;)
The Commentariat -- Sept. 14, 2015
Internal links & defunct video removed.
Presidential Race
Nick Corasanti of the New York Times: "... Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont will take his populist, progressive message to Liberty University, the Christian school in Virginia founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell, and deliver a convocation address on Monday morning." CW: The link wasn't working right when I tested it -- got a blank page -- but it's the only link there is, so maybe the Times will fix it.
Bradford Richardson of the Hill: "Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is up by double-digits on former secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire, according to a poll released by CBS News on Sunday. The senator is drawing 43 percent support in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucus, besting Clinton by 10 points. Sanders is also drawing 52 percent support in New Hampshire, almost doubling Clinton, who sits at 30 percent support in the Granite State. Clinton, however, doubles-up Sanders in South Carolina, drawing 46 percent compared to the senator's 23 percent. Vice President Biden, who is considering a run for the Democratic presidential nomination, places third in all three states, drawing 10 percent support in Iowa, 9 percent support in New Hampshire, and a strong 22 percent backing in South Carolina." ...
... Charles Blow makes an important point here: Bernie "Sanders's ability to win Obama's supporters may have been made difficult by his associations. On Saturday, Sanders campaigned with Dr. Cornel West, who recently issued an endorsement of Sanders. West's critique of the president has been so blistering and unyielding -- he has called Obama 'counterfeit,' the 'black face of the American empire,' a verb-ed neologism of the n-word — that it has bordered on petulance and self-parody." ...
... Nancy Letourneau of the Washington Monthly: "I would also suggest that one of the reasons Sander's message fails to connect with African Americans is that - even in the midst of economic conditions that were much worse than today - Ellis Cose pointed out in 2011 that African Americans are the country's 'new optimists.'.... To the extent that optimism has dimmed more recently - it is in response to the shootings of unarmed Black men (often by police officers) and the lack of a 'just response' from our justice system. No matter how hard Sanders tries to tie that one to his message about income inequality and economics, it will fall short of connecting to the souls of African Americans."
Greg Sargent: "Today the Center for American Progress will release a new report that makes a detailed case that the GOP presidential candidates are all well to the right of [Ronald] Reagan, and actually represent a break from core aspects of his approach to the presidency." ...
Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "An immigration reform group backed by business, political and religious leaders plans to air a hard-hitting television commercial that juxtaposes the words of three Republican presidential candidates against those of a revered GOP figure: former president Ronald Reagan. The National Immigration Forum Action Fund will air the ad in the coming days on CNN before, during and after the presidential debate that the network is hosting Wednesday night at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California."
Michael Grunwald of Politico: "... Donald Trump has scrambled the politics of crime by running as a pro-cop, anti-thug 'law-and-order' candidate, denouncing rioters in Baltimore and Ferguson, vowing to 'get rid of gang members so fast your head will spin.'" And as with immigration, his rivals are echoing his appeals to the angry id of their party's white base, distancing themselves from bipartisan reform. His brash pronouncements, brazen insults and absurd promises are not only dominating the 2016 political discussion, they're also driving the Republican policy agenda. And while most of the commentary about Trump ... has focused on his potential impact on the campaign, as well as the long-term future of the Republican Party, criminal justice is just one example of an issue currently pending in Washington that Trump could affect right now." ...
... Reuters: "... Donald Trump on Sunday said high salaries paid to chief executives were a 'joke' and a 'disgrace', often approved by company boards stacked with friends of such CEOs.... In particular Trump mentioned Macy's, which in July stopped selling his menswear line after he described migrants from Mexico as drug-runners and rapists." ...
... Emma Brown of the Washington Post: "In three pending lawsuits, including one in which the New York attorney general is seeking $40 million in restitution, former students [of Trump "University"] allege that the enterprise bilked them out of their money with misleading advertisements. Instead of a fast route to easy money, these Trump University students say they found generic seminars led by salesmen who pressured them to invest more cash in additional courses. The students say they didn't learn Trump's secrets and never received the one-on-one guidance they expected." CW: We've covered this before, but it bears repeating. It's easy to argue that these "students" were silly, greedy people, but conning the gullible -- and not just for votes! -- is sleazy. ...
