The Commentariat -- July 31, 2015
Internal links removed.
Afternoon Update:
Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign released a letter from her doctor on Friday attesting to her health and fitness for office, on a day marked by a deluge of other disclosures about her finances and a new batch of emails from her time as secretary of state." The letter is here. ...
... Sabrina Siddiqui of the Guardian: "Hillary Clinton on Friday called out her Republican rivals for approaching foreign policy 'through an outdated cold war lens'. In a speech that advocated for greater diplomatic engagement with Latin America, the Democratic presidential frontrunner also called on Congress to lift the 50-year US embargo on Cuba.... On Friday, Clinton publicly argued her case in detail for the first time in Miami – the original home of the Cuban exile community and the backyard of two of her chief Republican opponents, former Florida governor Jeb Bush and US senator Marco Rubio."
... Dave Weigel, et al., of the Washington Post: "... Hillary Rodham Clinton took a swipe at Republican rival Jeb Bush [in Fort Lauderdale, Florida,] Friday before a mostly African American crowd.... Speaking ahead of Bush, Clinton delivered a speech in which she invoked the Black Lives Matter movement, cited Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland and others whose deaths set off controversies. Clinton went after Bush without naming him, saying his policies would not help people trying to improve their lives. 'I don't think you can credibly say that everyone has a right to rise and then say you're for phasing out Medicare or for repealing Obamacare,' she said. 'People can't rise when they can't afford health care.' 'Right to Rise' is the name of the pro-Bush super PAC operated by his top allies."
** Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "Long before [Donald] Trump announced his bid for the Republican presidential nomination..., he had proved himself in New York as an expert political provocateur with an instinct for racially charged rhetoric."
Jeremy Bowers, et al., of the New York Times: "Today is the deadline for the outside groups known as 'super PACs' to file fund-raising reports for the first half of 2015. For the groups that have filed so far, here are the individuals and corporations that have given $1 million or more."
Jeremy Borden of the Washington Post: "The man accused of gunning down nine African Americans inside a historic black church known as 'Mother Emanuel' has told his lawyers that he currently plans to plead guilty to federal hate crime charges, attorney David Bruck told a federal judge Friday. However, Bruck said that because federal officials have not decided whether to seek a death sentence for some of these charges, he did not want to enter a guilty plea yet. As a result, the judge said he would enter a not guilty plea."
Oliver Laughland of the Guardian: "Two officers who witnessed the shooting of unarmed 43-year-old Samuel DuBose in Cincinnati will not face criminal charges, despite seemingly corroborating a false claim that DuBose's vehicle dragged officer Ray Tensing before he was fatally shot.... On Friday [county prosecutor Joseph] Deters' office announced that a grand jury had declined to bring any charges against the other two officers, after hearing testimony from both of them.... Deters said on Friday he was in full agreement with the decision."
Antonio Olivo of the Washington Post: "A federal judge ruled Friday that Virginia can stop issuing specialty license plates that show the Confederate flag, following a recent Supreme Court decision that said such a ban does not violate the 1st Amendment. U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser said he will issue a written order to address whether the nearly 1,700 Confederate license plates currently in use in Virginia may be recalled by the state."
There are also two new opinion pieces linked under "Annals of 'Journalism,'" Ctd. below.
*****
Keith Laing of the Hill: "The Senate on Thursday approved an $8 billion extension of federal transportation funding, sending it to President Obama's desk with just one day to go before the nation's road and transit spending expires. The bill, which extends infrastructure spending until Oct. 29, passed in a 91-4 vote, pushing the debate into the fall. Obama, who has advocated for long-term extension of highway funding, is expected to sign the patch to prevent an interruption in funding during the busy summer construction season. The vote Thursday came after the Senate passed its preferred fix, a six-year highway bill negotiated by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). House Republicans refused to take up that bill and left town on Wednesday, forcing the Senate to accept the three-month stopgap."
