;)
The Commentariat -- May 20, 2016
Paul Krugman writes what is probably a pretty good column about President "Obama's War on Inequality," but I didn't get to read it because Krugman insulted me in the first sentence. You know where to find him.
"Shame!" Rachel Bade and Ben Weyl of Politico: The House erupted in chaos Thursday morning with Democrats crying foul after Republicans hastily convinced a few of their own to switch their votes and narrowly block an amendment intended to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people from discrimination. It was an unruly scene on the floor, with Democrats chanting 'shame!' after GOP leaders just barely muscled up the votes to reject, 212-213, an amendment by Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) that would have effectively barred federal contractors from getting government work if they discriminate against the LGBT community. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Akhilleus: Apparently Paul Ryan pulled a fast one to change the outcome of the vote by ignoring House rules including informing members of exactly which cowardly bigots changed their vote at the last minute. Darrell Issa was one. Disgraceful.
David Dayen of the New Republic: "Senator Elizabeth Warren has a knack for recognizing the challenges facing ordinary Americans years before the rest of the political world gets there.... The structure of employment law that served the nation over the past eight decades is fraying, shot through with loopholes that employers use to their advantage to shortchange workers.... We need to make benefits currently tied to the workplace universal and portable. Warren ... wants to universalize workers' compensation and paid time off (vacation, personal, and sick days, along with paid family and medical leave). She also wants to require Social Security payroll deductions." -- CW
Think Warren is Special? She is. And not just because she's smart, but because she uses her eyes. Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone: "The tone of American political coverage for some time hasn't matched the reality of what voters have been going through...Every four years, we whipped up audiences into a lather over the same patriotic fairy tale of political athletes...chasing the ultimate power prize, the White House. Reporters traveled tens of thousands of miles to cover these races, but not to tell stories about people they met on the road who'd lost their jobs, been bankrupted by health problems, become addicted to pills, etc."
...Akhilleus: Warren has been paying attention to something beltway geniuses, experts, docents, and retainers have not: average Americans.
Nick Gass of Politico: "Sen.Tom Cotton on Thursday slammed his colleagues' efforts to pass sweeping criminal justice reforms, saying the United States is actually suffering from an "under-incarceration problem." --safari
MIchael Shear of the New York Times: "A federal judge in Texas on Thursday excoriated the Justice Department, demanding ethics classes for the department's lawyers and ordering other sanctions for those who argued the case involving President Obama's immigration executive actions. He also ordered the government to produce a list of about 100,000 immigrants who entered illegally and who are participating in a government program that protects them from deportation. In a blistering order, Judge Andrew S. Hanen of Federal District Court in Brownsville accused the Justice Department lawyers of lying to him during arguments in the case, and he barred them from appearing in his courtroom.... A spokesman for the Justice Department said Thursday that 'we strongly disagree with the order' but declined to comment further." CW: We knew Hanen was a bigot, but now I suspect he's insane.
Declan Walsh & Kareem Fahim of the New York Times: "An Egyptian jetliner carrying 66 people from Paris to Cairo abruptly swerved, vanished from radar and plunged into the Mediterranean early Thursday, shortly before it was scheduled to land. Egyptian officials issued conflicting information about whether wreckage had been found and suggested terrorism was a more likely cause than technical failure." See also yesterday's Commentariat. -- CW ...
... The Guardian's liveblog of developments is here.
American Adventures Abroad. Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "The U.S. military's top general said Thursday that the Libyan government is in a 'period of intense dialogue' that could soon lead to an agreement in which U.S. military advisers will be deployed there to assist in the fight against the Islamic State." -- CW
CBS News: "Morley Safer, the CBS newsman who changed war reporting forever when he showed GIs burning the huts of Vietnamese villagers and went on to become the iconic 60 Minutes correspondent whose stylish stories on America's most-watched news program made him one of television's most enduring stars, died today in Manhattan." He was 84. -- Akhilleus (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... The "60 Minutes" special on Safer's career, which aired Sunday, is here. (I couldn't get it to play in Firefox, but it works in Chrome.) Safer's New York Times obituary is here. -- CW
CW: If today's Opinion section is any indication, it appears the New York Times has cancelled its Opinion comments section & transferred it to Facebook. None of today's Opinion columns has a Comments facility, and there's an "invitation" on the Times' front page to "join us on Facebook." I clicked on a couple of news stories, & they don't have a Comments option, either. So, good for Mark Zuckerberg, I guess. ...
