;)
The Commentariat -- May 12, 2016
Afternoon Update:
Sarah Kliff of Vox: "Former House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) filed a lawsuit last July contending that the White House had broken the law by giving insurance companies money that Congress hadn't authorized. DC District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer ruled Thursday that the House Republicans were right: The Obama administration does not have legal authority to provide low-income Obamacare enrollees with subsidies to help pay their deductibles and co-payments. The ruling is not final; the Obama administration will near certainly appeal this ruling to an appellate court. But if other courts were to find in the Republicans' favor, and the decision to hold, it would have sweeping implications, significantly reshaping the relationship between the executive and legislative branches and striking a significant blow against the people Obamacare was designed to help." CW: Collyer is a Bush II appointee & is the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Jose DelReal & Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan struck a conciliatory tone after meeting in Washington Thursday, seeking to ease tensions that flared last week when Ryan said he is not ready to endorse the business mogul in his bid for the White House. 'While we were honest about our few differences, we recognize that there are also many important areas of common ground,' Trump and Ryan (R-Wis.) said in a joint statement...." -- CW
Benjamin Weiser & Vivian Yee of the New York Times: "Dean G. Skelos, the once powerful Republican majority leader of the New York State Senate who was convicted with his son in December on federal corruption charges, was sentenced to five years in prison on Thursday." -- CW
The Incremental Pope. Elisabetta Povoledo & Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times: "Pope Francis suggested on Thursday that he was open to studying whether women can serve as deacons in the Roman Catholic Church, revealing an openness -- if nothing else -- to re-examining the church's long-held insistence on an all-male clergy. The pope's comments were made during an assembly of leaders of female Catholic religious congregations, and were consistent with his off-the-cuff style: a seemingly impromptu remark that opened a broad horizon of possibilities...." -- CW
Freida Frisaro of the AP: "An online auction was halted without explanation Thursday for the pistol that former Florida neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman used to kill unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin. The weapon was removed from the GunBroker.com website, minutes after the auction was to begin. It was not immediately clear why the website took down the listing." -- CW
A Man, a Plan, Panama, and Oops...Telesur, the Latin American television network: "Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has been linked to anonymous companies created by the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, according to documents released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists known as the ICIJ...The leaked documents show that the Trump empire is linked to 32 offshore companies, including the real estate project Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower in Panama. His name appears 3,540 times in the database, but according to media reports that doesn't mean he is directly involved since Trump has sold his name to other investors in different countries." -- Akhilleus
*****
Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times: "The director of the F.B.I. reignited the factious debate over a so-called 'Ferguson effect' on Wednesday, saying that he believed less aggressive policing was driving an alarming spike in murders in many cities. James Comey, the director, said that while he could offer no statistical proof, he believed after speaking with a number of police officials that a 'viral video effect' -- with officers wary of confronting suspects for fear of ending up on a video -- 'could well be at the heart' of a spike in violent crime in some cities." CW: Yes, please don't record officers wantonly shooting citizens because that would be hampering "police work."
Andrea Peterson & Jonelle Marte of the Washington Post: "Google announced Wednesday that it will ban all payday loan ads from its site, bowing to concerns by advocates who say the lending practice exploits the poor and vulnerable by offering them immediate cash that must be paid back under sky-high interest rates." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... CW: So now we have Google, a for-profit corporation which stands to lose millions by its decision, showing more concern for suckering poor people that does the chairperson of the Democratic National Committee. Fire Debbie Wassterman Schultz! Turns out corporations have souls, my friend; Wasserman Schultz sold hers to the devil with the deep pockets.
