;)
The Commentariat -- March 17, 2016
Afternoon Update:
Maggie Haberman & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "In unusually candid remarks, privately told a group of Democratic donors last Friday that Senator is nearing the point where his campaign against will come to an end, and that the party must soon come together to back her. Mr. Obama acknowledged that Mrs. Clinton is perceived to have weaknesses as a candidate, and that some Democrats did not view her as authentic. Mr. Obama made the remarks after reporters had left a fund-raising event in Austin, Tex., for the Democratic National Committee." ...
... Zach Carter of the Huffington Post: Hillary Clinton "is doing a terrible job turning out voters, particularly in the states that will matter most in a November matchup against Donald Trump.More people voted for Trump than for Clinton in two states Tuesday night — Missouri and Ohio. In Florida, Clinton edged Trump by a nose — less than 2 percent. Clinton had only one other candidate splitting the Democratic vote in a contested election, while Trump was embroiled in a four-way contest that factionalized Republican voters. In Ohio, Trump bested Clinton by about 50,000 votes despite coming in second in the GOP contest to John Kasich, the state’s current governor. In Missouri, both Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) bested Clinton’s vote total by nearly 20 percent."
... Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "As Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton begin to tighten their grips on their respective party nominations, President Obama is plunging into the campaign fray, not only to help Democrats retain the White House but in defense of his own legacy in a political climate dominated by Trump.... Obama is poised to be the most active sitting president on the campaign trail in decades."
The Gang's All Back -- Mostly. Michael Shear: has said for years that he has finished his last campaign. But you would not know it by looking at the team he has assembled to push for his nominee. The Constitutional Responsibility Project, which was formed to lead the fight to get the nominee, Judge Merrick B. Garland, confirmed, is a virtual who’s who of Mr. Obama’s two presidential campaigns.... Founded within the last several weeks as a nonprofit organization, the project will accept donations, develop advertising, coordinate messaging, help manage operatives in the field, respond to attacks on Judge Garland and collect opposition research on Republican opponents."m
"Name Your Poison." -- "Okay, 'Ted.'" Matt Flegenheimer & Emmarie Huetteman of the New York Times: "Less than two months ago, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said that deciding between Donald J. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas amounted to selecting whether to be 'shot or poisoned.' He has made his choice. Mr. Graham, who recently joked about murdering Mr. Cruz on the Senate floor, plans to attend a fund-raiser on Monday in Washington as a special guest of the Cruz campaign.... In a statement, Mr. Graham called his colleague 'the best alternative to Donald Trump.'”
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CW Note: I plan to reopen the Comments section as soon as I can stand to do so. I acknowledge that I am responsible for allowing commentary to go off the deep end. My hesitancy to shut it down earlier was a mistake with consequences. I have been priviledged to provide a platform for contributors' insights about our treacherous political landscape, & I look forward to doing so again.
Juliet Eilperin, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Obama on Wednesday nominated Merrick Garland to serve on the Supreme Court, setting up a protracted political fight with Republicans who have vowed to block any candidate picked by Obama in his final year in office." ...
... Here's the transcript of remarks by President Obama & Merrick Garland made yesterday when the President anounced Judge Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court. See yesterday's Commentariat for video. ...
... Jordain Carney of the Hill: "A small group of Senate Republicans is breaking with its party's Supreme Court strategy, with lawmakers saying they're willing to meet with President Obama's pick to succeed Justice Antonin Scalia. Seven Republicans so far have said they are open to considering or meeting with Merrick Garland, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia who was nominated for the Supreme Court earlier Wednesday by Obama." They are Susan Collins (Maine), Jeff Flake (Az.), Mark Kirk (Ill.), Rob Portman (Ohio), Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), Roy Blunt (Mo.) & Jim Inhofe (Okla.) & Thad Cochran (Miss.) CW: Yeah, I know that eight, but some, like Ayotte, said they'd just meet Garland to tell him why he hasn't got a prayer. ...
... CW: In fact, what most of these senators said is not so different from what top obstructionists Mitch McConnell & Chuck Grassley said: the same ole implicit "Barack Obama is not the President of us." ...
