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The Commentariat -- March 8, 2015
Internal links removed.
Peter Baker & Richard Fausset of the New York Times: "As a new generation struggles over race and power in America, President Obama and a host of political figures from both parties came [to Selma] on Saturday, to the site of one of the most searing days of the civil rights era, to reflect on how far the country has come and how far it still has to go.... But coming just days after Mr. Obama's Justice Department excoriated the police department of Ferguson, Mo..., the anniversary ... provided a moment to measure the country's far narrower, and yet stubbornly persistent, divide in black-and-white reality":
"WelKKKome to Selma!" Rich Schapiro of the New York Daily News: "Within sight of the bridge where President Obama will commemorate the 1965 Bloody Sunday march is a billboard set up by a group dedicated to honoring Ku Klux Klan founder Nathan Bedford Forrest. The sign, set up in recent days, invites visitors to see 'Selma's War Between The States Historic Sites.' But it also features a picture of the Confederate flag and an image of Forrest, who was also a Confederate general. Beside Forrest's picture is a quote adopted by his men: 'Keep the skeer on 'em.' In a bizarre twist, the other side of the billboard -- a straight shot and about a half-mile east of the Edmund Pettus Bridge -- contains a welcome message to President Obama." ...
... Athena Jones & Deirdre Walsh of CNN: "House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy will now go to Selma Saturday to join in the 50th anniversary events. McCarthy tells CNN he considers John Lewis a close friend, and wants to be there to commemorate the historic anniversary." ...
... CW: Maybe this piece in the right-wing National Review, by Charles C. W. Cooke, is what embarrassed McCarthy into going to Selma: "By electing to skip the proceedings ... the Republican leadership suggests that it does not recognize what Selma represents within America's long history of public dissent.... If we are to put George Washington upon our plinths, and to eulogize him on our currency, we must agree to elevate Martin Luther King Jr. to the same dizzy heights. They are less famous, perhaps, but by virtue of their brave march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, John Lewis and Hosea Williams immortalized themselves into quintessential American heroes in the mold of Sam Adams and George Mason. To miss an opportunity to solemnize their daring is to blunder, disgracefully." Read the whole post; it's pretty powerful. ...
... OR this one, in the Daily Beast, by winger Ron Christie: "Somehow, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) are too busy with other plans than to commemorate the bravery of those who helped remake American society. The same may be said for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX). Are they too busy on the golf course, raising money, or otherwise content to sit on the couch to head to Selma?" ...
... David Atkins in the Washington Monthly: Republicans "will continue to try to disenfranchise as many minority voters as possible -- one of the reasons why the Selma memorial is so problematic for them." ...
... Alice Ollstein of Think Progress: Republicans who attended the Selma commemoration express a profound lack of concern for voting rights.
... Former Sen. Harris Wofford (D-Pa.) writes a fascinating remembrance in Politico Magazine of the second Selma march. ...
... ** I Know that My Redeemers Cometh. Jamelle Bouie: "If the 1960s were a Second Reconstruction -- a second attempt to fulfill the promise of emancipation -- then our present period is a second Redemption, where a powerful movement attempts to reverse gains and dismantle our fragile efforts at racial equality.... In appearance and in effect, the program of 21st-century conservatives is remarkably similar to the one of 19th-century Redeemers. It guts civil rights laws, shrinks state spending, and limits the scope of activist government. Yes, there are important differences.... But it's undeniable that the two are connected by history."
Greedy Bastards. Illustration by Victor Juhasz for Rolling Stone.** Joby Warrick of the Washington Post: The utility & fossil-fuel industries are waging a war against rooftop solar panels. "The campaign's first phase -- an industry push for state laws raising prices for solar customers -- failed spectacularly in legislatures around the country, due in part to surprisingly strong support for solar energy from conservatives and evangelicals in traditionally 'red states.' But more recently, the battle has shifted to public utility commissions, where industry backers have mounted a more successful push for fee hikes that could put solar panels out of reach for many potential customers.
Legislation to make net metering illegal or more costly has been introduced in nearly two dozen state houses since 2013. Some of the proposals were virtual copies of model legislation drafted two years ago by the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, a nonprofit organization with financial ties to billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch.
