The Commentariat -- Nov. 24, 2015
Internal links removed.
Afternoon Update:
Joseph Goldstein & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "The American airstrike that destroyed a Doctors Without Borders hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz last month was the result of human errors, failures in procedure and technical malfunctions, according to military officials who have been briefed on the military's internal investigation."
Eric Cunningham of the Washington Post: "A powerful explosion tore through a bus carrying elite security guards for Tunisia's president in the heart of the capital, Tunis, authorities said Tuesday, killing at least 11 people in what appeared to be the latest militant attack in the North African country."
John Eligon & Ashley Southall of the New York Times: "Two men were arrested on Tuesday in connection with the overnight shootings of five people during a Black Lives Matter protest outside a police station, the Minneapolis Police Department said. One suspect, a 23-year-old white man, was arrested in Bloomington, a suburb of Minneapolis, at about 11:20 a.m., the police said in a statement. The other, a 32-year-old Hispanic man, was arrested about 45 minutes later while in his vehicle in South Minneapolis." (See related stories linked under Beyond the Beltway.)
Juliet Eilperin & Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "President Obama called Tuesday for the West and its allies to stay united to destroy Islamic State and not allow fear of terrorism to undermine freedoms and values. After meeting with French President François Hollande at the White House, Obama declared 'total solidarity' with France, saying his planned trip next week to Paris for a climate change summit is a 'powerful rebuke' to terrorism.
David Sanger & Nicole Perlroth of the New York Times: "Four months after a historic accord with Tehran to limit its atomic ambitions, American officials and private security groups say they see a surge in sophisticated computer espionage by Iran, culminating in a series of cyberattacks against State Department officials over the past month."
Mark Berman of the Washington Post: "A Chicago police officer has been charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of a 17-year-old last year, authorities said Tuesday. The charges were announced a day before the city plans to release a video that captured the shooting, footage that officials worry could lead to intense protests." See link to related story under Beyond the Beltway. ...
*****
"Worldwide Travel Alert." U. S. State Department: "The State Department alerts U.S. citizens to possible risks of travel due to increased terrorist threats. Current information suggests that ISIL (aka Da’esh), al-Qa’ida, Boko Haram, and other terrorist groups continue to plan terrorist attacks in multiple regions. These attacks may employ a wide variety of tactics, using conventional and non-conventional weapons and targeting both official and private interests. This Travel Alert expires on February 24, 2016." ...
... Alan Gomez of USA Today: "The U.S. State Department issued a rare worldwide travel alert on Monday, warning American travelers about the widespread threats posed by members of the Islamic State or copycat bombers.... The alert comes as millions of Americans prepare to travel for the Thanksgiving holiday, and organizers of major events like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade bolster their security preparations."
Julie Pace & Kathleen Hennessey of the AP: "President Barack Obama will stand in solidarity with French President Francois Hollande at the White House Tuesday, 11 days after the Paris attacks, in a visit complicated by Turkey's shoot-down of a Russian warplane." See also related stories linked under Way Beyond the Beltway.
The Good Fight. Peter Beinart of the Atlantic: "Why is [President] Obama picking a fight on an issue that, according to The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza, is a 'political winner' for the GOP? Because of the way he interprets American history.... Obama tells the story ... as America overcoming the evil within itself.... It's a theme that recurs in Obama's speeches.... He sees American history as a series of moral struggles pitting Americans seeking equal opportunity and full citizenship against Americans who defend an unjust or bigoted status quo. Obama clearly sees the current nativist, bigotry-laden, hysteria as such a struggle. He knows he may not win. But he wants future historians to know exactly where he stood. They will. And as a result, I suspect, they'll record the Syrian refugee battle among his finest hours."
Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "A federal appeals court ruled in a decision unsealed on Monday that the Justice Department could continue to conceal internal documents related to targeted killings in the fight against Al Qaeda. A Freedom of Information Act lawsuit forced the Obama administration last year to reveal a secret memo that authorized the killing of the American-born terrorist leader Anwar al-Awlaki. But the new ruling, handed down in October, makes it unlikely that the suit will yield much else in the way of public disclosures."
