The Ledes

Sunday, September 15, 2024

Washington Post: “The five-day space voyage known as Polaris Dawn ended safely Sunday as four astronauts aboard a SpaceX Dragon splashed down off the coast of Florida, wrapping up a groundbreaking commercial mission. Polaris Dawn crossed several historic landmarks for civilian spaceflight as Jared Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur and adventurer, performed the first spacewalk by a private citizen, followed by SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis.”

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The New York Times lists Emmy winners.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

Washington Post: “An early Titian masterpiece — once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries — caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective, and returned. This week, the oil painting 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for more than $22 million at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice. Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as 'the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.'”

Washington Post: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare material, has undergone a major renovation. "The change to the building is pervasive, both subtle and transformational."

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Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns


Monday
Sep162019

The Commentariat -- September 17, 2019

Afternoon Update:

According to exit polls, MSNBC reports, Netanyahu is not doing well.

Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "The Trump administration is expected on Wednesday to formally revoke California's legal authority to set tailpipe pollution rules that are stricter than federal rules, in a move designed by the White House to strike twin blows against both the liberal-leaning state that President Trump has long antagonized and the environmental legacy of President Barack Obama. The announcement that the White House will revoke one of California's signature environmental policies will come while Mr. Trump is traveling in the state, where he is scheduled to attend fund-raisers in Los Angeles and Silicon Valley.... Xavier Becerra, the attorney general of California, wrote in an email: 'California will continue its advance toward a cleaner future. We're prepared to defend the standards that make that promise a reality.'" The Reuters report is here.

Corey Lewandoski is scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee beginning at 1 pm ET. The Hill has a livefeed here. ~~~

~~~ Nicholas Fandos & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "After initially stonewalling Democrats' questions, Mr. Lewandowski appeared to abruptly change strategies, confirming the details of a key episode from the Mueller investigation -- and even providing new information that wasn't in the special counsel's report. Under questioning by Representative Hank Johnson, Democrat of Georgia, Mr. Lewandowski said he never relayed the message because he went on a beach vacation with his children.... Mr. Lewandowski began his appearance before the House Judiciary Committee with remarks that sounded more like a campaign speech than testimony in a congressional investigation.... Given that he has been considering a run for the Senate from New Hampshire for the last several weeks, Mr. Lewandowski and his allies see the hearing as an opportunity to promote his allegiance to Mr. Trump in a way that could benefit him politically.... During a break that he requested, he tweeted out a link to a website for a new super PAC that was created today, 'Stand With Corey.'... Almost immediately, Mr. Lewandowski made clear he intended to do whatever he could to slow down the proceedings, including demanding that Democrats read him the section of the Mueller report about which they were questioning him." This is a liveblog & may be updated. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I listened to the first half hour of the "hearing" but had to turn it off because Lewandowski was so obnoxious. I thought Nadler should have held Lewandowski in contempt. Update: Joyce Vance called Lewandowski "one of the smarmiest witnesses I've ever seen on the stand," and Vance, a former prosecutor, no doubt has heard a lot of smarmy witnesses.

Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "American intelligence analysts and military investigators are examining a missile guidance mechanism recovered in Saudi Arabia that may provide clues as to the missile's origins and flight path, as they continue gathering information to make the administration's case that Iran was responsible for last weekend's attack against Saudi oil facilities. Analysts are poring over satellite imagery of the damage sites, and assessing radar tracks of at least some of the low-flying cruise missiles that were used. Communication intercepts from before and after the attacks are being reviewed to see if they implicate Iranian officials. And, perhaps most important, forensic analysis is underway of missile and drone parts from the attack sites, including at least one mostly intact cruise missile recovered from the area...."

Daniella Diaz & Gregory Krieg of CNN: "It had been hours since Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrapped her speech here in Manhattan, but ... Warren stuck around deep into the New York night on Monday, taking photos with each person who'd waited in line -- a process that took nearly fives times as long as the candidate spent delivering an impassioned anti-corruption address to the thousands who filled the park.The Warren 'selfies' -- the photos she takes with voters, framed and snapped by a campaign aide as other staffers hustle supporters through, handling their bags and phones, so Warren can take as many photos as quickly as possible -- have become a political phenomenon. It's one that manages to be both savvy and kitschy, exhausting and exhilarating.... A Warren aide told CNN on Tuesday that she took about 4,000 'selfies' after her New York rally and has now, since kicking off her campaign last winter, posed for more than 59,000 of them in all.

Douglas Martin of the New York Times: "Sander Vanocur, the television newsman who became familiar to American viewers as a prominent White House correspondent during the Kennedy administration and as a tough questioner in presidential debates, died on Monday night in a hospice facility in Santa Barbara, Calif."

Neil Genzlinger of the New York Times: "Cokie Roberts, the pioneering broadcast journalist known to millions for her work with ABC News and NPR, died on Tuesday. She was 75.... Ms. Roberts started her radio career at CBS, then began working for NPR in 1978, covering Capitol Hill. She joined ABC in 1988. Her three decades at the network included anchoring, with Sam Donaldson, the Sunday morning news program 'This Week' from 1996 to 2002.... Michelle and Barack Obama, in a statement, called Ms. Roberts 'a trailblazing figure; a role model to young women at a time when the profession was still dominated by men; a constant over 40 years of a shifting media landscape and changing world, informing voters about the issues of our time and mentoring young journalists every step of the way.'" Roberts' ABC News obituary is here. ~~~

~~~ Update. Then There Was This. I never met her. She never treated me nicely. But I would like to wish her family well. She was a professional, and I respect professionals.... Never treated me well, but I certainly respect her as a professional. -- Donald Trump, on Air Force 1

Thanks, Donald, for demonstrating why I like to be polite or noncommittal about the deceased, even when I didn't like them when they were alive, at least in the days immediately following news of their deaths. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

Hey, Right-to-Lifers/Climate Deniers. What About This? Morgan Gstalter of the Hill: "Air pollution has the potential to travel from a pregnant woman's lungs to the fetal side of the placenta, according to a new study. Researchers at Hasselt University in Belgium in a study reported in Nature Communications found sootlike black carbon, a type of particle pollutant, on placentas donated by new mothers. The placenta is a temporary organ that acts as a natural barrier between a mother and the fetus during pregnancy."

Matt Wilstein of the Daily Beast: "Sean Spicer Has Most Embarrassing 'Dancing With the Stars' Debut Ever, Period.... Spicer was paired up with season 25 champion dancer Lindsay Arnold, who described her partner as dancing at a 'pre-pre-school level,' adding, 'He definitely isn't natural at it.'" Mrs. McC: Seinfeld's puffy shirt was less ridiculous. ~~~

~~~ Uh, Jesus Made Him Do It. Joe Concha of the Hill: "Former White House press secretary and current 'Dancing with the Stars' contestant Sean Spicer on Tuesday implored viewers on Twitter to vote for him to 'send a message to #Hollywood that those of us who stand for #Christ won't be discounted.' Spicer made the call after his viral debut on Monday night that included him performing to a Spice Girls song while wearing a neon puffy shirt."

North Carolina. Meagan Flynn of the Washington Post: "Granville County Sheriff Brindell Wilkins learned one of his deputies had a tape of him making 'racially offensive' comments, prosecutors say. So the North Carolina lawman encouraged another man to kill the officer, according to a felony indictment revealed late Monday night. 'The only way you gonna stop him is kill him,' Wilkins allegedly told the would-be shooter in a 2014 recorded phone call about a plan to kill former deputy Joshua Freeman. The plot was not carried out. Wilkins is charged with two felony counts of obstruction of justice charges for his failure to arrest the unnamed person or report the threat on Freeman's life, and for also allegedly giving the man advice about how to get away with the killing. Wilkins has been sheriff of the small county in northern North Carolina, where the biggest town is home to about 8,400 people, since 2009 and was most recently reelected in 2018. Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman, who brought the charges, told the News & Observer that Wilkins is still the sheriff." Slate has a story here.

