The Commentariat -- January 6, 2016

Anna Fifield of the Washington Post: "World leaders sternly criticized North Korea Wednesday for carrying out a fourth nuclear test, an explosion that Pyongyang claimed was a much more powerful hydrogen bomb test. The United Nations Security Council is set to hold an emergency meeting in New York on Wednesday to discuss the international response to the test, which North Korea called an 'H-bomb of justice' that it needed for defense against the United States, labelling the U.S. 'the chieftain of aggression.'" ...

... David Sanger of the New York Times: "North Korea declared Tuesday night that it has detonated its first hydrogen bomb, a weapon far more powerful than it has set off previously, a claim that, if true, would dramatically escalate the nuclear challenge from one of the world's most isolated and dangerous states. In a brief announcement, about an hour after seismic detectors around the world picked up a 5.1 magnitude seismic event along the country's northeast cost, officials said that the test was a 'complete success.' But it is difficult to tell whether that boast is true, and it may be weeks or longer before detectors sent aloft by the United States and other powers can determine what kind of test was conducted."

Second Amendment rights are important, but there are other rights that we care about as well. And we have to be able to balance them. Because our right to worship freely and safely -- that right was denied to Christians in Charleston, South Carolina. And that was denied Jews in Kansas City. And that was denied Muslims in Chapel Hill, and Sikhs in Oak Creek. They had rights, too. Our right to peaceful assembly -- that right was robbed from moviegoers in Aurora and Lafayette. Our unalienable right to life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- those rights were stripped from college students in Blacksburg and Santa Barbara, and from high schoolers at Columbine, and from first-graders in Newtown. First-graders. And from every family who never imagined that their loved one would be taken from our lives by a bullet from a gun. -- President Obama, yesterday ...

... Michael Shear of the New York Times: "With tears streaming down his face, President Obama on Tuesday condemned the repeated spasms of gun violence across America as he announced new executive actions intended to reduce the number of mass shootings, suicides and killings that have become routine in the nation's communities." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... You'll tear up, too:

... Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post on President Obama's "substantive case for action." ...

... New York Times Editors: "The current fight over gun control ... is a howling storm of misrepresentation, sadly almost entirely from one side. This week's developments fit the pattern.... Given the situation, it's hard to imagine a serious conversation about guns as long as politicians in thrall to the gun lobby choose to misrepresent what supporters of gun safety laws are actually saying. Those supporters, by the way, include the 90 percent of Americans who favor universal background checks for gun buyers." ...

... CW: Sorry, NYT, those fearmongering GOP liars-for-hire are just doing the job the NRA paid them to do:

... Eric Levitz of New York: "... on Tuesday, Obama sent one more shiver down the spine of Red America, shooting Smith & Wesson stock to an all-time high in the process." CW: It isn't Obama's actions -- which if truth be known, are highly popular &/or noncontroversial -- that are spiking gun sales; it's the Fear of Obama promoted by the politicians who lie for the NRA. ...

... Ted is Cruzing for a bonus. This is a screenshot of an actual page on Ted's Website. You can sign up for fundraising letters here:

(... CW: I'm not sure if this is a first, but it may be, of a U.S. senator Photoshopping a U.S. president to put the president in a menacing (and ridiculously untrue) light. The Senate, which prides itself on its supposed dignity, should censure Ted. ...)

... Here's the Proof. Scott Wong & Cristina Marcos of the Hill: "Congressional Republicans are scrambling for a way to halt President strong> Obama's new unilateral actions on gun control.... 'We will be using every tool in the toolkit to stop him,' said one senior Republican lawmaker who is close to leadership. 'All options are on the table.'... Privately, some GOP lawmakers said they didn't think Obama's actions on guns amount to much. 'Frankly, our initial review of the president's orders is there is not a lot of substance there,' said one Republican who requested anonymity. But the lawmaker said party leaders are under enormous pressure from the National Rifle Association and other gun rights activists to take a stand against Obama. In a statement, [Speaker Paul] Ryan, a gun owner and avid deer hunter, blasted Obama's executive actions, calling them 'a form of intimidation that undermines liberty' and violates the Second Amendment. The Speaker vowed that Congress would 'conduct vigilant oversight' and predicted the actions would 'no doubt be challenged in the courts.'" ...

... OR, as Paul Waldman succinctly puts it, "If everyone screams 'He's coming for your guns!' then gullible rubes will flock to gun stores to buy more before the Great Confiscation takes place, which means more profits for the gun manufacturers who are the NRA's benefactors. Nice racket." ...

... Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post: "Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) said 'Obama is obsessed with undermining the Second Amendment,' while Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) averred, 'We don't beat the bad guys by taking away our guns. We beat the bad guys by using our guns.'... House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.) criticized the president for a 'dangerous level of executive overreach' and for circumventing congressional opposition -- as though Congress has been working feverishly to reduce gun violence.... It is one thing to be in the pocket of the National Rifle Association. It is another to do nothing and then assume a superior posture of purposeful neglect, as though do-nothingness were a policy and smug intransigence a philosophy.... In a civilized society, more guns can't be better than fewer." ...

... AND not to distract you from the actual issue here ... but Steve M. has uncovered wingers' Conspiracy Theory of the Day: President Obama used some kind of device -- an onion, No More Tears, Ben-Gay, whatever -- to induce those tears he shed discussing murder victims. Because thinking about six-year-olds being gunned down by a madman could not possibly induce tears in a "fascist." Also, too, if you cannot be convinced that a product called "No More Tears" produces tears on demand, you're never going to make it in Right Wing World.

Jessica Taylor of NPR: "South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley will deliver the GOP's response to President Obama's State of the Union address next Tuesday, feeding speculation that the Indian-American Republican could be a possible vice presidential pick."

Seung Min Kim of Politico: "Democrats and immigrant-rights groups have turned against the Obama administration in an uproar over recent deportation raids, likening the president to bombastic GOP front-runner Donald Trump and warning him that the controversial strategy will tarnish his legacy on immigration.... Still, aside from a small handful of comments, congressional Democrats have largely been quiet about the raids, which were disclosed shortly before Christmas but confirmed by administration officials only on Monday. Congressional aides blamed the holiday recess, and advocates said there will likely be increasing pressure on Democratic lawmakers to rebuke the Obama administration over the raids." ...

... David Leopold in a CNN opinion piece: "The administration's plan [to round up & deport recent undocumented immigrants] is shocking, outrageous and just plain wrong. This is something we would expect from a President Trump, not President Obama.... It's morally repugnant to send Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents into local communities to arrest and detain vulnerable families, including women and children, and deport them to places where their lives will be threatened by unspeakable violence...."

Kristina Wong of the Hill: "House Republicans will start listening sessions Thursday to discuss a measure authorizing the use of military force against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.... The sessions will be held by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.), whose committee would have jurisdiction over the authorization, according to a committee aide on background.... The sessions will be among Republican members of the committee for now. They are intended to gauge what Republicans would like to see in a new AUMF, and not to produce a concrete proposal." CW: "Listening sessions"? When have House Republicans ever listened to anybody? ...

