;)
Sunday
Mar202016
The Commentariat -- March 21, 2016
Afternoon Update:
Julie Davis & Damien Cave of the New York Times: "President Obama and President Raúl Castro discussed a path toward normalizing relations, a shift begun in late 2014 when, in a stunning announcement, they embarked on the restoration of full diplomatic relations":
Mark Landler & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Hillary Clinton pledged on Monday that she would stand unyieldingly with Israel and warned that her potential Republican rival, Donald J. Trump, would be an unreliable partner for one of America's closest allies. In a rock-ribbed speech in Washington that previewed how she might confront Mr. Trump on foreign policy in a general-election campaign, Mrs. Clinton said, 'We need steady hands, not a president who says he's neutral on Monday, pro-Israel on Tuesday, and who-knows-what on Wednesday.'"
Philip Rucker & Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump revealed part of his foreign policy advisory team and outlined an unabashedly noninterventionist approach to world affairs during a wide-ranging meeting Monday with The Washington Post's editorial board.... Trump said that U.S. involvement in NATO may need to be significantly diminished in the coming years, breaking with nearly seven decades of consensus in Washington."
Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "As [Donald] Trump arrived in [Washington, D.C.,] to deliver a speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, [Elizabeth] Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, said Mr. Trump had skipped out on debts, managed scam businesses and used bankruptcy laws to keep his father's empire afloat." ...
... Jordain Carney of the Hill has more on Warren's Twitter strikes against Trump.
*****
The Obamas tour Old Havana. Reuters photo.
Julie Davis of the New York Times: "President Obama and President Raúl Castro of Cuba appeared together on Monday morning, kicking off the first official talks between their two governments after decades of Cold War hostility." ...
... Juliet Eilperin, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Obama starts his first full day in Cuba on Monday in the Plaza of the Revolution, where Fidel Castro once delivered stem-winding speeches denouncing U.S. imperialism. Obama's presence there, to lay a wreath at the monument to 19th century Cuban independence hero José Martí, underscores the remarkable nature of his visit. At the nearby Revolutionary Palace, Obama will then be officially welcomed to Cuba with full honors by President Raúl Castro." ...
... CW: I don't know that "Revolutionary Palace" is an oxymoron, but it certain is an irony. ...
... Julie Davis & Damien Cave of the New York Times: "President Obama touched down in Cuba on Sunday, becoming the first American leader to visit in nearly nine decades. His trip, the result of a stunning policy reversal 15 months ago, holds the potential to forge closer ties between longtime adversaries and exorcise one of the last ghosts of the Cold War." ...
... The Times is liveblogging the Obamas' visit. ...
... President Obama spoke yesterday at the newly-opened U.S. embassy in Cuba:
... David Muir of ABC News & President Obama wear matching outfits for an interview in Havana (altho Muir forgot his flag pin):
... Jonathan Watts of the Guardian: "Cuban police forcibly broke up a pro-democracy demonstration and arrested several dozen activists on Sunday, just hours before Barack Obama was to arrive in Havana to become the first US president to visit Cuba in almost 90 years. The protesters, from the Damas de Blanco (Ladies in White) and other opposition groups, were bundled into buses and police vans after a shouting match with pro-Castro supporters during their usual weekly demonstration near the Santa Rita church." ...
... "A Different American President." Nancy LeTourneau of the Washington Monthly on what may have been the genesis of thawing relations between the U.S. & Cuba. CW: It matters that we have a president who can see beyond a narrow American perspective & doesn't need his knee to jerk before he opens his mouth.
New York Times Editors: "It is rare for an American president to skewer a friendly government publicly. But that's what President Obama did last week in presenting a well-considered analysis of troubles in the relationship with Saudi Arabia.... There is little time left in the president's term to rethink how the United States and Saudi Arabia can move forward together. That task will largely belong to his successor."
Sarah Wheaton of Politico: "Vice President Joe Biden blamed both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for lacking the political will to find peace during a speech on Sunday to the country's largest pro-Israel political organization. Biden, who cited his decades of working on the issue, told the annual Washington gathering of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that he's never been so pessimistic, even as he reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to its alliance with Israel and expressed new hopes for Israeli cooperation with its other Arab neighbors."