~~~~~~~~~~

Richard Pérez-Peña, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump said Monday that Iran appeared to be responsible for the weekend attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities. But Mr. Trump also said he would 'like to avoid' a military conflict with Tehran and reiterated his interest in diplomacy. Asked at the White House whether Iran was behind the attack, Mr. Trump said, 'It's looking that way.' But he stopped short of a definitive confirmation. 'That's being checked out right now,' he added. Mr. Trump warned that the United States has fearsome military capabilities and is prepared for war if necessary. 'With all that being said, we'd certainly like to avoid it,' he added. 'I know they want to make a deal,' he said of Iranian officials, whom he has been trying to draw into talks over their nuclear program. 'At some point it will work out.' Mr. Trump's comments came shortly after a Saudi government statement said that, 'Initial investigations have indicated that the weapons used in the attack were Iranian weapons.'" This is an update of a story linked yesterday afternoon. ~~~

~~~ Martha Raddatz & Katherine Faulders of ABC News: "... Donald Trump and senior administration officials met at the White House on Monday to discuss how to respond to the attack on a Saudi oil facility that the U.S. has blamed on Iran, according to three senior administration officials.... Saudi military spokesperson Col. Turki al-Malki said on Monday that initial investigations show Iranian weapons were used in the attack and that those weapons were not launched from inside Yemen." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

The Saudis want to fight the Iranians to the last American. -- Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in a leaked cable to the French foreign minister, 2010

If the President wants to use military force, he needs Congress, not the Saudi royal family, to authorize it. -- Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), in a tweet ~~~

~~~ Peter Baker & David Sanger of the New York Times: "... over the weekend, President Trump promised to wait for Saudi Arabia to tell him 'under what terms we would proceed.' His message on Twitter offered a remarkable insight into the deference Mr. Trump gives to the Saudi royal family and touched off a torrent of criticism from those who have long accused him of doing Riyadh's bidding while sweeping Saudi violations of human rights and international norms under the rug.... Whether, and how, to commit forces is one of the most critical decisions any American president can make, but Mr. Trump's comment gave the impression that he was outsourcing the decision.... The notion of the United States doing the bidding of the Saudis has a long, bristling history." ~~~

~~~ Megan Specia of the New York Times: "Iran has dismissed the possibility of a meeting between the country's president, Hassan Rouhani, and President Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly next week, the country's state-run news media reported on Monday." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

The Orange Menace is directly and personally responsible for much of what's happening with Iran and Saudi Arabia right now. -- Akhilleus, in yesterday's Comments thread (read his whole post) ~~~

~~~ Tyler Rogoway of the Drive: "... there was some really shoddy and downright reckless reporting over the weekend on the Saudi oil infrastructure attacks.... [T]his is not unguided artillery here, it can maneuver dynamically to approach a target from a direction that its targeters find most advantageous -- either for kinetic effects, survivability, or deniability reasons.... With that in mind, the attacks could have come from any vector-based on impact information alone -- Iraq, Yemen, Iran, or even a boat in the Persian Gulf.... Welcome to the murky world of unmanned warfare.... America's adversaries are all too aware of this game-changing potential and the lack of defenses to counter it in any robust manner.... Considering how omnipresent this threat has become, we are lucky a couple busted up oil production facilities were the only result of such an eye-opening attack." --s

Ben Schreckinger of Politico: "... the regular visits [to Donald Trump's Turnberry golf resort in Scotland] from Air Force crews on layovers from Prestwick Airport have become a major facet of the life of the resort.... Rather than being restricted to single-night refueling stops, some visits last multiple nights, expanding the known dimensions of the relationship between the president's luxury resort and the U.S. military.... While crews were spotted here this summer, one longtime staffer said that they more frequently show up in the winter low season, and stay at the lodges -- more spacious, freestanding structures downhill of the main hotel, which looks out over the seashore.... Earlier this summer, according to a staffer, a group of Saudi royals stayed at the resort for about a week at the tail end of extended travel, bringing a party of 25 people and more than a hundred pieces of luggage." Emphasis added.

Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "The White House on Monday blocked two more former aides to President Trump [-- Rob Porter & Rick Dearborn --] from testifying in House Democrats' impeachment inquiry, but cleared a third witness, Corey Lewandowski, to appear publicly on Tuesday and answer limited questions about potential obstruction of justice by the president.... The White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, wrote to the committee late Monday, saying that Mr. Lewandowski would be free to discuss his work on the Trump campaign and matters that have already been made public by Mr. Mueller, but not any other additional communications he may have had with Mr. Trump after the election. As senior White House aides, Mr. Porter and Mr. Dearborn were 'absolutely immune' from congressional testimony, he said in another letter." CNN's story is here.

William Rashbaum & Ben Protess of the New York Times: "State prosecutors in Manhattan have subpoenaed President Trump's accounting firm to demand eight years of his personal and corporate tax returns, according to several people with knowledge of the matter. The subpoena opens a new front in a wide-ranging effort to obtain copies of the president's tax returns, which Mr. Trump initially said he would make public during the 2016 campaign but has since refused to disclose. The subpoena was issued by the Manhattan district attorney's office late last month, soon after it opened a criminal investigation into the role that the president and his family business played in hush-money payments made in the run-up to the election." The NBC News report is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Darren Samuelsohn in Politico Magazine: "A document Hillary Clinton helped write nearly a half century ago has returned from the dead to threaten the man she couldn't vanquish in 2016. The bizarre, only-in-D.C. twist centers on a congressional report penned by a bipartisan team of young attorneys that included Hillary before she was a Clinton and written in the throes of Watergate.... [Lawmakers then] had little understanding of how to try and remove Richard Nixon from the White House. So they tapped Clinton and a team of ambitious staffers to dive into the history of impeachment, stretching back to the 14th century in England[.]... The resulting document became a centerpiece of the congressional push to drive [Nixon] from office.... Republicans [resurrected the memo in the late 1990s] to bolster their unsuccessful bid to oust Clinton's now-husband, President Bill Clinton. Then it faded from public conscience -- again.... [Today,] the 45-year-old report has become a handbook House Democratic lawmakers and aides say they are using to help determine whether they have the goods to mount a full-scale impeachment effort against ... Donald Trump...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Natasha Bertrand of Politico: "A cavalcade of Obama-era national security leaders have committed to testify on behalf of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe should he face trial over allegations that he misled officials about leaks to the media. The lineup, detailed in a legal analysis from McCabe's legal team, the substance of which was provided to the Justice Department, includes a string of former senior officials.... McCabe's lawyers said the testimony of these witnesses won't be limited 'solely to character evidence' -- they'll also serve 'as fact witnesses, to testify about the many critical and highly sensitive national security and law enforcement they worked on with Mr. McCabe.'... McCabe's ex-boss, however -- former FBI Director James Comey -- has said he could be a witness against him, based on testimony Comey gave to an internal watchdog that appeared to contradict McCabe's version of events.... It's still unclear, however, whether the grand jury convened in McCabe's case has actually returned an indictment."

Maxwell Tani & Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "Following his acrimonious departure from the White House, former National Security Adviser John Bolton has insisted that he will have his 'say in due course.'... According to two people with knowledge of the situation, Bolton has already expressed interest in writing a book on his time in the Trump administration, and has been in contact in recent days with literary agents interested in making that happen. 'He has a lot to dish,' one of the sources said, adding it was not clear if Bolton had settled on an agency yet." Mrs. McC: Yo, John. Revenge is a dish best served right before the November 2020 election.

Matt Stieb of New York: "... the Secret Service is currently bidding for two jet skis in order to protect the Trumps at-play down in Florida. 'The First Family is very active in water sports,' the memo reads. 'Several family members along with their guest[s] participate in open water activities for which USSS Special Agent Rescue Swimmers are responsible.' FedBizOpps.org -- the site where contractors can bid on state contracts -- notes that they're also looking for a trailer to house the two Kawaski toys that the federal government intends to purchase in the ballpark of $9,999 to $15,299. At least Secret Service won't have to rent jet skis anymore, as they've been doing up to this point on their own dime."