... CW: Well, maybe I'm wrong. To show they are progressive, innovative & open to new & different ideas House Republicans are, they're going to do something unprecedented today: vote to repeal ObamaCare!

Eduardo Porter of the New York Times: "White non-Hispanics are the only ethnic group that leans Republican, according to a study of party affiliation by the Pew center. White men who have not completed college favor the G.O.P. over the Democratic Party by 54 to 33 percent.... As Matthew Yglesias at Vox suggests, many white Americans are most likely drawn to Mr. Trump's xenophobic, anti-immigrant message because they agree with it.... Americans owe their unusually minimalist state in large measure to racial mistrust. As the economists Alberto Alesina and Edward Glaeser put it in an important paper, European countries are much more generous to the poor relative to the United States mainly because of American racial heterogeneity." ...

... CW: My favoritest part of Porter's column is his calling white non-Hispanics an "ethnic group." It's about time. My second favoritest part is the point that this group, to which I belong, is an outlier. I do get special interests, & I certainly have some special interests of my own. What I don't get is skin color, gender, religion or sexual orientation as a special interest, except insofar as these factors are treated to "special oppression." But for politicians & the legal system to privilege white Christian straight guys as they do has never made sense to me. And, BTW, the white Christian straight guys who get this are fairly heroic, in my view, given the cultural history & present condition of this country. So, thanks to all the white Christian straight guys who do not cling to an accident of birth as a special right to be preserved at the expense of other Americans. ...

... It's easier to understand why Republicans are always accusing Democrats of instigating "class warfare" when you realize, as Ed Kilgore points out, that the Republican party itself suffers from acute class warfare, the prominent result of which is the candidacy of Donald Trump whose popularity among the hoi polloi has torn the party asunder. ...

... CW: I do have some bad news for the suckers who have found their Pied Piper in the Donald: that tax plan of his really is a boon for him & his fellow billionaires, &, as he said (and later denied), he really does think wages are too damned high. Like the rats of Hamelin, you bigoted doofuses are about to be drowned in the river of doom & despair.

Mark Berman of the Washington Post: "At least 52 people in the United States were killed by domestic extremists in 2015, the highest number in two decades, according to a report released Tuesday by the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Sandhya Somashekhar & Steven Rich of the Washington Post: "On the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, Las Vegas police cornered Keith Childress Jr., who was wanted for a number of violent felonies. They opened fire on the 23-year-old after he refused to drop the object in his hands, which turned out not to be a gun but a cellphone. And with that, the nation logged what is likely its final police shooting death of 2015, a year that saw 984 such killings, well more than double the average number reported annually by the FBI over the past decade.... Police killed blacks at three times the rate of whites when adjusted for the population where these shootings occurred. And although unarmed black men represent percent of the U.S. population, they made up nearly 40 percent of those who were killed while unarmed. Regardless of race, about a quarter of those killed displayed signs of mental illness."

Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "U.S. Homeland Security and intelligence agencies are analyzing computer code from what appear to be one of the first known cyberattacks that resulted in an electrical power outage -- this one in Ukraine. The Dec. 23 incidents, which lasted several hours and affected tens of thousands of people, were reported by Ukraine power authorities in the capital region and in the western part of the country."

Presidential Race

Lauren Gambino of the Guardian: "Hillary Clinton urged moderate gun owners to band together against the National Rifle Association during an MSNBC interview [by Chris Matthews] on Tuesday after Barack Obama's morning statement on tighter gun control."

My opponent says that as a senator, she told bankers to 'cut it out' and end their destructive behavior. But, in my view, establishment politicians are the ones who need to cut it out. The reality is that Congress doesn't regulate Wall Street. Wall Street and their lobbyists regulate Congress. We must change that reality, and as president, I will. -- Sen. Bernie Sanders, in Manhattan, Tuesday ...

... Yamiche Alcindor & Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in a fiery speech on Tuesday laid out his plan to break up 'too big to fail' commercial banks and pointedly attacked Hillary Clinton for taking speaking fees from the financial industry and, in his view, not going far enough in her plan to regulate Wall Street. The criticism of Mrs. Clinton was some of Mr. Sanders's strongest to date, and came after he had frequently refrained from such direct attacks."

Matea Gold of the Washington Post: "Most of the Republican presidential contenders and their allies are now waging campaigns focused on fear -- bombarding voters with ominous television spots that warn of national security threats and amping up their alarming rhetoric on the stump.... The candidates are scrambling to out-muscle one another, offering dark assessments of the Obama administration's fight against violent extremists and warning that their rivals are ill-equipped to take up the cause." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

David Siders of the Sacramento Bee: "Ted Cruz has surged to a statistical tie with Donald Trump among Republicans in California, while Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina have tumbled in this late-voting state, according to a new poll." ...

... digby: "California rarely matters in presidential primaries because it happens so late in the cycle but this year it might be different for Republicans. They could easily still be in the thick of it in June.... California wingnuts are among the wingnuttiest of all wingnuts. Luckily for those of us who live here they are in a minority and likely to stay that way as long as they remain so wingnutty. If Trump and Cruz are still sparring over who hates immigrants the most by the time they get here it should be a very good year for Democrats."

Ken Vogel & Daniel Samuelsohn of Politico: "Donald Trump's rivals cling to the hope that the surprise GOP presidential front-runner lacks the know-how to lure supporters to the polls, but Politico has learned that his campaign several months ago assembled an experienced data team to build sophisticated models to transform fervor into votes."

Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump described voter fraud as a rampant problem during a rally on Tuesday night, even though the number of proven cases is minuscule. 'Look, you've got to have real security with the voting system,' Trump said during a campaign event in western New Hampshire. 'This voting system is out of control. You have people, in my opinion, that are voting many, many times. They don't want security, they don't want cards.'" ...

Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "Donald Trump says it would be 'very interesting' to ask Bill Clinton how he was different from Bill Cosby."

... Trump Birthism, Redux. Robert Costa & Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump said in an interview that rival Ted Cruz's Canadian birthplace was a 'very precarious' issue that could make the senator from Texas vulnerable if he became the Republican presidential nominee. 'Republicans are going to have to ask themselves the question: "Do we want a candidate who could be tied up in court for two years?" That'd be a big problem,' Trump said when asked about the topic. 'It'd be a very precarious one for Republicans because he'd be running and the courts may take a long time to make a decision.... A lot of people are talking about it and I know that even some states are looking at it very strongly, the fact that he was born in Canada and he has had a double passport.'" ...

Jim Newell of Slate: Ted Cruz thinks Donald Trump is too soft on immigration.... "'And in fact, look, there's a difference. He's advocated allowing folks to come back in and become citizens. I oppose that.' He then name-checks Congress's two most cherished anti-immigration conservatives, Rep. Steve King and Sen. Jeff Sessions, as collaborators on his immigration plan." ...

... Ted Cruz's weird anti-immigration ad, which is running in New Hampshire:

... Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: "Aside from the fact that most journalists are not normally dressed in wingtips and suits, the economic effect of illegal immigration cannot easily be summarized as a 'calamity.' Some studies have found immigrants who arrived illegally lowered the wages of American-born adults without a high school diploma. But other studies have concluded that immigration is often an overall boost to local economies, because the presence of new workers creates demand for housing, food and other essentials."