... Nick Gass of Politico: "Ben Carson ... [said] he was not questioning [Donald Trump]'s faith but rather talking about his own. And he does not blame Trump for retaliating. 'I said something that sounded like I was questioning his faith. I really wasn't, I was really talking more about mine. But it was said in an inappropriate way, which I recognized and I apologized for that. It's never my intention to impugn other people,' the Republican presidential candidate said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Monday."
Katie Zezima of the Washington Post: "... the National Federation of Republican Women's annual conference" in Phoenix, Arizona, Ted Cruz courts the ladies. "His timing may be opportune: As front-runner Donald Trump has come under fire for a string of comments many see as anti-women, Cruz is trying to seize the moment to retain and expand his foothold in the GOP electorate.... Cruz wasn't the only presidential contender who saw the importance of the conference. But he was the only man. Former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina addressed the group Friday night. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee sent his wife, Janet. Other candidates dispatched staffers." ...
... CW: Your modern Republican party: Fifteen or 16 presidential candidates, & only two of them, one a woman, bother to show up for the annual meeting of some of the most active & influential women in their party. It isn't just that Republican men have no respect for women; they have no respect for their own women, even ones who dedicate their time to support & work for these men. Pretty astounding. ...
... Katie Glueck of Politico: Carly Fiorina "won the straw poll at this weekend's National Federation of Republican Women convention, organizers announced on Sunday. The victory came after she kicked off the conference on Friday by mocking Trump's apparent criticism of her appearance. Fiorina pulled in 27 percent of the vote at the event held in Scottsdale, Arizona. Ted Cruz was the only other candidate to address the conference in person, speaking Saturday. He finished second, with 20 percent." CW: Yeah, the ladies like to be noticed.
Scott Bauer of the AP: "... Scott Walker on Monday will call for sweeping restrictions on organized labor in the U.S.... At a town hall meeting in Las Vegas, Walker will propose eliminating unions for employees of the federal government, making all workplaces right-to-work unless individual states vote otherwise, scrapping the federal agency that oversees unfair labor practices and making it more difficult for unions to organize." CW: When it comes down to it, Scottie is just a hideous human being.
Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: Chris Christie "said on NBC the media should 'stop blathering' about Bridgegate and insisted what mattered was how he reacted to it, and said it had not left 'a stain on my administration'.... 'What really matters, as Hillary Clinton is finding out, is how you react to a crisis,' Christie said. 'Not that there ever will be any crisis ... what did I do? When we had a crisis the next day I went out and took questions for an hour and 15 minutes, no holds barred. Let's wait and see if Mrs Clinton ever does one fifth of that on her crisis.'"
Beyond the Beltway
Jack Pearson of the AP: "Former tennis star James Blake, whose caught-on-camera takedown by a plainclothes New York City police officer prompted apologies from the mayor and police commissioner, told The Associated Press on Saturday that the officer who wrongly arrested him should be fired."
AP: "Despite his boss' objections to gay marriage, a deputy county clerk in eastern Kentucky says he'll continue issuing marriage licenses. Deputy clerk Brian Mason had previously said that if he has to, he would disobey his boss, county clerk Kim Davis, and issue licenses rather than refuse the orders of U.S. District Judge David Bunning. Monday was Davis' first day back to work after Judge Bunning jailed her for refusing to issue marriage licenses. Reading from a statement, Davis said she's not going to interfere with her deputies issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but she says she isn't authorizing them and questions whether they're valid." CW: So if Mason takes a day off, people can't get marriage licenses in Rowan County??? This is not exactly a solution. ...
... @8:08 am ET, CNN is running a crawl which says Kim Davis won't issue marriage licenses to applicants, but she won't interfere with clerks who do. ...
... Justin Moyer of the Washington Post: Kim "Davis will return to work Monday morning as legal questions linger -- and a billboard in Morehead, Ky., where her office is located, openly mocks her.... 'We put up this billboard just kind of reminding her that from a religious perspective, the definition of marriage has been constantly changing, and this isn't actually about religion,' Davis Hammit, operations director of Planting Peace, told Reuters." ...