Mitch McConnell Has a New Excuse. Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "Supreme Court justices are nominated by the president and appointed with the advice and consent of the National Rifle Association, according to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).... In response to a question from ['Fox "News" Sunday'] host Chris Wallace, who asked if Senate Republicans would consider the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court after the election if Hillary Clinton prevails, McConnell responded that he 'can't imagine that a Republican majority in the United States Senate would want to confirm, in a lame duck session, a nominee opposed by the National Rifle Association [and] the National Federation of Independent Businesses.'" ...
... Jeff Toobin in the New Yorker: President Obama's Supreme Court "nominees, all fine choices, reflect his boundless faith in the meritocracy.... The Garland nomination also revealed the President's distaste for the vulgar realities of politics.... Obama's tenure has been disastrous for Democrats. The Party has gone from a Senate caucus of sixty members to forty-six, and from a substantial majority in the House of Representatives to a seemingly permanent minority. In the states, Democrats have lost ten governorships and nine hundred and ten legislative seats. This is not all Obama's fault, of course, but it rarely seems his concern, either -- as it was not, apparently, in his nomination of Garland.... The greatest Justices have always understood that politics, defined broadly, undergirds much of the Court's work.... It's only right to mention, as the President did not, the real reason that [Garland] will not be confirmed: because there aren't enough Democrats in the Senate to confirm him." ...
When you have a sharply political, divisive hearing process, it increases the danger that whoever comes out of it will be viewed in those terms. If the Democrats and Republicans have been fighting so fiercely about whether you're going to be confirmed, it's natural for some member of the public to think, well, you must be identified in a particular way as a result of that process. -- Chief Justice John Roberts, February 3, 2016 ...
... Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "Last month, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. delivered some blunt remarks about the Supreme Court confirmation process. The Senate should ensure that nominees are qualified, he said, and leave politics out of it. The chief justice spoke 10 days before Justice Antonin Scalia died, and he could not have known how timely and telling his comments would turn out to be. They now amount to a stern, if abstract, rebuke to the Republican senators who refuse to hold hearings on President Obama's nomination of Judge Merrick B. Garland." Video of Roberts' speech & an unedited transcript are here.
Robert Barnes & Jenna Portnoy of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court on Monday takes up a long-running political fight about whether Virginia lawmakers redrew the state's congressional map to protect the commonwealth's lone African American congressman -- or to make sure he was not joined by a second."
Cecilia Kang of the New York Times: "Amazon has emerged as one of the tech industry's most outspoken players in Washington, spending millions on this effort and meeting regularly with lawmakers and regulators. Amazon has pushed officials to allow new uses for commercial drones, to extend the maximum length of trucks, to improve roads and bridges and to prop up a delivery partner, the United States Postal Service.... Amazon and [Jeff] Bezos, its chief executive, have other interests in Washington, too. Amazon is now a major government contractor with a $600 million cloud computing partnership with the C.I.A. And Mr. Bezos's ownership of The Washington Post, which he bought in 2013, gives him a foothold in the political and media circles of Washington." ...
... Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. BUT, but, that's not why Bezos said he bought the Post. In fact, he said he never even thought of it, till Donald Graham, the Post's CEO, approached him thru an intermediary. "Mr. Bezos was ultimately convinced that The Post, which he called a national institution, could be brought into the digital age by leveraging the technical expertise and knowledge that he had gained over his decades spent building Amazon into a global technology company." See, nothing whatever to do with arm-twisting Congress.
Sarah Kaplan of the Washington Post: "A recent study in the journal PLOS Currents: Outbreaks found fifty U.S. cities where the ... [Zika virus-carrying] mosquito Aedes aegypti would be able to survive in the upcoming summer months. Nine of those cities, home to an estimated 14 million people, could have a 'high abundance' of the virus-carrying mosquitoes by July, the study says, and the mosquito could be a problem as far north as New York."
Drumpf, Drumpf, Everywhere. Daniel Benaim & Perry Cammack, in the New Republic: "Across Europe, we are seeing hyper-nationalist figures emerge with several common features. They demonize minorities, immigrants, and gays and lesbians, and express nostalgia for a simpler (read: less diverse, less democratic) time. They vilify conventional politicians as feckless and political opponents as traitors. They celebrate the crushing of dissent and flirt with violence. They play on nativist rejections of European unity, NATO, and other transnational projects that underpin the liberal international order and that have done so much in the last half-century to promote stability in Europe and lift hundreds of millions out of poverty worldwide."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. News Avoidance. Driftglass watches the Sunday showz: "Being a Beltway journalist must be exhausting these days, what with so much news to avoid mentioning and so many scary things not to talk about."
