;)
The Commentariat -- May 29, 2016
Presidential Race
Amy Chozick, et al., of the New York Times: "While she enjoys many demographic advantages heading into the fall, key Democrats say they are growing worried that [Hillary Clinton's] campaign has not determined how to combat her unpredictable, often wily Republican rival, to whom criticism seldom sticks and rules of decorum seem not to apply. Mrs. Clinton is pressing ahead with a conventional campaign.... But Mr. Trump is running a jarringly different crusade: accusing her husband, former President Bill Clinton, of rape; proposing that the country conduct brutal methods of torture; and suggesting that South Korea and Japan be permitted to develop nuclear arms. Prominent Democrats say a more provocative approach is needed." -- CW
Hugo Martin of the Los Angeles Times: "... Hillary Clinton has jumped into the dispute over whether Norwegian Air International is competing fairly against its U.S.-based rivals -- and she is taking a position critical of the Obama administration. Norwegian Air, a subsidiary of Norway-based Norwegian Air Shuttle, one of Europe's biggest low-cost carriers, has been accused by U.S.-based carriers and their unions of skirting U.S. and European labor laws by establishing a base in Ireland but hiring pilots out of Asia to save money.... Sen. Bernie Sanders also called on the federal government to deny Norwegian's permit." -- CW
Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) is moving to head off a burgeoning controversy sparked by a federal probe that could have consequences for his close friend and political ally, Hillary Clinton. McAuliffe has launched a media blitz insisting the FBI will not find any wrongdoing in its investigation of contributions to his 2013 gubernatorial campaign. The governor said in a TV interview he is 'baffled' by the inquiry, which reportedly began last year. In a separate radio interview, he lashed out at Department of Justice and FBI after news of the investigation leaked to the press." -- CW
Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times: "Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is seeking to bar allies of Hillary Clinton from leading the powerful rules and platform committees of the Democratic National Convention in July, escalating his battle with party leaders. In a letter sent on Friday to party officials, lawyers for Mr. Sanders said that the appointments of Barney Frank, the former Massachusetts congressman, and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy of Connecticut violated party rules. Mr. Frank is to co-lead the rules committee, and Mr. Malloy the platform committee. In the letter, Mr. Sanders’s lawyer Brad Deutsch said that both men have been 'harsh, vocal critics of Senator Sanders, and equally active supporters of his challenger, Hillary Clinton.' Mr. Frank has called Mr. Sanders 'outrageously McCarthyite' for his suggesting that Mrs. Clinton would be influenced by her speaking fees from Wall Street; Mr. Malloy has led efforts among Clinton allies to attack Mr. Sanders's record on gun control." -- CW ...
... Alexander Bolton of the Hill: Senior Democratic National Committee (DNC) officials have rejected a request from Bernie Sanders's campaign to change the leadership of two crucial committees at the convention." -- CW
Richard Marosi & Debbi Baker of the Los Angeles Times: "San Diego police arrested 35 people Friday during protests that followed Donald Trump's rally here, drawing praise from the presidential candidate on Twitter. 'Fantastic job on handling the thugs who tried to disrupt our very peaceful and well attended rally. Greatly appreciated!' Trump wrote." -- CW ...
... Rory Carroll & Nicky Woolf of the Guardian: "There were protests at almost every stop of ... [Donald Trump's] western swing this week, veering from a carnival-like vibe to violence." -- CW
Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: "A federal judge has ordered the release of internal Trump University documents in an ongoing lawsuit against the company, including 'playbooks' that advised sales personnel how to market high-priced courses on getting rich through real estate. The Friday ruling, in which Judge Gonzalo Curiel cited heightened public interest in ... Donald Trump, was issued in response to a request by The Washington Post. The ruling was a setback for Trump.... Curiel's order came the same day that Trump..., who previously questioned whether Curiel's Hispanic heritage made him biased due to Trump's support for building a wall on the Mexican border, said ... Curiel 'happens to be, we believe, Mexican.' Trump called the judge a 'hater of Donald Trump' who had 'railroaded' him in the case.railed against the judge at a boisterous San Diego rally for his handling of the case, in which students have alleged they were misled and defrauded. The trial is set for November." ...