... Kevin Conlon of CNN: Rowan County, Kentucky, Kim Davis's attorney "Mat Staver said [Sunday] his client was fully aware of the law and of the court's ruling, but that she was still undecided about what she'll do if a same-sex couple applies for a marriage license in Rowan County. 'We'll find out what Kim does when she goes to work on Monday.'"
David Eggert of the AP: "Two disgraced tea party Republicans are gone from Michigan's Legislature, but their troubles may not be over as attention turns to a criminal investigation of misconduct including a plot to conceal their extramarital affair with an email of false and explicit claims."
Way Beyond
Rod McGuirk of the AP: "Australia's beleaguered prime minister was ousted from power in an internal party ballot on Monday as the ruling conservative party attempts to win back a disenchanted public by replacing the nation's polarizing, gaffe-prone leader with his more moderate rival. Prime Minister Tony Abbott lost a leadership ballot by members of his party, who voted 54 to 44 to replace him with former Liberal Party leader and Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull...."
Paul Krugman: "On economic policy, in particular, the striking thing about the leadership contest [within Britain's Labour party] was that every candidate other than [winner Jeremy] Corbyn essentially supported the Conservative government's austerity policies. Worse, they all implicitly accepted the bogus justification for those policies, in effect pleading guilty to policy crimes that Labour did not, in fact, commit.... The Corbyn upset isn't about a sudden left turn on the part of Labour supporters. It's mainly about the strange, sad moral and intellectual collapse of Labour moderates."
Melilla Eddy & Dan Bilefsky of the New York Times: "Austria, Slovakia and the Netherlands introduced border controls on Monday, as Germany's decision over the weekend to set up checks began to ripple across a bloc struggling to deal with the influx of migrants coming to the Continent. In Hungary, the authorities said that a near-record 5,353 migrants had crossed into the country from Serbia before noon on Monday -- even as Budapest continued to try to seal off that border, which is being reinforced with the construction of a 109-mile fence made with razor wire."
Melissa Eddy, et al., of the New York Times: "With record numbers of migrants pouring across the Hungarian border and rushing west, Germany, the country that had been the most welcoming in Europe, suddenly ordered temporary border restrictions on Sunday that cut off rail travel from Austria and instituted spot checks on cars. The German move came just one day before European ministers were scheduled to meet in Brussels to discuss a plan to distribute tens of thousands of migrants across Europe, with many governments, particularly in Eastern Europe, bristling at being forced to accept more migrants than they wish to take."
News Ledes
Reuters: "A Mississippi college professor was shot and killed in his campus office on Monday, and police said a fellow Delta State University teacher was 'a person of interest' in the shooting. Authorities said they were searching for geography and social science instructor Shannon Lamb in connection with the killing of Ethan Schmidt, an assistant professor of American history. Lamb was also a suspect in the death of a woman in Mississippi earlier on Monday, according to news reports."
AP: "Some 400 homes were among the hundreds of structures destroyed as fast-moving wildfires raged through communities in Northern California, leaving at least one person dead and sending residents fleeing along roads where some buildings and vehicles were still in flames."
New York Times: "Russia is using an air corridor over Iraq and Iran to fly military equipment and personnel to a new air hub in Syria, openly defying American efforts to block the shipments and significantly increasing tensions with Washington."
Washington Post: "An altercation between inmates that lasted about two minutes resulted in the death of four prisoners, the company that runs the Cimarron Correctional Facility in Cushing, Okla., said Sunday."
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Reader Comments (14)
Damn, I wish Bernie would drop Cornel West. He's the black Donald Trump without the bucks. Maybe even a bigger loudmouthed egomaniacal damn fool.
Here's a good article on how the NFL uses the military to "camouflage" its business practices and insulate itself against criticism. I've never personally been a fan of meshing the military with any form of entertainment as it's in fact something deadly serious that shouldn't be used indiscriminately. I hadn't realized that the NFL teams have even been billing the DoD for this same manipulation. Pretty perverted business scheme those guys are running over there with their "non profit" organization, sheesh.