They'e All Crooks, Ctd. Eric Lipton & Michael Forsythe of the New York Times: "The House Oversight and Reform Committee asked Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao on Monday to turn over documents related to communication with her family's shipping company as the panel stepped up an investigation into whether any actions taken by Ms. Chao amount to a conflict of interest. The request by the committee in the Democrat-controlled House relates to actions Ms. Chao has taken that potentially benefited Foremost Group, a New York-based shipping company owned by her family. Foremost has received hundreds of millions of dollars in loan commitments from a bank run by the Chinese government to help build ships that Foremost has purchased from government-owned shipyards there. The actions by Ms. Chao -- including joint public appearances since she became transportation secretary in 2017 with her father, James Chao, who founded the company, and a planned trip to China to meet with government officials there along with her father -- have led House investigators to question if she is using her office to try to benefit her family's financial interests." Politico's story is here.

Lauren Fox, et al., of CNN: "Days before Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation, a Democratic senator [-- Chris Coons (Delaware) --] urged the FBI to reach out to a witness who had key information about alleged misconduct by the nominee while at Yale, according to a letter obtained by CNN.... An aide familiar with the letter told CNN that the FBI acknowledged receipt of Coons' letter at the time, but the senator never heard more beyond that.... The letter comes as The New York Times reported over the weekend that the Times had interviewed more individuals who had corroborated the allegation of Deborah Ramirez, a Yale classmate who alleged Kavanaugh had exposed himself to her at a dorm room party. The Times also reported that there was another previously undisclosed allegation raised by Max Stier, a Yale classmate who told the Times that he had witnessed Kavanaugh engage in another, similar incident. [[CNN confirmed that the witnessed referenced in Coons' letter was Stier.] CNN is not reporting any details of the accusation and has not independently corroborated the account." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Kyle Cheney of Politico: "The House Judiciary Committee is too tied up with 'impeaching the president' to take immediate action on a potential investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said Monday. 'We have our hands full with impeaching the president right now and that's going to take up our limited resources and time for a while, Nadler said on WNYC when pressed by host Brian Lehrer." ~~~

~~~ Ian Millhiser, now at Vox: "The bar for removing Justice Brett Kavanaugh by impeachment is so high as to be insurmountable. But there may be another way.... In 2006..., [conservative] law professors Saikrishna Prakash and Steven D. Smith, [lay] out a road map for, well, how to remove a federal judge without resorting to the impeachment power. It argues that a provision of the Constitution stating that federal judges and justices 'shall hold their offices during good behaviour' is widely misunderstood.... The thrust of Prakash and Smith's argument is that an official who is appointed during 'good behavior' may keep their office indefinitely, but that an official who misbehaves may be removed through an ordinary court proceeding.... Misbehavior, they argue, was understood broadly by English courts and by early Americans. It can include 'conviction for such an offense as would make the convicted person unfit to hold a public office,' but also may include much lesser offenses.... Suppose that prosecutors showed that a justice perjured himself at his confirmation hearing...." ~~~

~~~ Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Aaron Rupar of Vox goes over the New York Times' missteps in the book excerpt the paper published Saturday night on Bart O'Kavanaugh's waving dick. Mrs. McC: What Rupar doesn't cover was what authors Robin Pogrebin & Kate Kelly told Lawrence O'Donnell Monday night: the sentence the paper added in an editor's note Sunday, stating that the victim of of the second assault at Yale didn't recall the incident was in the original excerpt the writers submitted to the Times. Because that original sentence also included the name of the alleged victim -- & the Times didn't want to ID the victim -- some hairbrained editor decided to eliminate the whole sentence, which does provide crucial context. I don't know how much the Times pays its editors, but it's safe to say, not enough. As Rupar concludes, even without knowing about how the omission occurred, The story "is a big deal. But because of foreseeable, avoidable missteps, the Times ended up transforming what should've been a controversy about the newest member of the nation's highest court into one that's partially about itself." ~~~

~~~ Gillian Brockell of the Washington Post: "Only one other justice has ever been impeached, and it was more than 200 years ago." His name was Samuel Chase, and his nickname was "Old Bacon Face," on account of his reddish-brown complexion. "In 1776, Chase signed the Declaration of Independence representing Maryland. By the 1780s, he had moved to Baltimore, where he rose through the ranks as a judge. President George Washington nominated Chase to the Supreme Court in 1796. At the time though, the highest court in the land had little to do, so justices still served on lower courts. And those lower courts are where Chase's problems arose. While presiding over the 1800 sedition trial of Thomas Cooper, Chase railed against Cooper during his instructions to the jury, seeming to act more as a prosecutor than a judge. Before a treason trial in Philadelphia, he showed defense attorneys his opinion before the trial had even taken place. He later sentenced the man to death. (President John Adams pardoned him.) At a sedition trial in Richmond, he sat a juror who said he had already made up his mind that the defendant was guilty.... In 1803, before a Baltimore jury, Chase denounced the Democratic Republicans for overturning [a] law ... that had created lower courts.... When [then-President Thomas] Jefferson found out about it, he sent a letter to a congressman friend of his strongly suggesting that -- cough cough, hint hint -- only Congress could do something about Chase. The next year, the House voted 73-32 to impeach him, charging that he 'tend[ed] to prostitute the high judicial character with which he was invested.'... Though majorities [in the Senate] found Chase guilty on three of the eight articles, none passed the two-thirds threshold." ~~~

Senate Race 2020