Shane Harris of The Daily Beast: "The Obama administration may soon release 28 classified pages from a congressional investigation that allegedly links Saudis in the United States to the 9/11 attackers. But in Florida, a federal judge is weighing whether to declassify portions of some 80,000 classified pages that could reveal far more about the hijackers' Saudis connections and their activities in the weeks preceding the worst attack on U.S. soil." --safari
Capitalism Is Disgusting. Terrence McCoy of the Washington Post: "A Chevy Chase company that reaped millions of dollars from deals with poor, disabled victims of lead-paint poisoning in Baltimore has been accused of committing fraud and deceiving court officials, according to a lawsuit filed this week by the Maryland attorney general's office. The civil suit alleges that Access Funding violated state law when it aggressively pursued scores of mentally impaired lead-poisoning victims, persuaded them to sell the settlements they received in personal injury lawsuits for a fraction of their worth and then withheld vital information from the courts that approved the deals." CW BTW: Brian Frosh, Maryland's AG, is a Democrat.
It's here folks. Simon Albert et al via Juan Cole: "Sea-level rise, erosion and coastal flooding are some of the greatest challenges facing humanity from climate change. Recently at least five reef islands in the remote Solomon Islands have been lost completely to sea-level rise and coastal erosion, and a further six islands have been severely eroded." --safari
Presidential Race
Gail Collins thinks Democrats may go all kumbaya when the primaries are over. CW BTW: If your memory has faded & you think Hillary was a gracious loser in 2008, you may want to read my comment on Collins' column. Part of her rationale for staying in the race: Hey, maybe Obama will be assassinated! (Click on "Readers' Picks.")
Gabriel Debenetti of Politico: "Bernie Sanders' campaign parted ways with its California state director Michael Ceraso on Wednesday morning, 27 days before the primary in the state that Sanders has repeatedly said is crucial to his effort to capture the Democratic nomination. The surprise move came after a period when Ceraso advocated for a California strategy that involved more investment on field and digital organizing than on television advertising -- a staple of Sanders' campaign elsewhere so far -- he told Politico." -- CW
Gabriel Debenetti: "A group of Bernie Sanders staffers and volunteers is circulating a draft proposal calling on the senator to get out of the presidential race after the final burst of Democratic primaries on June 7, and concentrate on building a national progressive organization to stop Donald Trump." --safari
Janell Ross of the Washington Post interviews professors Nadia Brown & Sarah Elise Wiliarty on Hillary Clinton as a female presidential candidate and how she should deal with Donald Trump's misogynistic attacks. CW recommended.
Sarah Burris of RawStory: "Proud card-carrying NRA board member and habitual racist, anti-Semite Ted Nugent had another ragespasm Wednesday on his Facebook page. The aging rocker posted a fake video of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) taking out a gun and shooting Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, according to Media Matters.... Nugent is scheduled to speak at the NRA's annual meeting where he will deliver a speech titled '2016 Election: Do or Die for America and Freedom.'" --safari
Patrick Healy & Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "Hillary Clinton on Wednesday mocked Donald J. Trump as evasive and secretive after he suggested that he would not release his tax returns before the November election, which would be a break with 40 years of political precedent. But Mr. Trump quickly hit back, saying that he still intended to release his tax returns as soon as a federal audit was completed -- and that Mrs. Clinton was hitting him out of desperation." -- CW ...
... Scott Bixby of the Guardian: "Donald Trump's refusal to release his tax returns is 'disqualifying' for a presidential candidate, his predecessor as Republican nominee Mitt Romney has said. 'There is only one logical explanation for Mr Trump's refusal to release his returns: there is a bombshell in them,' Romney wrote." --safari ...
... Timothy O'Brien of Bloomberg: "... on Tuesday night..., [Donald Trump] seemed to close the door for good on [releasing his returns]. He told the Associated Press that he wouldn't release his returns prior to the November elections unless what he described as Internal Revenue Service audit of his finances was complete.... Trump then ... reversed course again last night, telling Fox News that he would, indeed, release his taxes before the elections. 'I'll release. Hopefully before the election I'll release,' he said.' O'Brien has seen Trump's returns. CW: I absolutely, totally believe him based on his long record of honest, forthright telling-it-like-it-is truthiness. Hopefully before the election. ...