The article includes a link to George Carlin's difference between baseball and football, brilliant!
http://www.alternet.org/culture/football-and-military-nfls-mercenary-marriage-patriotism-and-violence
From yesterday: Andrew O'Hehir's (he is such a good writer) article spawned a lot of speculation on my part including especially this:
"Sanders and Trump are almost negative images of each other, so much so as to represent alternative and perhaps impossible pathways for the human future. If Trump stands for the orgiastic embrace of atavism and a wholesale rejection of the Age of Reason, Sanders embodies that pride or overconfidence in Enlightenment thinking and “the minute portion of human reason” that Nietzsche warned might blind us to the darkness in human nature. Trump is all about performance and evil charisma and paranoid fantasies that we can only hope will never come to pass. Sanders’ appeal lies in his lack of artifice, his rumpled, cantankerous anti-charisma and his thoroughly rational program of radical policy realignment that will in all probability (and however regrettably) never come to pass."
A negative for me is Bernie's lack of extensive foreign policy talk in his speeches and on his web site. And I think O'Hehir is correct to say Sander' policy realignments won't see the light of day with the Congress we have now. The Cornel West connection, however buddy, buddy that may be is a big mistake. D. C. Clark said it well.
So I think it is time we stop treating Trump like the entertainer and take him seriously. Get down into the weeds and stop accepting his "I'm just gonna do it!" but never giving us specifics. And burrowing into those weeds can be boring and complicated, but the person who knows how to do that can sometimes get things done. I want to know––HOW are you going to do what you propose to do.
Nearly all of the male Confederate candidates for president blew off a convention of Republican women because there's nothing they can say to them.
They have nothing for them, and in fact, their goals are, and always have been, making life as miserable as possible for women. Cruz showed up because his ego is so enormous it allows him to smilingly look past the perfidy he and his ilk have perpetrated upon American women. He's sure these women will agree with him on the issues, so what's to worry about?
The fact that Fuckabee sent his wife indicates that he's aware of the problem Confederates face with women voters but he's too much of a coward to face it squarely. What could he say? Obey men and do what you're told. Because that's what he believes.
But it doesn't matter what any of them say, Carly Fiorina included. Fiorina claimed that Republicans don't pander to women as Democrats do because they understand that women are not a special interest group, but are "the majority of the nation" (From the Politico article linked above.)
But if that were the case, if Republicans really did feel that way, why then are they spending so much energy trying to belittle and belabor women? Why the Stalin-style show trials over Planned Parenthood? Here's how much Republicans think of women. Republican men feel about women pretty much what the manager of the women's ball club in "League of Their Own" feels when first asked to run the team: "These aren't ballplayers. These are girls. Girls are for sleeping with after the game, not for playing baseball."
And in a similar demonstration of sensitivity, former Mr. Universe, Jim Sensenbrenner, who when not attempting to break the world record for corn dogs swallowed in ten minutes calls the president's wife a fat ass, demanded, at the PP show trial, why Planned Parenthood is getting $500 million in federal funding when that money could be going to other uses such as procuring food for hungry children.
"Here’s how much Sensenbrenner cares about hungry children: In 2013, he and 216 of his fellow Republicans voted for a $39 billion cut to the food-stamp program."
Let 'em eat cake, eh?
Not only are they cowards, they're despicable cowards.
And if Republican women think their party has their best interests at heart and that of their mothers and daughters....well, shit. I don't even know what to say to that.
Have fun after the game, I guess.
So Little Scottie Walker is calling for an end to unions for federal workers? Okay, fine. How about a call for an end to morons running government. How about we institute a test for high public office that includes a section on American history (the real thing, not Confederate fantasy), basic economics (ditto), simple tests of logic, a test in American civics, and an IQ test.
After all, for most professional jobs you need to demonstrate proper education, experience and knowledge. What's wrong with asking the Confederates to demonstrate that they're not just wasting our time?
I'm guessing most of the current candidates for Chief Fundamentalist Preacher/War Monger would be summarily dismissed, Walker among the first to go.