... Update: Must have been an NYT glitch. After MAG was able to access the NYT comments, I tried again, & they were up & running. The first comment on Krugman wasn't posted till about 11:20 am ET though, which is at least seven hours after his column appeared online.
Presidential Race
CW: There is & will be a lot of presidential polling & associated hand-wringing. I mostly will not cover this at least until we get closer to the election, but you're welcome to do so in the Comments section.
Hillary Clinton says Donald Trump is not qualified to be president:
Abby Phillip & Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "In an attempt to head off an ugly conflict at its convention this summer, the Democratic National Committee plans to offer a concession to Sen. Bernie Sanders -- seats on a key convention platform committee -- but it may not be enough to stop Sanders from picking a fight over the party's policy positions." -- CW
TBogg of Raw Story: "Die-hard fans of Bernie Sanders on [Robert] Reich's Facebook page found his lack of faith in the viability of a Sanders nomination disturbing." Bernie supporters have some very valid critiques of Clinton policies. Unless they can be convinced that she will support the progressive agenda this country needs, they are willing to let the DNC suffer the consequences of ignoring their voices. -- LT
Jessica Valenti of the Guardian: "Hillary Clinton's campaign needs to explain to voters why they should care about Trump's misogyny -- and misogyny in general -- and talk about the impact it could have. Because sexism knows no party, and some of those irate male Sanders fans could make their way to Trump instead of supporting Clinton (something Trump's campaign is prepared for.)... If the Democratic elite assumes that all liberal voters are outraged by sexism, they'll be making the same devastating miscalculation the GOP elite did when they assumed Republican voters were tied to the same conservative ideals they cared about." -- CW
** Matt Taibbi writes an entertaining eulogy for the "establishment" wing of the Republican party, made up of a "surprisingly small collection of uptight lawyers, financiers and Beltway intellectuals, who'd just seen their chosen candidate, the $100 million Jeb Bush, muster all of four delegates in the presidential race. Meanwhile, candidates whose talking points involved the beheading of this same party establishment were likely to win around 2,000." -- CW
Today in Responsible Leadership from the Guy Who's Not Hitler: David Graham of The Atlantic: "Disasters serve as the crucibles in which leaders are tested, and the disappearance of EgyptAir 804 -- though less than 24 hours old -- is already serving that purpose in the presidential race. Early Thursday morning, before Egyptian authorities (or anyone else) had made any statements about possible causes for the airplane's disappearance over the Mediterranean, Trump tweeted this:
Looks like yet another terrorist attack. Airplane departed from Paris. When will we get tough, smart and vigilant? Great hate and sickness!" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Akhilleus: At least he's right about great hate and sickness. Making political hay off the deaths of 66 passengers with zero knowledge of the facts is not the best predictor of the possibility of prudent action as president.
Here's an AFL-CIO digital ad, via Greg Sargent:
Julia Preston, et al., of the New York Times: "Mr. Trump has suggested he will flesh out his ideas [on how to curb illegal immigration] in a forthcoming speech. But experts across many fields who have analyzed his plans so far warn that they would come at astronomical costs -- whoever paid -- and would in many ways defy the logic of science, engineering and law.... 'I can't even begin to picture how we would deport 11 million people in a few years where we don't have a police state, where the police can't break down your door at will and take you away without a warrant,' said Michael Chertoff.... By any tally, the costs would be enormous. The American Action Forum, a conservative-leaning research group, calculated the federal outlay to be at least $400 billion, and then only if the deportations were stretched over 20 years." ...
... CW: When Michael Chertoff deplores a Trump-style "police state," that's saying something. You may remember Chertoff. As James Petras wrote in 2012, "Chertoff headed the Criminal Division of the Justice Department (from 2001 -- 2003). During that time he was responsible for the arbitrary arrest of thousands of US citizens and immigrants of Muslim and South Asian heritage, who were held incommunicado without charge and subject to physical and psychological abuse -- without a single resident alien or Muslim US citizen linked to 9/11.... More than any other official, Michael Chertoff has been the chief architect of the 'Global War on Terror' -- co-author of the notorious 'Patriot Act' which trashed habeas corpus and other essential components of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights. As Secretary of Homeland Security from 2005-2009, Chertoff promoted 'military tribunals' and organized the vast internal spy network, which now preys on private US citizens."
