The Commentariat -- Dec. 12, 2015
Internal links, defunct audio & video removed.
Afternoon Update:
Matt Apuzzo, et al., of the New York Times: "Tashfeen Malik, who with her husband carried out the massacre in San Bernardino, Calif., passed three background checks by American immigration officials as she moved to the United States from Pakistan. But none uncovered what Ms. Malik had made little effort to hide -- that she talked openly on social media about her views on violent jihad. She said she supported it. And she said she wanted to be a part of it.... Had the authorities found the posts years ago, they might have kept her out of the country. But immigration officials do not routinely review social media as part of their background checks, and there is a debate inside the Department of Homeland Security over whether it is even appropriate to do so." CW: Hmm, seems "appropriate" to me.
Sewell Chan of the New York Times lists some of the key elements of the climate change agreement being voted on in Paris today.
*****
White House: "In this week's address, the President praised our country’s resilience in the face of terrorism, and discussed how we will keep America safe":
Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "Early Saturday morning, United Nations officials said they had reached agreement overnight on new language for the final draft of the pact, which would be released publicly at 11:30 a.m. Paris time. The officials also said that the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, hoped to bring that text up for a final approval by Saturday." ...
... Update: "Delegates on Saturday were presented with the final draft of a landmark climate accord that would for the first time commit nearly every country to lowering planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions as a way to help stave off the most drastic effects of climate change. The document was made available midafternoon, after several delays while negotiators wrangled behind the scenes to nail down final details." ...
... New Lede: "With the sudden stroke of a gavel on Saturday night, representatives of 195 countries reached a landmark climate accord that will, for the first time, commit nearly every country to lowering planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions to help stave off the most drastic effects of climate change."
... Joby Warrick & Chris Mooney of the Washington Post: "Diplomats from 196 countries prepared to vote Saturday on a far-reaching climate accord that seeks to halt the rapid growth of man-made greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and prevent a dangerous warming of the planet." ...
... The Guardian is running a liveblog of developments & reactions.
Burgess Everett & Seung Min Kim of Politico: "After weeks of withering criticism from comedian Jon Stewart, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell guaranteed on Friday that a health care bill for 9/11 first responders will be included in a must-pass, year-end spending deal. Stewart has barnstormed Capitol Hill and blanketed the media, including his old show this week, in an all-out lobbying campaign for the roughly $8 billion measure." ...
... Kelsey Snell of the Washington Post: "The House on Friday passed a stop-gap spending bill that will give Congress until the middle of next week to complete a deal on a year-end appropriations package needed to fund the government. The measure passed in a voice vote after minimal debate. The Senate passed the legislation by voice vote on Thursday.... Negotiators plan to work through the weekend as they continue to haggle over what policy riders should be attached to the legislation and how to handle a separate package of tax breaks for businesses and individuals that will likely be attached to the bill or moved at the same time." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide whether states can make it a crime for motorists suspected of drunken driving to refuse breath, blood or urine tests. Thirteen states have such laws. The court took up the question in three cases: one from Minnesota and two from North Dakota, which were consolidated for a single argument."
** Dexter Thomas of the Los Angeles Times: "Many black scientists are feeling annoyed this week over comments made by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.... 'Most of the black scientists in this country don't come from schools like the University of Texas,' Scalia said from the bench. 'They come from lesser schools.'... Chanda Prescod-Weinstein[, a theoretical cosmologist (no, that doesn't mean she's studying the value of make-up),] ... noted a 2010 study of MIT faculty that showed that 59% of all underrepresented minorities in science departments came from either MIT, Harvard or Stanford. Other schools that were highly represented were similarly prestigious universities, such as UC Berkeley and Yale. The University of Texas, which Scalia suggested was too fast-paced for some black students, was not on the list."
Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Andrew Pollack of the New York Times: "Martin Shkreli is once again provoking alarm with a plan to sharply increase the price of a decades-old drug for a serious infectious disease. This time the drug treats Chagas disease, a parasitic infection that can cause potentially lethal heart problems.... Mr. Shkreli has said he hopes to obtain such a voucher by getting the Chagas disease drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration for sale in the United States. Critics say that it would be another case of the system being abused by awarding a voucher not for developing a new drug but merely for obtaining F.D.A. approval of a drug already used in tropical countries." ...