... Karoud Demirjian of the Washington Post: "President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee will make his first official visit to Capitol Hill on Thursday to meet with top Senate Democrats. But Republican leaders plan to make him wait for an audience, if they grant him one at all.... They have refused to schedule any confirmation hearings, and many Republicans — including McConnell — are also rejecting face-to-face meetings." ...
... Of course, they have no objection to Judge Garland, per se, as some of their past remarks indicate. No point in shouting "Hypocrite!" The problem isn't with Garland, it's that "Barack Obama is not the President of us" so he has no right to appoint justices. ...
... Russell Berman of the Atlantic has more on Senate Republicans' machinations. They are horrible human beings. ...
... AND Nina Totenberg of NPR reports Senate Republicans “sent some sort of a back channel message to the White House” that they would confirm Garland “in the lame duck session” if A Democrat wins the presidency in November. CW: Yeah, thanks Republicans! ...
... BUT Greg Sargent points out that President Obama might not play into the GOP's game plan. ...
** ... Linda Greenhouse disproves Republicans' (and confederate "journalists"') claims that they're treating Merrick Garland's nomination just as Democrats treated Judge Robert Bork's: "The president might even say: Remember Robert Bork? Treat my nominee in the same way. Have a conversation and let the public in on it. Of course the president and his allies know that’s exactly the public conversation that the Republicans fear, because it was clear from the first moment that any Obama nominee would inhabit the constitutional mainstream much more securely than either Judge Bork or Justice Scalia — whose 'originalist' philosophy never gained more than a toehold at the court — ever did. Now with the nomination of Merrick Garland, there is not the shadow of a doubt."
... Bloomberg Editors: "There are at least two criteria on which to judge President Barack Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court. First are his qualifications. Second is the ideological space that he would occupy on a polarized court in a polarized political environment. Garland is a superb choice on both counts.... The Senate voted 76 to 23 to confirm him 19 years ago, and his reputation has only grown since; just last week, Senator Orrin Hatch [R-Utah] called Garland a 'fine man' but doubted Obama would ever nominate him. Hatch was taken by surprise. Now it's time for Senate Republicans to give Merrick Garland the serious consideration he deserves." ...
... Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "The Garland nomination ... appears to be an attempt to box in Senate Republicans who've refused to confirm anyone Obama nominates. There are strong reasons to doubt whether this strategy will work, however." ...
... Paul Waldman: "I’ll bet that a big part of his selection was that Garland was willing to go through the process knowing he probably won’t get to actually serve on the court, while a younger judge who could have another chance later might not want to." ...
... Garrett Epps of the Atlantic: "Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, has already drawn a line in the sand against the Garland nomination, tweeting moments after the nomination that the president is trying 'to politicize it for the purposes of the election.' The reality, however, is that this is perhaps the least political nomination Barack Obama could have made. In a sane world, that would make Garland’s confirmation more likely. In the world we live in, it probably makes it less likely. That’s because Garland brings nothing novel to the demographic table." ...
... Steve M.: "I'm sensing disappointment with President Obama's Supreme Court pick -- Merrick Garland, who's white, male, moderate, and too old at age 63 to be on the Court for forty years. But the president didn't choose someone to put on the Court. He chose someone to be blockaded. I think it was a canny choice.... So [Republicans are] going to block someone who's been acceptable to them for years." ...
... Ed Kilgore: "It just ain't happening, folks. Now there is a convoluted scenario whereby Garland might be confirmed in a post-election lame-duck session if Hillary Clinton has won the presidential election and Democrats have retaken control of the Senate.... [BUT] Precisely because he's a white-bread 60-something jurist who already has a lifetime appointment to the best non-SCOTUS judicial gig in the land, nobody's going to get that upset if she turns elsewhere. He's the perfect sacrificial nominee." ...
... CW: Here's the way Repubicans do it. They find some obscure ruling(s) by Garland that they can twist into a subject of outrage, & they all go into high dudgeon over this horrible ruling or rulings (which must have something to do with social issues like marriage or abortion). To confirm Garland would be a travesty that would end American freedom as we know it. They'll provide little buzz-phrases for the angry peoples to paint on their signs: "Baby Kiler" or "Jesus Yes! Garlin No!" or whatever. Merrick Garland seems like a nice man. It's a shame on our nation that Republicans will put him through this. But I suppose they will. ...
