;)
Saturday
Jun072014
The Commentariat -- June 8, 2014
Internal links removed.
All Hillary All the Time, Ctd.
Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "Are you ready for Hillary? If not, this is a week to turn off the television, put aside your morning paper, get off the Internet, never look at your Twitter feed, avoid Facebook and stay out of bookstores. Even then you probably won't be able to avoid the former secretary of state/senator/first lady. On Tuesday, Hillary Rodham Clinton's new book, 'Hard Choices,' will be published amid a flurry of publicity worthy of, well, the opening of a major presidential campaign."
Michiko Likes It! Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times, probably the toughest book critic around, reviews Hillary Clinton's Hard Choices: "The book ... turns out to be a subtle, finely calibrated work that provides a portrait of the former secretary of state and former first lady as a heavy-duty policy wonk.... 'Hard Choices' is a statesmanlike document intended to attest to Mrs. Clinton's wide-ranging experience on national security and on foreign policy.... Unlike former Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates's rawly candid memoir 'Duty,' this volume is very much the work of someone who is keeping all her political options open -- and who would like to be known not only for mastering the art of diplomacy, but also for having the policy chops to become chooser-in-chief."
Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "The billionaire industrialist Koch brothers, known best for shepherding big money to conservative causes and candidates, have given a $25 million grant to the United Negro College Fund, the organization announced Friday." P.S. "As of last week, the Koch-backed group Americans for Prosperity had spent at least $44 million on 2014 congressional races since August, according to a person familiar with the total." CW: Everything is relative, people.
Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has told medical officials that his captors locked him in a metal cage in total darkness for weeks at a time as punishment for trying to escape, and while military doctors say he now is physically able to travel he is not yet emotionally ready for the pressures of reuniting with his family, according to American officials who have been briefed on his condition." ...
... A Troubled Platoon. Richard Oppel & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "On their tiny, remote base, in a restive sector of eastern Afghanistan at an increasingly violent time of the war, the [soldiers in Bowe Bergdahl's platoon] were known to wear bandannas and cutoff T-shirts. Their crude observation post was inadequately secured, a military review later found. Their first platoon leader, and then their first platoon sergeant, were replaced relatively early in the deployment because of problems." ...
... Josh Halliday of the Guardian: "US authorities are investigating death threats sent to the parents of Bowe Bergdahl, the American soldier released by the Taliban last week after five years in captivity. The FBI is examining four threatening emails sent to Bob Bergdahl and his wife Jani." ...
... Michael Semple in the Washington Post on myths about "talking to terrorists." Also, Ted Cruz doesn't know WTF he's talking about.
A Reward for Heroism. Caroline Bankoff of New York: Strangers fulfill the wedding registries & pay for the honeymoon of Jon Meis, the young man who tackled & pepper-sprayed the Seattle shooter.
MoDo implies her column on her Colorado OD was a great public service -- bringing to the world awareness of the need for regulation of pot. She never addresses the claim that published in the Denver Post by her budista that he gave her dosage instructions.
Antonia Blumberg of the Huffington Post: "A revised teachers' contract in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati has forced some teachers to leave their positions even after years of service. First-grade teacher Molly Shumate and high school English teacher Robert Hague are among the veteran teachers choosing to leave the diocese over a 'morality clause' included in the new contracts. The clause reportedly prohibits teachers, whether Catholic or not, from having sex or living with a partner outside of marriage, using in-vitro fertilization, leading a gay 'lifestyle,' or publicly supporting any of the above. For teachers like Shumate, whose son is gay, the clause threatens to pit teachers against friends and family in order to keep their jobs." Via Steve Benen.
... Benen: "Ohio is one of several states that allow private school religious vouchers, which means taxpayers can subsidize the same parochial schools that are imposing 'morality clauses' on their employees."
Congressional Races
Adam Green & Stephanie Taylor of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee in the American Prospect: "This week's Democratic congressional primaries amounted to Progressive Super Tuesday. And it is the latest chapter in a larger story we've seen play out in American politics since the Wall Street economic wreck." ...
... Ed Kilgore disagrees.
Beyond the Beltway
Brian Tashman of Right Wing Watch: "Family Research Council President Tony Perkins is urging parents across the country to pull their children out of public schools in response to a Washington, D.C., principal's decision to come out to his students and school staff." Also via Benen. ...
... CW: Could this be a bit of overreach? You live in Nebraska & you're opposed to the gay "lifestyle" (see "morality clause" above). Your child goes to a good public school which you support with your tax dollars. Well, pull him out of there, Lady, because if there's a gay teacher in Washington, D.C., your Nebraska school is tainted or something.
News Ledes
New York Times: "The actor and comedian Tracy Morgan remained in critical condition on Sunday after he was injured in a crash in New Jersey.... Mr. Morgan ... had several serious injuries, including a broken leg, a broken femur, a broken nose and several broken ribs, his publicist Lewis Kay said on Sunday.... Walmart confirmed on Sunday that the driver of the tractor-trailer, Kevin Roper, 35, of Jonesboro, Ga., [who caused the accident] was a Walmart employee." ...
