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The Commentariat -- April 6, 2016
Afternoon Update:
Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration will take $589 million in existing federal funds -- most of which were intended to combat the Ebola virus -- and spend the money instead on fighting the spread of the Zika virus. The move, which federal officials described as a stopgap measure, came after GOP congressional leaders refused to provide $1.9 billion in emergency funds to limit transmission of -- Zika in the United States and abroad." -- CW ...
... CW: So, a new way to get around Congress. Let them scare themselves silly (see Paul, Rand) about one threat, claim it costs billions to eliminate; then, when that threat abates, transfer the left-over money to needs the Congress won't fund, like ones that most affect women & minorities/"foreigners," about whom Republicans care NOTHING.
Peter Eavis of the New York Times: "Yes, Bernie Sanders knows something about breaking up banks." Eavis explains what Bernie was saying in that New York Daily News interview (linked below). Hillary Clinton can quit gloating now (which she did, sending transcripts of the interview all around. Maybe she should read the interview.) -- CW
Glenn Thrush of Politico interviewed Hillary Clinton yesterday, & she unloaded on everybody, especially Bernie Sanders. "She was ticked off -- already factoring in an inevitable loss in Wisconsin Tuesday -- and was in a rare mood of public introspection...." -- CW ...
... Eliza Collins of Politico: Former Obama advisor & campaign guru David Alexrod "was asked on CNN's 'New Day' on Wednesday about Clinton telling Politico that she felt sorry for the young supporters of Sanders who 'are fed this list of misrepresentations' about her record. Axelrod ... cautioned the former secretary of state against being dismissive of Sanders' allure to young voters. 'One thing I would stay away from, I would stay away from the insinuation that these young people who are inspired by Bernie Sanders are dupes and they are being fed misinformation and that is why they are enthusiastic about Bernie Sanders,' Axelrod said." -- CW
Tom Fuller of the New York Times: "San Francisco on Tuesday became the first city in the United States to approve six weeks of fully paid leave for new parents -- mothers and fathers, including same-sex couples, who either bear or adopt a child." -- CW
*****
Presidential Race
Wisconsin Primary Results:
Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "Senator Bernie Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton in the Wisconsin primary on Tuesday, his sixth straight victory in the Democratic nominating contest and the latest in a string of setbacks for Mrs. Clinton as she seeks to put an end to a prolonged race against an unexpectedly deft and well-funded competitor. Mrs. Clinton's defeat does not significantly dent her comfortable lead in the race for the 2,383 delegates needed to secure the Democratic nomination. But the loss underscores her problems connecting with young and white working-class voters who have gravitated to Mr. Sanders's economic message...." -- CW ...
... CW: Sanders was up only three points in one of the two most recent polls, so to top Clinton by 14 points is a surprise, especially given Wisconsin's new voter suppression law, which was expected to disenfranchise many students.
Democrats. Sanders bested Clinton 56 percent to 43 percent, with 98 percent reporting.
Jonathan Martin & Matt Flegenheimer of the New York Times: "Senator Ted Cruz soundly defeated Donald J. Trump in the Wisconsin primary on Tuesday, breathing new life into efforts to halt Mr. Trump's divisive presidential candidacy and dealing a blow to his chances of clinching the Republican nomination before the party's summer convention.... Standing in Mr. Cruz's way is [John] Kasich, whose poor showing Tuesday came despite spending considerable time in Wisconsin.... On Tuesday night, as Mr. Cruz quoted John F. Kennedy and Winston Churchill and offered himself as a unifier of a party at war with itself, his two rivals refrained from appearing in public." -- CW ...
... CW: If you think Loser Ted is insufferable, Winner Ted apparently thinks he's Cyrus the Great, Alexander the Great, & Augustus Caesar rolled into one. Yo, Ted, you won a primary against a colossal jerk & a guy half the voters never heard of. And you ain't gonna be president. ...
... Eli Stokols of Politico: "Ted Cruz, taking upwards of 30 of Wisconsin's 42 delegates, leaves Trump with little margin of error in the remaining contests to win the 1,237 delegates necessary to secure the nomination on the first ballot at July's GOP convention. And if he doesn't win it that way, many anti-Trump Republicans believe, he's not going to win it at all." -- CW
Republicans. Cruz led with 48 percent of the vote, followed by Trump with 35 percent & Kasich with 14, with 98 percent reporting.