... Patrick Caldwell of Mother Jones: "Mitt Romney ripped into Donald Trump on Wednesday afternoon, claiming that Trump is unfit for the presidency if he doesn't release his tax returns. Romney took to Facebook to share his message, saying 'it is disqualifying for a modern-day presidential nominee to refuse to release tax returns to the voters, especially one who has not been subject to public scrutiny in either military or public service.... There is only one logical explanation for Mr. Trump's refusal to release his returns: there is a bombshell in them. Given Mr. Trump's equanimity with other flaws in his history, we can only assume it's a bombshell of unusual size.'" -- CW
There's nothing to learn from them. -- Donald Trump, explaining why he won’t release his tax returns, in an interview with the Associated Press, May 11
... voters would learn a lot of information that Trump has long tried to hide from the public. Tax returns would help lift a veil of secrecy about Trump's finances -- and let voters know whether his claims about his wealth and charitable giving are true, or if he's just a bombastic man behind the curtain akin to the Wizard of Oz. -- Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post ...
... Many Happy Returns? David Graham of The Atlantic on why Donald Trump's tax returns are important: He's far wealthier than any other candidate to run for president, and he has a long history of questionable finances, and faces other allegations. His companies have declared bankruptcy four times. He's been fined by the Federal Trade Commission for improper behavior. He incorrectly received a tax break for people making less than $500,000 per year. All of this means that people might have legitimate questions about what Trump is doing with his supposed vast sums ... and further whether the techniques he likely uses to reduce his tax obligations (like many wealthy people) are appropriate, even when they are legal. -- Akhilleus (Also linked yesterday.)
Kevin Cirilli & Jennifer Jacobs of Bloomberg: "Donald Trump has discussed in recent days the possibility of selecting former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich as his running mate, according to people familiar with the talks." CW: Excellent choice! What America needs is not one but two philandering aged racist white guys to set examples for the rest of us schmucks. Maybe they could swap third wives in the Lincoln bedroom.
Hanna Trudo of Politico: "Donald Trump has demoted his proposed Muslim immigration ban to a mere 'suggestion.' In a radio interview with Fox News' Brian Kilmeade on Wednesday..., [Trump] softened his call to temporarily prohibit Muslims from entering the United States. 'We have a serious problem. It's a temporary ban. It hasn't been called for yet. Nobody's done it. This is just a suggestion until we find out what's going on,' Trump said." CW: I still absolutely, totally believe Trump.
Steven Erlanger & Stephen Castle of the New York Times: "The new mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said on Wednesday that his election in the face of a divisive campaign highlighting his religion is a lesson to Donald J. Trump that Islam is perfectly compatible with Western values. Mr. Trump is 'playing into the hands of extremists' and is 'ignorant about Islam,' Mr. Khan said. 'Daesh, ISIS, all those guys, hate the fact that I am mayor of London. Why? Because it contradicts what they say, which is that Western liberal values are incompatible with Islam.'" CW: In fairness to Trump, he's ignorant about everything.
Eric Levitz of New York:"...Evidence continues to mount that no one has done more to further the cause of Hispanic-American enfranchisement than Donald J. Trump...In Iowa, the Washington Post reports that labor leaders believe five times more Hispanics voted in this year's caucuses than did in 2008. And in the potential swing states of North Carolina and Georgia, voter registration among Hispanics is increasing faster than it is among blacks or whites.... Still, Trump probably can't claim full credit for the registration surge. As Philip Bump notes, part of the phenomenon could be due to the relative youth of the Hispanic population." --safari
The Flip-Flop Flim-Flam. Steve Benen: "I've lost count of how many reports I've seen the past few days insisting that Donald Trump 'flip-flopped' on tax breaks for the wealthy.... I sympathize with journalists who fell for Trump's trick; the candidate has deliberately used misleading language that has muddled the conversation....But when it comes to taxes and the wealthy, Trump has already released a written plan that proposes massive tax breaks for the wealthy. When he recently talked about rates going 'up,' Trump clarified soon after that he wasn't talking about increases relative to current policy. And now he's brought in high-profile, supply-side economists to touch up Trump's tax plan, while protecting tax breaks for the rich.... For Trump, the debate is about the size of the tax break for the wealthy: he believes it should be a massive tax cut, but he's open to accepting a slightly less massive tax cut." -- CW
David Graham of The Atlantic: "For years, the two parties have been in an arms race over how to deal with the new capabilities opened up by technology and data -- things like finding potential voters, advertising to them, and getting them to vote, though the whole suite of things is often shorthanded as 'microtargeting,' which is just part of it...Now comes Trump, saying he won't bother with data. (To be fair, Trump aides have suggested in the past that they really are building an info effort.)" --safari
It's the stupid voters, stupid. Jonathan Chait of New York: "Why did almost everybody fail to predict Donald Trump's victory in the Republican primaries?...Here's the factor I think everybody missed: The Republican Party turns out to be filled with idiots. Far more of them than anybody expected." --safari ...