"Rubio Can't 'Slime His Way to the White House.'" Philip Rucker & Robert Costa: "As Chris Christie's establishment rivals seize on his blue-state governing record, the New Jersey governor punched back here Tuesday with the kind of bluntness that had been his trademark.... Sen. Marco Rubio charged that Christie has been too closely aligned with President Obama..., echoing twin attack ads aired here by his allied super PAC. Meanwhile, allies of Ohio Gov. John Kasich filled mailboxes in New Hampshire with a biting pamphlet that reads, 'Chris Christie: Tough talk. Weak record.' 'I just don't think Marco Rubio's going to be able to slime his way to the White House,' Christie said. 'He wants to put out a whole bunch of negative ads? Go ahead....'"

Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "Jeb Bush, who promised to run for president by showing voters his heart, is making an especially personal appeal in New Hampshire on Tuesday, where he plans to discuss his daughter's struggles with addiction. Speaking at a forum on addiction and the heroin epidemic at Southern New Hampshire University in the afternoon, Mr. Bush will not only unveil his drug control strategy but also talk about how his family has intimately experienced the ravages of addiction." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Update. Ashley Parker: "On Tuesday, Mr. Bush spoke of how his family dealt with his daughter's difficulties, which became uncomfortably public when he was governor of Florida.... Mr. Bush has said he first checked with his daughter, now 38 and in recovery, before sharing her story, which he did at a forum on heroin addiction." ...

... Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "... Jeb Bush apologized Tuesday night for conflating his gun rights record by suggesting that he received an award from the National Rifle Association that doesn't exist." CW: Jeb! is a jerk, but he's not a crazy jerk, like Republicans' favorite presidential candidate. ...

... Super Media Man. Mark Murray of NBC News: "Jeb Bush and his allies have now spent $49 million in advertisements, including $23 million in New Hampshire and another $10 million in Iowa, according to data from NBC News partner SMG Delta." CW: Congratulations to media outlets in New Hampshire & Iowa. They should get together & give Bush a nice consolation prize after he loses. He likes getting prizes & will brag about them even if he forgets what they were or who gave them to him.

Congressional Race

Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "Representative Steve Israel, a New York Democrat who led political messaging for his party in the House, will not run for re-election, he said Tuesday. Mr. Israel, a seven-term congressman from Long Island with centrist leanings, led the campaign effort for House Democrats in the 2012 and 2014 election cycles and was seen as one of his party's top strategists." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Beyond the Beltway

We are doing the same thing as Rosa Parks did. We are standing up against bad laws which dehumanize us and destroy our freedom. -- Ammon Bundy (@Ammon_Bundy) tweet, January 6, 2016

... Justin Moyer of the Washington Post: "To be clear: Rosa Parks ... was protesting legally sanctioned discrimination. She was willing to be arrested -- to serve time and expose an unjust system. Bundy, armed and possibly dangerous, takes a quite different position. He says his protest won't 'end until we get our public lands back,' denying the federal government's role in land management -- a legally dubious position. And, crucially, he doesn't seem willing, as Parks did, to nobly march into a jail cell. Quite the opposite. As he put it: 'If force is used against us we will defend ourselves.'" ...

.... Les Zaitz of the Oregonian: "Steps are in motion to resolve militants' occupation of a federal compound outside of town, Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward said Tuesday. 'There are things being done,' Ward said. 'It's not visible to the public.' The sheriff sought to assure the community and the country that police aren't sitting back and leaving the group of about 20 militants with a free hand.... Police so far haven't cordoned off the refuge, about 30 miles southeast of Burns, or taken any other steps against the militants, such as cutting off electricity to the compound." ...

... Quoctrung Bui & Margot Sanger-Katz of the New York Times on why the federal government owns so much land in the Western states.

Kirkland An of the Washington Post: "Wheaton College, an evangelical college in Illinois, had placed associate professor of political science Larycia Hawkins on administrative leave after she made a controversial theological statement on Facebook that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. The school has now begun the process to fire her due to an 'impasse,' it said in a statement released on Tuesday." CW: Hawkins is a tenured professor at a school where the definition of "tenure" apparently means something different from what it does in the rest of academia.

Way Beyond

Ben Hubbard, et al., of the New York Times: "For Iraq, which barely survived years of sectarian civil war, the hostilities between Iran and Saudi Arabia could once again foil Sunni-Shiite cooperation -- and empower the Islamic State."

Melissa Eddy of the New York Times: "German authorities said on Tuesday that coordinated attacks in which young women were sexually harassed and robbed by hundreds of young men on New Year's Eve in the western city of Cologne were unprecedented in scale and nature. The assault, which went largely unreported for days, set off a national outcry after the Cologne police described the attackers as young men 'who appeared to have a North African or Arabic' background, based on testimony from victims and witnesses. More than 90 people have filed legal complaints, the police said on Tuesday." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

News Lede

Los Angeles Times: "Another El Niño-fueled storm -- the third this week -- moved into Southern California today, sending flood water and mud onto roadways." The page is a liveblog of storm-related events.

The Commentariat -- January 5, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "Representative Steve Israel, a New York Democrat who led political messaging for his party in the House, will not run for re-election, he said Tuesday. Mr. Israel, a seven-term congressman from Long Island with centrist leanings, led the campaign effort for House Democrats in the 2012 and 2014 election cycles and was seen as one of his party's top strategists."

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "With tears streaming down his face, President Obama on Tuesday condemned the repeated spasms of gun violence across America as he announced new executive actions intended to reduce the number of mass shootings, suicides and killings that have become routine in the nation's communities." ...

... You'll tear up, too:

Mark Berman of the Washington Post: "At least 52 people in the United States were killed by domestic extremists in 2015, the highest number in two decades, according to a report released Tuesday by the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism."

Matea Gold of the Washington Post: "Most of the Republican presidential contenders and their allies are now waging campaigns focused on fear -- bombarding voters with ominous television spots that warn of national security threats and amping up their alarming rhetoric on the stump.... The candidates are scrambling to out-muscle one another, offering dark assessments of the Obama administration's fight against violent extremists and warning that their rivals are ill-equipped to take up the cause."

Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "Jeb Bush, who promised to run for president by showing voters his heart, is making an especially personal appeal in New Hampshire on Tuesday, where he plans to discuss his daughter's struggles with addiction. Speaking at a forum on addiction and the heroin epidemic at Southern New Hampshire University in the afternoon, Mr. Bush will not only unveil his drug control strategy but also talk about how his family has intimately experienced the ravages of addiction."

Melissa Eddy of the New York Times: "German authorities said on Tuesday that coordinated attacks in which young women were sexually harassed and robbed by hundreds of young men on New Year's Eve in the western city of Cologne were unprecedented in scale and nature. The assault, which went largely unreported for days, set off a national outcry after the Cologne police described the attackers as young men 'who appeared to have a North African or Arabic' background, based on testimony from victims and witnesses. More than 90 people have filed legal complaints, the police said on Tuesday."

