;)
The Commentariat -- May 18, 2016
Jonnelle Marte of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration will unveil a new rule Wednesday that would make millions of middle-income workers eligible for overtime pay, a move that delivers a long-sought victory for labor groups. The regulations, which were last updated more than a decade ago, would let full-time salaried employees earn overtime if they make up to $47,476 a year, more than double the current threshold of $23,660 a year. The Labor Department estimates that the rule would boost the pay of 4.2 million additional workers. The change is scheduled to take effect Dec. 1." --safari
The outreach to nowhere. Betsy Woodruff of The Daily Beast: "If Republicans want to grow their support with black voters in 2016, they might want to start internally. Over the past few months, all the D.C. members of its black outreach team quit. And the committee only hired one person, a Republican communications consultant who is only committed through November, to take their place. Black Republican leaders are miffed, and say the RNC hasn't delivered on its commitment to invest in outreach to black voters." --safari
Richard Lardner of the AP: "Buckling under conservative pressure, House Republicans pulled a legislative sleight of hand Tuesday and stripped a provision from the annual defense policy bill that would have required young women to sign up for a military draft. The decision triggered an outcry from Democrats, who cast the move as a GOP attempt to avoid a contentious vote on equality for women." --safari
Presidential Race
Thomas Kaplan of the NYT: "Senator Bernie Sanders prevailed over Hillary Clinton on Tuesday in the Oregon primary, according to The Associated Press, while Mrs. Clinton claimed victory in a tight race in Kentucky, the day's other contest...The close result meant that she and Mr. Sanders would effectively split the state's delegates." --safari
Ed Kilgore: "One thing is largely indisputable Bernie Sanders himself could help clear the air by informing his supporters that while there are many things about the Democratic nomination process that ought to be changed, no one has 'stolen' the nomination from him or from them...And the best step Sanders' supporters could take to promote their long-term interests in the Democratic Party would be to get a grip before they wind up helping Donald Trump win the presidency. And Bernie Sanders himself has a responsibility to talk his devoted followers off the ledge." --safari
Nick Gass of Politico: "Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown may support Hillary Clinton, but the Democratic senator provided one reason Tuesday that he might think twice before accepting an invitation to be her running mate: Ohio Gov. John Kasich would nominate his replacement if the ticket is successful." --safari
Anybody surprised here? Jonathan Chait:"Donald Trump realizes he has a bad image, and his solution -- other than trying to bully the news media -- is to solve it with lies." --safari note: with a little help from friends...
...Gabriel Sherman of New York: "According to a half dozen sources familiar with [Rupert] Murdoch's thinking, the media mogul has signaled he plans to fully back Trump in the general election against Hillary Clinton." --safari...
...Judd Legum of ThinkProgress: "On Saturday, the New York Times published a detailed piece on how Donald Trump has treated women throughout his life. The story was based on over 50 interviews and many of the women relay their experience through direct quotes...Nevertheless, Trump was able to find his most fervent defenders on Fox News. In a single day, May 16, people appearing on Fox News airwaves offered at least 15 different excuses and justifications of Trump's behavior toward women." ---safari
Reuters: "... Donald Trump said on Tuesday he is willing to talk to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to try to stop Pyongyang's nuclear program, proposing a major shift in U.S. policy toward the isolated nation. In a wide-ranging interview with Reuters, Trump also said he disapproved of Russian President Vladimir Putin's actions in eastern Ukraine, called for a renegotiation of the Paris climate accord, and said he would dismantle most of the Dodd-Frank financial regulations if he is elected president." --safari
Shane Goldmacher of Politico: "Donald Trump likes to say he has created a political movement that has drawn 'millions and millions' of new voters into the Republican Party. But a Politico analysis of the early 2016 voting data show that, so far, it’s just not true. While Trump's insurgent candidacy has spurred record-setting Republican primary turnout in state after state, the early statistics show that the vast majority of those voters aren't actually new to voting or to the Republican Party, but rather they are reliable past voters in general elections. They are only casting ballots in a Republican primary for the first time. It is a distinction with profound consequences for the fall campaign." --safari
