The Commentariat -- August 12, 2015
Internal links removed.
American "Justice," Ctd. Abu Ghraib, Stateside. Michael Schwirtz & Michael Winerip of the New York Times: "For days after [two men escaped from an upstate New York prison], corrections officers carried out what seemed like a campaign of retribution against dozens of Clinton inmates, particularly those on the honor block, an investigation by The New York Times found. In letters reviewed by The Times, as well as prison interviews, inmates described a strikingly similar catalog of abuses, including being beaten while handcuffed, choked and slammed against cell bars and walls. They were also subjected to harsh policies ordered by the State Department of Corrections.... More than 60 inmates have filed complaints with Prisoners' Legal Services of New York, an organization that assists indigent prisoners.... No prisoners have yet been linked to [the escapees]. Indeed, it is prison employees who have been implicated: One has pleaded guilty to aiding the escape; another faces criminal charges; nine officers have been suspended; and the leadership of the prison, in Dannemora, has been removed."
A New York Times reader named Barack Obama writes a letter to the editor in response to Jim Rutenberg's essay on the myriad attempts across the decades to undermine the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
David Lauter of the Los Angeles Times: "When the Affordable Care Act took effect in October 2013, there were 14 states in which more than 1 in 5 adults lacked health insurance; today only Texas remains, according to data released Monday.... Texas, whose officials have strongly resisted cooperation with the new law, had the highest level of residents lacking insurance before the law took effect and has made among the least progress of any state.... Most of the states that continue to have high levels of uninsured residents have declined Medicaid expansion, which many Republican governors and state legislators oppose."
Michael Gordon of the New York Times: "When the bipartisan advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran decided last week to mobilize opposition against the nuclear deal with Tehran, Gary Samore knew he could no longer serve as its president. The reason: After long study, Mr. Samore, a former nuclear adviser to President Obama, had concluded that the accord was in the United States' interest. 'I think President Obama's strategy succeeded,' said Mr. Samore, who left his post on Monday.... As soon as Mr. Samore left, the group announced a new standard-bearer with a decidedly different message: Joseph I. Lieberman.... Mr. Samore's quiet departure as president of the organization ... is resonating among the small community of experts who have pored over the agreement." ...
... CW: Steve M. tells us that Donald Trump has embraced the epithet "Donald the Whiner." Ha! The Donald will never, ever match Joe Lieberman's mastery of the Art of the Whine. ...
... Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "Three dozen retired generals and admirals released an open letter Tuesday supporting the Iran nuclear deal and urging Congress to do the same. Calling the agreement 'the most effective means currently available to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons,' the letter said that gaining international support for military action against Iran, should that ever become necessary, 'would only be possible if we have first given the diplomatic path a chance.' The release came as Secretary of State John F. Kerry said U.S. allies were 'going to look at us and laugh' if the United States were to abandon the deal and then ask them to back a more aggressive posture against Iran.'" The letter is here. ...
... John Brenahan of Politico: "... Sen. Chuck Schumer has been quietly reaching out to dozens of his colleagues to explain his decision and assure them he would not be whipping opposition to the deal, according to Democratic senators and aides." CW: Yeah, then he tells them all the reasons he'll vote against the deal. But that's not lobbying!
Sarah Latimer & Abby Phillips of the Washington Post: "... a citizen militia group known as the Oath Keepers ... all of them white and heavily armed -- said they were in [Ferguson Monday night] to protect someone who worked for the Web site Infowars.com, which is affiliated with talk-radio conspiracy theorist and self-described 'thought criminal against Big Brother' Alex Jones.... The Southern Poverty Law Center ... describes the Oath Keepers as a 'fiercely antigovernment, militaristic group.' 'The core idea of the group is that its members vow to forever support the oaths they took on joining law enforcement or the military to defend the Constitution,' reads the SPLC site. 'But just as central is the group's list of 10 'Orders We Will Not Obey,' a compendium of much-feared but entirely imaginary threats from the government -- orders, for instance, to force Americans into concentration camps, confiscate their guns, or cooperate with foreign troops in the United States.'" ...