Mark Danner in the New York Review of Books: "However unlikely Trump's candidacy may be -- and we have seen over the past ten months how the unlikely can be overtaken by reality television politics -- such a nominee, despite his negative poll numbers among women and minorities and all the other factors that, we are told, will make his election impossible, might stand only one highly telegenic terrorist attack away from becoming the national embodiment of all our fears." Thanks to Ken W. for the link. See also the discussion of the Danner piece in yesterday's Comments. -- CW
**Robert Kagan of the Washington Post: "The Republican Party's attempt to treat Donald Trump as a normal political candidate would be laughable were it not so perilous to the republic...But the phenomenon he has created and now leads has become something larger than him, and something far more dangerous...But what he has tapped into is what the founders most feared when they established the democratic republic: the popular passions unleashed, the 'mobocracy.'" Read on --safari
The Apostate Opines: David Frum, in the Atlantic, presents the problem The Guy Who isn't Hitler poses for Republicans but is waaaay off in his assessment of their abilities to do anything about it: "[Trump's] also demonstrated that he himself is a dangerous person, contemptuous of constitutional restrictions on the power of the presidency, hostile to fundamental freedoms, and worryingly impressed by foreign authoritarian rulers. To save themselves and their country, Republican politicians will have to rediscover the politician's arts of deftness, flexibility, and self-preservation --- while stealthily hastening Trump toward the defeat that almost certainly awaits him in November." ...
... Akhilleus: Frum is talking about Ryan, McConnell, and Priebus. Self-preservation they've got down. Deftness and flexibility? Not so much. This is a classic category error. These guys are not politicians, they're inept, extremist ideologues. Big difference. He does make some good points about Trump, but he assumes, incorrectly, that the above named worthies have a great concern for their country. They don't. The problem posed by Trump, for these guys, is not how to stop him from ruining the country, but how to retain their phony baloney jobs, Trump or no Trump, full stop.
The Age of Trump. Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian: "Part of it is sheer showbiz.... An underestimated part of the formula is humour.... But most powerful is the thrill Trump generates in the room, and in the audience watching on TV, when he dares reject the rules of the game.... It signals the arrival of an outsider, a maverick unbound to the old order and ready to destroy it in favour of something entirely new." --safari
Burgess Everett et al.of& Politico: "Donald Trump's newly empowered chief strategist [Paul Manafort] sought to convince top GOP congressional officials on Capitol Hill that Trump can compete for the Latino vote, exploit Hillary Clinton's weaknesses and become a Reagan-esque figure in the party, according to attendees and sources familiar with the meeting." --safari
Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "Days after The New York Times published a Sunday cover story chronicling instances in which Donald Trump crossed the line with women, a former Miss Universe [Alicia Machado] is sharing how ... [Trump] shamed her decades ago, even going as far as to call her 'Miss Piggy' for gaining weight.... Machado said Trump not only made her feel 'so fat,' but he also ridiculed her English-speaking ability, calling her 'Miss Housekeeping.' The model and telenovela star said her weight issues led to years of eating disorders -- anorexia and bulimia -- that required therapy." -- CW
Jonah Shepp of New York: "Donald Trump ... held a fundraiser on Thursday that he claimed would pay off the entire campaign debt of his erstwhile rival (and suspected hostage) New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, the Associated Press reports." -- CW
Josh Harkinson of Mother Jones: "A Maryland delegate selected by Donald Trump's presidential campaign for the Republican National Convention was indicted on Wednesday on federal weapons and child pornography charges. The federal indictment alleges that Caleb Andrew Bailey, 30, of Waldorf, Maryland, illegally mailed a cache of ammunition and explosives through the US Postal Service and illegally possessed a machine gun and child pornography. The indictment also further alleges that Bailey "attempted to use and did use a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct to produce child pornography." Thanks to Ophelia M. for the link. Ophelia wonders if the selection of Bailey was another of those Trump delegate "database errors." -- CW
Jonathan Chait explains to conservative "intellectuals" that the Tea party & Trump party are one in the same: a bunch of selfish, racist bastards who are afraid of the coming non-white majority. CW: It is downright amazing that these "intellectuals" need convincing; it's fine to hope the folks on your side are pure as the driven snow, but it's delusional to maintain that belief once convincing evidence against it piles up.