Juan Cole: "The revelation that the Central Intelligence Agency provided the tip to the Apartheid South African government that led to Nelson Mandela's arrest should come as no great shock, though the public confirmation is perhaps surprising. Nor is it unconnected to the popularity of Donald Trump, who is proposing a new Apartheid regime with regard to American Muslims." --safari
**Gene Demby of NPR: "It's telling that [Jonathan] Chait finds it easier to imagine that huge swaths of Republican primary voters are childlike and naive, rather than folks who quite rationally dig Trump's direct appeals to their interests -- their racial interests. Maybe we should concede that these declarations are not incidental to his appeal among his supporters, but central" target="_blank"> to them. Calling them 'idiots' posits that they've been duped, when perhaps Trump is saying precisely what they want to hear." --safari
Mickey Rapkin ofDujour has a very long piece on Melania Trump where she affirms [Donald] Trump is not Hitler and the journalist wonders if he'll be attacked by Trumpites for asking her questions. --safari
Jamelle Blouie of Slate: "Guess the politician. He's a dangerous 'authoritarian.' A 'race-baiter' and a 'racist' who divides Americans for political gain. An [arrogant' celebrity of a politician who has no place in the Oval Office. An 'unqualified,' 'incompetent' fraud who 'simply does not understand what it means to be president.' Hell, he can barely give a speech...If you guessed Donald Trump, you would be correct on the merits. But the answer isn't Trump. It's Barack Obama..... Everything [the Confederates] said about Obama is true of Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president. And if Trump becomes president, the boogeyman they've railed against for eight years will be the actual chief executive of the United States of America." --safari
Beyond the Beltway (and Beyond)
Capitalism is Awesome (for a lucky few). Jana Kasperkevic of the Guardian: "The US's top 500 chief executive officers earned 340 times the average worker's wage last year, taking home $12.4m on average, according to a new report. The analysis by the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of US unions, found that the pay of executives leading the S&P 500 index of top companies actually dipped last year. In 2014 the same group earned 373 times more than their workers, earning on average $13.5m." --safari
Nicky Woolf of the Guardian: "Mexicos president, Enrique Peña Nieto, has called for the nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage, announcing that he had signed initiatives proposing that marriage equality be written into the country's constitution and federal civil code." --safari
Emily Atkin of ThinkProgress: "For Planned Parenthood, this election season means war. And you can't win a war without an army. So Planned Parenthood is building one: An army of pro-choice advocates trained in how to win political campaigns.... The training is just one part of what Planned Parenthood says will be the most expensive electoral effort in its 100-year history. Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards told ThinkProgress that her organization plans to spend at least $20 million to help win key Senate races and the presidency this November. " -- safari
Max Rothenthal of Mother Jones: "After the New York Times Magazine published a controversial profile of Ben Rhodes, the White House's deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, conservatives exploded in outrage over the article's portrayal of Rhodes manipulating the media to secure passage of the Iran nuclear deal. Republican senators have called for Rhodes to resign.... But, as our David Corn noted yesterday, one of the three witnesses has plenty of experience in planting "false narratives:"John Hannah, a former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney who played a key role in promoting the flawed intelligence behind the invasion of Iraq." --safari
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Reader Comments (15)
Thank you, safari
Many thanks to safari & Akhilleus for your posts!
Thank you both! Being fairly computer illiterate I'm in awe of your efforts and thankful that you have kept this going.
WaPO article on how congress is "struggling" to provide funding to cope with Zika:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/congress-struggles-to-strike-deal-on-zika-funds-as-concern-about-the-virus-grow/2016/05/17/936cb50a-1c5f-11e6-9c81-4be1c14fb8c8_story.html
One of the authors, Joel Achenbach, has a good sense of humor and may have written this para from the story:
"The scientists on the front lines are anxious and impatient, and two top U.S. officials have questioned whether the cumbersome appropriations process is agile enough to fight mindless microbes guided only by a genetic command to replicate."
I think that they are referring to viral material, but maybe those mindless beings seeking only to sustain and replicate are ... House GOP members?
Continue to keep your eye on this issue ... it shows that even when the GOP House sees the train coming down the track, horn blaring and headlight oscillating, it's anti-spending gospel prevents it from moving. They cannot protect the people.