Presidential Race
NEW. Steven Shepard of Politico: "Bernie Sanders has won a primary of American Democrats living abroad, according to a press release. The group Democrats Abroad, which held a 'Global Presidential Primary' earlier this month, announced the results on Monday: Sanders won 69 percent of the vote, compared to just 31 percent for Hillary Clinton. The Democratic National Committee grants Democrats Abroad 13 pledged delegates, who will be allocated according to the results: 9 for Sanders, and 4 for Clinton."
Anne Gearan & Abby Phillip of the Washington Post: "... Hillary Clinton and her allies have begun preparing a playbook to defeat Donald Trump in a general-election matchup that will attempt to do what his Republican opponents couldn't: show that his business dealings and impolitic statements make him unfit to be commander in chief."
John Wagner & Matea Gold of the Washington Post: "Sen. Bernie Sanders ... outraised [Hillary] Clinton for the second month in a row, pulling in $43.5 million to her $30.1 million, according to a Sanders campaign official. But the new figures also indicate that he plowed through far more cash, spending $40.9 million to her $34.3 million. That left the senator with $17.2 million in the bank as March began, while Clinton had $30.8 million."
NEW. Nick Gass of Politico: Donald Trump "appears to want the nomination even if he cannot amass a majority of the requisite delegates. For the Republican Party's national chairman [Reince Priebus], on the other hand, the process is the process, and even Donald Trump is no exception. Therein lies the conflict that threatens to tear the party asunder...." Trump says his possible failure to garner a majority of delegates was caused by the party's having so many presidential candidates: "'It's very unfair..., because of the fact that there's so many candidates and so many candidates are grabbing delegates.'" CW: Shame on the other guys for being so unfair. ...
... Ryan Struyk & Nicki Rossell of ABC News: "RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said he no longer thinks a contested convention is an extreme hypothetical and party officials are trying to be transparent to 'take the mystery away from what an open convention looks like,' he said on ABC News' 'This Week' Sunday."
Jose DelReal of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his team's insistence that campaign manager Corey Lewandowski behaved appropriately while forcefully engaging with a protester at a rally here in Tucson on Saturday afternoon, commenting that local police and security appeared 'a little lax' at the event.... 'I give him credit for having spirit. He wanted them to take down those horrible profanity-laced signs.'" ...
... Your Lyin' Eyes. Ali Vitali of NBC News: "The Donald Trump campaign has denied that its manager [Corey Lewandowski] grabbed a young protester's collar at an Arizona rally on Saturday." CW: So Lewandowski doesn't "have spirit"?? Also, too, at least by the time the videographer recorded the scene, the protester wasn't carrying a sign at all, much less a "profanity-laced" one. ...
... Ken Vogel & Ben Schreckinger of Politico: "Donald Trump's campaign blamed an unidentified man for manhandling a protester at a Saturday afternoon rally in Tucson, but ... the man was in fact part of Trump's own security detail.... The unidentified man ... was captured on video, alongside Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, engaging in what appears to be a heated conversation with a young protester. Lewandowski can be seen grabbing the collar of the protester, who is subsequently pulled backward forcefully." ...
... Rebecca Savransky of the Hill: "... Donald Trump said on Sunday that protesters should take some of the blame for the incidents at his rallies. 'These are professional agitators, and I think that somebody should say that when a road is blocked going into the event so that people have to wait sometimes hours to get in, I think that's very fair and there should be blame there, too,' he said on ABC's 'This Week.'" ...
... Katherine Faulders & David Caplan of ABC News: "A man captured on video punching and kicking a protester at a Donald Trump rally in Tucson, Arizona, was charged with assault with injury, police said. The man, identified as Tony Pettway, 32, was arrested inside the Trump event and charged with the misdemeanor before being released, the Tucson Police Department said. The incident began when an anti-Trump protester -- wearing an American flag shirt and carrying a sign that read 'Trump is Bad for America' -- was being escorted out by law enforcement.... In a video posted on Twitter, the Trump supporter appears to have tried to grab the poster out of the protestor's hand and proceeded to punch and kick him." ...