~~~ Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is facing fresh attacks from Democrats after a newly surfaced allegation against Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh put his contentious confirmation back in the public spotlight.Maine state House Speaker Sara Gideon, her most prominent opponent for reelection next year, posted a photo of Collins and Kavanaugh to Twitter on Sunday with a link to her fundraising page. 'I'm tired of hoping that Susan Collins does the right thing when she has shown time and time again that she puts Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell ahead of Mainers. If you're with me, please make a contribution to our campaign today,' she wrote.... Collins at the time [of the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings] called the investigation 'very thorough' and reviewed copies of FBI interviews before delivering her speech [announcing she would vote for Kavanaugh]. Now her opponents are accusing her of relying on a slipshod review of the allegations in determining her vote." A USA Today story is here. ~~~

~~~ Ella Nilsen of Vox: "With Collins up for reelection in 2020, the moderate Maine senator is already in the political fight of her life, and Brett Kavanaugh is a huge factor. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report recently moved its appraisal of Collins's race from 'lean Republican' to a toss-up, citing a number of polls showing Collins losing ground and the emergence of a strong Democratic challenger.... [Sara] Gideon's name recognition statewide pales in comparison to Collins, according to a July AARP poll conducted by pollster Fabrizio Ward. That poll showed Collins leading Gideon 52 percent to 35 percent, and just 28 percent had an opinion of Gideon -- showing the majority of the 600 likely voters polled didn't know who she was."

Presidential Race 2020

Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts brought her ascendant presidential campaign to New York City on Monday night, unspooling a forceful argument for attacking corruption in government in a defining speech of her White House bid. Addressing thousands of supporters in Washington Square Park..., Ms. Warren pressed her case to bring sweeping change to an economic and political system she views as fundamentally tilted to favor the wealthy and powerful. She spoke near the site of the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire of 1911, which killed 146 garment workers, most of them women. The fire spurred a push to improve workplace safety, which Ms. Warren harnessed as a parallel for the far-reaching change she wants to pursue as president. And once again, she urged Democrats to embrace her call for fundamental change -- not the kind of incremental approach favored most notably by Joseph R. Biden Jr., the former vice president and the primary race's front-runner." The Daily Beast story is here. ~~~

Trump Thinks All Hispanics Are Indios. Jeanine Santucci of USA Today: "At his Monday evening campaign rally in New Mexico..., Donald Trump touted his support among Hispanic voters, and pointed to a member of his campaign's Hispanic Advisory Council, saying 'Who do you like more, the country or the Hispanics?' Speaking about Steve Cortes, Trump said 'He happens to be Hispanic, but I've never quite figured it out because he looks more like a WASP than I do.'" Mrs. McC: Guess I'll put this in my file labeled, "Donald Trump Is So Dumb, He ..." and I should cross-reference it in my files, "Donald Trump Is So Offensive, He ..." and "Donald Trump Is So Racist, He ...".

Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair: "The drumbeat of negative headlines is causing Trump to lash out. 'He cares a lot about polls. I've never seen anyone who cares more, frankly,' said a former West Wing official. A prominent Republican close to the White House told me: 'You can't even share one little negative thing with him. If you give him a poll number that's down, he'll just go nuts. No one wants to share any bad news.'... Trump and his advisers are debating various Hail Mary strategies that might reset the campaign. One idea being pushed by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, which was first reported by Axios, would be to dump Vice President Mike Pence from the ticket and replace him with former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley. 'They threaten Mike every week that they're going to take him off the ticket,' a Republican in touch with Pence's camp told me.... 'Trump sees him as a good Christian man, but in Trump's mind he thinks that means Mike's weak,' the Republican close to the White House said." --s

Republican Sarah Longwell in an NBC News opinion piece: "In 2016, then-candidate Donald Trump complained that the primary process was rigged against him (it wasn't). Now it's President Trump's turn to do the rigging. South Carolina canceled its first-in-the-South presidential primary, and Kansas, Arizona and Nevada are following suit. Republican leadership in these states say that there's plenty of precedent for incumbent presidents not holding primary contests. That's true, but there's no precedent for canceling a primary when there are already three announced GOP challengers: former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld, former Illinois representative Joe Walsh and former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford.South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Drew McKissick argues that these men aren't 'legitimate' challengers, but it's hard to make the case that two former governors and a former congressman shouldn't be considered legitimate."

Paul Krugman: "Elections are supposed to have consequences, conveying power to the winners. But when Democrats win an election, the modern G.O.P. does its best to negate the results, flouting norms and, if necessary, the law to carry on as if the voters hadn't spoken.... The House, by law, has ... the right to be informed of what's going on in the executive branch, such as complaints by whistle-blowers, and the right to issue subpoenas demanding information relevant to governing. The Trump administration, however, has evidently decided that none of that matters.... And under William Barr, Justice has effectively become just another arm of the G.O.P. This is the context in which you want to think about the latest round of revelations about Brett Kavanaugh.... Both Kavanaugh's background and the circumstances of his appointment suggest that Mitch McConnell went to unprecedented lengths to create a Republican bloc on the Supreme Court that will thwart anything and everything Democrats try to accomplish.... The real chasm between the [Democratic presidential] candidates is ... in ... the extent to which they understand what they're facing in the modern G.O.P. The big problem with Joe Biden, still the front-runner, is that he obviously doesn't get it.... Which raises the question: Even if Biden can win, is he too oblivious to govern effectively?"


Sam Biddle of The Intercept: "The National Rifle Association nearly doubled its spending on pro-gun Facebook propaganda for three weeks after the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, according to analytics provided to The Intercept.... Between August 4 and August 25, the institute spent around $360,000 on Facebook -- roughly $16,500 per day -- reaching a peak of over $29,000 on August 18.... Altogether, the ads bought in this period were viewed tens of millions of times, the analytics firm estimated." --s

SNL Fires Racist. Audrey McNamara of the Daily Beast: "Saturday Night Live on Monday announced that it will no longer bring Shane Gillis aboard as a new cast member for its 45th season, after unearthed video showed him making overtly racist jokes.... 'We were not aware of his prior remarks that have surfaced over the past few days. The language he used is offensive, hurtful and unacceptable. We are sorry that we did not see these clips earlier, and that our vetting process was not up to our standard,' [SNL said in a statement.]"

Way Beyond the Beltway

Brazil. Dom Phillips of the Guardian: "Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is a lucrative business largely driven by criminal networks that threaten and attack government officials, forest defenders and indigenous people who try to stop them, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch." --s

Israel. Chaim Levinson & Amos Harel of Haaretz: "Israel's National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat met with the head of the Central Elections Committee to prepare him for the possibility of postponing the general election slated for Tuesday due to a military operation.... Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu aborted last week plans for an unusual military move in the Gaza Strip.... The dramatic discussion over a potential military action began Tuesday night. A few hours earlier, Netanyahu had gone through a disturbing experience: Gaza-based Islamic Jihad operatives fired a Katyusha rocket at the southern city Ashdod, where he was speaking at a campaign rally." --s

Russia. Guardian: "A gas explosion has sparked a fire at a Russian lab that houses viruses ranging from smallpox to Ebola, authorities have said.... The site housed biological weapons research during the Soviet era and is now one of Russia's main disease research centres.... Russian authorities insisted that the room where the explosion occurred was holding no biohazardous substances and that no structural damage was caused. The smallpox virus survives in two places on Earth: at Vector and at another high-security laboratory, at the US Centre for Disease Control in Atlanta." --s

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Sunday
Sep152019

The Commentariat -- September 16, 2019

Afternoon Update:

William Rashbaum & Ben Protess of the New York Times: "State prosecutors in Manhattan have subpoenaed President Trump's accounting firm to demand eight years of his personal and corporate tax returns, according to several people with knowledge of the matter. The subpoena opens a new front in a wide-ranging effort to obtain copies of the president's tax returns, which Mr. Trump initially said he would make public during the 2016 campaign but has since refused to disclose. The subpoena was issued by the Manhattan district attorney's office late last month, soon after it opened a criminal investigation into the role that the president and his family business played in hush-money payments made in the run-up to the election." The NBC News report is here.

Richard Pérez-Peña & David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times: "Saudi Arabia said Monday that Iranian weapons were used in aerial strikes over the weekend that interrupted much of the kingdom's oil production, and that the attacks were not launched from Yemen, home of the Houthi rebel faction that has claimed responsibility for the them. The claims, made without supporting evidence, appeared to move the Saudis closer to directly blaming Iran, a chief ally of the Houthis, for the attacks on Saturday.... United States officials the attacks on Saturday.... The Americans offered no evidence of Iranian involvement..., and they did not say who was directly involved in carrying out the strikes or from where they were launched.... President Trump on Monday took to Twitter to suggest that Tehran could not be believed...." Mrs. McC: Now there's the pot calling the kettle black. ~~~

~~~ Martha Raddatz & Katherine Faulders of ABC News: "... Donald Trump and senior administration officials met at the White House on Monday to discuss how to respond to the attack on a Saudi oil facility that the U.S. has blamed on Iran, according to three senior administration officials.... Saudi military spokesperson Col. Turki al-Malki said on Monday that initial investigations show Iranian weapons were used in the attack and that those weapons were not launched from inside Yemen." ~~~

~~~ Megan Specia of the New York Times: "Iran has dismissed the possibility of a meeting between the country's president, Hassan Rouhani, and President Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly next week, the country's state-run news media reported on Monday."

Lauren Fox, et al., of CNN: "Days before Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation, a Democratic senator [-- Chris Coons (Delaware) --] urged the FBI to reach out to a witness who had key information about alleged misconduct by the nominee while at Yale, according to a letter obtained by CNN.... An aide familiar with the letter told CNN that the FBI acknowledged receipt of Coons' letter at the time, but the senator never heard more beyond that.... The letter comes as The New York Times reported over the weekend that the Times had interviewed more individuals who had corroborated the allegation of Deborah Ramirez, a Yale classmate who alleged Kavanaugh had exposed himself to her at a dorm room party. The Times also reported that there was another previously undisclosed allegation raised by Max Stier, a Yale classmate who told the Times that he had witnessed Kavanaugh engage in another, similar incident. [CNN confirmed that the witnessed referenced in Coons' letter was Stier.] CNN is not reporting any details of the accusation and has not independently corroborated the account."

Darren Samuelsohn in Politico Magazine: "A document Hillary Clinton helped write nearly a half century ago has returned from the dead to threaten the man she couldn't vanquish in 2016. The bizarre, only-in-D.C. twist centers on a congressional report penned by a bipartisan team of young attorneys that included Hillary before she was a Clinton and written in the throes of Watergate.... [Lawmakers then] had little understanding of how to try and remove Richard Nixon from the White House. So they tapped Clinton and a team of ambitious staffers to dive into the history of impeachment, stretching back to the 14th century in England[.]... The resulting document became a centerpiece of the congressional push to drive [Nixon] from office.... Republicans [resurrected the memo in the late 1990s] to bolster their unsuccessful bid to oust Clinton's now-husband, President Bill Clinton. Then it faded from public conscience -- again.... [Today,] the 45-year-old report has become a handbook House Democratic lawmakers and aides say they are using to help determine whether they have the goods to mount a full-scale impeachment effort against ... Donald Trump...."