*****

David Nakamura & Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration on Monday unveiled a series of new executive actions aimed at reducing gun violence and making some political headway on one of the most frustrating policy areas of President Obama's tenure. The package, which Obama plans to announce Tuesday, includes 10 separate provisions, White House officials said. One key provision would require more gun sellers -- especially those who do business on the Internet and at gun shows -- to be licensed and would force them to conduct background checks on potential buyers.... 'The gun lobby may be holding Congress hostage, but they can't hold America hostage. We can't accept this carnage in our communities,' Obama said in a Twitter message Monday evening, referring to the National Rifle Association." ...

... Here's the White House "fact sheet" on the new regulations. ...

... Michael Shear & Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times: "President Obama said on Monday that in the next several days he planned to take executive actions on guns that were 'well within' his legal authority and were supported by the majority of Americans. Speaking to reporters after a meeting in the Oval Office with Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch and other top federal law enforcement officials, Mr. Obama declined to specify the actions he would take to keep guns from criminals, mentally ill people and others":

... Gregor Aisch & Josh Keller of the New York Times: "More guns were sold in December than almost any other month in nearly two decades, continuing a pattern of spikes in sales after terrorist attacks and calls for stricter gun-buying laws, according to federal data released on Monday. The heaviest sales last month, driven primarily by handgun sales, followed a call from President Obama to make it harder to buy assault weapons after the terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif." ...

... Rebecca Leber of the New Republic: "Republicans are furious at President Obama for giving them what they asked for to curb gun violence. Even before the full details of Obama's executive actions on gun violence came out on Tuesday, Republican leaders in Congress and the 2016 presidential field condemned him. Yet tucked into Obama's plan for strengthening gun sales reporting, sharing interstate records, and accelerating background check data is precisely what they have long demanded: A focus on mental health." ...

... IOKIYAR. Digby, in Salon, reflects on House Speaker Paul Ryan's views on executive orders. Funny, if you think paradicmatic hypocrisy is funny.

Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: "Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announced Monday that federal immigration authorities apprehended 121 adults and children in raids over the New Year's weekend as part of a nationwide operation to deport a new wave of illegal immigrants. The families taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were living in Georgia, Texas and North Carolina, Johnson said in a statement. They are being held temporarily in federal detention centers before being deported to Central America.... The raids were the first in a broad operation by the Obama administration that is targeting hundreds of families for deportation who have crossed the southern U.S. border illegally since the start of last year. The operation, first reported by The Washington Post, is the first large-scale effort to deport families fleeing violence in Central America, authorities said."

Margot Sanger-Katz of the New York Times: "In [a] new poll, conducted by The New York Times and the Kaiser Family Foundation, roughly 20 percent of people under age 65 with health insurance nonetheless reported having problems paying their medical bills over the last year. By comparison, 53 percent of people without insurance said the same.... In recent years, health plans have come with growing deductibles and narrowing networks of providers, provisions devised to lower the cost of premiums. Those features have made health insurance accessible to a larger share of the population, but may also be leaving more insured Americans vulnerable." ...

... Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times suggests some needed fixes to ObamaCare. CW: Of course, these won't happen. Because Republicans.

Lena Sun of the Washington Post: "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention need 'considerable work' before the government's top public health agency can achieve a culture of safety at its laboratories, according to a new report."

Maura Dolan of the Los Angeles Times: "The California Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for the Legislature to place an advisory measure on the November ballot asking voters their views on campaign spending. The court had previously blocked the measure after a conservative group challenged it, arguing lawmakers were not legally entitled to put advisory propositions before voters. The proposition asks voters whether there should be a federal constitutional amendment to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United vs. FEC, which permitted unlimited corporate and union spending for federal candidates."

Norm Ornstein of the Atlantic details the factors he thinks led to "Trumpism." However the election turns out, Trumpism itself is not going to go away. Do read the Paulson-Geithner-Summers section. CW: It's worth noting, as Ornstein does not, that the rise of the Tea party began with a protest against helping homeowners burdened with underwater mortgages, a program which -- as Ornstein does remark -- "was never fully implemented." At Geithner's direction, the Home Affordable Refinancing Program -- created on paper in early 2009 -- went dark until 2012, an election year.

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Jennifer Robison of the Las Vegas Review-Journal: "The Connecticut newspaper publisher at the center of a national media-ethics firestorm is no longer managing the Las Vegas Review-Journal or its parent company. Michael Edward Schroeder has left his position as manager of the Review-Journal, as well as manager of News + Media Capital Group LLC, the Delaware company that bought the RJ for $140 million on Dec. 10. Schroeder, who was introduced to RJ staffers as the newspaper's new 'manager' the day the sale closed, 'will have no role whatsoever with regard to the paper,' said Mark Fabiani, a spokesman for the family of Sheldon Adelson, which owns News + Media." ...

... Sydney Ember of the New York Times: "The revelation came just hours after the staff of The Review-Journal met with David J. Butler, the executive editor of The Providence Journal, who was brought in by management to discuss guidelines on how to cover Mr. Adelson and his corporate interests, according to a reporter at the meeting."

Call Me Pythia. CW: As I predicted yesterday morning, the headline to Greg Sargent's Monday morning post changed sometime during the day. Old headline: "Donald Trump's new TV ad: Make America great by keeping the darkies out." New headline: "Donald Trump's new TV ad: Make America great by keeping the dark hordes out." Of course "darkies" is fixed in the URL.

Presidential Race

Patrick Healy of the New York Times: "Eight years after aggressively defending his wife during her first presidential campaign, Bill Clinton was unusually understated and subdued on Monday during his first solo swing back in New Hampshire for Hillary Clinton, restraining himself even in the face of taunts from Donald J. Trump." ...

... Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "As her husband tried to stay on message in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton embarked on a 'River to River' tour of Iowa on Monday, with six events across the state over two days. With a new Republican-led effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act potentially up for a vote this week in Congress, Mrs. Clinton focused her remarks on her plans to preserve, but improve on, President Obama’s sweeping health care plan."

At some point, we have to deal with the fact that there are at least two candidates [Trump & Cruz] who could utterly destroy the Republican bench for a generation if they became the nominee. We'd be hard-pressed to elect a Republican dogcatcher north of the Mason-Dixon or west of the Mississippi. -- Josh Holmes, former chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell

Eugene Emery & Louis Jacobson of PolitiFact: "In a new television ad [embedded on the Commentariat yesterday] -- his campaign's first -- ... Donald Trump shows footage of dozens of people swarming over a border fence.... Trump's television ad purports to show Mexicans swarming over 'our southern border.' However, the footage used to support this point actually shows African migrants streaming over a border fence between Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Melilla, more than 5,000 miles away." ...

... Ali Vitali, et al., of NBC News: "Asked about the video, Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told NBC News, 'No s***, it's not the Mexican border but that's what our country is going to look like. This was 1,000 percent on purpose.'" ...