... Reid Epstein of the Wall Street Journal: "In one of his most personal attacks against an apolitical figure since becoming the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump delivered an extended tirade [at his San Diego rally] about the federal judge overseeing the civil litigation against his defunct education program.... Mr. Trump ... devoted 12 minutes of a 58-minute address to the litigation, which is scheduled to go to trial in San Diego federal court Nov. 28." -- CW ...
... CW: For the record, Judge Curiel was born in Indiana, a geopolitical area which very few Americans are stupid enough to place in Mexico. ...
... digby: "President Whining Bigot at your service.... I swear to God this campaign is the whiniest campaign I've ever heard. Everything is so unfaaaiiir. So I have a right to act like a baby and whine and whine and throw tantrums and hold my breath until I turn blue because those meanies are being sooooo mean!!! Boo fucking hoo." -- CW ...
... Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Just hours after Trump used a campaign speech at a San Diego convention center to unleash a remarkable verbal fusillade against U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel, the judge -- who also happens to be based in the same southern California city -- acknowledged a much more measured fashion of the criticism Trump has aimed at the court. 'Defendant became the front-runner for the Republican nomination in the 2016 presidential race, and has placed the integrity of these court proceedings at issue,' Curiel said in an order unsealing a series of internal Trump University documents that Trump's lawyers asked be kept from the public." -- CW
Kristen East of Politico: "Donald Trump took to Twitter on Saturday to defend his personal management style and his campaign's structure after a New York Times report outlined challenges facing the presumptive Republican nominee and his staffers as they pivot to the general election.... Maggie Haberman, one of the story's two authors, responded to Trump's criticisms on Twitter by saying he had confirmed the report -- that he has a small campaign staff.... About an hour later, Trump then tweeted: 'Don't believe the biased and phony media quoting people who work for my campaign. The only quote that matters is a quote from me!'" -- CW
Peter Baker of the New York Times: "Mr. Trump's campaign has engendered impassioned debate about the nature of his appeal and warnings from critics on the left and the right about the potential rise of fascism in the United States.... The discussion comes as questions are surfacing around the globe about a revival of fascism, generally defined as a governmental system that asserts complete power and emphasizes aggressive nationalism and often racism.... Mr. Trump has provided plenty of ammunition for critics. He was slow to denounce the white supremacist David Duke and talked approvingly of beating up protesters. He has praised Mr. Putin and promised to be friends. He would not condemn supporters who launched anti-Semitic blasts at journalists. At one point, Mr. Trump retweeted a Mussolini quote: 'It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.'" -- CW
Sean Sullivan & Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "For the past two months, Donald Trump has presided over a political team riddled with turf wars, staff reshuffling and dueling power centers.... The tensions ... illustrate how Trump likes to run an organization.... Interviews with current and former Trump associates reveal an executive who is fond of promoting rivalries among subordinates, wary of delegating major decisions, scornful of convention and fiercely insistent on a culture of loyalty around him.... Trump's style offers a glimpse of the polarizing management techniques he would carry into the White House." -- CW ...
... Chas Danner of New York: "The Trump campaign has told some high-level GOP staffers that it wont have a lot of money to defend itself from attacks over the next few months, according to the Washington Examiner.... Trump's shift to RNC money is of course a huge departure from his stance during the GOP primaries, when he repeatedly boasted about how he was self funding his campaign, in large part to avoid being beholden to the very Republican establishment on which his campaign will apparently now rely.... Trump could try to blame the Republican Party for the loss, rather than take responsibility for what may end up being one of the most poorly-run presidential campaigns in history." -- CW ...