... CW: Capitalism really is not this awesome. Pardon me for stating the obvious, but there oughta be a law against this type of rank thievery. That there is not is an indictment of our laissez-faire Congress. They can repeal ObamaCare dozens of times, but they won't do a thing against drug-company gouging of insurance companies, sick people & insurance premium-payers. Martin Shkreli's greatest service to his country should be to get Congress off its collective ass to stop Martin Shkreli & his ilk.
Ian Lovett, et al., of the New York Times: "Federal investigators believe that more than any other witness, [Enrique] Marquez, a convert to Islam, has 'held the keys' to understanding what motivated Mr. Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, and may shed light on whom they were in contact with in the years leading up to the attack, according to one senior law enforcement official."
CBS News: "Treasury Secretary Jack Lew won't be deciding which woman to feature on the next $10 dollar bill until 2016, after initially saying he would finalize a pick by the end of the year...."
Jerry Markon of the Washington Post: "The United States and Cuba said Friday that they will re-establish direct mail service between the two countries for the first time in more than a half century, the latest sign of thawing relations between the long-time adversaries. In separate statements, the State Department and the Cuban embassy in Washington said the agreement was reached Thursday during discussions in Miami. It calls for a pilot program to provide mail flights between the United States and Cuba, rather than routing mail through a third country as has been done for decades."
Presidential Race
Nolan McCaskill & Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Ben Carson on Friday blasted the Republican National Committee following a Washington Post report that nearly two-dozen establishment party figures were prepping for a potential brokered convention as Donald Trump continues to lead most polls.... 'If the leaders of the Republican Party want to destroy the party, they should continue to hold meetings like the one described in the Washington Post this morning,' Carson said in a statement released by his campaign.... 'If it is correct, every voter who is standing for change must know they are being betrayed. I won't stand for it,' said Carson, who added that if the plot is accurate, 'I assure you, Donald Trump won't be the only one leaving the party.'" ...
... Christopher Massie of BuzzFeed: "Rand Paul said on Friday that, if the Republican establishment tries to block an outsider candidate from winning the party's nomination through a brokered convention, 'there'll be war within the party and they'll destroy the party.'" CW: In case you forgot, Li'l Randy is still running for president. ...
... The statisticians at 538 discuss the probability of a contested GOP convention & of the chances they'll all go play poker in Vegas tonight. ...
... BUT. Ian Millhiser of Think Progress explains how the party regulars could trump Trump. "With many candidates still in the race, and Trump commanding a strong plurality -- but nowhere near a majority -- in the polls, it's easy to imagine a scenario where Trump wins more primary votes than any other candidate but still lacks enough delegates to lock up the nomination. Indeed, the delegate math seems to favor the establishment." CW: If party poobahs dumped Trump, it would make Ben Carson as mad as H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks, which would in turn terrify Reality Chex contributor Ophelia M. (see yesterday's Comments thread.) ...
... AND McKay Coppins of BuzzFeed reports on a "secret plan to nominate Mitt Romney from the convention floor." CW: Just because he lost to President Obama doesn't mean the Mittster couldn't best, say, Hillary Clinton. He's still handsome & presidenty-looking; he's got that 47-percent thing going for him; he's got the self-deportation (super-humane!); and best of all, he has a secret weapon to beat a female candidate: "binders full of women"!
** Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.), who was born in a World War II U.S. internment camp for Japanese-Americans, responds to Donald Trump's favorable invocation of the camps. Read the whole story. CW: And I take back some, if not all, of the nasty things I've said over the years about former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wy.).
Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner: "For decades, liberals have created a caricature of Republicans as being more about bombast and white resentment than substance and principles. Should Donald Trump win the GOP presidential nomination, it would help validate this cartoonish portrait. That's why those who work to elect Republicans and advance conservative policy ideas are recoiling from his dominance in polling. It's why liberals are greeting his rise with 'I told you sos' and why their allies in the media are perfectly content to promote Trump and allow him to define the GOP electorate." CW: Klein is a conservative writer. I love the part about the how the liberal media are part of the left-wing conspiracy promoting Trump just to make Republicans look bad. Via Paul Waldman.