... Amy Davidson of the New Yorker: "... Trump's hate, his theories, his xenophobia and bigotry, and his intimations of deceit and foreign infiltration at the highest levels of the White House -- it's all a thousand per cent on purpose." ...

... Brian Beutler of the New Republic: "Donald Trump's new ad echoes the anti-immigrant campaign that doomed the California GOP. Explaining the Trump phenomenon is difficult for anyone who doesn't recognize that racism is still widespread in America, and harder still for anyone of the 'both sides' bent, who can't admit that its main political outlet runs through the Republican Party." ...

... So leave it to John Dickerson of Slate, who is also the star of CBS's "Face the Nation," to praise the ad. And you wonder why I don't watch the Sunday showz.

As former NRA Statesman of the Year, I will fight to protect the 2nd Amendment. A clear contrast to @HillaryClinton. -- Jeb Bush (@JebBush) ...

CW: At least John Cassidy of the New Yorker was horrified by Donald Trump's cutting off funds for medical care for his seriously-ill nephew in retaliation for a lawsuit brought by the infant's father. Not too many other professional commentators remarked on the report, although Melissa Cronin of Gawker is also appalled.

Jeet Heer of the New Republic: "According to Politico reporter Shane Goldmacher, [Marco] Rubio responded to a query about missing Senate votes by saying, 'We're not going to fix America with senators and congressmen.' Being a senator is one of the most powerful political jobs in America. If Rubio feels that the Senate isn't fulfilling his sense of purpose, he might want to look into other professions — maybe teaching or medicine." CW: I suspect that for Marco, medicine would be too trying, if only because Dr. Rubio would have to show up for work maybe four days a week. He already has a teaching job, so I'd suggest he stick with that -- the hours are short.

Oops! Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "A spokesman for Jeb Bush's campaign told BuzzFeed News on Monday that Bush had 'mistaken and conflated' his story about receiving the National Rifle Association's 'statesman of the year' award. The former Florida governor has told the story on several occasions, saying he received a rifle from then-NRA president Charlton Heston and was the recipient of the group's 'statesman of the year' honor in 2003.... The Sarasota Republican Party in Florida does hand out out an annual 'statesman of the year' award, the most recent receipt being Donald Trump." ...

... CW: There's your difference between Jeb! & Donald. Jeb!'s campaign admitted he plumped his resume'. When Trump gets caught in these types of fibs & lies, he denies thelies & blames the media for misreporting the "facts."

The Second Amendment to the Constitution isn't for just protecting hunting rights, and it's not only to safeguard your right to target practice. It is a Constitutional right to protect your children, your family, your home, our lives, and to serve as the ultimate check against governmental tyranny -- for the protection of liberty. -- Ted Cruz ...

... Dana Milbank: "Several of the Republican presidential candidates have been encouraging lawbreaking, winking at it or simply looking the other way.... Flirting with extremists helps conservative candidates harness the prodigious anger in the electorate." ...

... Ted & Marco Find Their Voices. Igor Bobic & Samantha-Jo Roth of the Huffington Post: "... Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) urged a peaceful resolution to the armed occupation of a federal building in Oregon.... 'Every one of us has a constitutional right to protest, to speak our minds, but we don't have a constitutional right to use force of violence or threaten force of violence on others,' Cruz told reporters before a campaign event in Iowa.... Rubio similarly urged the armed militants to pursue a more peaceful means of protest. 'You can't be lawless. We live in a republic,' the Florida Republican told Iowa radio station KBUR on Monday. 'There are ways to change the laws of this country and the policies. If we get frustrated with it, that's why we have elections...."

Beyond the Beltway

John Glionna & Jason Wilson of the Guardian: "Federal authorities are planning to cut off the power of the wildlife refuge in Oregon that has been taken over by militia, exposing the armed occupiers to sub-zero temperatures in an effort to flush them out.... 'After they shut off the power, they'll kill the phone service,' the government official added. 'Then they'll block all the roads so that all those guys have a long, lonely winter to think about what they've done.' Snowstorms are expected in the wilderness surrounding the refuge on Tuesday, which is some 30 miles from the town of Burns. At night, temperatures are forecast to plummet to -8C (18F).... [Ammon] Bundy has repeatedly said the group is prepared for the long-haul. However during a tour of the site on earlier in the day, the Guardian was shown a food storage room that did not look like it could sustain a dozen men for more than a few weeks." CW: Nice to see the feds are taking our (no-brainer) advice. ...

... Les Zaitz of the Oregonian: "Two militants occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge issued a video appeal Monday for supporters to join them 'to prevent any bloodshed.'" ...

... Carissa Wolf & Mark Berman of the Washington Post: "The FBI is leading the investigation into the armed occupation of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon and says it will work with local and state authorities to seek 'a peaceful resolution to the situation.'... Federal authorities said they would not elaborate on how they plan to respond.... Both ranchers [at the center of the original dispute] -- Dwight Hammond and his son, Steven -- reported to federal prison on Monday." ...

... Russ Choma of Mother Jones: "... not long ago, Ammon Bundy sought out [and received] help from the government he now decries and received a federal small-business loan guarantee. Ammon Bundy runs a Phoenix-based company called Valet Fleet Services LLC, which specializes in repairing and maintaining fleets of semitrucks throughout Arizona. On April 15, 2010 -- Tax Day, as it happens -- Bundy's business borrowed $530,000 through a Small Business Administration loan guarantee program. The available public record does not indicate what the loan was used for or whether it was repaid.... The government estimated that this subsidy could cost taxpayers $22,419. Bundy did not respond to an email request for comment about the SBA loan. " Ammon also wrote a Facebook post in which he was critical of the government's involvement of business -- CW: I guess like giving businesspeople loan guarantees. ...

     ... CW: Runs in the family. Cliven Bundy, of course, also received substantial help from the federal government when it allowed him to graze his cattle on federal land -- for a fee, which he didn't pay. ...

... ** Charles Pierce: "In a small place in Oregon, the essential compact of the United States of America has come apart.... It began, as so many noxious elements of our politics did, with the Reagan Administration. It began with a man named Ron Arnold, and a Secretary of the Interior named James Watt, and in something called the Wise Use movement with which the Republican party ... allied itself for its political advantage in the western part of the country." ...

... ** Paul Waldman: "Sean Hannity practically made [Cliven] Bundy his Fox News co-host for a couple of weeks. Their bizarre claims about the government and the means they were using to lodge their complaints -- an armed standoff -- were validated and promoted again and again by the media outlets conservatives rely on for their news.... The Bundys' actions can be viewed as an outgrowth of conservative rhetoric over the years of Barack Obama's presidency.... The line between mainstream rhetoric and that of the radical fringe disappeared, with popular television hosts and backbench Republican House members spouting conspiracy theories about FEMA concentration camps and the Department of Homeland Security stockpiling ammunition in preparation for some horrific campaign of repression. Nearly every policy with which conservatives disagreed was decried as the death of freedom itself.... Now combine that with the way so many Republicans talk about guns -- not just as a tool of self-protection, but as something whose essential purpose is to intimidate government officials." ...