... Jonathan Chait: "Fortunately, many of the same qualities that would make Trump epically dangerous in the presidency -- his impulsive ignorance, blustering arrogance, and contempt for data -- also make him unlikely to obtain it." -- CW
... Unless voters listen to their stone-age brains: Bill Moyers interviews Rick Shenkman, editor and publisher of History News Network, author of Political Animals: How Our Stone-age Brain Gets in the Way of Smart Politics. "We think the voters want the truth. The voters don't want the truth any more than you and I want the truth. You and I don't want to be told some truth that makes us uncomfortable about ourselves. The voters don't want to be told some truth that makes them uncomfortable about their choices."--LT
Matt Viser of the Boston Globe: The Trump Shuttle failed partly because of a softening economy but also because Donald Trump didn't know what he was doing. "'The shuttle was a clear example of how the exaggerated value accorded his name led Donald into a purchase whose foolishness was apparent almost immediately,' John O'Donnell, a former Trump official, wrote in his tell-all book 'Trumped!' 'But he was acting more impulsively than ever, giving less and less thought to the consequences of everything he did.'" -- CW
Ralph Benko of Forbes: Make America Great Again by minimizing the power of the Presidency and yielding power to a Prime Minister? "If Donald Trump authentically promised, and then fulfilled the promise, of making Paul Ryan the moral equivalent of his prime minister this could be a marriage made in heaven. It could fuse Trump's intuitive grasp of economic growth with justice with Ryan's policy mastery. This recipe could make Trump 'the greatest jobs president that God every created' and Ryan an historic Speaker and possible successor to the presidency." -- LT
News Ledes
New York Times: "Jane Fawcett, who was a reluctant London debutante when she went to work at Bletchley Park, the home of British code-breaking during World War II, and was credited with identifying a message that led to a great Allied naval success, the sinking of the battleship Bismarck, died on May 21 at her home in Oxford, England. She was 95." -- CW
New York Times: Hedy "Epstein, a Holocaust survivor who spoke widely about the persecution of the Jews in Germany, and who spent most of her adult life working for a broad range of social justice movements, died on Thursday at her home in St. Louis. She was 91." Epstein made international headlines when she was arrested in St. Louis in 2014 for protesting Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon's actions in the aftermath of the Michael Brown police killing case. -- CW
Washington Post: "Cassandra Q. Butts, who was President Obama's classmate at Harvard Law School and a longtime member of the president's inner circle who advised him throughout his political career and served as a deputy White House counsel, died May 25 at her home in Washington. She was 50." -- CW
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Reader Comments (14)
Keep the carnival barker talking. In the months ahead he will demonstrate the depths of his ignorance. The people he will not defame should be a minority by election day.
If his monster is elected President, it will be because Americans deserve him and they will pay dearly for their ignorance.
@carlyle
...."If this monster is elected President, it will be because Americans deserve him and they will pay dearly for their ignorance."
Many Americans appear not to care whether we "pay for our ignorance," witness Ronnie Reagan and George W. Bush. They were both elected twice! It has been downhill ever since, with the exception of our mostly wonderful President Obama. How lucky we have been to have this Renaissance man, who knows his way around in the world, and respects differences, as our President. Hillary is way better than trump, for sure, but she is not on Obama's level as a "states person."
I'd like that Trump University trial to be expedited. The man is running for the highest office in the land, and I want to know whether or not he's trying to dodge the court in this egregiously flamboyant manner. I think it's in the Public's Interest to find out if a candidate is a crook BEFORE the election, in my opinion.
My heart bleeds for the 22 year old interviewed in The Atlantic, linked yesterday. Even in San Fransisco, in what milieu is he living that he can't express any of his views? Are all the trumps and trumpoids thin-skinned whining cry-babies? I survived years in a blood red city in a blood red state, as an atheist and a lefty. He can't talk to me about the need for self censorship, whilst living among mean, vindictive xtians.