Bill Moyers & Michael Winship don't want you to forget Sheldon Adelson, the gambling magnate who is "the Godfather of the American right," and of the Israeli right, too. ...
... MEANWHILE, Adelson's man in Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, credited his speech to Congress with slowing down the Iran nuclear negotiations.
Bill Curry, in Salon, lambastes both parties & their leaders as soulless incompetents overseeing a "broken, venal, dysfunctional" government.
Cristian Farias in Slate: "... the fate of Obamacare now rests with Kennedy. Or with Roberts. Or both. But let's also credit Sotomayor for finding a way to corner them both and hold them to precedents the Supreme Court has long believed in."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. CW: If you enjoy office gossip about people you don't know, but some of whom you might have seen on teevee, Gabriel Sherman of New York has the story for you: "(Actually) True War Stories at NBC News."
Presidential Race
Reena Flores of CBS News: "President Obama only learned of Hillary Clinton's private email address use for official State Department business after a New York Times report, he told CBS News...":
... Not exactly a ringing endorsement:
... CW: One of the down sides to this Hillary-Is-the-Only-Alternative is having to repeat, more than once, "Maureen Dowd has a point." To wit, in today's predictable column, Dowd writes, "Everyone is looking for signs in how Hillary approaches 2016 to see if she's learned lessons from past trouble. But the minute this story broke, she went back to the bunker, even though she had known for months that the Republicans knew about the account." ...
... Todd Purdum, in a Politico Magazine piece, compares Hillary Clinton to Richard Nixon. Purdum is married to former Bill Clinton aide Dee Dee Myers.
... Andy Borowitz: "In what could be a prelude to a Presidential run in 2016, on Friday Joe Biden released to the public both e-mails that he has written while serving as Vice-President for the past six years."
Jason Horowitz of the New York Times: "Jeb Bush's charter school is a ruin baking in the Miami sun.... Mr. Bush moved on." ...
... Ben Jacobs of the Guardian: "In his first major public appearance in Iowa as a potential presidential candidate, Jeb Bush took a low-key approach at the Iowa Agricultural Summit." ...
... Dave Weigel of Bloomberg Politics: Jeb Bush, confronted by a DREAMer in Iowa, compared President Obama's executive actions on immigration to decrees by a "Latin American dictator." Impressively, he did it in Spanish. He said, "We need to do this by law, not by executive order." CW: He's right. He should tell that to the House leadership, not to our very own "dictator."
Trampling on History. Betsy Woodruff of Slate: "Republicans' overwhelming victories in the last few election cycles have let them dominate the state government, so they don't really face much of a fight anymore. That's why the state that birthed the organized labor movement in the United States is now right-to-work. In Madison, it's clear that Walker and his allies have learned how to take charge, get things done, and render their ideological foes irrelevant. First Wisconsin, then the country? The governor's presidential prospects hinge on the possibility that that idea isn't too far-fetched." ...
... Dave Zweifel, former editor of the Madison, Wisconsin, Capital Times: "Why don't we just cut to the chase and call this governor of ours what he really is: 'Slippery Scott.'... Scott Walker, of course, has become a master of the sleight of hand. One thing that we all should have come to learn these past four years is that you can never take this man at his word. The classic example played itself out the last couple of weeks as the state Legislature passed a right-to-work law." CW: Note doubt Slippery Scotty is the odds-on favorite to win this year's "Bait and Switch" Champ prize at the annual convention of Hucksters, USA.
Chris Johnson of the Washington Blade: "Potential 2016 Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul said on Friday affording the distinction to marriage to same-sex couples 'offends myself and a lot of other people.'" CW: I could not care less that equal rights "offend" L'il Randy, but his misuse of the reflexive pronoun deeply offends me, myself and I. I hope he cares. ...
... Digby is offended, too, on somewhat more substantive grounds: "This is why it's hard to take libertarianism seriously. This man is the acknowledged leader of that faction. And he is unable to say that it's none of his business who marries whom or admit that women own their own bodies (but says they do own their children!) It's inconsistent on such a fundamental level that it gives away the game: he's either whoring for the social conservative vote or he's philosophically incoherent."
