).
P.S. I continue to be mystified by the criteria that the NYTimes uses to 'allow' commenting on some articles and Op-Ed pieces. Fer instance, today you cannot comment on Tim Egan's pieces, whereas other times you can.
And the 'radical' Bernie Sanders (hit) piece doesn't permit comments. Maybe the Times powers-that-be were afraid of an overwhelming negative reaction to them?
@Citizen625: Good catch. Then, at least according to many neighbors & others, Perry lied about asking his father to have the words painted over shortly after the father purchased the property.
Marie
Disturbing article about Hillary in RSN today--saying she will be a better friend to Israel than Obama. (Well, she didn't say exactly that, but you get the idea.) Sounds like she is trying to appeal to Neo-Con Jewish donors and is waffling on whether or not she supports the Iran deal. The comments about her are brutal (including mine).
Still can't figure out how to embed--even with Marie's excellent instructions, but here is the unembedded article which, I assume, you can put in your browser.
http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/31083-focus-hillary-clinton-to-jewish-donors-ill-be-better-for-israel-than-obama