... Jeet Heer of the New Republic: "Far from being idiots, [Trump supporters] are people who would normally be considered functioning and successful. Trump's supporters are better educated and wealthier than the American average.... Rather than characterizing them as losers who are easily fooled, Trump's supporters -- who amount to at least a plurality of the Republican primary electorate -- deserve to be looked at in their own terms. Trump's essential appeal is based on racism.... His racist pitch succeeded because the Republican Party is overwhelmingly white and has relied heavily on dog-whistle appeals to racism since the early 1960s.... Racism is evil, but it is not idiotic from the point of view of racists. White racists see themselves as benefitting from Trump's proposal to shore up the old racial status quo. Their value system deserves to be challenged, but they aren't being fooled by Trump." -- CW ...
... Kevin Drum: "Compared to what?" Whatever you think of the Republican electorate, they made it through 2008 without nominating Rudy Giuliani or Fred Thompson. Then they made it through 2012 without nominating Herman Cain or Michele Bachmann. Instead they nominated two very normal party warhorses, John McCain and Mitt Romney.... Did the GOP electorate suddenly lose a couple dozen collective IQ points over the past four years?... Something other than the idiocy of the Republican base was at work here. But what? Sometimes I feel like I'm the last person in America who still isn't quite sure how Trump managed to win. Seriously, America, WTF?" Drum offers a few possibilities but concludes, "Admittedly, this is just a fancy way of saying: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯" -- CW ...
... Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker: "There is a simple formula for descriptions of Donald Trump: add together a qualification, a hyphen, and the word 'fascist.' The sum may be crypto-fascist, neo-fascist, latent fascist, proto-fascist, or American-variety fascist one of that kind, all the same ... Trump is not Hitler. (Though replace 'Muslim' with 'Jew' in many of Trump's diktats and you will feel a little less complacent.) But the worst sometimes happens. If people of good will fail to act, and soon, it can happen here." --safari
Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Ted Cruz isn't giving up. While Donald Trump dispatches three advisers to Texas's convention in Dallas this week and makes a pitch for party unity, his team will be running up against a Cruz operation that is still maneuvering to stuff the state's delegation with allies the senator could call on to snub the presumptive nominee." --safari
Senate Races
Burgess Everett & Seung Min Kim of Politico: "Rep. Alan Grayson angrily confronted Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid on Wednesday, disrupting a meeting of the Congressional Progressive Caucus in front of dozens of staffers and members of Congress. Grayson (D-Fla.), whose bid for the open Florida Senate seat Reid vehemently opposes, arrived at the meeting with Reid's February statement in hand, according to two sources in the room. In that statement, Reid said Grayson has 'no moral compass' and 'used his status as a congressman to unethically promote his Cayman Islands hedge funds.'... 'Why'd you say that?' Grayson said, insisting Reid's statement was false. Reid calmly faced his inquisitor: 'I want you to lose. It's true.'" -- CW
Patrick Svitek of the Texas Tribune: "U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is officially running for re-election in 2018. Cruz filed paperwork Wednesday afternoon to seek a second term, adding some clarity to his political future just over a week after he ended his presidential campaign." -- CW
Beyond the Beltway
David Edwards of RawStory: "North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) asserted on Wednesday that the U.S. Congress should review the entire 1964 Civil Rights Act because he did not like the way the Department of Justice was using it to protect transgender bathroom rights.... McCrory argued that the solution was to 'make special circumstances' by allowing the transgender girl to use a segregated bathroom. 'But now the Civil Right Division of the U.S. Justice Department has deemed those types of arrangements to be discriminatory,' McCrory remarked. --safari