~~~~~~~~~~

Kareem Fahim, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump said Sunday that the United States was prepared to respond to the devastating attacks on two oil installations in Saudi Arabia that halved the state oil company's production output, while Iran rejected U.S. accusations that it was responsible. 'There is reason to believe that we know the culprit,' Trump said in a tweet Sunday evening. He said the United States was 'locked and loaded depending on verification.' Trump did not name Iran, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had on Saturday, or specify whether he was contemplating a military response. He said he was waiting to hear from the Saudis on 'who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!'" CNN's story is here. Mrs. McC: "Locked & loaded"? There is an eight-year-old in charge of the military. He is playing president, and he's terrible at it. ~~~

~~~ Martha Raddatz of ABC News: "Iran launched nearly a dozen cruise missiles and over 20 drones from its territory in the attack on a key Saudi oil facility Saturday, a senior Trump administration official told ABC News Sunday. It is an extraordinary charge to make, that Iran used missiles and drones to attack its neighbor and rival Saudi Arabia, as the region teeters on the edge of high tensions.... The Trump administration, in particular Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, has blamed Iran for the attack since Saturday, but so far, there's been no public accusation that Iran launched missiles.... Critics condemned Trump's threat to act, especially at the Saudis' behest. Rep. Justin Amash, of Michigan, a former Republican and now Independent, tweeted, 'Under our Constitution, the power to commence war lies with Congress, not the president and certainly not Saudi Arabia. We don't take orders from foreign powers.'" ~~~

     ~~~ AND there's this from Raddatz's report: "The risk of conflict seemed lower less than a week ago, with the departure of hawkish National Security Adviser John Bolton and Trump seeming to embrace the possibility of talks with Iran's President Hassan Rouhani at the United Nations General Assembly later this month in New York. Pompeo said Tuesday that Trump was 'prepared to meet with no preconditions.' But in a reversal Sunday, Trump tweeted it was 'incorrect' to say he was willing to meet without conditions, blaming the 'fake news' despite his repeated statements saying so. In July 2018, the president first said 'no preconditions ... If they want to meet, I'll meet -- anytime they want.'" ~~~

~~~ Max Boot in the Washington Post: "The Houthi rebel group in Yemen assumed responsibility [for the attacks on Saudi oil installations], but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pinned the blame on Iran. This is a claim that Iran denies and that few may take on faith given how often the administration has lied about even minor matters. President Trump and his aides just tried to falsify information about a hurricane. Why believe them about an attack in the Middle East? Nevertheless, it appears, based on the sophistication of this attack, that Iran is indeed the real culprit.... Whoever the culprit, this attack offers yet more evidence that Trump's Middle East policy has failed. At the root of the problem is Trump' decision to outsource Middle East leadership to Israel and Saudi Arabia -- unlikely allies united by their mutual (and understandable) antipathy toward the Iranian regime.... A sponsor of terrorism and a heinous human rights abuser, Iran deserves an outsize share of the blame for destabilizing the Middle East. But Trump has only aggravated the crisis by blindly backing his friends in Israel and Saudi Arabia. The attack on Saudi oil production is only the latest blowback -- and far from the last."

David Edwards of the Raw Story: "White House aide Kellyanne Conway on Sunday insisted that Democrats do not have a 'constitutional basis' to embarrass ... Donald Trump by conducting an impeachment inquiry. 'Stop the nonsense of harassing and embarrassing this president and the people around him when you have no constitutional or legal basis to do so,' she said." Mrs. McC: Maybe KellyAnne should ask her husband the lawyer about that. (Also linked yesterday.)

Alicia Cohn of the Hill: "The New York Times on Monday added a correction to a report accusing Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct. The correction notes that friends of the woman allegedly involved in the incident with Kavanaugh during law school say she does not recall it. The Times in the story published Saturday reported a former classmate of Kavanaugh's named Max Stier said he witnessed the now-judge expose himself and force another female classmate to touch his penis at a dorm party. The Times said it corroborated the story with two other officials who had heard the same report from the former classmate, Stier. However, the woman involved in the alleged incident did not speak to the Times and, according to the correction, her friends say she does not recall that it happened.... Trump also noted the story correction on Monday morning, tweeting: 'DO YOU BELIEVE WHAT THESE HORRIBLE PEOPLE WILL DO OR SAY. They are looking to destroy, and influence his opinions - but played the game badly. They should be sued!'" ~~~

     ~~~ Chris Rodrigo of the Hill: And Trump kept on blasting. ~~~

~~~ Sandra Garcia of the New York Times: "Several Democratic presidential candidates called for the impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh on Sunday after The New York Times published new information about allegations of sexual misconduct against him, while Republican leaders condemned the reporting as irresponsible and defended him.... Mitch McConnell, said on Twitter, that the 'far left's willingness to seize on completely uncorroborated and unsubstantiated allegations during last year's confirmation process was a dark and embarrassing chapter for the Senate.'... [Besides Harris & Castro, whose comments are below, candidates Elizabeth Warren & Bernie Sanders also called for Kavanaugh's impeachment.] The Times was roundly criticized for a tweet -- which was later deleted -- made on its Opinion account on Saturday about the essay that read: 'Having a penis thrust in your face at a drunken dorm party may seem like harmless fun. But when Brett Kavanaugh did it to her, Deborah Ramirez says, it confirmed that she didn't belong at Yale in the first place.' [James Dao, deputy editorial page editor for The Times,] said the tweet 'was clearly offensive and never should have gone out and we sincerely apologize.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: No, what "was clearly offensive" was "having a penis thrust in your face at a drunken dorm party." What's clear to me is that Kavanaugh's purpose was to humiliate young women. While I don't know who the third woman cited in the Times report is, in Ramirez & Blasey Ford, Kavanaugh chose low-status women to humiliate. He probably would not have dared pull these grotesque stunts on the most popular girls, but a poor Hispanic student & a lower-class girl were perfect targets for sexual assaults he thought were funny. Kavanaugh is not only a serial sexual offender, a misogynist & a perjurer; he's also a bully. And bullies are horrible judges. ~~~

~~~ Chas Danner of New York: "At least six Democratic presidential candidates have released statements calling for the impeachment or removal of Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh after new details supporting and adding to the sexual misconduct allegations against him were revealed over the weekend. [That would be Castro, Harris, Warren, Sanders, O'Rourke & Buttigieg.]... Kavanaugh will in all likelihood need no rescuing from impeachment. There has only been one impeachment of a Supreme Court justice in American history, back in the 1800s, and no justice has ever been removed from the Court. It's not reasonable to expect that one could be now either -- particularly in the current political environment. The successful impeachment, conviction, and removal of Kavanaugh would require Democrats taking back the White House, keeping the House (where they already can't agree to impeach Trump,) and obtaining a like-minded supermajority in the Senate (where Democrats barely have a chance to win even a simple majority in 2020.)"