What the whiner describes as "PC" is in reality and usually a just requirement for civility. What my neighbours in the South would call "good manners", and which they seemed to think should only apply to them. It is not PC to desist from racial and ethnic pejoratives in public or private speech. It is not PC to desist from ad hominem attacks on adversaries or, for example, a judge trying your upcoming court case. It is not PC to desist from personal abuse of disabled people. It is not PC to desist from threatening violence against critics, hecklers, and demonstrators (memories of Vietnam demos). It is not PC to desist from gender attacks on professional reporters and interviewers. And I would have thought it was not only good manners, but common sense, and not PC to desist from vitriolic abuse of one's colleagues and their families. Melanie can't even take an innocuous article written about her. The writer deserves to be abused and threatened for the sin of not fawning over her. After all that vitriol, glass-jaw donny can't cope with return fire.
The confederate brand seems to be so depleted of any dignity that no amount of opprobrium is too much. trump sure has the number of these eviscerated, emasculated people. They are all "Little Marcos".
@AuntieSez: I agree with you, but that horrible, unfaaaair "Mexican" judge delayed the trial until after the election to prevent a "media circus," he wrote in his order to delay.
I promise him a media circus whenever the trial is held. Of course should Trump become the president-elect, the fates forbid, he will ask for a delay until 2021 or 2025.
Marie
It is not clear in the article above re: the Norwegian Air issue what the Obama administration's position is but it implies Clinton and Sanders are against it. When Obama was in Ireland this issue was discussed but don't have any details.
DEBBIE, DAN, & BARNEY ––OH MY!
We don't see eye to eye––so
I say they ain't the meanies for me
As I swim forward in this political sea.
FEEL THE BERN!
Trump might just want to be reminded as to what Mussolini was up to in that little country called Italy. They might also show him this quote which pretty much establishes his position:
"We have buried the putrid corpse of liberty."
The 22 year old Trump acolyte seems, perhaps like many other young people, a political naïf. He also seems to have a rather alarming lack of understanding of how the world works. This could be simply due to naïveté but I see this sort of thing often in people who love to describe themselves as Libertarian, that fantasy world political theory that only works in board games and ridiculously circumscribed thought experiments. It also tends to be adopted by the rich , the very well off and/ or students whose view of the world doesn't extend more than fifty yards off campus. In many instances, it's a case of "Fuck you, Charlie, I got mine." In the the case of this kid, he's got his but he wants to be sure Trump sticks it to all the other Charlies because PC, or something.
Just a couple of things: he's a BIG fan of tolerance. So he votes for Trump? Isn't that a little like saying your an environmentalist but your favorite companies are BP, Monsanto, and Exxon? Actually it's much worse than that because at least there are still some titular safeguards attached to those businesses. Trump is the worst kind of intolerant bigot, especially for one who wishes to be a leader, the kind who sees nothing wrong with it. Even 1920s era KKK members hid their faces . Not Trump. He's sees intolerance as just another business decision.
Then the kid goes on to claim that Trump's attacks on Bill Clinton are perfectly okay, even if they're lies because "Bill Clinton can't be arrested for anything now." Oh. Is that the Libertarian standard for public discourse now? Attacks on people are okay as long as the person being attacked can't be put in jail? And yet this guy bleats and whines that people might think he's a racist because he supports one. And maybe Bill Clinton can't be arrested now but that doesn't mean there is no damage connected with such attacks. This is the worst sort of amorality masquerading as "freedom"
And Trump is a supporter of the First Amendment? Since when? For himself, sure, I guess Mr. PCSucks thinks Trump's threats to punish anyone voicing opposing views is perfectly peachy.
How about his contention that everything should be based on merit? Okay. How does Trump's inheritance of hundreds of millions of dollars constitute merit? For that matter how does being born white? Another "I built if all by myself" idiot. Funny you don't see many poor and vastly underpriveleged kids claiming to be Libertarians.
"Trump will fix everything!" Really? Like all those bankruptcies and scams ? Like the way he and his dad fixed it so that their white tenants didn't have to worry about any unsavory black families moving in next door? Like he when he ran the highly profitable and commercially successful and popular Eastern Shuttle into the ground? Like he did when he threatened his former wife Marla Maples when she suggested voters needed to know what kind of a right bastard he really is? Like when he climbed in bed with organized crime figures to help his bottom line? Like when he arranged ( and is probably still doing so) to pay no taxes ?