The suit against Saudi Arabia by the 9/11 survivors has passed in the Senate. Obama has said he will veto it if it reaches his desk. I'm with him all the way. I cannot fathom that we would start this kind of process when our dirty hands have been––for centuries–– all over the globe. Or as Juan Cole puts it, "...a case that in a world where courts are making claims for universal jurisdiction, the U.S should be careful about litigating past political and military conflicts. Washington's list of crimes is so long that sooner or later it will boomerang on the US elites." Read his piece below re: the question whether Iran can then sue the U.S. for the 1953 coup and supporting Saddam Hussein in the Iran/Iraq war?
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/can_iran_sue_the_us_for_coup_supporting_saddam_iran-iraq_war_20160518
As an Infotainment aside, this week's Jeopardy! episodes were filmed in DC, with news and political personalities playing for charities. Last night, Anderson Cooper, Lara Logan (yes, yes...) and former RNC chair Michael Steele were the contestants. It was stunning to see how little Michael Steele knew. He was silent through most of the game.
The Final Jeopardy category was "Countries of the World" and the question was: "This country’s 2 main ethnic groups are Punjabi (who are also found in India) & Pashtun (also living in Afghanistan)."
Hmm, what country is between India and Afghanistan? The first two got it right, but Mr. Steele wrote: “What is a place far, far away?” Sounds like a perfect encapsulation of the Republican view of the rest of the world.
Senator Al Franken will be on one of the remaining shows, not sure which one.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/who-upended-anderson-cooper-in-final-jeopardy-to-win-big-last-night/
My gratitude to safari for the postings!
Kate–-take special notice since I recall you had written about Alan Grayson a few weeks ago. This is an interview (video) that Joy Reid tried to have with Grayson but his deportment was so disruptive that it was relegated to a "if I'm loud enough and talk over you, you will never get the facts" and boy, oh, boy did Joy hang tight to that lasso she was throwing, unlike some others who would have given up after two minutes.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/this-is-the-douchiest-interview-in-cable-news-history/
Looks like Kim Davis won't be vacationing in Mexico anymore if
same sex marriage becomes the law of the land there. She can
always go to those African countries, unless she's also racist as well
as homophobic.
Thanks guys for keeping up the posting!
NiskyGuy,
Hey, at least Steele didn't answer "What is Uzbeki-beki-stan-stan".
I did catch some of the previous night's Jeopardy featuring Chuck Todd and S.E. Cupp along with writer Jonathan Franzen. The Final Jeopardy category was Political Terms, something you'd think would favor Todd, he being a self-proclaimed political junkie and chief political blah, blah, blah at NBC as well as host of one of the Sunday morning chump twisters.
So here was the question, if I can recall the phrasing: In ancient Rome, tribunes would sit at the door of the senate chamber and say this word if they heard something they didn't like.
It's a word heard all the time in political discussions. A word that was being discussed that very day in relation to the White House's likely response to House Republicans' anemic and churlish proposal for funding measures to fight Zika virus incursions in this country, a term often connected with the words "pen" and "pocket".
Okay, I know you have it now. But did Chuck Todd? Not on your life. His answer? "Nay". Not even a Latin word.
The word, of course is "veto". In Latin it is typically used to say "I forbid it", something NBC execs should do next time this idiot's contract comes up for renewal.
How can people so stupid have such important jobs? Even if he doesn't know Latin, he couldn't make a better guess at such a common expression?
These types of exercises show the incredible lack of general knowledge of a lot of people who present themselves as experts. Can you imagine Trump on Jeopardy? It would be a lot like this.
I'll take "Morons" for a thousand, Alex.
History matters. Facts too.
Okay, it's a dead horse, I know. But not knowing even some basic history is what allows liars and charlatans, like Trump and those around him, to enjoy the benefits of fabrication, fakery, and dissimulation, all to the detriment of the nation and, dare I say it, freedom (see, we can use that word too).
This morning on NPR, I heard one of Trump's Confederate flacks get away with murder. The guy, who has been brought on board to create some acceptable cover for Trump's tax plans (such as they are), is one of the more proficient liars and carny barkers working today. Who, you may well ask, would pay such a fake? The Heritage Foundation, that's who. Get it now?