... Oh, It's Already Started. Mark Stern of Slate writes that, based on "no evidence whatsoever..., conservatives are trying to paint [Garland] as a warrior against the Second Amendment."
Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "The has again pared its plans for raising interest rates, citing the weakness of the global economy as a reason for greater caution about the prospects for domestic growth. The Fed’s policy-making committee voted not to raise its benchmark rate at a meeting that ended Wednesday, though an increase this month was widely expected at the beginning of the year. And it pulled back sharply from a December prediction that the rate would rise by one percentage point this year. Fed officials now expect to raise rates by just half a percentage point this year."
Sewell Chan of the New York Times: "Denmark has reclaimed its place as the world’s happiest country, while Burundi ranks as the least happy nation, according to the fourth World Happiness Report, released on Wednesday. The report found that inequality was strongly associated with unhappiness — a stark finding for rich countries like the United States, where rising disparities in income, wealth, health and well-being have fueled political discontent.... Of the world’s most populous nations, China came in at No. 83, India at No. 118, the United States at No. 13, Indonesia at No. 79, Brazil at No. 17, Pakistan at No. 92, Nigeria at No. 103, Bangladesh at No. 110, Russia at No. 56, Japan at No. 53 and Mexico at No. 21. The United States rose two spots, from No. 15 in 2015."
Joe Stiglitz: "Something interesting has emerged in voting patterns on both sides of the Atlantic: Young people are voting in ways that are markedly different from their elders. A great divide appears to have opened up, based not so much on income, education, or gender as on the voters’ generation." Read the whole essay. Thanks to carlyle for the link.
Presidential Race
Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "With more than half the states having now held their nominating contests, Donald J. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz are quietly directing their attention to a second, shadow election campaign.... This parallel campaign is to select the individual delegates who will go to Cleveland in July for what could be the first contested convention in American politics in more than 60 years. Chosen through a byzantine process in each state, most of the delegates will become free agents if no one wins a majority on the first ballot." ...
... Curly Says Republican Primary Voters Don't Matter. Matthew Belvedere of CNBC: "Political parties, not voters, choose their presidential nominees, a Republican convention rules member told CNBC, a day after GOP front-runner Donald Trump rolled up more big primary victories. 'The media has created the perception that the voters choose the nomination. That's the conflict here,' Curly Haugland, an unbound GOP delegate from North Dakota, told CNBC's 'Squawk Box' on Wednesday. He even questioned why primaries and caucuses are held." CW: Time for Larry & Moe to weigh in.
... Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Advisers to Donald Trump and Ted Cruz say there's no way they'll allow John Kasich to even compete at a contested national convention — let alone prevail. Trump and Cruz are betting that their dual dominance in the delegate hunt will permanently box out the Ohio governor, who has no mathematical path to the nomination and is openly pursuing a floor fight at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. And their aides say Kasich won't even make it to the floor." ...
... Just to highlight how bad GOP politics have become, here's Charles Pierce: "I would remind them that John Kasich is the governor of Ohio and, as such, he's the commander-in-chief of the Ohio National Guard of long historical memory. If he wants to get to the floor, he'll get to the floor." CW: Pierce is writing tongue-in-cheek, at least to some extent, but when you reasonably can invoke the Kent State massacre as a potential campaign tactic, you have to worry that w're on a path that could lead to that. ...
I think you’d have riots. -- Donald Trump, Wednesday, if Republicans don't nominate him even though he has the most elected delegates ...
... Threats of Violence as Political Strategy. Greg Sargent: "It’s hard to say whether this is intended as a threat or a prediction.... There is no particular reason to rule out the former — that it was indeed intended as a tacit threat, as least of a certain kind. Trump has been playing a clever little game where he hints at the possibility of violence while stopping short of explicitly threatening it — yet he also doesn’t denounce such an outcome as unacceptable, so his hints effectively function as a threat. And as Philip Klein detailed the other day, this could well emerge as an aspect of his convention strategy." ...