Maggie Haberman & Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "William F. Weld, the twice-elected former Republican governor of Massachusetts, who was last seen campaigning in the 2006 Republican primary for governor of New York, now hopes to be on a national ticket as the vice-presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party.... In his first interview since accepting an invitation to be the running mate of former Gov. Gary Johnson of New Mexico, Mr. Weld assailed Donald J. Trump over his call to round up and deport the 11 million immigrants in the country illegally. 'I can hear the glass crunching on Kristallnacht in the ghettos of Warsaw and Vienna when I hear that, honest,' Mr. Weld said Thursday." -- CW
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Constant Weader: Last week or so, David Roberts, Steve M., Paul Krugman & others wrote about how the MSM would "normalize" Donald Trump. One of the worst political writers around, Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post, is busy proving that point. Here's the title of his post today: "5 very smart things Donald Trump has done since becoming the presumptive GOP nominee." In the past, some readers have defended Cillizza after I've criticized his superficiality. I used to think he was just an innocuous nitwit. But any writer who purposely assists Trump, as Cillizza does here, is a danger to society.
Beyond the Beltway
Enlightenment in the Confederate Midwest: Sarah Ferris of The Hill: "Oklahoma lawmakers on Thursday approved a bill making it a felony for doctors to perform abortions, which opponents say is essentially a ban on the procedure. The Republican bill, which has been called the first of its kind nationally, will now be sent to the desk of GOP Gov. Mary Fallin. She has five days to sign or veto the bill before it automatically becomes law." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Akhilleus: Sorry ladies, the Supreme Court might say that you have the right to an abortion but they didn't say you had any right to a doctor. But hey, good luck with that coat hanger. ...
... Paul Waldman: "Coming soon: a bill that says you can have an abortion if you can stand on your head and recite pi to 100 places without any mistakes while a Republican state representative screams 'Slut!' over and over in your face." ...
... CW: If Fallin isn't completely stupid, she'll veto this unconstitutional bill.
Patrick McGreevy of the Los Angeles Times: "The [California] state Senate on Thursday approved sweeping new restrictions on using guns in California in response to the December mass shooting by two terrorists that left 14 dead in San Bernardino. Lawmakers approved 11 bills including measures mandating background checks for Californians buying ammunition and outlawing the manufacture and sale of semiautomatic rifles with detachable magazines. The bills, which next go to the Assembly for consideration, represent the most ambitious effort at gun control in decades in California, which already has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation." -- CW
Ashley Balcerzak of the Washington Post: "Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan on Thursday became the latest state leader to sign contentious legislation restricting civil asset forfeiture -- the process that allows police to seize and keep property suspected of being connected to illegal activity without having to convict, or even charge, the owner with a crime. Hogan's signature represents a reversal for the Republican governor, who, under pressure from high-profile law enforcement groups, vetoed a bill on the same subject last year. The General Assembly promptly overrode the veto to pass that measure and then introduced additional changes this year that limit state involvement in a federal forfeiture program and require authorities to report what they seize." CW: Kudos to Maryland's Democratic legislators.
Emily Green, et al., of the San Francisco Chronicle: "San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr resigned Thursday at the request of Mayor Ed Lee, hours after the fatal police shooting of a woman renewed questions about whether the Police Department had lost the confidence of minority communities in the city. Lee had stood by the chief he appointed in 2011 through two controversial police shootings within the past six months and revelations that a number of officers had exchanged racist and homophobic text messages. But at a late-afternoon news conference at City Hall, the mayor said that after Thursday's shooting,* he had 'arrived at a different conclusion to the question of how best to move forward.'" *The story includes details of "Thursday's shooting." -- CW
Way Beyond
Peter Baumont of the Guardian: "Israel's defence minister has announced his resignation, delivering a stinging rebuke to the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, whom he said he no longer had 'faith in'. The departure of the former defence chief Moshe Yaalon came after Netanyahu, with whom he had recently clashed, invited the hawkish ultranationalist Avigdor Lieberman to replace Yaalon as part of moves to widen his fragile coalition.... Yaalon's exit could put a new dent in domestic and western confidence in the Netanyahu government. " --safari...
...safari: If anybody needs a refresher course on how extreme Avigdor Lieberman is, you check here. Consider just one of his famous quotes taken from Ben Norton of Salon: "In an interview with right-wing Israeli news outlet Ynet in February 2015, Lieberman threatened new wars in Lebanon and Gaza, insisting 'a fourth operation in the Gaza Strip is inevitable, just as a third Lebanon war is inevitable.'He made these remarks just six months after the Israeli military killed more than 2,250 Palestinians in Gaza."
The World of Walls. Uri Friedman of The Atlantic: "Clinton is suggesting that walls are useless against today's borderless threats. Obama is suggesting that the world is marching toward ever-more interconnectedness, trampling the walls in its way. Both seem to present walls as a thing of the past. In fact, though, border walls and fences are currently going up around the world at the fastest rate since the Cold War." --safari
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