So he immediately starts by walking back Trump's statement that the rich may have to pay more taxes. No, not at all, says Moore. What he meant was that he'll bring the tax rate down for the rich but maybe not to where some of them (say, the Kochs) might like it to be, which means they'll still have to pay something but not as little as they'd care to. Meaning zero. Oh, well, that's some tax plan your boy has. Very proletarian. Very blue collar.
When the conversation veered to Trump's own tax rate, Moore completely dismissed the idea that his boss should release his returns. He stated that if he were advising Trump (and he is), he'd tell him not to give the public anything because it's not their business. The NPR host, to her credit (I usually don't expect any comeback to stuff like that), asked about the concept of transparency. Moore pooh-poohed the idea of transparency and sniffed that Trump has been audited dozens and dozens of times, and besides, even though presidential candidates have released returns for the last 40 years or so, that still leaves 30 former presidents who never released anything.
Christ, where to start with all that? First, Trump himself claims to have been audited 12 times. Not dozens and dozens. He claims that he's been audited by the IRS for the last 12 years in a row. IRS rules however, make that claim seem highly unlikely. If the IRS audits you and finds nothing, they won't request another audit for at least two years. So, either they found something they don't like, which looks very bad, or Trump is lying. Both are highly possible. But even if he's been audited a hundred times, are those findings made public? Do they offer the same transparency as the actual returns themselves? Of course not. This argument is entirely fallacious. Just one of Trump's many distractions.
As for the "30 former presidents who never released anything", only ninie of them served since income tax as we know it became effective in 1913. Moore is suggesting that because Lincoln and Washington and Teddy Roosevelt never released their returns--even though they had none--Trump shouldn't have to either.
Does this sound like kvetching? A minor quibble? No big deal? Maybe so, in the larger scheme of things, but guys like Moore (and on a much larger platform, Trump) lie so much, so often, about even little things, and this cavalier relationship with truth and facts means they get to say whatever they want with impunity. They create a world that doesn't exist and then demand that the rest of us take up residency in that world. It's not just insidious, it's fucking evil.
And, in case you're wondering about this Moore stiff, he's been a screaming critic of the ACA from the get gowithout having read a word of the law (as Jonathan Chait puts it, he's a guy who gets paid to say Obamacare doesn't work but can't find a single fact to back it up). His column of wingnutty bullshit has been cut off by at least one editor who values facts: "'I won’t be running anything else from Stephen Moore.' So says Miriam Pepper, editorial page editor of the Kansas City Star—and not just because she’s retiring this week. Pepper’s no-Moore stance comes after her paper discovered substantial factual errors in a recent guest op-ed by Moore, the chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation."
What does it say that Heritage's chief economist is a lying douchebag? What does it say that Trump hired a lying douchebag to serve as his economic advisor?
These people count on their every lie and fabrication being accepted at face value. People who beard them for their lies are viciously attacked by the dominant right-wing echo chamber.
Facts do matter, despite what these assholes say. History too. Their careers ride on the bet that few Americans would pick up on a casual lie like "30 former presidents never released their tax returns". And for the most part, they're probably right in that assessment. Which brings us around to people like Chuck Todd who feel it's not their place to straighten out such willful misrepresentations.
Do I hear the tribunes crying "Veto"?
@ forest morris
Lol, I think she'd fit in well in Uganda, minus all the colored people...
Forrest,
Maybe St. Kim of Redneckia can go to Brazil to investigate cases of Zika virus. Isn't there a big statue of Jesus in Rio? She can sit on his head and count the Zika sufferers.
Oh, wait. First she'd have to have qualities like compassion, empathy, concern, and love for her fellow human beings.
Oh well, it was just an idea.
Calming words from Melania Trump about her authoritarian, fascist leaning husband who encourages supporters to violently assault those they consider his enemies (anyone who doesn't agree with Trump):
"He’s not Hitler."
Well, I dunno about you kids, but I feel better already. Let's all get together, hold hands and sing a nice little song in honor of the guy who's not Hitler.
Can you imagine the wife of any other candidate having to make that clear?
Question: "Can you imagine the wife of any other candidate having to make that clear?"
Nein! that I cannot and that deplorable little song, "Tomorrow belongs to me" gives me chills.
It's interesting to note that Hitler, having been a narcissist himself, never dreamed he would become such a symbol of evil incarnate. Like God, the world knows his name. The former a literary character, the latter a human being that lacked humanity.