... Adele Stan of the American Prospect: "In a nation conceived in a violent revolution, and whose popular culture revels in entertainment violence, it should perhaps come as no surprise that the presidential frontrunner of one of our two major political parties is carving a path to victory fueled in part by aggression.... With the Trump candidacy, violence is not merely the outcome of a toxic campaign; it’s the show, it’s the game. A feature, not a bug. And a savvy, cynical calculation of the kind of show that turns America on."
I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things. -- Donald Trump, Quote of the Day
Daniel Lippman of Politico: The Economist Intelligence unit, a "well-respected global economic and geopolitical analysis firm put a possible Trump presidency in its top 10 global risks this month, released Wednesday. Other risks include a sharp slowdown in the Chinese economy, a fracture of the Eurozone, and Britain's possible departure from the European Union.... Electing Trump could also start a trade war, hurt trade with Mexico and be a godsend to terrorist recruiters in the Middle East, according to the latest EIU forecasts.... Until Trump, the firm had never rated a pending election of a candidate to be a geopolitical risk to the U.S. and the world."
Neil Irwin of the New York Times on what Donald Trump gets right & wrong about U.S.-China trade relations: "To people who spend time studying the United States’ economic relationship with China, Mr. Trump’s accounting of its dysfunctions contains both legitimate, accurate complaints and elements that completely misstate how things work between the world’s largest and second-largest economies."
Dylan Byers & David Goldman of CNN: "Fox News has canceled its March 21 Republican presidential debate following Donald Trump's decision not to attend.... The cancellation comes after Trump said on Fox News a few hours earlier that he would not attend the debate, leading John Kasich to pull out as well. Ted Cruz said he was willing to debate either Trump or Kasich, or both." ...
... OR, as Paul Waldman writes, "Let there be no doubt that Reince Priebus is firmly in control of the Republican party nominating process."
Hadas Gold of Politico: "Politico reporter Ben Schreckinger was denied entry to Donald Trump's press conference on Tuesday night, despite having previously been granted credentials by the campaign. The move followed a threat last week from Trump officials to exclude Politico reporters from campaign events. On Tuesday morning, Schreckinger, who has covered the campaign regularly for more than six months, received an email granting him credentials for Trump's speech and press conference at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida that evening. But less than 10 minutes later, another email arrived saying those same credentials were denied. Upon arriving at Trump's private club, he was denied entry and escorted off of the property. Schreckinger, whose latest story on Trump's campaign was a report on concerns about campaign manager Corey Lewandowski's temperament and behavior, never received an explanation as to why his credentials have been denied." ...
... Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, denied on Wednesday that the Trump campaign blacklists reporters who write critical stories about the candidate.... 'I’m not trying to limit anyone’s access to anything, that’s not what we do,' [Lewandowski said]. The Trump campaign has at times, as noted by Mother Jones, denied press credentials to National Review, the Des Moines Register, Univision, BuzzFeed News, The Daily Beast, Fusion, Huffington Post, and Mother Jones, usually following critical stories." ...
... Read Patrick Caldwell's full piece in Mother Jones. The list of horribles is impressive. Stuff like this: "Earlier this month, Trump's campaign credentialed the Political Cesspool, a radio show that labels itself 'pro-white.' Meanwhile, for the same event, the Trump campaign didn't respond to a request from the New Tri-State Defender, an African American newspaper in Memphis.... In January, Trip Gabriel of the New York Times was 'ejected' from a campaign stop in Iowa, just a few days after Gabriel wrote an unflattering piece on Trump's campaign in the state."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. The Family that Hates Together Stays Together. Jordan Sargent of Gawker: A heartwarming PBS News Hour story about a North Carolina family that has been inspired by Donald Trump's candidacy to get into politics for the first time fails to mention that the sweet 33-year-old daughter in the story -- who is pictured in the piece phone-banking for Drumpf -- has large, heartwearming white-power symbols tattooed on each of her hands. ...
... CW: Thanks, Judy Woodruff, et al., for mainstreaming white supremacy. I'm sending in my tax-deducitble donation right away. Send one of those PBS mugs with a white-power symbol on it, please. And to think Republicans want to defund PBS because you're an arm of the liberal media. Thank you for proving, once again, that the liberal-bias charge is totally unfair.