Ted Cruz Announces His Obama Conspiracy Theory of the Week. Ben Jacobs: "Senator Ted Cruz has alleged that the leak of the pending indictment of the New Jersey Democratic senator Bob Menendez may be a politically motivated act of retaliation by Barack Obama and the Department of Justice. Speaking to reporters at the Iowa Agricultural Summit in Des Moines on Saturday, the Texas Republican said he found it 'awfully coincidental' that charges were reportedly set to be brought against Menendez, a leading Democratic critic of Obama's Middle East policy, during such a fraught period in US negotiations with Iran." Also, too, Selma & Daylight Savings Time.
Beyond the Beltway
Samantha Masunaga of the Los Angeles Times: "A bill dissolving Cover Oregon, the state's dysfunctional health insurance exchange, has been signed by Gov. Kate Brown. The measure, which had bipartisan support, transfers responsibilities for the Oregon exchange to the state Department of Consumer and Business Services."
Katie Dean of the Capital Times: "Protesters gathered at noon Saturday in front of the Madison Police Department at 211 S. Carroll St. in response to the shooting of a 19-year-old African-American man, identified by friends and family as Tony Terrell Robinson Jr., who was killed Friday evening after an incident with a Madison police officer."
News Ledes
New York Times: "Two Chechens, one a police officer who fought Islamic insurgents and the second a security guard, were charged in a Moscow court on Sunday in connection with the killing of Boris Y. Nemtsov, a leading Kremlin critic, while three other suspects were jailed pending further investigation.Judge Nataliya Mushnikova of Basmanny District Court said that the officer, Zaur Dadayev, had confessed to involvement in the killing and that other evidence confirmed his participation...."
New York Times: "A suspect in the murder of the opposition politician Boris Y. Nemtsov blew himself up as the police closed in on him overnight, Russian news reports said on Sunday, while new disclosures indicated that one of the men already detained in the killing had served as a police officer in the fight against Islamic insurgents. Five suspects were due to be arraigned at Basmanny District Court in Moscow.... Security forces established a cordon around the court."
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Reader Comments (9)
Karma’s a bitch. I’d guess that as we move more and more into a caucasian minority electorate, whitey’s gonna have to prove more and more why he should be allowed to vote. Sounds okay to me. He’s done a pretty shitty job running the show recently.
Re; lighting the way. In just about a century and a half we've gone from burning the carbon of choice for our modern times to converting the sun's energy into a useable power source.
Burning the carbon of choice on a worldly scale is no different than BBQing in the closet. BFB (bad for breathing)
The carbon extract industries as typified by the companies own by the Kock brothers are doing their best to block the progress of science because of their own self interests.
The politicians siding with the Kock brothers for financial backing for their own best interests have no real concerns about the long term interests of the country or its citizens.
The support by the red staters for solar power as reported above may be a avenue for political change.
Freeeedom from Big Brother has long been a rally cry for the right, Well, Billy Bob and Rev. Righteous fight the power! The power companies that is.
Can Billy Bob connect the dots? Probably not. Too bad.
Crude, nice word.
The link that cites a Harris Wofford piece in Politico takes us to a Ron Christi piece in Daily Beast.
The article on Jeb Bush and the failed Charter school is such a sad, but familiar story. Bush, gung ho and giving it his all in the beginning of this enterprise, slowly easing away letting the bricks literally fall where they may–-and did. The picture of Bush with all those children scrabbling over him is emblematic of the problem: We see only Bush's large, white face sticking out almost as if it had been photo shopped while lovely black children seem eager to surround him with grateful acknowledgment. A dream deferred for all those children when the guy with clout closed the door and went about his run for governor. Do we give him credit for trying?–– absolutely if sincere. But one can't help sensing a bit of political energy going into that endeavor to add to his bona fides.
Re: pronouns and Rand's me, myself and I: I've noticed that there is a problem with the pronoun,"me." Somehow people find "I" much easier and fancier to say, albeit incorrectly: "They gave the award to Dick and I;" "I was so pleased that she took Sue and I on the cruise." And I wonder when I hear newscasters make these errors along with others in the entertainment media––actually heard Jon Stewart say "He was really good to my son and I" the other night–––what has happened to little old "ME."