Christine Armario of the AP: "A temporary restraining order has been issued preventing an anti-abortion group from releasing any video of leaders of a California company that provides fetal tissue to researchers. The group is the same one that previously shot viral covert video of a Planned Parenthood leader discussing the sale of aborted fetuses for research. ...
... Tailgunner Ted Finds Another Excuse to Shut Down the Government. Burgess Everett of Politico: "Calling next week's Senate roll call to defund Planned Parenthood a 'legislative show vote,' GOP firebrand Ted Cruz said Republicans should do everything they can to eliminate federal money for the group -- even if it means a government shutdown fight this fall.... On Wednesday afternoon, 18 House Republicans told leadership that they 'cannot and will not support any funding resolution ... that contains any funding for Planned Parenthood.'" ...
... Jessica Glenza of the Guardian: "The anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress released a fourth 'sting' video of Planned Parenthood officials discussing tissue collection from aborted fetuses. The video comes as the White House and top Planned Parenthood officials defend against Republican politicians' attempts to defund the women's health care clinics." ...
... Steve M. thinks the video campaign could have an impact on the 2016 elections including on the presidential race, especially since Hillary Clinton is now officially "disturbed" about them. Also, expect more of this from Republican governors:
... Kelli Kennedy of the AP: "Florida Gov. Rick Scott ordered state health officials to inspect Planned Parenthood offices that perform abortions, saying he is troubled by videos describing the organization's procedures for providing tissue from aborted fetuses for research."
The New Kochs. Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times: "After two elections in which Democrats and liberals sought to cast them as the secretive, benighted face of the Republican Party, the Kochs are seeking to remake public perceptions of their family, their business and their politics, unsettling a corporate culture deeply allergic to the spotlight. Even as their donor network prepares to spend extravagantly to defeat Democrats during the 2016 campaign, the Kochs have made cause with prominent liberals to change federal sentencing rules, which disproportionately affect African-Americans, while a Koch-backed nonprofit, the Libre Initiative, offers driving lessons and tax preparation services to Latinos.... Democrats, in the meantime, are preparing to spend millions of their own to paint the Kochs' political efforts as cynical and self-interested."
Tim Egan: "The South is the most violent region in the United States, and also the place with the highest rate of gun ownership.... Most of the states with tighter gun laws have fewer gun deaths.... One America, the slightly safer one..., includes government gun-screened zones like airports, courthouses and many high schools. But more significantly, it also covers property used by our most popular obsession, pro football -- the free market at work. The other America is an open-fire zone, backed by politicians who think it should be even more crowded with average people parading around with lethal weapons.... What we're moving toward ... are regions that are safer than others, and public spaces that are safer than others, led by private enterprise, shunning the gun crazies who want everyone armed. The new reality comes with the inconvenience and hassle of screening and pat-downs similar to the routines at airports -- enforced gun-free zones, not mere suggestions."
Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: "The 49-cent stamp has eight more months of life until the U.S. Postal Service has to roll the price back, the effect of a ruling that allows the post office to collect $1.1 billion to cover its recession-related losses. Wednesday's ruling by postal regulators should be the last word in a long legal dispute between the Postal Service and the mailing industry over the largest rate increase for first-class letters in 11 years."
James Risen of the New York Times: "The board of the American Psychological Association plans to recommend tough ethics rules that would prohibit psychologists from involvement in all national security interrogations, potentially creating a new obstacle to the Obama administration's efforts to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects outside of the traditional criminal justice system."
Greg Miller of the Washington Post: "... the emerging details of [Mullah Mohammad] Omar's death may ... help explain the extent to which his ability to remain both influential and invisible was a reflection of the competing and often hidden agendas in the counterterrorism partnership between the United States and Pakistan."
Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter will allow more U.S. troops to be armed while stateside and called for other security measures to be put in place following the attack in Chattanooga, Tenn., that killed five service members. The decision was outlined in a two-page memo released at the Pentagon on Thursday." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Jonathan Chait on the glaring inconsistencies in confederates' position on the Iran deal. "This double-minded quality allows the Iran hawks to demand the Obama administration ramp up confrontation with Russia right now, even while demanding he hold on to Russian support for Iran sanctions." They argue that somehow, even tho President Obama is totally "feckless," confederates are sure he can bend Vladimir Putin to abandon Russia's interests. Hey, as long as these guys can shout, "We win!" they don't have to make a whit of sense or show any concern for our own national interests.
Paul Krugman: "... China's remarkable success over the past 25 years notwithstanding, the nation's rulers have no idea what they're doing." Why, they're as clueless as Jeb!
Jef Rouner, in the Houston Chronicle, tries to explain to ignoramuses the difference between fact & opinion. CW: It's my opinion that Rouner's explanation has zero probability of having a positive educational impact on his target audience. Last year, in a related & perhaps more helpful post, Rouner suggested the best way to deal with Snopes-deniers.
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.
** Jonathan Allen of Vox publishes a letter from Hillary Clinton's communications director Jennifer Palmieri to New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet re: the fake "criminal referral" story. Palmieri sent the letter Tuesday. It adds significantly to what we know about how the Times reported & published this report. CW: Palmieri -- correctly, IMHO, schools the editor of perhaps the most prominent daily newspaper in the world on "standard journalistic practices." She wrote, in part,
Not only did the Times fail to engage in a proper discussion with the campaign ahead of publication; given the exceedingly short window of time between when the Times received the tip and rushed to publish, it hardly seems possible that the Times conducted sufficient deliberations within its own ranks before going ahead with the story....
In our conversations with the Times reporters, it was clear that they had not personally reviewed the IG's referral that they falsely described as both criminal and focused on Hillary Clinton. Instead, they relied on unnamed sources that characterized the referral as such. However, it is not at all clear that those sources had directly seen the referral, either.
... NEW. Brian Stelter of CNN (& for a long time, an NYT reporter): "The campaign had wanted the newspaper to publish the roughly 2,000-word critique, at least online. But the paper declined to do so, according to Clinton press secretary Brian Fallon. Instead, the campaign decided to publish it on its own website, ensuring it would receive widespread attention. Fallon said the campaign had sent no other letters of the sort to other news outlets in the past." ...
... See also the tweets by Michael Cohen, which Margaret Hartmann republishes here. ...
... NEW. Erik Wemple of the Washington Post: "Had Baquet & Co. properly accounted for their failures in [Times public editor Margaret] Sullivan's post earlier this week, they perhaps could have killed the issue and watched the Beltway move on to more deserving stories. But no -- they shrugged, exonerated and excusified to the point that the Clinton campaign would have looked silly if it hadn't sent a letter of this stature."
Catherine Thompson of TPM catches Mark Halperin & John Heilemann of Bloomberg News making up "news," according to one of their so-called "Trump supporters": "Bloomberg Politics' 'With All Due Respect' won the morning Thursday with a boffo focus group of New Hampshire Trump supporters singing The Donald's praises as a "classy" commander-in-chief in waiting who is definitely 'one of us.'.... But one of the voters [Jessica DeBurro] featured ... in the focus group told TPM that she's not a Trump supporter at all. And the same went for most of the other participants in the panel, according to the voter.... DeBurro further alleged that interviewer Heilemann, Halperin's co-host, pumped them to think of positive things to say about Trump which could then be edited together into a Trump fawn-a-thon." ...
... CW: Since everybody knows Halperin & Heilemann are hacks, there won't be much fallout from their made-for-Bloomberg-TV fake news.
Presidential Race
Jonathan Easley of the Hill: "Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) says he will not run for president as an Independent if he falls short in his bid to secure the Democratic 2016 nomination. Speaking at the Newseum in Washington on Thursday, Sanders said that if he ran a third-party campaign, it would draw support away from the Democratic nominee, potentially handing Republicans the White House. 'I would not want to be responsible for electing some right-wing Republican president,' Sanders said."