I sat through those hearings. Brett Kavanaugh lied to the U.S. Senate and most importantly to the American people. He was put on the Court through a sham process and his place on the Court is an insult to the pursuit of truth and justice. He must be impeached. -- Kamala Harris, in a tweet today

It’s more clear than ever that Brett Kavanaugh lied under oath. He should be impeached. And Congress should review the failure of the Department of Justice to properly investigate the matter. -- Julian Castro, in a tweet Saturday night ~~~

~~~ Max Burman & others of NBC News cover the basics of the NYT story & reactions. "Kavanaugh told the Senate Judiciary Committee under oath last year that the first time he heard of Ramirez's allegation was in a Sept. 23 article in The New Yorker. But according to text messages obtained last year by NBC News, in the days leading up to Ramirez' public allegation Kavanaugh and his team were communicating behind the scenes with friends to refute the claim."

Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Sunday urged President Trump to endorse House-passed gun measures and pledged to join him for a 'historic signing ceremony at the Rose Garden' if the legislation is passed. The Democratic leaders said in a joint statement that they spoke with Trump by phone Sunday morning at their request, 200 days after the House passed H.R. 8 and H.R. 1112. The two measures, which would expand federal background checks for gun purchases and transfers, represent the first major firearm restrictions to advance in a generation. Trump has threatened to veto both measures.... [This morning, we made it clear to the president that any proposal he endorses that does not include the House-passed universal background checks legislation will not get the job done, as dangerous loopholes will still exist and people who shouldn't have guns will still have access,' Pelosi and Schumer said in their statement." Politico's story is here.

Horse Bites Veep. Or Not. Lesley Clark of McClatchy News in the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer (Sept. 13): "Vice President Mike Pence says Triple Crown winner American Pharoah bit him hard enough on the arm during a 2018 visit to Kentucky that he nearly collapsed. But farm manager Dermot Ryan, who was there as Pence was presented with an American Pharoah halter, said Friday it would be out of character for a horse he described as 'sweet.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Tom Boggioni of the Raw Story: "According to a report from Wall Street Journal, Republican lawmakers are working behind the scenes to rein in Donald Trump's penchant for declaring tariffs willy-nilly depending on how he feels about other countries and their leaders at any given time. As the president trade war rages on -- impacting manufacturers, farmers and consumers alike -- Republicans looking at the 2020 election are desperate to turn around a U.S. economy that looks headed for a recession. According to the Journal, Kansas Senator Jerry Moran (R) is deeply disturbed by the ongoing devastation due to the president's trade moves, saying, 'This has gone on longer than I think people expected it. And so the financial consequences are increasing.' Moran along with Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley (IA), who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, are meeting with other members of their party and making plans to reach out to Democrats.... According to Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), who is pushing legislation requiring Trump to seek congressional approval before imposing tariffs, the law is on the legislator's side. 'The Constitution is very unambiguous,' he explained. 'It assigns Congress the responsibility for regulating commerce with other countries and setting tariffs, and yet we've significantly delegated that to the president.'" The Wall Street Journal report is here.

Jan Hoffman & Mary Walsh of the New York Times: "Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, the drug widely seen as igniting the opioid crisis, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sunday night, a move at the center of the company's efforts to shield itself and its owners from more than 2,600 federal and state lawsuits. The terms of the filing, which include a proposed resolution of most of those cases, are expected to be fiercely contested by a group of 26 states that have refused to settle with Purdue and are intent on pursuing the company's owners, the Sacklers, considered one of the wealthiest families in the United States. A showdown in bankruptcy court in White Plains could come as early as this week.... The filing itself comes scarcely 48 hours after an announcement late Friday afternoon by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, that her office had uncovered almost a billion dollars in previously undisclosed wire transfers from Purdue to private accounts held by one of the Sacklers." The AP story is here.

Presidential Race 2020

Allan Smith & Mike Memoli of NBC News: "Former Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday made his most expansive speech yet on race, calling on the nation to live up to its founding ideals and saying that silence on racism amounts to complicity. 'There can be no realization of the American Dream without grappling with the original sin of slavery,' Biden told churchgoers in Alabama while delivering the keynote address at services marking the 56th anniversary of the deadly bombing of Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church." ...

~~~ Charles Blow of the New York Times: "... Biden's positioning on racial issues has been problematic.... It's not what Biden says in prepared remarks that's problematic, it's what he says off the cuff and under pressure that to me reveal an antiquated view on racial matters and racial sensitivities.... His language belies a particular mind-set, one of a liberal of a particular vintage. On the issue of race, it is paternalistic and it pities...."

That Time Joe Faced Down Corn Pop. Mary Papenfuss of the Huffington Post: "Reactions on Twitter went viral Sunday after a writer challenged a story Joe Biden often tells about how he successfully confronted an armed black gang member named 'Corn Pop' at a swimming pool -- after calling him ["Esther," after swimmer Esther Williams]. Michael Harriot, a senior writer at The Root, kicked off the ruckus Saturday tweeting his suspicions about the 1962 incident involving the 'Romans' gang leader that Biden has repeated several times, including in his autobiography. The controversy was also fueled by a clip posted in a tweet by a columnist from the right-wing Daily Caller. But CNN found a 2016 obituary for 'Corn Pop' and quoted a former mayor of Wilmington, Delaware, where the pool was located, who said Corn Pop, 'real as the moon in the sky,' was confrontational. The former mayor -- and others -- also heard of the confrontation at the time. In addition, a CNN fact check by reporter Daniel Dale confirmed that the 'Romans' gang existed at the time in Wilmington.... '(The "problem" with the Corn Pop story isn't if it is true or not, but why on earth he feels the need to TELL it, repeatedly. What it means to him and why. What message is conveyed and how and at whose expense and whose gain)'" [-- Martha Crawford, in a tweet]."


Margot Sanger-Katz, et al., of the New York Times: "Early this summer, Congress appeared on its way to eradicating the large medical bills that have shocked many patients after emergency care. The legislation to end out-of-network charges was popular and had support from both sides of the aisle. President Trump promised his support. Then, in late July, a mysterious group called Doctor Patient Unity showed up. It poured vast sums of money -- now more than $28 million -- into ads opposing the legislation, without disclosing its staff or its funders. Trying to guess who was behind the ads became something of a parlor game in some Beltway circles. Now, the mystery is solved. The two largest financial backers of Doctor Patient Unity are TeamHealth and Envision Healthcare, private-equity-backed companies that own physician practices and staff emergency rooms around the country, according to Greg Blair, a spokesman for the group.... TeamHealth was acquired in 2016 by the private-equity firm Blackstone Group in a deal valued at $6.1 billion. And last fall, in one of the largest takeovers of the year, the private-equity giant KKR spent $9.9 billion to acquire Envision Healthcare.... The proposed legislation, which may advance to floor votes this year, is potentially bad for business for TeamHealth and Envision." Thanks to Patrick for the link. See also Patrick's commentary in yesterday's thread. (Also linked yesterday.)

Chris Isidore of CNN: "The United Auto Workers union said Sunday that its members at General Motors will walk out by midnight [Sunday, Sept. 15] if the automaker does not meet its demands, setting the stage for the nation's first auto strike in 12 years. A union statement suggests the two sides are still very far apart in negotiations for a new contract.... But negotiations come as the union is hit by a scandal involving misappropriation of union funds, and in some cases, union officials accepting bribes from officials at Fiat Chrysler. Nine people associated with the union or Fiat Chrysler have already pleaded guilty to federal charges. Last week, the Detroit News reported the union's president, Gary Jones, was the unnamed union official identified in the most recent indictment as 'UAW Official A.'... Experts say the scandal will make it more difficult to get rank and file union members at the automakers to ratify any tentative deal reached by union leadership." Mrs. McC: Say, maybe the Artful Dealmaker could step in & negotiate a contract. At least he knows from corruption. ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Tim Stelloh & Rachel Elbaum of NBC News: "Tens of thousands of auto workers across the country went on strike Sunday night after negotiations faltered between their union and General Motors. The strike began at 11:59 p.m. ET., with as many as 50,000 United Auto Workers at dozens of facilities from Michigan to Texas expected to participate. Union spokesman Brian Rothenberg told the Associated Press on Sunday night that negotiations would resume on Monday morning, even as the strike went forward."

Zach Dorfman, et al., of Yahoo! News: "On Dec. 29, 2016, the Obama administration announced that it was giving nearly three dozen Russian diplomats just 72 hours to leave the United States and was seizing two rural East Coast estates owned by the Russian government.... The Obama administration's public rationale for the expulsions and closures -- the harshest U.S. diplomatic reprisals taken against Russia in several decades -- was to retaliate for Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. But ... both compounds, and at least some of the expelled diplomats, played key roles in a brazen Russian counterintelligence operation that stretched from the Bay Area to the heart of the nation's capital, according to former U.S. officials. The operation, which targeted FBI communications, hampered the bureau's ability to track Russian spies on U.S. soil at a time of increasing tension with Moscow, forced the FBI and CIA to cease contact with some of their Russian assets, and prompted tighter security procedures at key U.S. national security facilities in the Washington area and elsewhere, according to former U.S. officials. It even raised concerns among some U.S. officials about a Russian mole within the U.S. intelligence community." ...