AP: "A lawsuit is challenging the Indiana governor's [Mike Pence (R)] decision to stop state agencies from helping resettle Syrian refugees, saying the action wrongly targets the refugees based on their nationality. The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana filed the federal lawsuit Monday night on behalf of Indianapolis-based nonprofit Exodus Refugee Immigration."
Manny Fernandez of the New York Times: "Planned Parenthood sued Texas officials in federal court in Austin on Monday, seeking to block the state from cutting off its Medicaid funding, the latest in a series of lawsuits it has filed against Republican-led states after the controversy over its use of fetal tissue."
Ari Melber of MSNBC: "A former investigator for the House Benghazi Committee filed a federal lawsuit against the committee Monday.... Last month, Brad Podliska, an Air Force Reserve major, alleged the Benghazi committee terminated him based on his military obligations and his refusal to advance an agenda targeting Hillary Clinton. Now, Podliska is detailing those charges in court in a new filing that alleges Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy broke the law by defaming him in their public battle over Podliska's firing."
Dennis Overbye of the New York Times: A hundred years ago tomorrow, Albert Einstein set down his theory of relativity, a rule that "transformed our understanding of space and time."
Presidential Race
Jesse Byrnes of the Hill: "Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) currently leads online polling for Time magazine's 2015 Person of the Year, with less than two weeks to go before voting ends.... The magazine's editors pick the Person of the Year, though anyone can weigh in online." CW: If you can figure out how to do it, you can vote here; you have to "authenticate" your vote by signing in with Facebook or Twitter. I think I voted for Bernie but can't be sure. My bet is that Time will pick Trump. ...
... Trump naturally thinks he should be the guy but says, "... there's no way they give it to me. They can't. Because, mentally, they can't. They just can't. They can't do it."
Would I approve waterboarding? You bet your ass I would ... in a heartbeat ... And I would approve more than that. Don't kid yourself, folks. It works, okay? It works. Only a stupid person would say it doesn't work.... Believe me, it works. And you know what? If it doesn't work, they deserve it anyway, for what they're doing. It works. -- Donald Trump, at a rally in Columbus, Ohio yesterday
Dylan Matthews of Vox: "The media has [sic!] no idea how to deal with Donald Trump's constant lying." Matthews runs down Trump's performance on "This Week" Sunday. In sum, "A careful viewer, paying close attention to all of Stephanopoulos's rebuttals, would come away thinking (correctly) that Trump spent the entire interview reiterating falsehoods. But a casual viewer could very well come away thinking that a) thousands of Arabs celebrated 9/11 in the streets of New Jersey, b) the Obama administration is planning on bringing in up to 250,000 Syrian refugees, most of them young men primed to be radicalized by ISIS or other terror groups, and c) it's currently illegal for people on terrorism watch lists to get guns. None of those things are [sic!] true." But media outlets keep booking him because (a) he's the GOP frontrunner, & (b) ratings. ...
... Greg Sargent: To Trump supporters, his lies don't matter: "Trump's supporters have been persuaded that he will be a 'strong leader.' Once that decision has been made, any liberal media fact-checking of Trump's statements, particularly criticisms that seem 'politically correct,' only confirm that original impression." ...
Jon Greenberg of PolitiFact: "A day after a black activist was kicked and punched by voters at a Donald Trump rally in Alabama, Trump tweeted an image packed with racially loaded and incorrect murder statistics..., including that blacks kill 81 percent of white homicide victims. Almost every number in the image is wrong. The statistics on white victims are exaggerated five-fold. The police-related deaths are off as well."