This kid isn't just low information, he's bereft of a sense of the essential social contract. Like Trump , he doesn't seem to care or realize that we all have a responsibility to each other and the social networks that keep it all running. And, as Gloria says, an appreciation for common decency.
Friedersdorf was far too nice to this whiny little shit.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/27/feel-the-hate/
Initially, I wanted to posted this link as my pre "Festivus" list of grivances. After reading it twice, I'm not so sure.
The one good thing that I can attribute to Reagan is "trust but verify".
If you read this article, I would welcome your take.
For me, the 22 year old trump supporter is saying "Yes, he's a bully, but he's on my side." This demonstrates two significant character deficiencies. First, a lack of empathy for those not on his side, and second, an inability to imagine a scenario where the supporter finds himself on the other side of the bullying.
"Mar 11, 2016 - “Trust, but verify” entered American usage when Reagan's adviser on Russian affairs, Suzanne Massie, was preparing the president for talks with Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986. Perhaps Reagan ought to learn a few Russian proverbs, Massie suggested, and the one he liked best was “Doveryai no proveryai” — trust, but verify."
(Wash Po)
@So Dan––no time now to read your article, but will do so later and gladly comment.
The quote PDPepe included above, "We have buried the putrid corpse of liberty." is in alignment with the closing paragraph of the Paul Street article mentioned by Dan Lowery:
"Walk into that “coffin of class consciousness” (Alan Dawley) called the American voting booth and vote as if it might give life, not death (it would take a major and overdue Constitutional overhaul for that to happen) if you want. Be my guest. It takes all of two minutes. Then walk back out and turn to the real and more urgent politics of radical grassroots movement-building and revolutionary disruption. That’s every day work. One thing is clear: we will not vote ourselves out of this mess. You can take that to the bank."
Street's strong position and harsh views appear to say: "It's Bernie, or no one." Especially that 'no one' named Hillary. And, he's dismissive of the long-held argument that votes for Nader spoiled victory for Gore. Yeah, but I don't want to wake up on a Wednesday morning in November to learn that a third of Bernie supporters stayed home and the result is a DJT victory. Because, you know 'principles!' In fact, the whole piece fits right into the Republican playbook.
As Kate M. might remind us: It's the Supremes, stupid!
@Dan: Ok––read part of Paul Street's article but found it off putting by its obvious slanted views––more of a diatribe than a well parsed piece––incorrectly quoting Albright and calling Gloria Steinem "the fake progressive loon." Street is a strong opponent of Obama (see below) and from what I understand is on a perpetual rant about our system and its governing body. But if one is to be taken seriously in the realm of journalism I would think some matter of nuance is required. Would like to know,Dan, what your second thoughts were about this. And thanks to MAG for weighing in.
"The sooner Obama breaks the ribbon on his presidential library – to be suitably housed at the arch-neoliberal University of Chicago – the better. In the meantime, I would like just one former “Progressive for Obama” member to offer a formal apology for the abject foolishness they exhibited in support of this deeply conservative corporatist Democrat – and for the venom with which so many liberals attacked those of us on the actual Left [1] who tried to warn U.S. “progressives” and the world about the cold corporate and imperial reality of Obama, Inc. from the start."
PDPepe & MAG
Well, I read it a third time. I'm thinking, I'm thinking.
My whole problem with this election, is that Wall Street chicken bone lodged in my throat. The Clintons and Obama keep telling me "not to worry", everything will be alright. Yes, but alright for who?
I have such high hopes of Bernie chasing the money changers from the temple of democracy. My hope is dimming.
“One thing is clear: we will not vote ourselves out of this mess. You can take that to the bank." How right you are MAG.
This incrementalism that Hillary speaks of may be the key. It has taken Republicans thirty plus years to get us where we are today. Hopefully it won't take Progressives that long to get us back on a better road.
Let's hope Bernie's grass roots movement is not just a fad. I will have no problem with Hillary as long as someone is on duty to watch her. I do think Bill will need more supervision though.
Thanks for the fine thoughtful input.