Jordan Steffen of the Denver Post: "Fourth Judicial District Chief Judge Gilbert Martinez found that [Colorado Spring Planned Parenthood (alleged) multiple murderer Robert Lewis] Dear is not mentally capable of participating in and understanding the case against him." The judge sent him to the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo. -- CW
Clean California. Rob Nikolewski of the Los Angeles Times: California's "use of coal to generate electricity has dropped ... dramatically -- essentially going from small to almost microscopic.... Coal's decline is largely a result of two factors: utilities switching from coal-fired to natural gas-fired power plants because of low prices for the latter fuel, and government rules aimed at making the air cleaner and hastening the adoption of renewable energy sources.... But the mining industry is quick to point out that electricity rates in California are among the highest in the country.... But coal's critics say the public-health costs linked to pollution have to be taken into account." -- CW
Claire Landsbaum of New York: "George Zimmerman, who's best known for shooting and killing 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in February 2012, is back in the news ... for attempting to auction off the firearm he used in the shooting. On Wednesday, Zimmerman posted a listing putting the infamous gun up for auction, calling it 'a piece of American history' and opening the bidding at $5,000. 'I thought it's time to move past the firearm,' Zimmerman said in an interview with Fox. 'And if I sell it, and it sells, I move past it. Otherwise it's going in a safe for my grandkids.'" CW: Kinda like if Lee Harvey Oswald had lived, he could have auctioned off his rifle. ...
... Update: See Akhilleus's commentary in today's thread.
AND South Carolina Is Still South Carolina. AP: "Authorities in South Carolina say a barber with a history of aggressive behavior toward potential customers faces charges for pulling a gun on a man and telling him he 'does not cut black hair.' A York County Sheriff's Office report says when the man asked 65-year-old Larry Thomas what he meant, the man said Thomas grabbed a pistol and held it at his side." -- CW
Way Beyond
Andrew Jacobs & Simon Romero of the New York Times: "Brazil's Senate voted Thursday morning to suspend President Dilma Rousseff and begin an impeachment trial against her, ousting a deeply unpopular leader whose sagging political fortunes have come to embody widespread public anger over systemic corruption and a battered economy." -- CW ...
... Jonathan Watts of the Guardian: "Less than halfway through her elected mandate, Dilma Rousseff appears set to be stripped of her presidential duties for at least six months after a majority of senators said they would vote on Thursday to impeach her and put her on trial.... A formal vote is expected in the next hour." --safari
Xi Are Not Amused, Either. China Censors Queen Elizabeth's Remarks. Peter Hunt of BBC News: "Coverage of the comments has been censored in China where a report on BBC World News was blanked out. Instead, state media outlets have dedicated their coverage to the Queen's dress sense and notable party attendees. Social media users have been keen to comment, but many appear to have had their posts removed by online censors." -- CW (See related story linked yesterday, & video.) (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
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Reader Comments (14)
...more in Trump's flip-flopping, media gamesmanship:
And we keep wondering, WHY no one is asking the hard questions. Charles Pierce seems to know as he takes on pack journalism with The problem never has been timidity. It's been starfcking. from Kennedy onward, with Reagan who ... so thoroughly believed his own press and so thoroughly engaged himself in his own mythology. As for the Donald, He is a fully armed and operational " bullshit station ", almost sui generis in that regard.
It's been there forever, the ego, the attitude, the bullshit —when twenty-five years ago Marie Brenner of Vanity Fair captured the essense of early Trump " nothing has changed "
She wrote: "He was already fodder for the dailies and the weeklies, but he was desperate for national attention. “Did you see that The New York Times said I looked like Robert Redford?”