Docudump Day. Billy House & Ben Brody of Bloomberg: "The State Department is set Friday to post online its next batch of e-mails that Hillary Clinton sent and received on a personal account while she was secretary of state." ...
... Marisa Taylor, et al., of McClatchy News: "The classified emails stored on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private server contained information from five U.S. intelligence agencies.... Two inspectors general have indicated that five emails they have reviewed were not marked classified at the time they were stored on her private server but that the contents were in fact 'secret.'... '... the fact that classified information was identified within the emails is exactly why use of private emails ... is not supposed to be allowed,' said Bradley Moss, a Washington attorney who specializes in national security matters. 'Both she and her team made a serious management mistake that no one should ever repeat.'" ...
... Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "Fresh off a meeting with national labor leaders, Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday spoke favorably about legislation to raise the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour, tacitly dismissing proposals by her two leading Democratic competitors who have called for a bigger increase. Speaking with reporters, Mrs. Clinton singled out legislation proposed by Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, that would establish a $12-an-hour minimum nationwide.... As she has in the past, Mrs. Clinton did not explicitly offer a figure she would like to see adopted, but implied that certain measures, like Ms. Murray's, were more realistic than others: Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former Gov. Martin O'Malley of Maryland, Mrs. Clinton's rivals in the Democratic field, both support raising the minimum to $15 an hour."
Ed Kilgore: "... you might think [Erick Erickson] just an inflated bloviater whose chosen style is the bullyboy threat of a political commissar. But the thing is he's going to be the impresario of the Republican presidential cattle call next weekend (the Red State Gathering, in Atlanta) that will come immediately after the first candidate debate, with ten candidates currently confirmed: Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Rick Perry, Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, Bobby Jindal, and yes, even Donald Trump." Erickson is currently demanding that GOP legislators to shut down the government to stop Planned PArenthood from "killing living children who have already been born, cutting them up, and harvesting their organs."
Gabrel Sherman of New York: "The Fox News GOP Debate Could Draw the Biggest Audience in Cable News History -- and Roger Ailes Is Making All the Rules." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Whither Marco? James Downie of the Washington Post: "While it would be tempting to pick one big cause, Rubio's stumble is probably due to a combination of factors: his stumbling answer on the Iraq war, his continued moderation on immigration (an anathema to many GOP voters) and, most recently, [Donald] Trump's entrance into the race. Perhaps the biggest problem is that while he is acceptable to many parts of the GOP base, he is none of those parts' first choice.... Unless things change soon, the one-time GOP front-runner will be a mere footnote in the 2016 campaign." CW: If the winner doesn't tap Marco for the veep spot, which is where I expect him to go unless Jeb! wins the nomination.
Greg Sargent: "Well, it was bound to happen eventually: Donald Trump has finally made a genuinely useful contribution to the public debate. In an interview with CNN, Trump went farther than I've seen any Republican presidential candidate go on immigration, explicitly pledging to carry out the mass deportation of all undocumented immigrants." ...
... Dara Lind of Vox: "... if mass deportation is so popular among Republican voters, why hasn't any Republican presidential candidate -- or policymaker -- embraced it before now? Simple: It is a totally impractical proposal.... Let's start with cost. It's huge." Also, too, what about the U.S.-born children of unauthorized immigrants? "If [other GOP candidates] disagree with Trump, they'll pit themselves against the Republican base -- and face pressure to explain what they'd do instead. If they agree with Trump, they'll be making a policy promise that will be very difficult to keep." ...
... Ed Kilgore: speculates on the logistics of Trump's "plan": "... it's just a management problem, and any tycoon worth his salt can figure out a way via universal hourly traffic stops and police raids on workplaces and maybe house-to-house searches to 'find them,' and then it's just a matter of setting up a few thousand transit camps and deploying a few hundreds of thousands of cattle cars to round 'em up and 'get them out... It's time for us all to ask him and other Republicans who won't endorse a path to legalization exactly how much they are willing to spend in money and in lost civil liberties to implement their plans. No sense weaseling around and dog-whistling this issue any more." ...