... CW: Latimer & Phillips do mention the Oath Keepers' founder Stewart Rhodes, but they don't say that Rhodes is a former Ron Paul Congressional & campaign staffer, as Akhilleus noted in yesterday's thread. Rhodes founded the group in the spring of 2008 because he was worried about a President "'Hitlery' Clinton, in her 'Chairman Mao signature pantsuit.' Would readers [of his blog], he asked, obey orders from this 'dominatrix-in-chief' to hold militia members as enemy combatants, disarm citizens, and shoot all resisters?'" Justine Sharrock wrote in Mother Jones in 2010. ...
... CW: AND it's not as if this is all way-back-when & let's be fair, Ron Paul can't be blamed for the actions of some former staffer who went off the deep end. As Brian Tashman of Right Wing Watch reported in April of this year, "... Ron Paul is starring in a new film about the threat of martial law in America which includes calls to join the extremist Oath Keepers militia." Oath Keepers is promoting & helping to finance the film. The film's director, James Jaeger, heads a "research institute" that "serves as a clearinghouse for anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, blaming Jews for the Holocaust and accusing them of child murders." I'm certainly not into blaming the son for the sins of the father, but if you want to know whence Li'l Randy derives his enthusiasm for curbing the NSA & demilitarizing the police, it isn't coming from some liberal itch he's scratching; these are tenets of Oath Keepers like the fellows who showed up in Ferguson to "protect citizens." In addition, Li'l Randy & Oath Keepers were joint supporters of notorious rancher-outlaw Cliven Bundy, the Oath Keepers with firearms aimed at federal agents. Randy distanced himself from Bundy only after Bundy's racist comments came to light, but still -- months after that -- Randy initiated a 45-minute meeting with Bundy to discuss property rights.
Tom Lighty of the Chicago Tribune: "Sen. Mark Kirk, who has needed help with some everyday tasks such as preparing meals and physically getting around since suffering a debilitating stroke in 2012, put his live-in caregiver onto his campaign payroll, according to records and interviews. While on Kirk's payroll, the caregiver twice came under criminal investigation -- convicted in one case while the other is still pending in court. Kirk's placement of his caregiver -- who had no prior campaign experience -- onto his campaign staff raises questions about whether Kirk used political donations to pay for personal expenses. Campaign finance records show that Kirk for Senate had paid his caregiver a salary totaling more than $43,000 from August 2013 through the end of 2014. Federal law says campaign funds cannot be used for expenses that would occur regardless of whether the person were running for or holding office."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.
Gabriel Sherman of New York writes an amusing tale of how Roger Ailes chose Donald Trump over Fox "News"'s biggest star, Megyn Kelly. (Not amusing: "... Kelly has told Fox producers that she's been getting death threats from Trump supporters.") "Ailes offered Trump the chance to do a special on Kelly's prime-time show to clear the air -- an offer Trump flatly refused. 'Donald was sufficiently pissed off that there was no way that was happening,' a person familiar with the call told me. According to the source, Trump's ire was especially stoked after Howard Stern called to tell him about a 2010 interview in which Kelly joked about her breasts and her husband's penis." ...
... Josh Marshall of TPM: "Fox issues unconditional surrender." ...
... Roger's Dilemma. Jonathan Mahler of the New York Times: "To demonstrate its seriousness about vetting the Republican candidates, [Fox News] has to subject Mr. Trump to rigorous questioning, as Ms. Kelly did Thursday night. At the same time, Fox cannot afford to alienate Mr. Trump -- or, more important, the network's core audience. Fox News viewers view the channel as an alternative to a media they see as leaning left. If the network pushes too hard against Mr. Trump, it risks being seen as part of the mainstream media, rather than the antidote to it. In this sense, Fox is facing the same dilemma as the G.O.P. establishment with respect to the party's current front-runner."