Ahh, Donald, that was then, well before you turned blond...but, with recent headline grabs of late, more images are turning up almost side-by-side on Web sites (HuffPost) that appear to show you looking a lot more like a Sumner Redstone in the making.
In the big scheme of things Donald Trump, bathroom controversy, gun violence, etc. will be looked at as small potatoes when the environmental changes throughout the world seriously impact all countries on this planet. When safari posts this:
" Recently at least five reef islands in the remote Solomon Islands have been lost completely to sea-level rise and coastal erosion, and a further six islands have been severely eroded."
I'm once again reminded how crucial our concentration on Global Warming needs to be. Many of us here might be dead by the time Florida sinks or millions have to evacuate a middle east country because it will be too hot, but bad things are going to happen and it looks like the many heads in the sand don't give a flying fig.
But back to our small potatoes looming large. Got a kick out of Chait's finally losing the euphemisms and using the word "idiots" while Jeet Heer disagrees and gives us a counter argument and finally Kevin Drum is still scratching his head. Perhaps it's a combination of all three––there is no easy explanation, but such fun to try and make sense of it all. (Liked MAG's contribution to all of this.)
Fun, but terrifying.
Fox hero and Confederate icon, George Zimmerman, a murdering, lying, cowardly moocher, apparently unwilling to work for a living, is auctioning off the weapon he used to murder an unarmed teenager for the crime of being black.
A true Fox hero!
Typically, Zimmerman's interview with Fox (of course with Fox) was packed with the usual fetid winger combination of hatred, victimhood, self-pity, self aggrandizement, and....what else.....oh, yeah. Lies.
Zimmerman claims that the Justice department tried to make his weapon "inoperable" (sad face with white hood) but luckily, it's still in prime nee-groe killing condition. Whew. That was a close one!
He goes on to lie that "many have expressed interest in owning and displaying the firearm including The Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C." A lie quickly outed by museum officials in a terse statement: "The Smithsonian has never expressed interest in collecting George Zimmerman’s firearm. The Smithsonian has no plans to ever collect or display this object in any of its museums."
Damn, George, caught in another lie, eh? Tough going, old chap. But never mind. So tell us George, what do you intend to do with the millions this "piece of American history" will bring you?
"...a portion of the proceeds will be used to fight [Black Lives Matter] violence against Law Enforcement officers, ensure the demise of Angela Correy's persecution career and Hillary Clinton's anti-firearm rhetoric."
Ahh...so Zimmerman wants to fight those mean old Black Lives Matter people who something, something, something violence, police, something. Right? Very nice. Because Black Lives Matter is the real villain here, right? George Zimmerman is the besieged hero.
Could there be a more reprehensible reptile slithering through the fever swamps of right-wing world? Sadly, there are plenty of them. Zimmerman is just one of many, but he's a particularly revolting example.
But to hold this guy up as a hero? Are these people completely off their rockers? Racial hatred must be a powerful antidote for common sense and decency. I can't imagine what it must be like to be so dramatically and terribly wrong, not just incorrect, but morally unmoored, about so many things.
No wonder Trump is carrying their banner.
Trump: The aesthete.
When I was living in NY I recalled a particularly disgusting example of esthetic barbarism and egocentric profligacy, an episode I was reminded of this morning.
The Bonwit Teller building at 57th and Fifth had just been bought and was being razed for a particularly gaudy and priapic example of Reagan era excess and ostentation. The building's facade was decorated with several fine examples of art deco statuary. The Metropolitan Museum of Art asked that these friezes be preserved for their collection. Here's what happened, according to the Times, June 6, 1980:
"Two stone bas-relief sculptures high on the façade of the Bonwit Teller Building under demolition on Fifth Avenue — pieces that had been sought with enthusiasm by the Metropolitan Museum of Art — were smashed by jackhammers yesterday on the orders of a real estate developer."
The developer? Donald Trump.
Initially Trump, hiding behind the fictional name of John Barron (a name, apparently frequently used by Trump as a media buffer for many similar occasions) claimed that no fewer than three independent appraisers declared them worthless. This John Barron declared that it would have cost $32,000 to remove them. Later, after a firestorm erupted over this unnecessary barbarism, Trump, in his own voice, upped the price of removal to half a million.