... CW: One has to wonder about what the Donald's plan is for undocumented immigrants who come from countries other than Mexico. Mexico accounts for nearly 60 percent of the unauthorized immigrants in the U.S., but that leaves more than 40 percent, who come primarily from Central & South America & from Asia. I suppose for Central & South Americans, he could engineer a massive Trump Trail of Tears. What about Asians? Slow boats to China? BTW, according to the Center for American Progress, "In 2012, 4.7 million undocumented adults were parents of minor children, including 3.8 million whose children were U.S. citizens." Will we have thousands of Trump Orphanages? And, not to be too selfish here, but what about the economic contributions undocumented workers make to the U.S.? Esther Lee of Think Progress: "The center-right organization American Action Forum (AAF) found that ... without the 11 million undocumented immigrants, the U.S. labor force would shrink and real GDP would be reduced by $1.6 trillion." As to the cost of rounding them up, as Kilgore facetiously suggests, AAF estimates the cost would be between $400BB & $600BB. To put it into language Trump would understand, his plan is a "huge loser."
... TrumpCare. In his CNN interview, Trump also talked about replacing ObamaCare with "something terrific." Sahil Kapur of Bloomberg: "Trump's Obamacare Replacement Plan Sounds Quite a Bit Like Obamacare... Trump proposed: competing private plans (which Obamacare exchanges provide for); protecting hospitals from catastrophic events (which Obamacare deals with by requiring people to get insurance so they don't pass on their emergency care costs), and government plans for low-income people who get sick and lack options (which Obamacare does by expanding Medicaid). ...
... Representing the center-right wing of the Villagers, Michael Gerson of the Washington Post: "... the success of Trump would be the downfall of the GOP. Any party captured by rage and resentment will fail, and deserve it. Republicans should stand for responsible reform, not reckless populism." ...
... On that note, Marcy Wheeler, in Salon: "Trump's candidacy has proven to be a far bigger problem for the Republican Party than establishment figures ever expected. In coping with such a colossal headache, the Party seems to be following the Kübler-Ross model of grief -- the model frequently used to describe how people come to grips with the death of a loved one." CW: Gerson there provides a good example of Step 4 -- depression, which Wheeler suggests is where the GOP is now on Kübler-Ross path.
... Carlos Lozada, the Washington Post's non-fiction book editor binge-read "the collected works of Donald Trump.... Is there a single word that combines revulsion, amusement, respect and confusion? That is how it feels ... to binge on Trump's writings. Over the course of 2,212 pages, I encountered a world where bragging is breathing and insulting is talking, where repetition and contradiction come standard, where vengefulness and insecurity erupt at random. Elsewhere, such qualities might get in the way of the story. With Trump, they are the story. There is little else."
Emily Flitter of Reuters: Scott "Walker has made [Harley-Davidson] ... a centerpiece of his campaign kick-off tour this month, visiting four dealerships and sometimes showing off his own 2003 Harley Road King as he seeks to harness its appeal to older white male voters. But ... Harley ... is a leading example of a successful company that has a strong relationship with labor unions.... Some of the people who build Harleys - more than a thousand of whom are unionized workers in Wisconsin - are fuming over Walker's prominent use of the bikes in his campaign. 'He's trying to make a name for himself by saying "I took on 100,000 union workers" - and he's on our bikes,' said Andy Voelzke, 57, who works at Harley's plant just outside Milwaukee and is a member of the United Steelworkers union."
Beyond the Beltway
... The Oregonian is liveblogging developments. 5:48 pm PT Thursday: "Police boats are clearing a lane for the MSV Fennica to move down the Willamette River toward the Columbia River. 5:40 pm: "The MSV Fennica has stopped short of the St. Johns Bridge; kayakers continue to block the ship's route out of Portland. 5:55 pm: The MSV Fennica passes under the St. Johns Bridge and past the protesters who have dangled from the bridges frame for more than 40 hours." ...