Jason Stein & Karen Herzog of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Election turnout Tuesday appeared to soar to some of the highest levels in a spring election in decades, leading to one to two hour lines at some college campus polls.... In general, voting went smoothly in Milwaukee and statewide, but there were long lines in some locations statewide, especially near college campuses such as Marquette University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and UW-Green Bay.... [At] 7 pm at Marquette University's Alumni Memorial Union..., there was no line to vote. But the 200-person line to register or to change an address looped around the inside of the union with a roughly two-hour wait." -- CW ...
... Jeff Glaze, et al., of the (Madison,) Wisconsin State Journal: "... Tuesday's voting was closely watched as the most substantial test yet of Wisconsin's law requiring a photo ID at the polls. Workers reported busy polling places and scattered problems that forced them to turn away some voters who didn't have the right identification. With 97 percent of precincts reporting statewide, unofficial turnout was about 45 percent of eligible voters. That's a record for at least several decades in Wisconsin presidential primaries, according to the state Government Accountability Board." -- CW
Nick Gass of Politico: "Responding to the ... Panama Papers -- Bernie Sanders on Tuesday vowed to end the Panama Free Trade Agreement, tying Hillary Clinton to the same policies that he claimed fostered the practice. 'The Panama Free Trade Agreement put a stamp of approval on Panama, a world leader when it comes to allowing the wealthy and the powerful to avoid taxes,' the Vermont senator said in a statement released through his campaign, adding that he has been opposed to it 'from day one.'" -- CW
Jeremy Stahl of Slate: "Bernie Sanders was taking a bit of heat from pundits on Tuesday after being grilled by the New York Daily News editorial board on specific policy positions and coming up short on some key answers. A person running for president being asked tough questions and evading or struggling to answer them is not out of the ordinary per se, but the Daily News did an especially good job of pinning Sanders down on a number of fronts and is rightfully getting credit for it.... [Hillary] Clinton should face the same line of interrogators at the Daily News that Sanders did.... When I asked Daily News opinion editor Josh Greenman whether Clinton had agreed to do one of these interviews he said, 'We're working on it.'"; CW: You know Clinton would ace it. She does her homework. ...
... Dylan Byers of CNN: "In one exchange, Sanders acknowledged that he wasn't sure exactly how he intended to break up the big banks, a proposal that has been a centerpiece of his Wall Street reform agenda." -- CW ...
... The transcript of the Sanders interview is here.
Let's Play "Cuff the Candidate." Eliza Collins of Politico: "FBI Director James Comey said he feels no urgency to wrap up the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server before the political conventions this summer." CW: Comey is a Republican who served in the GWB administration. Maybe he's planning a yuuuge October Surprise -- indicting Clinton on the eve of the general election. A perp walk on November 4 would be so amusing.
Thugs R Us. Nick Gass of Politico: "Longtime Donald Trump ally Roger Stone is threatening to make public the hotel room numbers of Republican National Convention delegates who switch from Trump to another candidate. 'We're going to have protests, demonstrations. We will disclose the hotels and the room numbers of those delegates who are directly involved in the steal,' Stone said Monday in a discussion with Stefan Molyneux on Freedomain Radio, as he alleged that Trump's opponents planned to deny the democratic will of Republican primary voters." -- CW
Gabriel Sherman of New York takes a deep dive inside the Trump campaign, which is difficult to do inasmuch as the campaign is so shallow. -- CW
Karen Tumulty & Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "GOP front-runner Donald Trump, facing a likely setback in Tuesday's Wisconsin primary, plans to shift gears in the coming weeks, and give a series of policy speeches in settings more formal than the freewheeling rallies that have become his political signature." --safari note: He's getting SCOTUS advice from the grifter-in-chief, Ben Carson. Must be good.
Bob Woodward & Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump says he will force Mexico to pay for a border wall as president by threatening to cut off the flow of billions of dollars in payments that immigrants send home to the country, an idea that could decimate the Mexican economy and set up an unprecedented showdown between the United States and a key diplomatic ally. In a two-page memo to The Washington Post, Trump outlined for the first time how he would seek to force Mexico to pay for his 1,000-mile border fence, which Trump has made a cornerstone of his presidential campaign and which has been repeatedly scoffed at by current and former Mexican leaders." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... CW: In the realm of self-defeating, this is a real winner. What do you suppose the starving Mexican people would do if they could no longer get cash from their relatives in the U.S.? Oh, I know, they'd come to the U.S. in hopes of getting a job working for Ivana Trump. Trump may have a very good brain, but it's the kind that can't think of consequences. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) See also President Obama's comments on this excellent plan linked & embedded below.