Whatever it takes to get the monkey off his back.
Remember when Reagan's Interior Sec'y, James Watt, wanted to sell off Yellowstone so it could be strip mined?
Trump was only getting going back in 1980. Today, he'd do that sort of thing in a heartbeat.
From Akhilleus's piece on George Zimmerman's latest escapade, "But to hold this guy up as a hero? Are these people completely off their rockers? Racial hatred must be a powerful antidote for common sense and decency. I can't imagine what it must be like to be so dramatically and terribly wrong, not just incorrect, but morally unmoored, about so many things."
I think "these people" refers to Fox News. Sadly, although I am sure there is racism present, I think the prime motivator is always profit. Roger Ailes found an unserved market and Fox News has been mining it ever since. So being wrong or seeming to be without morals is irrelevant to them.
Even sadder, profit is the driving factor behind all "so call news"/entertainment shows. The days of CBS News with Walter Cronkite or the Huntley/Brinkley Report with 15 minutes of news is long gone. There was not much profit in that.
The merger of news and opinion is sort of like the merger of banking and speculative investment. We pay the price in the long run.
I won't even start on the immoral impact of profit on those needing healthcare. Call me naive but surely we are better than this.
Bad news...
Federal Judge Collyer finds against ACA. Sorry, no details found. Read it on Turley's blog.
Last night I watched the final episode of a police procedural series about a serial killer (called "The Fall," a Netflix production, it was quite good). Of course this is fiction, so maybe the character doesn't represent the way real killers think, but I was struck by his (that is, the writer's) "justification" for his acts: they caused him to "feel" things more deeply, something that all of us lesser mortals could never know or even properly imagine. There's another character in the series who's an unrepentant pederast, who argues that he was just teaching young boys about their natural desires. And love.
I imagine that's pretty much the way George Zimmerman thinks about himself -- that he's a special, gifted person whom so many of us regular jerks lack the capacity to understand and whose "good deeds" the public & the police fail to appreciate. Zimmerman is, I think, like the characters in the teevee show, irredeemable.
Many people who do bad things, even horrible things, come to terms with what they've done. They feel guilt & shame. I don't see Zimmerman as ever coming to such insights about himself. There's the difference, I guess between a bad guy & a monster.
Marie
David,
My reference to "these people" was meant to include the audience for the stuff shoveled out by Ailes and the Clear Channel hate merchants. It's true, they sell hate, but if no one is buying it, they'd have to find something else.
The Trayvon Martin murder only became a big deal (if I recall correctly) when the president, in response to a question, said that if he had a son, he could have looked like Trayvon. This simple expression of sadness at where we are as a nation sent the Confederacy into orbit. Before that, it was a police blotter event, third page at best, after that it was A Thing. The haters were out in force because the president was talking about RACE, something only racists do. Thus, the racists, the people who have always hated the idea of a black man in their White House, all of a sudden had a new toy to play with. Why, naturally, the answer was there all along, as Glenn Beck recognized: They weren't the racists, by jing. BLACK PEOPLE are the racists, and racist number one is Obama, the guy from Kenya.
The Chait piece linked above points out the inordinate number of idiots who have registered as Republicans. These are the people lining up to vote for the orange headed racist clown. Yes they are ignorant, a lot of them, but there are also a huge number of racists in that group. And Trump doesn't even bother with the dog whistles anymore.
These are the people who hold up someone like George Zimmerman because, all at once, Zimmerman went from being a stupid schmuck to a Confederate cause. If liberals and OBAMA think he did something wrong, he MUST be a great guy, and our personal hero. After all, he did give that black boy what for, right? What business did he and his hoodie have a nice white neighborhood? Huh?
It's a regular feature of the Confederacy. If you stir the anger of liberals then you're our BFF. You shoot an unarmed black kid and some people want an investigation? Fuck them! You're a hero!