... NEW. Caitlin Cruz of TPM: "Officials confirmed late Sunday night that the 32-year-old man arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor assault at a Donald Trump rally in Tucson is an airman assigned to a nearby base. Captain Casey Osborne, 55th Fighter Wing Chief of Public Affairs, said in a statement to KOLD that Tony Pettway is 'an airman assigned to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base,' which is miles from downtown Tucson." ...
So this is appropriate. Brendan O'Connor of Gawker: "Last week, the New Hampshire Secretary of State released the list of delegates who will represent the state at the Republican National Convention in July. One of the alternates for the Trump campaign is Gerald DeLemus, who is currently facing federal indictment over his alleged involvement with the Bundy family.... Despite a powerful current of support for Trump in the patriot movement, the Republican frontrunner has been careful not to explicitly court militant right-wing radicals." CW: It isn't "courting" militants to select one of them as a(n alternate) delegate. It's more like the consummation of a marriage, where the courting part is done. Trump might have named DeLemus as a regular delegate but for the fact that DeLemus may still be in jail at convention time.
Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League, in Time: The ADL will "... redirect the amount of funds that Trump contributed to ADL over the years specifically into anti-bias education programs that address exactly the kind of stereotyping and scapegoating he has injected into this political season." Trump, according to Greenblatt, has given the ADL $56,000 "in the past decade or so."
"The Big Short," by Barry Blitt.
Jim Tankersley of the Washington Post: "The Republican establishment began losing its party to Donald Trump on May 24, 2000, at 5:41 p.m., on the floor of the House of Representatives. Urged on by their presidential standard-bearer, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, and by nearly all of the business lobbyists who represented the core of the party's donor class, three-quarters of House Republicans voted to extend the status of permanent normal trade relations to China. They were more than enough, when added to a minority of Democrats, to secure passage of a bill that would sail through the Senate and be signed into law by President Bill Clinton.... The 2000 vote effectively unleashed a flood of outsourcing to China, which in turn exported trillions of dollars of cheap goods back to the United States. Over the next 10 years, economists have concluded, the expanded trade with China cost the United States at least 2 million jobs. It was the strongest force in an overall manufacturing decline that cost 5 million jobs."
The Naked Truth. Frank Rich: "... of all the emperors whom Trump has revealed to have few or no clothes, none have been more conspicuous or consequential than the GOP elites. He has smashed the illusion, one I harbored as much as anyone, that there's still some center-right GOP Establishment that could restore old-school Republican order if the crazies took over the asylum.... While it's become a commonplace to characterize Trump's blitzkrieg of the GOP as either a takeover or a hijacking, it is in reality the Establishment that is trying to hijack the party from those who actually do hold power: its own voters."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: "There is always a mutually beneficial relationship between candidates and news organizations during presidential years. But in my lifetime it's never seemed so singularly focused on a single candidacy. And the financial stakes have never been so intertwined with the journalistic and political stakes.... Just as [Donald Trump's] success at the polls is pushing the Republican Party to reassess its very identity and break with long-held traditions, he is using his ratings power to push the news media to break from its mission of holding the powerful, or really just him, accountable. In other words, to loosen its standards.... On March 8..., all of the cable news networks showed Mr. Trump's 45-minute-long primary night news conference in full. While Mrs. Clinton's victory speech went uncovered, Mr. Trump used the time to hawk Trump Steaks and Trump Wine. That was new."
Beyond the Beltway
There Is No Justice in Jindaland. Campbell Robertson of the New York Times: "The constitutional obligation to provide criminal defense for the poor has been endangered by funding problems across the country, but nowhere else is a system in statewide free fall like Louisiana's, where public defenders represent more than eight out of 10 criminal defendants. Offices throughout the state have been forced to lay off lawyers, leaving those who remain with caseloads well into the hundreds. In seven of the state's 42 judicial districts, poor defendants are already being put on wait lists; here in the 15th, the list is over 2,300 names long and growing." ...
... CW: And for all that, for negligence that descends to the level of an continual Constitutional violation, Bobby Jindal thought he had the qualifications & experience to be POTUS. Being a Republican means never having to say you're a failure.