... Gene Robinson: "What do you think the response would be if a bunch of black people, filled with rage and armed to the teeth, took over a federal government installation and defied officials to kick them out? I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be wait-and-see. Probably more like point-and-shoot. Or what if the occupiers were Mexican American? They wouldn't be described with the semi-legitimizing term 'militia,' harking to the days of the patriots. And if the gun-toting citizens happened to be Muslim, heaven forbid, there would be wall-to-wall cable news coverage of the 'terrorist assault.' I can hear Donald Trump braying for blood." ...

... Jim Dalrymple of BuzzFeed: "Mormonism has a long, complicated history of conflict with the federal government, and that history is deeply informing the actions of the militia members and ranchers who took over a government building Saturday. God told Ammon Bundy to fight back against the government." CW: I guess it's time for Mitt to weigh in. ...

... Tad Walch of the Deseret (Salt Lake City) News: "LDS Church leaders on Monday plainly and roundly denounced a militia whose organizers cited Mormon scriptures in the months before they seized a federal facility in Oregon on Saturday." ...

... Robert Bateman of Esquire introduces you to three of the nutjobs leading the Oregon insurrection. CW: I suspect I'm giving them way too much attention.

American "Justice," Ctd. Matt Hamilton & Richard Winton of the Los Angeles Times: "A 'failure of leadership' at the Orange County district attorney's office led to repeated problems with handling jailhouse informants and helped erode confidence in cases that rely on such evidence, according to a report made public Monday. The findings, presented by a special committee created by Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas, described the office as functioning 'as a ship without a rudder' and said some of its prosecutors adopted a 'win-at-all-costs mentality.'" CW: This is the second story I've linked in as many days about major metropolitan-area district attorneys' operations that encourage some form of corruption. When you think over the years of other, similar stories you've read or heard, it's difficult to pretend our system of justice works, except by chance.

AP: "A former South Carolina police officer charged with killing an unarmed black motorist [Walter Scott] was released on bond on Monday, officials said. Circuit judge Clifton Newman in Charleston allowed a $500,000 surety bond on Monday afternoon for Michael Slager. Newman also set a 31 October trial date. Slager will have to remain in South Carolina while out on bail."

Dana Hedgpeth & Clarence Williams of the Washington Post: "The death of a 74-year-old man who suffered neck injuries during a struggle with security guards last fall at MedStar Washington Hospital Center has been ruled a homicide, authorities said Monday."

Louis Sahagun of the Los Angeles Times: "Southern California Gas Co. crews are erecting mesh screens around the utility's leaking natural gas injection well to prevent an oily mist from drifting off the site and across the nearby community of Porter Ranch, company officials confirmed on Monday." CW: That should solve the problem.

Way Beyond

Sewell Chan of the New York Times: "Kuwait recalled its ambassador to Iran on Tuesday, the latest country to side with Saudi Arabia in a widening diplomatic feud with Iran that has roiled the region, put the United States in a bind and threatened to set back the prospects for peace in Syria."

News Ledes

Guardian: "One US service member has died and two were injured in an operation in southern Afghanistan, according to the US military command in Kabul."

Weather Channel: "WSI, a division of The Weather Company, issued their January through March 2016 outlook update, and both forecast temperatures and precipitation have the fingerprints of the current strong El Niño, the strongest in 18 years, all over them. The forecast includes the potential for a significant cold snap in parts of the central and eastern states starting in the middle portion of January."

The Commentariat -- January 4, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Andy Borowitz: (Satire) "A majority of Oregonians favor building a twenty-foot wall along the border of their state to prevent angry white men from getting in, a poll released on Monday shows."

*****

Gardiner Harris & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "Renewing his emphasis on the need for more gun restrictions, President Obama will participate in a live televised town-hall-style meeting on Thursday to discuss gun violence in the United States, according to the White House. The hourlong event, at George Mason University outside Washington, will be televised on CNN at 8 p.m." See related story linked under Presidential Race. ...

... Tim Noah of Politico: "Nearly 4,000 regulations are squirming their way through the federal bureaucracy in the last year of Barack Obama's presidency -- many costing industry more than $100 million -- in a mad dash by the White House to push through government actions affecting everything from furnaces to gun sales to Guantanamo.... Much of this work will be carried out in the coming months by career bureaucrats..., but the cumulative effect adds up to something larger: A final-year sprint by a president intent on using executive power to improve the lives of American workers and consumers -- in many instances over loud objections from the businesses that will have to pay for it. The work must be done swiftly in most cases because any regulation finalized after May 17 or thereabouts risks being blocked by Congress." (Noah explains why.)

"Elections Have Consequences." What Paul Krugman learned from the IRS's newly-released 2013 tax tables: "Mr. Obama's election in 2008 and re-election in 2012 had some real, quantifiable consequences.... One of the important consequences of the 2012 election was that Mr. Obama was able to go through with a significant rise in taxes on high incomes.... If Mitt Romney had won, we can be sure that Republicans would have found a way to prevent these tax hikes.... The bottom line is that presidential elections matter, a lot, even if the people on the ballot aren't as fiery as you might like." ...

... BUT. digby: Republican voters "don't care about taxes for the rich --- or themselves either, at least not in the abstract. They are not motivated by economic arguments unless the argument is that the government is taking their money and giving it to black people or immigrants or spending it on foreigners."

CW: Peter Baker of the New York Times usually finds some hook to annoy me, as he does in today's essay on President Obama's "struggle to stay relevant," but the content is overwise informative.

New Rules, Undefined. Mark Schmitt in a New York Times op-ed: "... in recent years, Republican politicians especially have not only defied the rules, they have also protected themselves from the consequences. Restrictions on voting, along with aggressive redistricting, reduce the influence of the median voter. Campaign war chests (including 'super PACs') scare off opponents, from within their own party as well as the other. By crippling civil-society institutions such as unions and community groups, which organize middle- and lower-income voters, they sometimes avoid being held accountable. They can use ideological media to reach mostly like-minded voters.... Now that congressional leaders, governors and Mr. Trump have shown the rules and customs of American politics to be hollow and unenforceable, we need a new set of tools to understand how democracy works, or doesn't."

American "Justice," Ctd. Madison Pauly of Mother Jones: "When it comes to throwing juveniles in jail with no chance for parole, the main culprits are officials in a handful of counties with a reputation for seeking and imposing harsh sentences on kids. Philadelphia alone is responsible for sentencing about 9 percent of America's current juvenile life-without-parole inmates.... Since 1992, black children arrested for murder are twice as likely to end up sentenced to life without parole as white children arrested for murder.... One strange outcome of the decision to end mandatory sentencing, in Miller v. Alabama, is that even though many fewer juvenile offenders now receive life-without-parole sentences compared with the late 90s, there is actually more opportunity for racial bias because sentences are now discretionary."