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: You may recall that nearly as soon as he took office, Trump began preparations for returning the two spycom centers to Russia. (I don't think this ever happened. Apparently FBI briefers convinced Trump that returning the properties would not be "America First"-y. That is, intelligence officials have to use subterfuge to manipulate Trump into doing what any real president would do as a matter of course.)

Will Climate Deniers Pay Attention Now? Thor Benson of the Daily Beast: "As climate change spurs increasingly destructive wildfires in California, insurance companies have begun to deem certain parts of the state too risky to cover. But this particular offshoot of the climate crisis isn't just a problem for residents of the Golden State. Climate experts warn that areas across the country are becoming more prone to natural disasters, putting homes at risk in more ways than one. According to new data, over 340,000 California homeowners lost property insurance coverage between 2015 and 2018 due to wildfires that are increasing in frequency and intensity. But that's just a sample of what's to come. 'We're looking at entire zones now that are just totally uninsurable,' Jesse Keenan, a Harvard lecturer who focuses on urban development and climate adaptation, told The Daily Beast. 'I see no end to the challenges for insurance when it comes to climate change,' Jason Thistlethwaite, a professor ... at the University of Waterloo, added. 'Flooding is another area where you're going to see a lack of availability and affordability.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Maybe if climate change directly hits people in their pocketbooks, they'll wake up & smell the methane. If your home is uninsurable, not only are you subject to financial losses for any reason -- like, say, a car rams into your house -- but also you can't sell the house because potential buyers won't be able to obtain mortgages without property insurance.

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Saturday
Sep142019

The Commentariat -- September 15, 2019

Late Morning Update:

David Edwards of the Raw Story: “White House aide Kellyanne Conway on Sunday insisted that Democrats do not have a 'constitutional basis' to embarrass ... Donald Trump by conducting an impeachment inquiry. 'Stop the nonsense of harassing and embarrassing this president and the people around him when you have no constitutional or legal basis to do so,' she said." Mrs. McC: Maybe KellyAnne should ask her husband the lawyer about that.

I sat through those hearings. Brett Kavanaugh lied to the U.S. Senate and most importantly to the American people. He was put on the Court through a sham process and his place on the Court is an insult to the pursuit of truth and justice. He must be impeached. -- Kamala Harris, in a tweet today

It's more clear than ever that Brett Kavanaugh lied under oath. He should be impeached. And Congress should review the failure of the Department of Justice to properly investigate the matter. -- Julian Castro, in a tweet Saturday night

Horse Bites Veep. Or Not. Lesley Clark of McClatchy News in the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer (Sept. 13): "Vice President Mike Pence says Triple Crown winner American Pharoah bit him hard enough on the arm during a 2018 visit to Kentucky that he nearly collapsed. But farm manager Dermot Ryan, who was there as Pence was presented with an American Pharoah halter, said Friday it would be out of character for a horse he described as 'sweet.'"

Margot Sanger-Katz, et al., of the New York Times: "Early this summer, Congress appeared on its way to eradicating the large medical bills that have shocked many patients after emergency care. The legislation to end out-of-network charges was popular and had support from both sides of the aisle. President Trump promised his support. Then, in late July, a mysterious group called Doctor Patient Unity showed up. It poured vast sums of money -- now more than $28 million -- into ads opposing the legislation, without disclosing its staff or its funders. Trying to guess who was behind the ads became something of a parlor game in some Beltway circles. Now, the mystery is solved. The two largest financial backers of Doctor Patient Unity are TeamHealth and Envision Healthcare, private-equity-backed companies that own physician practices and staff emergency rooms around the country, according to Greg Blair, a spokesman for the group.... TeamHealth was acquired in 2016 by the private-equity firm Blackstone Group in a deal valued at $6.1 billion. And last fall, in one of the largest takeovers of the year, the private-equity giant KKR spent $9.9 billion to acquire Envision Healthcare.... The proposed legislation, which may advance to floor votes this year, is potentially bad for business for TeamHealth and Envision." Thanks to Patrick for the link. See also Patrick's commentary below.

~~~~~~~~~~

Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times on "Margaret Atwood's dystopia, and ours." Atwood's new novel The Testaments is a sequel to The Handmaid's Tale. "'The Testaments' ... would be a literary event in any period; in ours, it's a cultural phenomenon.... 'Writing dystopias and utopias is a way of asking the reader the question, "Where do you want to live?"' Atwood said when I talked to her last year. 'And where you end up living is going to depend partly on what you do now.' 'The Testaments,' it turns out, isn't a dystopian work at all. It's utopian. By the time it's over..., the rigidly patriarchal Republic of ... Gilead is a relic, and scholars in a more enlightened time are studying the women who subverted it. Praise be! Our descendants should be so lucky."

Masha Gessen of the New Yorker: "Donald Trump keeps winning. He is waging war against government and expertise -- two of the constant targets of his campaign rage -- and both American and international institutions are the losers. Consider two recent, unrelated events: the Supreme Court order that cleared the way for extreme restrictions on the right to seek asylum, and the appointment of a thirty-year-old administrative assistant as the United States' new envoy to the Middle East.... Contempt for expertise and disdain for the ways of government are integral to the Trumpian worldview, in which procedure exists only to thwart the President and experts only complicate things, solely in order to keep plain folk out. During his campaign, Trump claimed to keep only his own counsel on foreign policy -- a commitment to ignorance and impulsiveness that he apparently demonstrated by ousting his third national-security adviser this week."

** Supreme Perjurer. New York Times reporters Robin Pogrebin & Kate Kelly in a NYT op-ed: Brett Kavanaugh has "adamantly denied" allegations that he sexually assaulted fellow Yale student Deborah Ramirez at a party when they were both students. "During his Senate testimony, Mr. Kavanaugh said that if the incident Ms. Ramirez described had occurred, it would have been 'the talk of campus.' Our reporting suggests that it was. At least seven people, including Ms. Ramirez's mother, heard about the Yale incident long before Mr. Kavanaugh was a federal judge. Two of those people were classmates who learned of it just days after the party occurred.... A classmate, Max Stier, saw Mr. Kavanaugh with his pants down at a different drunken dorm party, where friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student. Mr. Stier ... notified senators and the F.B.I. about this account, but the F.B.I. did not investigate.... Ms. Ramirez's legal team gave the F.B.I. a list of at least 25 individuals who may have had corroborating evidence. But the bureau -- in its supplemental background investigation -- interviewed none of them, though we learned many of these potential witnesses tried in vain to reach the F.B.I. on their own. Two F.B.I. agents interviewed Ms. Ramirez, telling her that they found her 'credible.' But the Republican-controlled Senate had imposed strict limits on the investigation." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Remember this from way back yesterday? New York Times: "The Justice Department will present one of its most prestigious awards to the lawyers who worked on the highly contentious Supreme Court nomination process of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh. Nex month, Attorney General William P. Barr will present the Attorney General's Award for Distinguished Service to those who worked 'to support the nomination' of the judge...." That's right; Bill Barr will give you a "prestigious award" for aiding & abetting a perjurer seeking a Supreme Court gig. Oh, and a special shout-out to rabid feminist activist Sen. Susan Collins, who made it all possible & still does not regret her deciding vote for the liar & repeat sexual offender. Extra thanks to Joe Biden, who so enjoys "working with the other side" that he ensured we had another sexual assaulter & perjurer on the highest court. ~~~

(Sniff) I love coaching [girls' basketball] more than anything I've ever done in my whole life. (sniff) But thanks to what some of you on this side of the committee [i.e., Democrats] have unleashed, I may never be able to coach again. -- Brett Kavanaugh, during a confirmation hearing ~~~