Claire Landsbaum of New York: "... when [Mississippi] state officials retire, they can take all the leftover money in their campaign fundraising accounts with them. A recent review by the Associated Press found that, of the 99 state officials who retired in the past few years, as many as 25 pocketed more than $1,000 in the process, and at least four took more than $50,000. Mississippi is one of five states -- along with North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Virginia -- where these sorts of withdrawals are legal, as long as state and federal income taxes have been paid on the sum.... Running for office in Mississippi, winning, and pocketing thousands of donor dollars sounds like the world's best retirement plan." ...
... CW: I'll bet Marco Rubio is wishing he had run for Mississippi state ethics commissioner instead of POTUS. Julie Bykowicz of the AP: "Wealthy donors handed over $25 million last month to a super PAC backing then-Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio. And the candidate's official campaign had its best month yet, raising about $9.6 million."
Share Article
Comments for this entry have been disabled. Additional comments may not be added to this entry at this time.
Reader Comments (20)
@Ken Winkes: Thank you for your thoughtful comment yesterday. You underscore the importance of knowing history when trying to understand the present.
@Janice: Thanks for reminding me. I've reposted Ken's commentary above.
Marie
"Journalism." Pfft. Jim Rutenberg (linked above) doesn't go far enough. Yes, on March 8 the channels stayed on Trump while he sold his Bush steaks and other stuff, but on March 15, CNN, FoxNews, and MSNBC all showed Trump's empty podium while Bernie Sanders was giving a speech, as reported in the March 16 episode of The Daily Show.
Networks covering Trump rallies are accepting greater restrictions than those imposed by other candidates, giving Trump preferential treatment, cited in these pages on March 19.
CBS Chairman Les Moonves' statement regarding Trump's candidacy: "It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS," first published in the Hollywood Reporter, has not yielded any backlash as far as I have seen.
I'm not sure who I am more disgusted with right now, the media, or Republican politicians who follow every sentence denouncing Trump with "But if he's the nominee, I'll support him."
Republican World, where even the phrase "personal responsibility" has a different meaning. To them, it means being responsible for doing the best for oneself, personally. Fck all y'all.
I would like to add a note to one sentence from Ken Winkes excellent post. " Democracy and American conservatism are not friends."
As I have said before, Conservative means I don't give a damn about anyone or anything except myself. So that is why they hate democracy.
But note something that conservatives complain about, you know goberment. Somehow in America we manage to ignore the fact that government is an activity that was elected to represent the people. in other words, the Democracy Management Service. So if the DMS does something you don't like you can use your rights in the election process to change the policy. If you lose, you are obligated to realize you are the minority on that issue.
In other words, being a part of democracy requires commitment to the concept. Again the problem is that conservatives have no commitment to anything except themselves.
And BTW, lets make it clear why Bitch McConnell and his friends don't want a new SCOTUS person. They are terrified that the court will actually decide that the bribes they currently live on will become illegal.
CW: This comment came in from "Anonymous," who is a regular reader here:
Read at your own peril:
Can David McVicar Bring Peace to the "Opera Wars"?
_______________________________________
"The Scottish director David McVicar was running on and off the stage of the Metropolitan Opera recently, rehearsing his new production of Donizetti’s “Roberto Devereux” — making sure the crowds never took the focus off the prima donna, helping the tenor make the most of his final exit before his death, and even delivering a funny, occasionally profane motivational speech to the chorus."
...to paraphrase the above:
Can Marie Burns Bring Peace to the "Opera Wars"?
"Our fearless leader, aka Constant Weader began turning off and on (later) the comments section of the Reality Chex blog, emphasizing her criteria for staying on message. Making sure commenters never took their focus off such as the prima Donald; celebrating the final exits of Liarini, Jeb!, Little Marco, and silent Ben as their campaigns spiraled to long overdue demise, making the most of all things political and diabolical — and even delivering some funny, occasionally profane motivational directives to the occasional off-tune chorus!"
"Guys! Keep your s**t together!”
…and the fat lady sang!
Anonymous
Just when you think it's Spring and you hear the birds start singing their sweet love songs, up comes another snow fall covering the earth that you thought you could start seeding. So after reading Ken's and Marvin's insightful posts I thought: just when we thought we were getting back on the right track albeit not as straight as we might have wished, up pops this crazy political Schnattergans that has damaged the rails causing monumental crashes and fatal results and after reading the New Republic's piece where the authors spell out the racist, nativist, nationalist, anti-semitic tendencies displayed in many of the European countries one almost gets the feeling that this world is going backwards instead of forward and yet–––here we have Obama in Cuba! Are we experiencing an upheaval that will result in louder voices for a better, saner world or are we seeing something truly malicious happening that will take us back on that track heading for destruction?