... CW: I read elsewhere that the driver fell asleep at the wheel. I wonder if WalMart gives its drivers necessary turnaround & break time.
Los Angeles Times: "As many as five people were dead Sunday afternoon after police said a pair of people shot two police officers at a Las Vegas pizzeria and then stormed a nearby Wal-Mart, where they killed another victim in the store, then themselves. 'This is a revolution,' the suspects said during the attack, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Assistant Sheriff Kevin C. McMahill told reporters."
Guardian: "Heavy fighting has broken out at Pakistan's busiest airport after armed gunmen penetrated the security cordon, hurling grenades and exchanging gunfire with Pakistani security forces." The Guardian is liveblogging developments at the linked page.
Guardian: "Egypt's ex-army chief, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, was officially sworn in on Sunday morning as Egypt's fifth head of state since 2011, nearly a year after he ousted his predecessor Mohamed Morsi."
Reuters: "Pope Francis hopes an unprecedented meeting of the Israeli and Palestinian presidents at the Vatican on Sunday can help end 'eternal negotiations' and lead to peace but he has no wish to meddle in Middle East politics, the Vatican said on Friday." ...
... New York Times Update: "In a richly symbolic ceremony, Pope Francis oversaw a carefully orchestrated 'prayer summit' with the Israeli and Palestinian presidents on Sunday as Jews, Christians and Muslims offered invocations for peace in the Vatican gardens."
Reuters: "Ukraine's newly-installed President Petro Poroshenko is set to remake a governing team which will handle the crisis with Russia, with talks on gas prices on Monday providing an early test of his new relationship with Russia's Vladimir Putin.... Poroshenko's blunt refusal to accept the loss of Crimea in a combative inaugural speech puts him further at odds with Putin." ...
... AP: "The United States pledged millions of dollars in additional aid to Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia on Saturday, deepening American support to the Western-leaning countries on Russia's border. Vice-president Joe Biden announced the extra aid, which must be approved by Congress, during a visit to Kiev for the inauguration of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko."
Share Article
Comments for this entry have been disabled. Additional comments may not be added to this entry at this time.
Reader Comments (7)
SUNDAY'S RELIGIOUS MEANDERINGS: (and special notice to
the Archdiocese of Cincinnati and to our special prick of a pal Perkins:
"Marjorie and I were both brought up in the Church of England, but neither
one of our parents was remotely pious, so it's a mystery where Marjorie got
her religious gene. She was introduced to the Seventh-Dayers in her late
teens by Ray, a chap she was dating at the time. Ray ended up going off to
Saudi Arabia to work for an oil company, but M. stayed with the church after
he left, and eventually she started going with Dave, another member of the
congregation. They've been married for going on thirty years now, and their
life is entirely church-centered. Every room in their house is crammed with
religious bric-a-brac brac. They own at least twenty plaster models of Jesus
Christ (beatific infant Jesus in porcelain nappies; he-man Jesus with
biceps, knocking over stalls in the Temple; thirty-something Jesus lolling
gloomily in Gethsemane). Over the dresser in their bedroom, there's a
deliciously bad rendering of the Last Supper with all the disciples sporting
pompadours and levitating slightly. And in the front room, where Sheba and I
are sleeping, there's a six-by-four foot poster of a harbour at sunset,
captioned with a quotation from Mathew: " 'Come, follow me,' Jesus said,
'and I will make you fishers of men.' " In honor of Easter, my sister has
improvised a Passion tableau on top of the telly: a gilt crucifix, encircled
by ten china Easter bunnies wearing tam-o'-shanters."
From "Notes on a Scandal"
Re: Mean to Maureen; just what we need; another limo-riding, city slicker in black, another very important person saying she knows best because; well, because she's a very important person.
Next up; Ms. Dowd goes barrio and smokes a couple of knives of Mexican tar; passes out in the abandoned '46 Chevy in the front yard; and is woken up by the pit bull licking the vomit off her designer shoes.
Here's my take. The Very Important People in the world always think they can "play down". Ms Dowd was "Slumin'" in her own style, if getting high in expensive hotel room with a weed laced chocolate candy can be called "Slumin"'. That by their very own self-importance they can master the underworld of the masses. Their superior intelligence allows them to navigate the nitty-gritty without experience or a guide. Ms. Dowd apparently ignored the "little person" that explained dosages to her. What does he know? He's a pot salesman, for god's sake.
Not much different than the architect or engineer that comes on a job site and pays no attention to the carpenter as she explains the impossible realities of their drawings on paper.
Very Important People know everything so there is nothing to tell them but when they find their ass in a sling by their own actions then it's a problem for all. Because Very Important People know best. Sorry Ms. Dowd; if you can't stand the high, stay out of the kitchen. OR, jump in, Babe Ruth got a candy bar named after him. You could come out with the "Doh! bar". Eat one and you channel Homer Simpson. Enough being mean to Maureen; smokem' if you got em'.
@JJG: I think your assessment of MoDo Knows Best is just right.
That said, there is always going to be a tension between the "elites" or "meritocrats," who sometimes actually may know best (tho certainly not in MoDo's case), & the hoi polloi, many of whom don't have very good track records when it comes to wise decision-making.