"Are You Kidding Me?" Martin Longman of the Washington Monthly takes on WashPo columnist (and David Brooks' "liberal" friend) Ruth Marcus who today attacks a "hardened & embittered" President Obama for his "intolerance" of opposition of the Iran nuclear deal: "We need to freeze this Ruth Marcus column in amber so that it never perishes. Future generations will not believe that it actually existed if they can't see it with their own eyes. It is probably the purest form of wankery that has ever been constructed. I thought I had seen Peak Beltway Trolling, but I had not seen anything."
Presidential Race
Ben Jacobs of the Guardian: "For the first time a poll has Vermont senator Bernie Sanders ahead in the crucial early primary state of New Hampshire. A poll released by Franklin Pierce University and the Boston Herald shows Sanders leading former secretary of state Hillary Clinton by 44% to 37% in New Hampshire among Democratic primary voters." ...
... ** Dara Lind of Vox has an excellent piece explaining why BlackLivesMatter has attacked Bernie Sanders (& Martin O'Malley) -- and why they're not getting to Hillary Clinton. Lind covers all the bases. CW: I still oppose the BlackLivesMatter tactic of stifling Sanders, but I do understand -- and would support -- the group's motivation in targeting Sanders. This is similar to women's criticism of the civil rights movement -- black women (in fact women of every color) actively supported the fight for racial equality, but when it came to gender equality, leaders of the civil rights movement were mostly silent or blatantly sexist. The idea that a rising tide floats all boats is just as noxious to marginalized groups, who want more than the crumbs from the tables of progressive policymakers, as it is to opponents of GOP trickle-down oligarchonomics.
Carol Leonnig, et al., of the Washington Post: "Hillary Rodham Clinton's attorney has agreed to provide the FBI with the private server that housed her e-mail during her four years as secretary of state, Clinton's presidential campaign said Tuesday. Her attorney also has agreed to give agents a thumb drive containing copies of thousands of e-mails that Clinton had previously turned over to the State Department.... The development ... came the same day that a top intelligence official whose office has been reviewing some of Clinton's e-mails informed congressional leaders that top-secret information had been contained in two e-mails that traveled across the server. The finding, contained in a letter sent to leaders of key oversight committees, marked the first indication from government officials that information regarded as top secret ... may have passed across Clinton's server.... A State Department spokesman late Tuesday described the top-secret designation as a recommendation and said they had not been marked classified at the time, but said staffers 'circulated these e-mails on unclassified systems in 2009 and 2011 and ultimately some were forwarded to Secretary Clinton.'" ...
... Groundhog Day. Steve M.: Hillary Clinton is having a bad day. In fact, every day until Election Day 2016 may be a a bad day: "Where's the passionate base of support to push back against negative coverage?"
Larry Lessig's Challenge: "Make Democracy Possible"
Jared Bernstein, in the Washington Post: During the GOP debate, the only candidate who had anything substantive to say about improving the economic prospects of poor & middle-class Americans was Ohio Gov. John Kasich. And no wonder: "Dress it up any way you like, the heart of conservative economic policy is still 'trickle-down,' exactly the wrong prescription in the age of inequality. Apparently, there's no debating that point."
Katrina vanden Heuvel of the Nation in a Washington Post op-ed: "Three years after [Mitt] Romney lost the women's vote by a double-digit margin, in part because of his support for defunding Planned Parenthood, the presidential debates last week made clear Republicans have only become more disrespectful toward women's bodies, more deranged in their hatred of Planned Parenthood and more dismissive of female voters.... The position that was once a liability for Romney has now become a litmus test for GOP contenders."
Kyle Cheney, et al., of Politico on how superPACS allow unpopular candidates to stay in the race. CW: For Republicans, this may be a case of "be careful what you wish for."