Seems to me those were words sung by some rock group back in that other tumultuous time.
And here it is––"The Eve of Destruction"...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I98KeKV_F9g
PD: Thanks. In my post, I could have hearkened back to the Founders and the complicated and often angry tussle played out between the sectional, moral, economic and political divisions then extant. They are still very much with us, but like you I choose optimism because maddeningly halting as it is, there has been real progress and most days I look forward to more.
Marie: Keep feeding Anonymous his or her catnip. Wouldn't want to lose a regular who possesses such wit. Once again, RC made me laugh.
And finally, leaving again for a few weeks. If I don't post when on the road, I'm not snitting or drifting into a Drumph (does sound downright grouchy, doesn't it?). Just heading to Nebraska to see the Sandhill crane migration.
Suspect that will make me smile, too.
Just watched this while eating an early lunch:
http://on.msnbc.com/1pRQuAf
Rachel Maddow and company highlight some of the underhanded activities of the Ron Paul campaign in getting delegates elected in 2012, and of the antics during the actual convention of getting some of those delegates removed.
It is very interesting to watch what happens when people who have gamed the system get out-gamed. The righteous indignation is frightening.
I am confused.
Many contributors, including Marie, have often commented on matters cultural, aesthetic, linguistic, musical, literary, educational, historic, scientific, mathematic, athletic, etc… as well as personal anecdotes and efforts at humor. At this moment, the right hand column contains several items on such topics. Indeed, I cannot find a day in the past when such matters did not appear, or few when they were not commented on.
On March 15, in a Commentariat of 21 posts, Akhilleius and I exchanged 4 comments, 2 each, that discussed opera. All inspired by the current political culture. To my astonishment, this was deemed hijacking of the comments section until Marie could “stand” to reopen it. I immediately sent Marie a private email, intended to be conciliatory, stating: "I’m very sorry for rambling on off topic. Won’t happen again.” There has been no response.
Days later, when comments reopened, PD asserted that “rules are rules”. What are the rules? I can no more discern a rule in this than I can find a coherent policy proposal in a GOP campaign speech.
Are we now to understand that nothing but politics may be discussed by commenters? At pain of having all comments blocked? Yet, there are comments today that are not political. My confusion grows.
It’s Marie’s site, and she alone has any right to choose what it will contain. And she is perfectly free to change her mind at any time, as often as she wishes. All that the rest of us can choose is whether or not to participate. Rather than risk a repeat of these events which remain beyond my comprehension, I henceforth choose not to.
John Roberts is worried that the public will see Merrick Garland in an unfavorable light because of a "sharply political, divisive process"? Three things: first, the process is sharply political and divisive only because of the criminal intransigence of his party. Second, most members of the public don't even know who HE is, never mind Merrick Garland. A horrifiying number of college grads in America think Judge Judy is a Supreme Court justice.
An even larger number can't name a single branch of government. Two thirds of Americans can't name a single justice. Which brings us to the third thing, the thing that has guaranteed Republican hegemony for nearly a generation: ignorance; ignorance promoted and encouraged at all levels by Confederates. Government is the problem so who cares how it works?
And the ignorance isn't particularly limited to voters. Party leaders are shockingly ignorant of the basics of governance. Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, has only recently discovered that he is the chair of the upcoming kindergarten food fight (the kind of kindergarten where the students wear white hoods and carry truncheons) known as the Republican National Convention. He had no idea and he is not happy about it.
The list of big name Confederate pols whose ignorance of history, civics, American jurisprudence and governance is nearly as long as the list of Republicans in congress. And that doesn't even take into account the ignoramuses in right-wing media and so-called think tanks.
Worrying about whether the public will worry too much about Merrick Garland's nomination for the Supreme Court is like wondering if passengers on the Titanic will be overly concerned that the caviar might run out before they reach New York.
The rules are that comments should relate to politics, and that commenters must be civil to each other (but not necessarily to me).