@PD Pepe: Thanks for the note on the Wofford link. I fixed it.
I agree that the use of the subject pronoun (and of the reflexive) is usually an attempt to use "fancy English." And in fairness to Paul & Stewart, it's easy to make these mistakes while speaking, although Li'l Randy's use of "myself" is pretty tortured. I have trouble with "who" & "whom" even in writing, & I regularly get them backwards while speaking.
Marie
@PD, I understand you are a trained teacher of grammar so I'm treading water here, but didn't Sister Zoe the scourge of sixth grade and the ruler of the ruler beat into our heads that if you want to know which personal pronoun to use just drop one person out of the sentence and see how it sounds? " they gave the Oscar to Marie and I" " they gave the Oscar to I" or " they gave the Oscar to me".
Sister Zoe, pincher of ears, teacher of the unteachable, she and I going head to head. Old habits never die.
I have long thought that the use of nominative "I" where the accusative "me" is required, when a speaker is citing two persons, comes from politeness, and the fact that proper nouns (names) take no case. Consider:
"She waved to Bob and I."
The speaker politely puts "Bob" first, rather than himself. But "no case Bob" sounds just like "nominative Bob", and (nominative)"I" goes easily with "nominative Bob."
If you are less polite and put yourself first in the sentence, "She waved to me and Bob" is clearly correct, and sounds and feels correct -- you don't have the urge to use nominative "I" to match the "no case" Bob.
Plus ... Sister Zoe (in my case, Caedmon) used to make us diagram sentences, apparently a lost art in elementary school -- and as JJG notes, backed the lesson up forcefully.
JJG: Oh, for the stories of you and Sister Zoe–-would love to hear them. My Sister Zoe was my mother who, a teacher herself, would say (and few would say this today)–––"that is they"––coming round the bend to visit us. We say, "this is she" or "this is he," but never do I hear the former. Another bugaboo of hers was the ubiquitous, "I feel badly"––No, you don't, my mother would say, unless your fingers are frozen. She had a blackboard in our kitchen and would put new words on each week. I learned to read early on, but because of this "sight" learning, I am a terrible speller. And yes, Patrick, many hours spent diagramming sentences which as you say, is a lost art.
@ Marie: thanks for fixing the Wofford link. I loved this paragraph:
"To the hundreds of marchers, King announced that we would march peacefully in obedience to a higher law. He often liked to invoke the Constitution, and as a former Notre Dame constitutional law teacher I wanted the justification of the First Amendment if we were going to break the injunction. Writing on my yellow pad, “First Amendment” in large letters, I passed the note up to King as he spoke. He was eloquently invoking the Bible to support the march, and then, glancing down at the note, he added, “And we march in the name of the Constitution, knowing the Constitution is on our side. The right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances shall not be abridged. That’s the First Amendment.”
Rick Scott, for political expediency and lust for wingnuttery, allegedly demanded that workers at Florida's Department of Environmental Protection remove the words 'global warming,' 'climate change,' and even the sacrilegious 'sustainable' from their lexicon.
If we shut our eyes and believe hard enough, anything can become true in Right Wing World.
Nothing shocking here obviously, but I find it particularly egregious to eliminate the entire idea of sustainability. Holy shit! We're talking about the people in charge of securing the future of an entire state and all the citizens and cities within that state, completely neglecting a central concept to that secure future.
They could easily speak out of their asses while mounting some baseless argument combining endless fossil fuel use leading to future sustainability if they wanted to. But to entirely eliminate the concept of sustainability while managing a state in the crosshairs of future climate change is as radical and irresponsible as humanely possible.
The strategy is obviously to push off Florida's investment (especially real estate) Armageddon as investors pull their money out of the disappearing coasts and Miami requires rain boots to take a walk downtown. That the MLS is considering building a new stadium downtown Miami is proof that these financial elites and economic brainiacs can't see longer than their current bank accounts and the future be damned.
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-03-08/florida-officials-say-they-were-banned-from-saying-climate-change-and-global-warming-