American "Justice," Ctd. Joseph Goldstein of the New York Times: "The Suffolk County, New York, "law enforcement" apparatus has long been a rat's nest of sleazy power politics. The Justice Department is investigating district attorney Thomas Spota & his long-time pal, the former police chief James Burke, is under federal indictment "on charges of violating a thief's civil rights after a duffel bag -- containing pornography, sex toys and cigars -- was stolen from Mr. Burke's sport utility vehicle in 2012. When the thief was arrested shortly after the break-in, Mr. Burke, 51, barged in on the interrogation and punched him, then persuaded his officers to cover for him by lying about the episode, a federal indictment says." Federal "agents [are seeking] evidence about whether judgeships are for sale in Suffolk County.... In Suffolk County, policing is not a middle-class job.... Detectives and sergeants have been known to earn more than $200,000 a year."

Presidential Race

Trip Gabriel & Amy Chozick of the New York Times: Bernie Sanders' "campaign has quietly assembled an extensive ground game [in Iowa], with 100 paid staff members and with trained volunteer leaders for each of the state's 1,681 caucus precincts." Sanders is relying on enthusiasm, too, "because younger and economically struggling voters [-- his base --] are historically less likely to caucus."

Jennifer Epstein of Bloomberg: "... Hillary Clinton will unveil proposals this month that will 'go beyond the Buffett Rule' to raise the effective tax rates paid by the wealthiest Americans, she said Saturday. 'As president, I'll do what it takes to make sure the super-wealthy are truly paying their fair share,' Clinton said in a statement responding to the Internal Revenue Service's release of new data on tax rates paid by the 400 wealthiest U.S. households, which averaged 22.89 percent in 2013."

Abby Phillip of the Washington Post: "One day before former president Bill Clinton arrives in New Hampshire to campaign for his wife, Hillary Clinton, she was confronted with questions about allegations involving his sexual history at a town hall meeting in the state on Sunday. State Rep. Katherine Prudhomme-O'Brien (R) repeatedly interrupted Clinton during the meeting, which was held in a middle school gymnasium.... After Prudhomme-O'Brien's third interruption, Clinton responded angrily: 'You are very rude, and I'm not ever going to call on you.'" ...

... CW: Here's a little background on Prudhomme-O'Brien. This is not the first time she's done this sort of thing.

David Cloud of the Los Angeles Times: "President Obama's plan to impose new controls on gun sales in an effort to lessen gun violence drew sharp fire Sunday from Republican presidential candidates, who argued he lacked authority to enact the restrictions by executive order.... 'I don't like anything to do with changing our 2nd Amendment,' Donald Trump ... said on CBS' 'Face the Nation.' Obama 'just goes and signs executive orders on everything.' New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, appearing on 'Fox News Sunday,' called Obama 'a petulant child' who sidesteps Congress 'whenever he can't get what he wants.'... 'His first impulse is always to take rights away from law-abiding citizens," [Jeb] Bush said, also on 'Fox News Sunday.' 'And it's wrong. And to use executive powers that he doesn't have is a pattern that's quite dangerous.'" ...

... CW: Kinda funny, because all three of these critics are mighty fond of executive orders. Trump has promised, among other things to personally build a big ole border fence, presumably by executive order. Christie has already changed a New Jersey state gun law by executive order. According to the AP, "Bush was an aggressive chief executive throughout his tenure as Florida governor, pushing the limits of executive authority, bristling at legislative oversight and willing to work around the courts." ...

... BUT There Are Things Too Delicate to Discuss. Katie Zezima & Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "Republican presidential candidates are staying mum as an armed group has taken over part of a national wildlife refuge in rural Oregon -- even those who supported the father of at least one of its leaders, who had his own standoff with the government in 2014, and have called for limits on federal control over Western land."

Nick Gass of Politico: "Donald Trump on Monday assailed President Barack Obama for his upcoming executive action to tighten gun restrictions, remarking that on the current track, it would soon become impossible for Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights to have firearms. 'Well pretty soon, you won't be able to get guns. I mean, it's another step in the way of not getting guns,' the Republican presidential candidate told CNN's 'New Day.'" ...

... Tom LoBianco & Elizabeth Landers of CNN: "Donald Trump on Saturday said the policies of President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton 'created ISIS,' the furthest the GOP front-runner has gone in tying the Obama administration's policies to the rise of the terror group.Trump offered no evidence for his claim...."

... Robert Costa & Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "The decision to air television ads -- which [Donald] Trump hinted at for months, though the billionaire mogul has been loath to spend more than he deems necessary -- represents a tightly produced new act for a candidate who has fed largely off free media attention. In an interview Sunday with The Post, Trump said that he has six to eight ads in production and that his was a 'major buy and it's going to go on for months.' He said he hopes the spots impress upon undecided voters that the country has become 'a dumping ground. The world is laughing at us, at our stupidity,' he said. 'It's got to stop. We've got to get smart fast -- or else we won't have a country.'" ...

... OR, as Greg Sargent (or a WashPo headline writer) parses it, "Donald Trump’s new TV ad: Make America great by keeping the darkies out." (I won't be surprised if somebody at the WashPo rewrites that headline.)

CW: I skipped that weekend New York Times story by Jason Horowitz about Donald Trump's troubled brother Freddy, but here's an illuminating tidbit: "Then came the unveiling of Fred Sr.'s will, which Donald had helped draft. It divided the bulk of the inheritance, at least $20 million, among his children and their descendants, 'other than my son Fred C. Trump Jr.' Freddy's children sued, claiming that an earlier version of the will had entitled them to their father's share of the estate, but that Donald and his siblings had used 'undue influence' over their grandfather, who had dementia, to cut them out. A week later, [Donald] Trump retaliated by withdrawing the medical benefits critical to his nephew's infant child." I guess we know what the Donald would do to CHIP in order to accommodate tax cuts for millionaires & billionaires.

Beyond the Beltway

Les Zaitz of the Oregonian: "Law enforcement agencies are remaining mum about plans to end militiamen's occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters.... Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward said in a statement late Saturday that 'a collective effort from multiple agencies is currently working on a solution.'... Accounts of how many militia are at the refuge range from their own claims of up to 150 to accounts from reporters at the scene that there may be no more than 15.... Law enforcement will be under great pressure to act because of the Bundys' confrontation in Nevada. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management retreated from that confrontation and has yet to publicly act against the Bundys to collect $1 million in unpaid grazing fees. That retreat has emboldened militia members as they now face the prospect of another standoff." ...

... CW: If this were an unarmed Occupy group of mostly young people, "law enforcement" would just pepper-spray their faces & throw 'em in jail. But these people occupying a migratory bird sanctuary are gun-totin' Constitutional scholars who say the federal government has no right to own land, so by all means, cave. Also, too, while the boyz are otherwise occupied (or occupying), this would be an opportune time for the BLM to round up those Bundy cattle. ...

... Carissa Wolf, et al., of the Washington Post: "'These men came to Harney County claiming to be part of militia groups supporting local ranchers,' [Sheriff Dave] Ward said in a statement Sunday. 'When in reality these men had alternative motives, to attempt to overthrow the county and federal government in hopes to spark a movement across the United States.'... Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center ... said that Bundy's success has fueled a renewed rise in the number of anti-government activist groups and self-described militias. 'When you have a big win like they did at the Bundy Ranch, it emboldens people.... It is definitely a recipe for disaster.'" ...