Judd Legum of Think Progress: "In an interview with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, Donald Trump defended tweeting a series of fabricated murder statistics designed to perpetuate racist stereotypes. 'I retweeted somebody that was supposedly an expert and it was also a radio show,' Trump said. Trump actually copy-and-pasted a tweet from @SeanSean252, an anonymous Twitter user. @SeanSean252's bio does not indicate that he is an expert in crime statistics or any other kind of expert.... The graphic actually originated from a neo-Nazi on Twitter.... 'It came from sources that are very credible, what can I tell you,' Trump [said]."
I watched in Jersey City, N.J., where thousands and thousands of people were cheering" as the World Trade Center collapsed. -- Donald Trump, November 21, in comments during a speech
Trump's recollection of events in New Jersey in the hours after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks flies in the face of all the evidence we could find. We rate this statement Pants on Fire. -- Lauren Carroll of PolitiFact
Trump ... is already demanding apologizes from all the critics and fact checkers who have been pointing out he is Completely Making Shit Up on this one. -- Hunter of Daily Kos
I want an apology. Many people have tweeted that I am right. -- Donald Trump, in a tweet
... Kevin Drum: "It's hard to figure out what this episode says about Trump. Is he delusional? Is he merely unable to admit any error?... Or is Trump consciously making stuff up to play to nativist GOP voters? As two GOP strategists working against Trump noted in a recent memo, 'Trump voters are exceedingly low-information voters. They do not read The Washington Post or Politico or even conservative blogs. They do not watch cable news rigorously.' To put it less politely, Trump voters are susceptible to his BS that reinforces their own assumptions and biases.... He routinely says crazy crap that isn't true and doubles or triples down when challenged. And sorry, fact-checkers, but so far none of this appears to register with his 'low-information' fans. This fabulist remains the Republican front-runner." ...
... Lie or False Memory? Max Ehrenfreud of the Washington Post: "Trump's assertion might not be a bald-faced lie. Psychologists suggest that people unconsciously fabricate memories all the time, and that Trump might have done the same." ...
... James Downie of the Washington Post describes Trump as the leader of "21st-century McCarthyism." ...
... "Dear Media, Stop Freaking Out About Donald Trump's Polls." Nate Silver: "Lately, pundits and punters seem bullish on Donald Trump, whose chances of winning the Republican presidential nomination recently inched above 20 percent for the first time at the betting market Betfair.... I'd still say a 20 percent chance is substantially too high.... Right now, he has 25 to 30 percent of the vote in polls among the roughly 25 percent of Americans who identify as Republican. (That's something like 6 to 8 percent of the electorate overall, or about the same share of people who think the Apollo moon landings were faked.)... If past nomination races are any guide, the vast majority of eventual Republican voters haven't made up their minds yet. ...
... Nicole Rojas of International Business Times: "Senior managers from five of the major news networks in the US have joined forces to lay out demands from Donald Trump's presidential campaign after the Republican's campaign officials threatened to 'blacklist' journalists during rallies last week. Representatives from ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox and NBC News met on 23 November to discuss their responses to behaviour deemed restrictive by Trump's managers including top aide Corey Lewandowski. According to The Washington Post, Lewandowski threatened to pull credentials of CNN reporter Noah Gray during Trump's campaign in Worcester, Massachusetts. Gray, who has covered Trump for months, attempted to leave the press pen when he recorded Lewandoski threatening to 'blacklist' him from future events." ...
... Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: "After Donald J. Trump hosted 'Saturday Night Live' this month, several of his Republican rivals filed complaints about receiving equal airtime. So NBC has granted the campaigns of Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, Mike Huckabee, James Gilmore and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina their specific equal-airtime requests. This does not mean that a coming 'S.N.L.' episode will be hosted by any of the candidates.... What it does entail will be the use of commercial and promotional airtime in prime time this weekend, including during 'Saturday Night Live,' when a re-run will be broadcast. Still at the negotiating table is George E. Pataki...."
Profiles in Cowardice. Dana Milbank: "Trump gets ever more base in his bigotry -- and yet, with few and intermittent exceptions, rival candidates, party leaders and GOP lawmakers decline to call him out. So he continues to rise, benefiting from tacit acceptance of his intolerance.... The longer Republican leaders take to find their anti-Trump voices, the more their quiescence becomes an endorsement." ...