Olivia Nuzzi of the Daily Beast went out & talked to some people who have made campaign contributions to Donald Trump. Entertainment-wise, Trump has nothing on his supporters.
Press Association, in the Guardian: "The PGA Tour is to consider alternative venues for the WGC-Cadillac Championship following Donald Trump's latest controversial comments. The Championship is to be staged at Trump's National Doral in Miami in March but may be moved elsewhere after 2016. The announcement comes after the course's owner Trump ... caused widespread anger and consternation by calling for a 'total and complete' ban on Muslims entering America." ...
... Ben Kamisar of the Hill: "Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Thursday vowed to issue an executive order to mandate the death penalty for anyone who kills a police officer.... [He was] speaking to a New Hampshire crowd alongside the New England Police Benevolent Association, shortly after the group voted to endorse Trump." ...
... ** "What You See Is What You Get." Mark Bowden, in Vanity Fair, remembers "a long, awkward weekend" he spent with Donald Trump in November 1996, as part of his research for a Playboy profile of Trump: "Trump struck me as adolescent, hilariously ostentatious, arbitrary, unkind, profane, dishonest, loudly opinionated, and consistently wrong. He remains the most vain man I have ever met. And he was trying to make a good impression.... His behavior was cringe-worthy.... Time after time the stories he told me didn't check out.... It was hard to watch the way he treated those around him, issuing peremptory orders.... Trump remains the only person I have ever written about who tried to bribe me.
Paul Farhi of the Washington Post: "Conspiracy promoter Alex Jones & Donald Trump "shared a microphone, and some common ground, last week in what may have been a dubious first -- the first time a leading presidential candidate has been interviewed by a media figure from the far extremes.... Trump finding common ground with Jones is in keeping with Trump's own rocky relationship with facts and credible information during the campaign. Many of Trump's more controversial assertions since he declared for president have come from the murky swamp of right-wing, libertarian and flat-out paranoid sources that have proliferated and thrived as the Internet and social media have grown." ...
... CW: It's absolutely terrific -- and high time -- for the MSM to call out Trump's mendacity. Farhi's labelling of Trump as a serial truther is a good first step. Just fact-checking his individual lies is not enough.
What mass deportation might look like:
... This can't be right. Trump said deportation would be "very humane."
Coming to Black-and-White TV: "Ted Cruz's Amateur Hour." -- New York Times Editors: "His favorite line on ISIS seems to be, 'We will carpet-bomb them into oblivion,' which he said in Iowa last week. His irresponsible chatter is of a piece with most Republican presidential candidates, who are busy offering phony prescriptions for the biggest foreign threat the United States faces.... 'Carpet-bombing' is a term used by amateurs trying to sound tough. Indiscriminate bombing has never been a military strategy, and it would be senseless in an age of 'smart' weaponry and precise targeting. In Syria and Iraq, mass bombing would kill hundreds of innocent civilians and fuel radicalization. That's why military leaders utter the term 'carpet-bomb' only while laughing at Mr. Cruz.... Ted Cruz ... decries terrorists' taking of innocent lives while agitating for bombing that would kill thousands of noncombatants and radicalize thousands more. What he's saying shows an utter lack of fitness to command America's armed forces." ...
... Ted Cruz's Amateur Hour, Episode 2. Emily Atkin of Think Progress does an excellent job of debunking exceptional climate scientist Ted Cruz. At a hearing of the Senate's Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness, which Ted chaired, he came up with some downright laughable "facts." But then this is what happens when you get your climate "facts" from Michelle Bachmann's favorite science sites.
Beyond the Beltway
Paloma Esquivel, et al., of the Los Angeles Times: "A fire Friday at a mosque appears to have been intentionally set, authorities say, and has prompted condemnations and alarm in this Riverside County community and beyond. The fire at the Islamic Society of the Coachella Valley mosque is one of several incidents over the past week that officials are investigating as possible backlashes to the San Bernardino terrorist shootings. Late Friday, authorities said they had detained someone but released no additional details."
Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: "A Muslim woman was nearly shot Thursday as she left a Florida mosque, and another woman was nearly run off the road. Someone fired at least one gunshot at the woman as she drove away from the mosque in east Tampa, near Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, reported WTSP-TV. She was not injured, and police have not identified or arrested a suspect. Another Muslim woman reported a man threw rocks and other items at her and tried to run her off the road as she drove away from a mosque in New Tampa."
Seriously Not Helpful. Shaun Boyd of CBS Denver: "A board member for the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado has resigned after urging people to kill supporters of presidential candidate Donald Trump. Loring Wirbel's Facebook post was captured by The Daily Caller -- a right-leaning online newspaper. The post states, 'The thing is, we have to really reach out to those who might consider voting for Trump and say, "This is Goebbels. This is the final solution. If you are voting for him I will have to shoot you before Election Day." They're not going to listen to reason, so when justice is gone, there's always force....'"
William Rashbaum & Susanne Craig of the New York Times: "Dean G. Skelos, the former majority leader of the New York Senate, and his son were found guilty of federal corruption charges on Friday, a quick and devastating follow-up punch to the State Capitol, which has seen two entrenched leaders convicted and removed from office in less than two weeks. The jury in Federal District Court in Manhattan took roughly eight hours over two days to reach its verdict against Senator Skelos, 67, and his son, Adam B. Skelos, 33, finding them guilty of all eight bribery, extortion and conspiracy counts."
Alan Pyke of Think Progress: "Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) likely knew that there was unreleased video evidence of Officer Jason Van Dyke killing 17-year-old Laquan McDonald within 50 days of the shooting, internal emails obtained by NBC Chicago indicate. The emails show Emanuel staffers discussing the existence of dashcam video of the killing in early December of last year, as Emanuel's re-election effort was entering the home stretch. The city sought to suppress the video for over a year before a judge forced Chicago to release it to the public last month." ...
... Martin Longman of the Washington Monthly: "You'd really have to be stupid not to see through the scam Emanuel pulled to conceal police misconduct in the killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald until after he had been safely reelected. I mean, we now know that his office was apprised of the fact that there was video footage at least two months before election day. And even if it isn't yet completely established that Emanuel knew by then that the police were engaged in a cover-up, the totality of the rest of the record is crystal clear. Emanuel joined in the cover-up.... Either he covered up a murder or he's the kind of steward of the people's tax money who allows $5 million dollars [paid to the McDonald family right after Emanuel's re-election] to be handed out without asking why. I think calls for his resignation are totally legitimate."
Ben Fenwick & Alan Schwartz of the New York Times on the black women whom former Oklahoma City police officer Daniel Holtzclaw raped & sexually abused in other ways. When Janie Liggins filed a complaint, her "story sounded similar to a previous complaint, leading investigators to uncover a dozen more tales of poor, vulnerable black women being exploited, and in some cases raped, by a young officer of mixed race.... The accusations against Mr. Holtzclaw were particularly grave, and distinct, involving what prosecutors described as a pattern of preying on women whose allegations would be considered less credible." ...
... Sarah Larimer of the Washington Post: "One day after Daniel Holtzclaw was convicted of several sex crimes, including rape, two of the 13 women who said they were victimized by him discussed their violent encounters with the former Oklahoma City police officer." ...
... Sarah Kaplan of the Washington Post has more on Janie Liggins, "J.L." in her story.
Abby Goodnough of the New York Times: "More than seven in 10 residents of Kentucky want their new governor, Matt Bevin, to keep the state's expanded Medicaid program as it is, according to a new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation. And more than half of respondents described Medicaid as important for themselves and their families, underscoring the program's substantial reach in the state and the challenges Mr. Bevin may face if he seeks to scale back or modify it." CW: But, you know, we voted in the guy who promised to gut the program. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Christine Hauser of the New York Times: "The gunslinging bystander who drew national attention when she opened fire at fleeing shoplifters in a Home Depot parking lot [in Michigan] vowed Wednesday that she will never help anyone again." CW: Well, see, she made a mistake & she learned her lesson. Now if she see's a drowning puppy or a house on fire she'll just walk on by. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
News Lede
Washington Post: "Polling stations have closed, ending a historic day in which women for the first time took part in Saudi Arabia's elections, marking another step at reforms in a country that still imposes strict rules such as a ban on women driving."