I gave to many people before this/ When they call, I give. And you know what, when I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them. They are there for me. -- Donald Trump, during the GOP presidential debate last week
... independent expenditures do not lead to, or create the appearance of, quid pro quo corruption. -- Justice Anthony Kennedy, Citizens United majority opinion, 2010
... Vulgarians at the Gate. Charles Pierce: "How is anything Donald Trump said as purely vulgar as watching presidential candidates audition for the Koch Brothers or for international vice lord, Sheldon Adelson?How is anything he has said about the country more vulgar than the fact that we now judge the success or failure of a campaign by how much money it has raised from how many places?... How is anything he's done more vulgar than watching Jeb (!) Bush delay the announcement of his candidacy because he needed more time to work the thin edges of what remains of the law regarding political fundraising. Vulgar? Donald Trump had a thirty year head start on most of these clowns."
... Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "After days in which Donald J. Trump engaged in a tense war of words with Megyn Kelly over her questioning of him at last week's Fox News debate, he spent Tuesday trying to steer the campaign conversation toward policy issues." ...
... Donald Trump, New Feminist. Eliza Collins of Politico: "After saying last week it's worth having Congress shut down the federal government unless Planned Parenthood is stripped of its $528 million in government funding..., [Donald Trump] changed his tune. Speaking on CNN's 'New Day' Tuesday morning, Trump said that before defunding Planned Parenthood entirely, he would look at the positive aspects of the organization. 'I would look at the good aspects of it, and I would also look because I'm sure they do some things properly and good for women. I would look at that, and I would look at other aspects also, but we have to take care of women,' he said. 'The abortion aspect of Planned Parenthood should absolutely not be funded.'" The federal government does not fund the "abortion aspects." ...
... CW: This would make Donald the only GOP presidential candidate who is not screaming bloody murder about Planned Parenthood. So I say, thanks, Megyn, for creating a feminist.
Adam Nagourney of the New York Times: "Jeb Bush ... issued a blistering attack on Tuesday on the Obama administration's handling of Iraq and terrorism issues, asserting that Hillary Rodham Clinton..., had 'stood by' as secretary of state as the situation in Iraq deteriorated." CW: See Peter Beinart's "legend of the surge," linked yesterday. ...
... Eli Stokols of Politico: on why "Jeb's bid to blame Hillary for the rise of the Islamic State is fraught with peril." Here's one: "Richard LeBaron, a career diplomat who served as ambassador to Kuwait under George W. Bush, called [Jeb!'s] argument 'disingenuous.'... 'The notion that the surge worked is belied by facts after it,' said LeBaron, now a Middle East policy expert at the Atlantic Council. 'It gave us some political space to say "we're not leaving a total fiasco" when we probably were; it was really just a period in which we were able to placate and buy off some of the Sunni tribes who took our money and just waited for us to leave. The Bush administration was looking for an exit strategy; the whole country was looking to get out,' LeBaron said. 'The surge was designed to get us out of Iraq, not to keep us involved there.'"
Marco Rubio may not be a scientist, man, but he knows that a human embryo cannot turn into a cat. Marco is so impressed by his brilliant insight that he has turned it into a campaign petition/fundraiser. The quality of our presidential candidates is abysmal. Prof. Marco teaches a university course. I'm not sure if I'd trust him to teach preschoolers the ABCs.
Beyond the Beltway
Patrick McGee & Manny Fernandez of the New York Times: "A white rookie police officer who shot and killed an unarmed black college football player who had broken into a car dealership in this Dallas suburb was fired Tuesday for 'inappropriate judgment' in his handling of the situation, officials said. The Arlington police chief, Will D. Johnson, said that the officer, Brad Miller, 49, had been fired for making mistakes in the fatal shooting of Christian Taylor, 19, which included entering the building without his more experienced partner and which led to an 'an environment of cascading consequences.' Mr. Miller was hired last fall and was still in training when the shooting occurred early Friday morning."
Jim Salter & Alan Zagier of the AP: "About 100 protesters gathered along West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson late Tuesday in a demonstration that was decidedly smaller and calmer than others on recent nights."
News Lede
Washington Post: "China's currency slid for a second day on Wednesday sending more shockwaves through global financial markets and raising fresh questions about the credibility of the country's economic management."