Walker's campaign has been getting hammered in the press with a giant Complete Failure narrative as a potential GOP star has cratered among the Confederate populace. Surely his campaign hacks knew they had to drop a bomb and "wreak havoc" Walker-style to change his image. It'll last until after the next debate when his poll numbers will remain barely visible and the Small-Timer narrative will stick even harder, hopefully becoming a permanent stain that will keep that demagogue out of any important national decision-making positions.
What I find perhaps more worrying is, as mentioned over at the l
lawyersgunsmoney blog, is that all the other Confederates have kept mum about this radical policy proposal (big surprise!) but that it seems a logical next step for the increasingly extremist GOP. If they do indeed somehow lie and obfuscate their way into the White House, no GOPer would stand in the way of such policy proposals demanded by their Plutocrat Overlords. They'd all be cheering for Freeedom and slapping high fives while sneering at any compromise.
So let's see, the US, because we had a sniveling idiot and a sneering criminal who tore up the middle east in order to...I dunno, something...set the groundwork for what is now a huge refugee problem, but Confederates, who supported that debacle are now saying we have no responsibility to any of those people. When asked how we can possibly avoid any responsibility for helping the refugees, Confederates are playing the very handy "Terrorists will sneak in" card.
So easy, so fun, so mendacious, so stupid.
"We can't allow any of THOSE people into the country. Terr'ists will be among them and next thing ya know, we'll all be murdered in our beds."
So clever, those Confederates.
I think someone (President Obama?) should remind all of those
Confederates that there is a plaque on the Statue of Liberty (if they
haven't already removed it) which reads "Give me your tired, your
huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of
your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed
to me, I lift my lamp beside the Golden Door!"
Forrest,
Ted Cruz is threatening to shut down the government unless the Lazurus poem is removed and a new one saying "Give me your oppressed (white) billionaires, your victimized Christians, your haters and fantasists..." replaces it.
And Trump wants it to read "Send us your Eastern European
blond-haired bombshells but only the ones who don't know what
a jerk I am."
Akhilleus, re Federal Employee unions:
I wonder how many politicians of either party could pass the Civil Service exam? Shouldn't that be a requirement? Not to mention the Foreign Service exam which is much harder.
The practice exam can be taken here: http://careers.state.gov/fsopracticetest/
@AK: And my favorite line from "A League of their Own"...
"THERE'S no CRYING in baseball!"
Your mention of Sensenbrenner, calling him Mr. Universe, reminded me of the Miss America Pageant that took place yesterday. The trotting out of girls in their bikinis and high heels for judges to score I had hoped would be eliminated, but sadly, no. The whole process makes my skin crawl. Girls? Women? Still in the Masters of the Universe's cross hairs. What the hell would Emma say after all these years?
PD,
What would it look like if contests like Miss America put far more emphasis on intellectual chops (you have to admit a lot the contestants are not exactly Grace Hopper or Rachel Carson), humanist mindsets, and egalitarian achievements rather than Playboy Bunny dimensions and baton twirling? But then you'd have misogynist creeps like Trumpy the Dumpy making cracks about their faces, and an entire branch of the media nodding obsequiously along with him.
If you are any kind of an internet vagabond you must surely have come across click-bait links with titles like "Ugly stars who were cute as kids". Despicable stuff, really. Clicking on such a link once (morbid curiosity) I found the wonderful Mayim Bialik, described as being too ugly even for phone sex. The fact that the idiot who wrote such a stupid thing would have no chance deciphering a high school paper written by Bialik, a PhD in neuroscience is apparently beside the point. To way too many cavemen (and not a few cavewomen), women who are not "babes" have no reason to live.
Interestingly, Bialik stars in "Big Bang Theory" a show about scientists and their relationships. She is the only real scientist.
And as Forrest suggests, for such as Trumpy, women (babes, chicks, betties?) are only useful as trophies, baubles, and sexual playthings. And he's not the only Republican who thinks so. Oh, except for those gay hating born again Confederates who prefer the company of cute boys to, er, carry their luggage. And other things.
Kudos to Bernie Sanders for venturing out of his comfort zone and into the heart of Hate Land to speak. The vast majority of Confederate candidates didn't even have the balls to speak before a group of Republican women. Every day they demonstrate their lack of credentials to lead a sewing bee.