Most of the stuff in the Infotainment section & News Ledes relates to politics, too, if tangentially, altho sometimes I link to stories that are purely, say, science- or entertainment- or weather-related. Comments remarking on items linked in News & Infotainment are fine, even if they don't relate to politics, though a long back-and-forth on the prettiest dresses at the Oscars would be kinda stoopid, even if I did post a link to Academy Awards coverage.
I bear some responsibility for letting comments go off the rails last week, but I did & do resent it when commenters take over this site to have an extended discussion on something way off-topic. I also don't like the stress it causes me to have to decide what to do with comments that are far out. I don't make these decisions lightly. I can ignore 'em, delete 'em, write an admonition, or as I did last week, just close the comments section until I can stand to deal with comments again.
The thread last week, BTW, began with a couple of legitimate & illuminating comparisons between our current politics & art (literature & cinema, as it happened). I'm pretty sure that a comment on a NYT Krugman column that consisted of home remedies for earwax removal would not be published, even if Krugman had used the term "ball of wax" in his column. That is, commenters should -- and almost always do -- use common sense.
I'm sorry you choose not to comment again.
Marie
@Akhilleus: I hope Harry Reid or Dick Durbin gets up on the Senate floor -- whenever the Senate gets around to re-convening -- & reads the salient points in Roberts' remarks. Naturally, the reading should take place when the turtle from Kentucky & the slug from Iowa are present, if not accounted for. After all, McConnell & Grassley voted to make Roberts the top judge in the nation. One would assume, therefore, that they appreciate his talent for judging.
Marie
C'mon back, D.C. We'll miss ya.
A commenter just posted a question on the March 19 thread asking, "Why is it that Realitychex hasn't mentioned/commented on Elizabeth Warren's refusal to answer the question as to whether or not Hillary should release the transcripts of her speeches to Goldman Sachs?"
Answer: I don't think a Senator's refusal to tell a presidential candidate what to do is especially newsworthy. If Hillary wins the nomination or perhaps even when she just gets close, I expect Warren to endorse her. Warren is simply being politic. It is not in her interest, nor is it in the party's, or for that matter, in the country's interest, for her to directly criticize the woman who will most likely be the Democrats' presidential nominee.
Hillary isn't releasing the transcripts because they are embarrassing, sustained evidence of her coziness with big banks. A month or so ago, Politico interviewed some people who were in the room, & they described the speech or speeches as being rah-rah, with Hillary sounding like a motivational speaker & friend of the bank rather than a critic. Most groups won't pay you hundreds of thousands of dollars to insult them, & Hillary didn't.
Giving the speeches was stupid, except from the POV that they probably indirectly garnered sizable campaign donations & contributions to the Clinton Foundation in addition to the whopping fees she collected. Hillary is a professional schmoozer, some of her best friends are Wall Streeters, & that isn't going to change. President Hillary is not going to be urging Congress to put the screws to big banks.
It's one of the reasons I voted against her in the primary, but it won't stop me from voting for her in the general election if she's the nominee. In the last two presidential elections, I voted for the candidate I liked; in most presidential elections, I've voted for the lesser of two evils. That's likely what I'll be doing again this year. As for Warren, I'd vote for her for whatever without hesitation.
Marie
P.S. I think the commenter who complained about my not linking a news items of interest to him is the same guy who occasionally writes in, putting his comments on a previous day's thread, to complain about something I haven't covered that is of interest to him.
I realize some readers think I do this for fun. I don't. It's a public service that I did not intend to offer for more than a few months in 2008. These readers find me offensive, which is fair enough, but what isn't fair is that they also think they should have the freedom to use this site to meet their specific wishes.
So keep writing in & whining, keep making sexist remarks about how I have the "freedom" to change my mind with the cycles of the moon, because, you know, nobody expects a woman to have rational standards. This is the kind of crap where there are losers but no winners.
I hope nobody wonders any more about why I turned off the comments for a few days.
Marie
As far as Emperor Trump's position on Israel, all the Palestinians have to do is arrange for Trump to get a Noble prize for destroying Israel and say goodby.
Only a noble person would get a Nobel prize. That leaves out
the trumpet and millions just like him!
I've missed something. Is this blog about to come to an end? Any chance we'll be able to read Marie's thoughtful and incisive commentary somewhere else on the web? Sure hope so.