... Update. Steven DuBois & Dan Joling of the AP: "A Royal Dutch Shell icebreaker that was the target of environmental protesters left Portland, Oregon, on Thursday bound for an Arctic drilling operation after a tense standoff ended with kayakers and activists who had dangled from a bridge to block its path. The Fennica left dry dock and made its way down the Willamette River toward the Pacific Ocean soon after authorities forced the demonstrators from the river and the St. Johns Bridge. Several protesters in kayaks moved toward the center of the river as the ship began its trip, but authorities in boats and personal watercraft cleared a narrow pathway for the Fennica."
... Ellen Brait of the Guardian: "A federal judge in Alaska has ordered Greenpeace USA to pay a fine of $2,500 for every hour that protesters continue to block a Royal Dutch Shell icebreaker from leaving Portland, Oregon, for the Arctic.... The activists have been hanging from the bridge since Wednesday at approximately 3am PT, delaying the departure of the oil company's 380ft Fennica icebreaker."
Justin Fenton & Luke Broadwater of the Baltimore Sun: "Gov. Larry Hogan said Thursday that he will immediately shut down the decrepit Baltimore City Detention Center, moving inmates to nearby facilities and ending a longstanding 'black eye' for the state. The Republican governor said the Civil War-era jail -- which is run by the state -- could be torn down, and there are no plans to build a new facility. Baltimore's jail population has dipped in recent years, making room elsewhere for the inmates from the detention center. The move is expected to save taxpayers $10 to $15 million annually."
Ryan Felton & Oliver Laughland of the Guardian: "Two police officers who corroborated a seemingly false account of the fatal shooting of Samuel DuBose in Cincinnati were previously implicated in the death of an unarmed, hospitalised and mentally ill black man who died after he was 'rushed' by a group of seven University of Cincinnati police officers. Kelly Brinson, a 45-year-old mental health patient at Cincinnati's University hospital, suffered a psychotic episode on 20 January 2010 and was placed inside a seclusion room at the hospital by UC officers. He was then shocked with a Taser three times by an officer and placed in restraints.... [Brinson] then suffered a respiratory cardiac arrest and died three days later." ...
... Richard Perez-Pena of the New York Times: "A judge set bail at $1 million on Thursday for the former University of Cincinnati police officer who shot and killed a motorist, after a traffic stop over a missing license plate." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Update by Sheryl Gay Stolberg & Perez-Pena: "Two
Steve Mistler of the Portland Press Herald: Maine "House Speaker Mark Eves filed a civil lawsuit against Gov. Paul LePage on Thursday, alleging that LePage used taxpayer money and the power of his office to prevent Eves from being hired by a private school in Fairfield. That action violated several of Eves' constitutional and other rights, according to the 27-page complaint.... The lawsuit, filed Thursday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Portland, has been anticipated since the board of directors at Good Will-Hinckley voted to rescind its offer to pay Eves $150,000 a year in salary and benefits to become the organization's next president. The Democrat said the board told him before his contract was terminated that LePage, a Republican, threatened to eliminate $530,000 in annual state funding for the school unless it removed him from the job."
Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post: "Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley has tapped someone to [the] state's Board of Education who never attended public schools, publicly declared that his children never will either, and actively supported a successful effort to defeat a vote on a school tax in a divisive campaign in his home county".
Farai Mutsaka of the AP: "Zimbabwe intends to seek the extradition of an American dentist who killed a lion that was lured out of a national park and shot with a bow and a gun, and the process has already begun, a Cabinet minister said Friday.... There is an extradition treaty between Zimbabwe and the United States."
News Lede
AP: "Beijing was selected Friday to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, defeating the bid from Almaty[,Kazakhstan,] in a surprisingly close vote to become the first city awarded both the winter and summer games."