~~~ Tom Scotta of Slate: "In addition to taking his lifetime seat on the Supreme Court, by the fall of last year, Kavanaugh had returned to coaching girls' basketball." ~~~

>~~~ John Bowden of the Hill: "Former Housing Secretary Julián Castro said Saturday that ... nonprofit owner Max Stier's allegation that Kavanaugh exposed himself at a party before other students pressed him against a female student, forcing his genitals to come in contact with her hand, should be investigated. 'Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation is a shame to the Supreme Court. This latest allegation of assault must be investigated,' he tweeted." ~~~

~~~ Kyle Balluck of the Hill: "President Trump in an early morning tweet on Sunday said 'Radical left Democrats' and the 'LameStream Media' want to scare Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh into 'turning Liberal.' 'Now the Radical Left Democrats and their Partner, the LameStream Media, are after Brett Kavanaugh again, talking loudly of their favorite word, impeachment,' he tweeted. 'He is an innocent man who has been treated HORRIBLY. Such lies about him. They want to scare him into turning Liberal!'... Trump in a follow-up tweet early Sunday said Kavanaugh should 'start suing people for liable,' suggesting that the Justice Department should 'come to his rescue.' 'The lies being told about him are unbelievable. False Accusations without recrimination. When does it stop?' he asked. 'They are trying to influence his opinions. Can';t let that happen!'" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: "Suing for liable"??? How about "suing for lie-able"? After all, no chance Brett would prevail in a suit for libel. Update: The spelling of "libel" in both the body of the story & Trump's tweet has been corrected. Daniel Politi of Slate reports on the original tweet.

Christian Vasquez of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Saturday said he discussed a potential mutual defense treaty with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call just days before the Israeli election.... Netanyahu has been exploring a defense alliance with the U.S. for some months now, according to reports, and the issue is seen as a potential boost to his re-election bid. The Israeli elections are scheduled to take place Tuesday."

Alex Horton of the Washington Post: "Hamza bin Laden, the son of Osama bin Laden and once-possible heir to the al-Qaeda terrorist network, was killed in a U.S. counterterror operation in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, President Trump said Saturday -- more than a month after officials suggested he was killed. Osama bin Laden's son was 'responsible for planning and dealing with various terrorist groups,' President Trump said in a statement released by the White House. His death is a blow to al-Qaeda's leadership acumen, Trump said, and symbolic given the connection to his slain father, who was killed in a Navy SEAL raid on his Pakistani refuge in 2011." The CNN story is here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Ted Hesson of Politico: "An internal memo prepared by a top Trump immigration official [-- USCIS Policy and Strategy Chief Kathy Nuebel Kovarik --] recommends that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services be stripped of its authority to delay deportations for undocumented immigrants receiving treatment for serious medical conditions. The Trump administration in August quietly halted its processing of such requests, which are known as 'deferred action.'... USCIS' authority to grant deportation relief through deferred action dates back to the creation of the Homeland Security Department in 2003."

Presidential Race 2020

Veronica Stracqualursi of CNN: "Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden committed to publicly releasing his medical records before the Iowa caucuses after questions of whether the 76-year-old former vice president is fit for the rigors of the presidency and to take on ... Donald Trump, aged 73, in a grueling 2020 campaign."

Sara Fischer of Axios: "More than 1,000 accounts across several different social media platforms with suspicious, bot-like characteristics helped push quote tweets, a tweet that is retweeted but additional text is added, from Donald Trump campaign accounts during the third primary debate, according to an analysis provided to Axios by social media intelligence company Storyful. Those tweets accounted for the top 3 most-shared links across several social media platforms, including Facebook, Reddit, etc., during the debate.... Despite attempts by social media companies to weed out malicious behavior online, automated accounts are still driving a large part of the social conversation around political events.

~~~ Colby Itkowitz of the Washington Post: "... Saturday, the Sanders campaign said it had 'already reached out to a Nevada senate office for case work help.'"


Erik Ortiz of NBC News: "'Saturday Night Live' remained silent Friday after the growing furor that one of its newest cast members has a history of racist and homophobic remarks. The controversial comments -- made by standup comedian Shane Gillis in a podcast video uploaded a year ago -- surfaced Thursday on social media, just hours after 'SNL' announced his hiring, and led some fans to demand the long-running sketch comedy show drop him ahead of the new season.... In clips from 'Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast,' which have been removed from its YouTube channel, Gillis and his co-host denigrate Chinatown and Chinese food, speak in caricature Asian accents and make sexist comments about Asian women. Gillis also uses an ethnic slur used to describe the Chinese. Gillis has taken part in other recorded conversations in which he mocks an Asian boy with Down syndrome and uses homophobic slurs about other comedians." Mrs. McC: Somehow, I don't think I'm going to find that guy funny. (Also linked yesterday.)

Blake Montgomery of the Daily Beast: "While MIT engages in damage control following revelations the university's Media Lab accepted millions of dollars in funding from Jeffrey Epstein, a renowned computer scientist at the university has fanned the flames by apparently going out of his way to defend the accused sex trafficker -- and child pornography in general. Richard Stallman has been hailed as one of the most influential computer scientists around today..., but his eminence in the academic computer science community came into question Friday afternoon when purportedly leaked email excerpts showed him suggesting one of Epstein's alleged victims was 'entirely willing.'... A deep dive into his writings shows this isn't the first time Stallman has expressed such questionable views.... He has written dozens of posts on his personal website in favor of legalizing pedophilia and child pornography for more than 15 years."

WNDU South Bend, Indiana: "Police say 2,246 medically preserved fetal remains were found on the property of Ulrich George Klopfer, a late abortion doctor who used to operate a South Bend clinic. Klopfer died on Sept. 3. On Sept. 12, the Will County (Illinois) Coroner's Office received a call from an attorney representing his family. They reported finding fetal remains among Klopfer's personal property and requested proper removal. Will County sheriff's detectives, crime scene investigators and representatives from the coroner's office went to the address and were directed to an area of the property where 2,246 medically preserved fetal remains were located. The coroner's office took possession of the remains. There is no evidence that any medical procedures were conducted at the property, according to the sheriff's office, and the family is cooperating fully with the investigation."

The Indiana Medical Licensing Board voted to suspend Klopfer's medical license indefinitely back in 2015. He operated the Women's Pavilion in South Bend, as well as abortion clinics in Fort Wayne and Gary.

Way Beyond the Beltway

Yemen, Saudi Arabia. Jon Gambrell of the AP: "Yemen's Houthi rebels launched drone attacks on the world's largest oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia and a major oil field Saturday, sparking huge fires at a vulnerable chokepoint for global energy supplies. It remained unclear hours later whether anyone was injured at the Abqaiq oil processing facility and the Khurais oil field or what effect the assault would have on oil production. Rising smoke from the fires at the sites could be seen by satellites. The attack by the Iranian-backed Houthis in the war against a Saudi-led coalition comes after weeks of similar drone assaults on the kingdom's oil infrastructure, but none of the earlier strikes appeared to have caused the same amount of damage. The attack likely will heighten tensions further across the Persian Gulf amid an escalating crisis between the U.S. and Iran over its unraveling nuclear deal with world powers."(Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Ben Hubbard, et al., of the New York Times: "Drone attacks claimed by Yemen's Houthi rebels struck two key oil installations inside Saudi Arabia on Saturday, damaging facilities that process the vast majority of the country's crude output and raising the risk of a disruption in world oil supplies. The attacks immediately escalated tensions in the Persian Gulf amid a standoff between the United States and Iran, even as key questions remained unanswered -- where the drones were launched from, and how the Houthis could have managed to hit facilities deep in Saudi territory, some 500 miles from Yemeni soil. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Iran of being behind what he called 'an unprecedented attack on the world's energy supply' and asserted that there was 'no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.' He did not, however, say where the attacks were launched from, and the Saudis themselves did not openly accuse Iran."

News Lede

New York Times: "Juanita Abernathy, who helped organize the Montgomery bus boycott and took part in other pivotal protests at the outset of the civil rights era alongside the Rev. Dr. Ralph Abernathy, her husband and a leader of the movement, died on Thursday at a hospital in Atlanta. She was 88."

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