... Leigh Ann Caldwell of NBC News: "... John Kasich is not holding back. He's launched an all-out offensive against fellow Republican Donald Trump. On the day that Trump is holding a rally in Kasich's state, the Ohio governor is hosting two conference calls challenging Trump and his electability. The conference calls are just one component of a larger effort over the past several days to damage the Republican front-runner's credibility among voters. Kasich is attacking Trump more fiercely than any other Republican in the field." ...
... Emily Fritter of Reuters: "Nearly a dozen big Republican donors backing different presidential candidates are coming together to help fund an advertising campaign attacking front-runner Donald Trump, who faced sharp criticism from rivals this week for his inflammatory comments about Muslims." ...
... Steve M.: What these rich donors are doing is recycling stuff that was supposed to bring down Trump when the news first hit. "This is one more reason we ought to raise taxes on the rich: because when it comes to spending money on politics, the rich have no damn sense. We need to save them from themselves." CW: What all these ad campaigns do is redistribute money from various business moguls to media moguls.
First He Saw It, Then He Didn't. Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "... on Monday, one of Mr. Trump's chief rivals for the Republican presidential nomination said that he, too, saw American Muslims celebrate as the twin towers fell. 'I saw the film of it,' Ben Carson ... said. But later on Monday, Mr. Carson said that he was mistaken in saying that he saw Muslims cheering in New Jersey. According to ABC News he said he was thinking about protests he saw in the Middle East. Accounts of such an behavior in the United States have largely been considered folklore in the years since the attacks, and New Jersey lawmakers and officials say they cannot remember such celebrations occurring."
Jonathan Chait: "Marco Rubio opposes the legal right to abortion, even in cases of rape or incest. This extreme position would pose a significant liability in a general election. But since Rubio still has to win the nomination, he can't wriggle out of it yet. Instead he is obfuscating." He's a sneaky sniveling misogynist with Mr. Spock ears.
Jason Noble of PolitiFact: President "Obama is so unwilling to work with Senate Republicans, [Jeb] Bush alleges, that he didn't even invite one to dine at the White House until his fifth year in office.... Based on our review of visitor logs, there are a handful of instances in which Republican U.S. senators visited the White House residence between 2009 and 2012, including a 2011 dinner attended by Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell. There's also that high-profile 2010 case in which Obama invited two Republican senators to dinner -- the famous Slurpee Summit -- only to be publicly snubbed. And it's worth noting, too, that the records indicate that Obama hasn't dined privately with Democratic senators all that often either...."
Way Beyond the Beltway
Tulay Karadeniz & Maria Kiselyova of Reuters: "Turkish fighter jets shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border on Tuesday after repeated warnings over air space violations, but Moscow said it could prove the jet had not left Syrian air space. It was the first time a NATO member's armed forces have downed a Russian or Soviet military aircraft since the 1950s and Russian and Turkish assets fell on fears of an escalation between the former Cold War enemies. A Kremlin spokesman said it was a 'very serious incident' but that it was too early to draw conclusions." ...
... The Washington Post story, by Hugh Naylor & others, is here. "The downing underscores a scenario feared for months by the Pentagon and its partners: a potential conflict arising from overlapping air missions over Syria -- with Russia backing the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and a U.S.-led coalition conducting airstrikes the Islamic State."
Rosemary Barton of Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC) News: "The [Canadian] federal government's much-anticipated Syrian refugee plan will limit those accepted into Canada to women, children and families only, CBC News has learned. Sources tell CBC News that to deal with some ongoing concerns around security, unaccompanied men seeking asylum will not be part of the program. The details of the plan will be announced Tuesday, but already Canadian officials have been working on the ground to process people."