... Contributor Julie passes along the statement of the Portland Audubon Society, which reads, in part, "The occupation of Malheur by armed, out of state militia groups puts one of America's most important wildlife refuges at risk. It violates the most basic principles of the Public Trust Doctrine and holds hostage public lands and public resources to serve the very narrow political agenda of the occupiers. The occupiers have used the flimsiest of pretexts to justify their actions -- the conviction of two local ranchers in a case involving arson and poaching on public lands. Notably, neither the local community or the individuals convicted have requested or endorsed the occupation or the assistance of militia groups."

     ... CW: Oh yeah? So what? According to the Society's own statement, Teddy Roosevelt created the Malheur refuge in 1908, in what sounds to me very much like an executive action. So no doubt unconstitooshunal. BTW, these federal lands belong to all of us, not to a few ranchers, miners & sundry armed squatters. There is nothing more populist than lands owned in common. ...

... Janell Ross of the Washington Post: "The sometimes-coded but increasingly overt ways that some Americans are presumed guilty and violence-prone [-- say, black ones! --] while others [-- say, white ones --] are assumed to be principled and peaceable unless and until provoked -- even when actually armed -- is remarkable.... When a group of unknown size and unknown firepower has taken over any federal building with plans and possibly some equipment to aid a years-long occupation -- and when its representative tells reporters that they would prefer to avoid violence but are prepared to die -- the kind of almost-uniform delicacy and the limits on the language [the press] used to describe the people involved becomes noteworthy itself." Read her whole post.

... David Atkins of the Washington Monthly: "Undereducated, armed angry men are often upset at Western governments for upsetting their private power apple carts because in their small, solipsistic worlds they're very used to being lords of their manors and local enforcers of bigoted frontier justice. That's as true of Afghan militants in the Taliban as it is of rural Montana militiamen.... If Bundy's little crew wants to occupy a federal building and assert that they'll use deadly violence against any police who try to extract them, then they should get what they're asking for just as surely Islamist terrorists would if they did likewise." ...

... Mark Kleiman of the Reality Base Community: "Of course it's crucial to avoid a shoot-out, but it's equally crucial to assert the rule of law. There's no need here to repeat the back-down in Nevada, and the ringleaders need to go away for long, long time. It's also crucial that Republican politicians -- most importantly, the Presidential candidates -- be forced to take a stand for or against acts of lawless violence." ...

... Kevin Drum: "These guys aren't terrorists, anyway. They're just as misguided as real terrorists, but they haven't taken anyone hostage or threatened to blow up an airplane. They're just morons with guns.... Just let them rot quietly away for a while until they finally come slinking out of their hole into the hands of federal officials. Then they can be put on trial. By that time, they'll just seem like a bunch of pitiful loons, and their 'movement' will be dead." ...

... Steve M. looks at the bigger picture: "... it's safe to assume that the effort to end federal control of these lands is not about manly constitutionalism -- it's about well-connected fat cats wanting the land under local control because local bureaucrats are more likely to be pushovers. NPR's [Kirk] Siegler says, 'States like Utah want to see more oil and gas drilling and other types of development on all that federal land' because 'they'd get more money to pay for things like schools.' The second part of that is just a smokescreen.... The local authorities just want to do whatever oil and gas moguls want them to do.... Fox watchers cheer on the militias, then vote for seemingly like-minded 'constitutionalists' who proceed to hand over the land to the greediest exploiters. Freedom!" ...

... CW: AND this goes a long way to explain why "Republican presidential candidates are staying mum."

Zahira Torres & Frank Shyong of the Los Angeles Times: "A leaking natural gas well that has displaced thousands of residents in Porter Ranch lacked a working safety valve, sparking new questions about how the facility was maintained. Attorneys for residents suing Southern California Gas Co. said the company failed to replace the safety valve when it was removed in 1979. The safety valve may not have prevented the leak, but it would have stopped the continued release of fumes pouring into the community, attorney Brian Panish said in an interview Sunday. SoCal Gas spokeswoman Melissa Bailey confirmed in an email to The Times that the well did not have 'a deep subsurface valve.' She said such a valve was not required by law."

American Hero. Justin Moyer of the Washington Post: Larry Wright, a Fayetteville, North Carolina, pastor, peacefully disarmed a man who walked into his church carrying a semi-automatic assault rifle during New Year's Eve services. The man "said he had recently been released from prison and 'intended to do something terrible,' as CNN put it. Wright told NBC that the man was a military veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome."

Way Beyond

Ben Hubbard of the New York Times: "Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic ties with Iran on Sunday and gave Iranian diplomats 48 hours to leave the kingdom, marking a swift escalation in a strategic and sectarian rivalry that underpins conflicts across the Middle East." ...

... Liz Sly of the Washington Post: "Bahrain joined Saudi Arabia in severing diplomatic relations with Iran on Monday as the worst crisis in three decades between the region's rival Sunni and Shiite powers drew worldwide expressions of alarm. Russia offered to mediate in the feud and China was among the nations expressing concern at the implications of the rupture...." ...

     ... Update. Thomas Erdbrink of the New York Times: "Three Sunni-led countries joined Saudi Arabia on Monday in severing or downgrading diplomatic ties with Iran, worsening a geopolitical conflict with sectarian dimensions in one of the world's most volatile regions."

Martin Evans of the (U.K.) Telegraph: "Intelligence agencies were hunting a new 'Jihadi John' after an Islamic extremist with a British accent murdered five men accused of spying for the UK."

Christopher Sherman & Maria Verza of the AP: "Three people, including a minor, were being held Sunday in the slaying of a newly inaugurated mayor just hours into her term in a gang-troubled central Mexican city. Morelos Gov. Graco Ramirez ordered flags on state buildings flown at half-staff and called for three days of mourning following the killing of Temixco Mayor Gisela Mota."

Dan Bilefsky of the New York Times: "Sweden introduced new identity checks on Monday on travelers arriving from Denmark, and Denmark swiftly followed suit along its border with Germany. The steps by the two Scandinavian countries represented another step in the erosion of the ideal of borderless travel across most of the European Union, amid rising concerns about the economic and security risks posed by the tide of migration."

News Ledes

Washington Post: "The body of Craig Strickland has been found more than a week after the country singer went missing during a severe storm. Strickland, the 29-year-old frontman for Backroad Anthem, had gone duck hunting with his friend Chase Morland on Dec. 27 when a severe, spring-like weather system hit the Kaw Lake area in Oklahoma. A search party began looking for them that night, and Morland's body was found the following day. A capsized boat the two had used was also recovered."

New York Times: "Stocks worldwide tumbled in the first trading day of 2016, as fresh fears about a slowdown in China's economy ignited concerns about global growth." ...

... Bloomberg: "Financial markets are starting 2016 on a bleak note and China is at the center of it. Stocks crumbled around the world, with emerging markets falling the most since August and European equities heading for the worst first day of trading ever, as slowing manufacturing triggered a selloff that halted equity trading in Shanghai."