This tension is purposely written into our Constitution: the House is supposed to be comprised of ordinary people who serve a few years in government, while the Senate is supposed to be made up of wise old men who temper the wild-assed (I think that term appears frequently in "The Federalist" papers) ideologues in the lower house. Of course that's not exactly the way it's worked out -- Ted Cruz & Rand Paul are not supposed to be in the Senate (and maybe they wouldn't be if not for the passage of the 17th Amendment, which calls for the popular election of Senators) -- & House membership is not supposed to be a Job for Life as it is today (unless you tweet pix of your privates).
In general, I'd rather have smart people governing me, but there's no question that too many of them think their brains & success make them excellent dictators. Getting a Pulitzer for writing snark about Bill Clinton does not make you an expert on weed decades later. In her original column, Dowd had a lot of trouble acknowledging that her bad trip was of her own making; instead, she blamed it on a failure of labeling, the theme on which she elaborated in today's column. As to why she didn't listen to the guy who sold her the product, I expect your hypothesis is right on: he was just a little person, not a Pulitzer Prize-winning "journalist," so what did he know?
Marie
Yesterday I had one of those moments.
Collecting signatures for Washington State's counter to Citizens United, our own initiative, I-1329, I met a young man, I'd guess about 23, who wanted to set me straight. He described himself as a libertarian, told me that everyone had the right to spend his money the way he wished, that the word liberal was purloined from the good, right-thinking people of his own persuasion and said that the current Democrats were in fact Communists.
Signature gathering is not a time to engage. I merely responded that he might not know his history as well as he thought he did and suggested he continue to read and study just in case it turned out there was a little more for him to know, then shook his hand and wished him well.
Maybe because he was so earnest and red-haired (both prominent traits in my own family), the short exchange bothered me more than it should have. "Ah, youth" doesn't quite cover or relieve the feeling he left.
This morning I'd like to have a time machine so I could check in with him in about twenty years to see if his life experience had taught him anything, had maybe caused him to adjust his opinions.
Will he turn out to be one of those gun-toting defenders of Cliven Bundy's "freedoms?" Will he be the CEO he thinks he will be, distributing largesse to the politician of his choice? Or, circa 2030, will he be standing at the local farmers' market collecting signatures on an initiative demanding public financing of all campaigns for elective office?
But I don't have that time machine. Much as I'd like to, I'll never know, and that's why he's still on my mind.
What we need is a great, big front porch here in the US to re-acquaint ourselves with the niceties and follies of our neighbors and them with us. To pick two fine examples like Tony Perkins and MoDo, no matter what they think about themselves and the absence of odor from their feces, they both put their pants on one leg at a time. (That is unless, of course, they purchased the cool machine from the Wallace and Gromit movie.) The occupants of the news pages so often are holding on to their positions with desperation befitting someone who is truly in need. Tony and MoDo and their kind will say anything to protect their positions because there is no consequences to their ignorant, self-centered prattle. They don't become the laughing stock of the neighborhood because their little worlds are so insular and self reinforcing.
As I listen to the birds singing this fine morning, I think that Tony Perkins has more in common with any Mullah/Khan than his neighbors. He acts as a self adsorbed sociopath who puts his desire for money and power above everyone else. How is he (and the Cincinnati Catholics) not like a mullah who wants the government to hand him the money and the ensuing power over the people? MoDo is the acolyte to power who buffs their mirror.
@P.D. Pepe: Thanks for the vignette, which was pretty funny. Unfortunately, it's a bit facile to equate religious fundamentalism with bad taste in decorating (and I'm not suggesting that was your purpose). A friend of my husband's who is extremely wealthy & a prominent-citizen type is also a religious fundamentalist of a sort & she also has a collection of religious figures. However, she's a Roman Catholic, & her collection is of valuable & beautiful Eastern Orthodox icons.
The character Marjorie would have had some different popular decoration in her home if she hadn't been religious. And my husband's uber-rich friend likely would have had some other fabulous works of art in her home if she hadn't been religious. (Actually, come to think of it, she does; the icons are but a part of her museum-quality collection.)
Marie
@Marie: No, I was not equating religious fundamentalism with bad or good decorating. I was going though some of my files and came across this which I thought might amuse and since Perkins and the Archdiocese reared their sacred heads today felt it corresponded in a funny funky way.
Yes, I too, have friends who have lovely pieces of religious icons but their placement and decorating skills surpass Marjorie's obvious poor taste. I have always found it interesting what people surround themselves with––it's like a window into their world, don't you think?
I will add here another quote from our narrator from"Notes on a Scandal" that speaks more directly to our posts of the day:
"There are certain people in whom you can detect the seeds of madness––seeds
that have remained dormant only because the people in question have lived
relatively comfortable, middle-class lives. They function perfectly well in
the world, but you can imagine, given a nasty parent, or a prolonged bout of
unemployment, how their potential for craziness might have been
realized––how their seeds might have sprouted little green shoots of
weirdness, or even, with the right sort of antinurture, blossoms into
full-grown lunacy".