Loveday Morris & Missy Ryan of the Washington Post: "Belgian authorities charged an additional suspect Monday in connection with this month's deadly Paris attacks, as Belgium entered the workweek with shuttered schools and offices in an effort to disrupt a suspected similar plot. The suspect, whose name was not released, was one of 21 people detained in 29 raids in the capital and the southern cities of Liege and Charleroi, a sweep that ended Monday morning."
Beyond the Beltway
Karen Zamora of the Minneapolis Star Tribune: "Police are searching for three white men who allegedly fired into a crowd protesting near the Minneapolis Police Department's 4th Precinct Monday night, wounding five people.... Miski Noor, a media contact for Black Lives Matter, said 'a group of white supremacists showed up at the protest, as they have done most nights.' One of the three counter-demonstrators wore a mask, said Dana Jaehnert, who had been at the protest site since early evening. When about a dozen protesters attempted to herd the group away from the area, Noor said, they 'opened fire on about six protesters,' hitting five of them." ...
... Ashley Southall of the New York Times: "The victims were taken to hospitals with injuries that were not considered life-threatening, the police said.... Ms. Noor said one of the victims was shot in the stomach and underwent surgery early Tuesday."
Don Babwin & Michael Tarm of the AP: "A white Chicago police officer who shot a black teenager 16 times was expected to be charged with murder Tuesday, just a day ahead of a deadline for the city to release a squad-car video of the shooting. Veteran officer Jason Van Dyke is expected to be indicted in the killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, an official close to the investigation told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to pre-empt an announcement of the charge."
What an Excellent Ad Stunt! Erik Baard in the Gothamist: "Seats on 42nd Street subway Shuttle cars are wrapped with symbols from Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, intended to carry commuters into the alternate history of the Amazon TV series, The Man in the High Castle, in which the Axis Powers were victorious.... Evan Bernstein, the Anti-Defamation League's New York regional director, says the ads fail to provide riders with enough context to accompany the Nazi imagery." CW: Since Amazon founder Jeff Bezos likes to run his distribution factories like WWII Axis prisoner-of-war camps, maybe this ad campaign is appropriate. Still, New Yorkers should not have to view these horrid symbols on their crosstown hop.
"Them ... Niggers Gotta Learn How to Read." Good Intentions Gone Ever So Slightly Awry. David Edwards of the Raw Story: "A newly sworn in police chief in Farrel, Pennsylvania said that he planned to make a public apology on Monday after he was caught using the N-word during a book drive fundraiser. WICU reported that the email was discovered just days after Thomas Burke was sworn by the City of Farrell as the new police chief last Monday. He is scheduled to begin the job in January. 'Good morning,' the email begins. 'Please click and review. Even $1.00 will be greatly appreciated. Them [Town of] Sharon n****s gotta learn how to read.'... City of Farrell Councilwoman Stephanie Sheffield ... said that Burke explained [to her,] 'that he does use the N-word very often because that's just the way that it is here our area.'... Farrell Mayor Olive McKeithan, who is black, stood up for Burke's character."
News Ledes
New York Times: "The American economy turned in a better performance last quarter than first thought, expanding at a 2.1 percent rate, the government said on Tuesday. While well below the pace of growth recorded in the spring, it was better than the 1.5 percent rate for the third quarter that the Commerce Department reported late last month."
Houston Chronicle: "A helicopter crashed at Fort Hood on Monday, killing four crew members, U.S. Army officials said. Military officials said the UH-60 helicopter crashed sometime after 5:49 p.m. Monday in the northeast section of the central Texas Army post. Emergency crews spent several hours searching the area and later found the bodies of the four crew members."
Reuters: "A bomb exploded outside the offices of a Greek business federation in central Athens on Tuesday, badly damaging the nearby Cypriot Embassy but causing no injuries, police officials said. The blast, which police believe was carried out by domestic guerrilla groups, is the first such incident since leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras came to power in January. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.Attacks against banks, politicians and business people are not uncommon in Greece, which has a long history of political violence and has been mired in its worst economic crisis in decades."