A Skin Head in Search of a Rug. Eliza Collins & Nick Gass of Politico: "Florida Gov. Rick Scott is calling on the Republican Party to come together and support Donald Trump. Scott — in a Facebook post the day after his home state voted and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio dropped out — said that Trump’s victories Tuesday show it is time to rally around the businessman." ...
... Nick Gass of Politico: "South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley on Wednesday said she hoped Ted Cruz would pull through with the Republican nomination. The statement comes a day after Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, the candidate she had previously supported, suspended his campaign." CW: As for the veep slot, "Pick me! Pick me!"
David Wasserman of 538: "If Donald Trump somehow falls three delegates short of reaching the magic 1,237 delegates needed for the Republican nomination, he may be haunted by an obscure outcome from the primary voting in Illinois on Tuesday. There’s clear evidence that Trump supporters in Illinois gave fewer votes to Trump-pledged delegate candidates who have minority or foreign-sounding names like 'Sadiq,' 'Fakroddin' and 'Uribe,' potentially costing him three of the state’s 69 delegates.... Of the seven Trump delegate candidates with minority or foreign-sounding names, all seven were among the dozen worst-trailing Trump candidates in the state: Sadiq, Fakroddin, Tolbert, Alonso, Uribe, Sandra Yeh and Rolando Arellano." ...
... Ben Mathis-Lilley of Slate: "Wasserman notes that a Trump delegate named Jim Uribe got 2,500 fewer votes than one named Rich Nordstrom, which is, technically speaking, the whitest name in history. Rich Nordstrom!"
Eli Rosenberg of the New York Times: "Five sheriff’s deputies in North Carolina have been disciplined for failure to act after a black protester was punched by a white supporter of at a campaign rally, the sheriff’s office said Wednesday. Three of the deputies have been demoted and will be suspended without pay for five days for 'unsatisfactory performance and failing to discharge the duties and policies of the office of sheriff,' according to a statement released by Sheriff Earl Butler of Cumberland County on his Facebook page. The other two deputies were suspended for three days without pay. All five were to be placed on probation for the next year, Sheriff Butler said."
Ben Carson is okay with Donald Trump's comparing him to a child molester, but when he said Trump had offered him a job in the Trump White House, implicity in exchange for his endorsement of the Drumpf, he was only kidding. Probably that's because someone pointed out that such quid pro quos are illegal: Josh Israel of Think Progress: "Federal law expressly prohibits candidates from directly or indirectly promising 'the appointment of any person to any public or private position or employment, for the purpose of procuring support in his candidacy.' The penalty for violations could include fines or a year in jail -- two years if the violation was willful."
Matt Flegenheimer & Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: Ted Cruz & John Kasich "had scarcely said a cross word about each other before Tuesday night’s contests.... Now, it seems, Mr. Cruz and Mr. Kasich will get to know each other a bit better. And their opening gambits were to argue that the other has no chance of becoming president.... 'There are only two people who actually have a viable path to the nomination,' Jason Johnson, Mr. Cruz’s chief strategist, told reporters. 'There’s one spoiler in the race: .'... Mr. Kasich countered on Wednesday by suggesting that Mr. Cruz, along with Mr. Trump, was too extreme to attract wide support in the fall."
“There are only two people who actually have a viable path to the nomination,” Jason Johnson, Mr. Cruz’s chief strategist, told reporters. “There’s one spoiler in the race: John Kasich.”
Other Elections
Carimah Townes of Think Progress: "The prosecutor who stalled the investigation of Tamir Rice’s shooting, fought against charging Rice’s killer, and launched a smear campaign against Rice’s mother was just ousted. Following years of controversy and calls for his resignation, Cuyahoga County prosecutor Tim McGinty lost to challenger Mike O’Malley on Tuesday night...."
Beyond the Beltway
Charles Pierce: "I know you'll be shocked to learn that, yes, voter-suppression laws actually, you know, suppress votes. Especially in the newly insane state of North Carolina.... It's a good thing that John Roberts declared the Day of Jubilee because, otherwise, people might wildly speculate that there are certain kinds of people who other people would rather not have voting in their elections."
News Lede
CBS.AP: "Frank Sinatra Jr., who carried on his famous father's legacy with his own music career and whose kidnapping as a young man added a bizarre chapter to his father's legendary life, died Wednesday. He was 72."
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