So the cop who shot Michael Brown is a hero, George Zimmerman is a hero. Bundy threatens to shoot government agents in cold blood and he knows a lot about them nigras. He's a hero too. Trump is a hero because he wants to put certain people in their place. And look at who his buds are? White supremacists.
He's their kind of guy.
So, yes, "these people" certainly does include ratfuckers like Ailes and O'Reilly and Murdoch. They make money off the hate they peddle. But their audience is a factor as well.
So nice to see that a judge appointed by the stupidest president in US history (so far) is helping the most useless, soporific, stunted, rapacious, ideologically indentured, begrudgingly deterministic House of Representatives screw poor Americans out of healthcare.
Nice going, judge.
These people all deserve their own special ring of hell. Where's that fucking Alighieri guy when you need him?
Might have to call Virgil instead.
The Way it Works.
I meant to comment earlier on the so-called Ferguson Effect but was too busy puking after reading about it.
People who complain about the deleterious effects of videotaping the actions of police officers have, historically, been the very first in line (actually purchasing sleeping bags for crashing on the sidewalk so as to voice their opinions at the fucking crack of dawn before any bleeding heart, evil lib'ruls could make their point) to lecture the rest of us--fingers wagging like corn stalks in a stiff breeze--during the Bush Debacle, that anyone who wasn't happy with Darth Cheney putting their lives under the microscope, must be some kind of commie/mooslim/'merica hating ter'rist, because (and here it is) "if you have nothing to hide, what's the problem?" You don't want Bush and Cheney to see what library books you've checked out? How come? Are you a fucking TER'RIST?
This sort of high and mighty position obtains except when it comes to them. Or to cops beating up suspects. Then observation of such is bad, evil, anti-American. And Saint Ronnie Rayguns would not be happy.
IOKIYAR is a fully realized way of life.
I listened to the BBC's "World Tonight" a few minutes ago, and was disturbed to hear interviews with an voters living in Charlotte, NC. James Coomarasamy interviewed the same voters in '09, '12 and recently, asking them how things had changed for them. The African American gentleman said that whilst he had voted for Obama twice, he was disappointed that the election of this President had done nothing for him. Perhaps the ACA hasn't affected him, but as we RC'ers know, there are so many aspects of his life that will potentially be affected by a vote to the right. More Scalia's on the SC, further degradation of the VRA, the EPA,voter disenfranchisement, restriction on women's health care, more wars, CU on steroids, on and on. Not to mention the effect on the social welfare programs of something like the Ryan "budget", which perhaps don't affect him directly as a small business owner. Does this voter seriously think his life would have been the same under McCain or Romney? Do people still think shrub and Gore or Kerry were interchangeable?
It is hard to campaign on "How things would have been worse if you'd elected Them!" but Obama and the Dems have failed to articulate the benefits of this presidency. This man said he is considering voting for trump, as he doesn't think HRC is on his side. I don't think this gentleman is stupid, but he is ignorant. When politics has become "Entertainment" or "Reality TV", this is what we end up with.
PS: Talking about pols not being asked, or forced to answer the hard questions, I'd love to see any of them up against Martha Kearney on the BBC's World at One. The Brit pols take an absolute grilling, while their US counterparts don't know they're alive. There are a number of programs the British pols have to endure, that their US counterparts would not survive. Any Questions with Jonathan Dimbleby is another one over which they sweat blood. In the nicest possible way.
Gloria
"Hard Talk" is another. I couldn't believe the 30 minute grilling a guy got the first time I heard the program. And they just don't grill Brits. The take on men (diplomatic types mostly) from other nations. (I've never heard an interview with a woman.) Unbelievably tough. BBC deserves its independent label.
Haley, you'll be reassured to know that in AQ and WatO, women are routinely put under the salamander! I agree about Hard Talk, since it's TV, it can be painful. The interviewers do their homework thoroughly, and argue with their guests with facts and figures. Listeners hear, "But that's not the case, is it, Minister?"! Or, "But the figures/facts dispute that", or "What s/he actually said is...". And if they continue to prevaricate, hosts will happily say, "I see you're not going to answer the question, so we'll move on".