Getting off the airplane ... Seeing all the green and gold and the green and gold until I'm dead and cold paraphernalia everywhere.... This awesome awakening, the shifting and sifting and the exposing of this rabid bite for them to hang on to any kind of relevancy and to hang on to their gravy train.... Inducing and seducing them with gift baskets ... 'Come on over the border and here's a gift basket of teddy bears and soccer balls.' -- Words, in the order delivered this weekend in Wisconsin, in a campaign speech by a prominent supporter of Donald Trump. Guess who.
Other News & Views
You may want to watch this, especially the President's answer to the last question:
... Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Obama said Republican presidential candidates have done damage to American foreign policy with their comments, and he said he repeatedly gets questions from foreign leaders about 'the wackier suggestions' by Donald J. Trump and other Republicans. The president, speaking to reporters at the White House on Tuesday, said Mr. Trump's proposal to block remittances from Americans to families in Mexico would not work and could cause more illegal immigration from a damaged Mexican economy." -- CW ...
... Adam Adelman of the New York Daily News: "President Obama on Tuesday called Donald Trump's plan to force Mexico to build a border wall by cutting off billions of dollars in money transfers from Mexican immigrants 'half-baked.' 'Good luck with that,' Obama sarcastically told reporters in response to questions over the GOP front-runner's newly released outrageous plan to force Mexico to pay for a border wall by targeting billions of dollars in remittances sent by immigrants living in the U.S.... Obama added that Trump's plan would create turmoil within the Mexican economy that would result in more Mexicans fleeing to the U.S. in search of jobs." CW: Nice to see the POTUS agreeing with me.
... Renae Merle of the Washington Post: "President Obama made a forceful case Tuesday for stopping corporations from moving their headquarters overseas in order to avoid U.S. taxes, saying they are taking advantage of the American economic system and saddling the middle class with the bill.... Obama praised regulations issued the day before by the Treasury Department aimed at making more difficult these so-called inversions, in which U.S. companies combine with foreign firms to reduce U.S. taxes. Tax avoidance is a global problem, Obama said, pointing to an enormous leak of documents from a Panamanian law firm that allegedly detail the offshore shell companies and tax shelters used by rich leaders around the world." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mean Regulators Foil Big Pharma Tax Evasion Scheme. David Faber of CNBC: "Pfizer and Allergan will mutually terminate their merger early Wednesday morning ET, sources told CNBC, after changes in U.S. tax regulations dealt a death blow to the $160 billion deal. Pfizer will pay Allergan a $400 million break fee as per the merger agreement.... New regulations issued Monday by the U.S. Treasury will prevent so-called inversion deals - under which a U.S. company moves its base to a country with a more favorable taxation environment - removing the tax benefits New York-based Pfizer had hoped to gain from the deal with Ireland's Allergan." -- CW
Mike Zapler of Politico: Sen. Chuck Grassley (RCrotchety-Iowa) "criticized John Roberts on the Senate floor Tuesday, accusing the chief justice of contributing to the growing politicization of the Supreme Court. In a speech about 10 days before Justice Antonin Scalia died, Roberts warned that the trend of approving qualified Supreme Court nominees along party-line Senate votes undermines the legitimacy of the court. 'In fact, many of my constituents believe, with all due respect, that the chief justice is part of the problem,' Grassley said of Roberts... 'They believe that [a] number of his votes have reflected political considerations, not legal ones.'" -- CW ...
... Michael McGough of the Los Angeles Times: Mitch "McConnell wants to have it both ways: denying [Judge Merrick] Garland a hearing on the grounds that his record is irrelevant, even as he trashes that record without giving Garland a meaningful opportunity to respond. That's not just illogical; it's unjust." -- CW ...
... Dana Milbank: "Those who oppose President Obama's Supreme Court nominee have been digging for dirt to justify opposition by 52 of the 54 Senate Republicans to granting him a hearing. But about the worst thing anybody has come up with: an allegation that [Merrick] Garland crossed lanes in a relay race. In summer camp. Fifty years ago." -- CW
Sandhya Somashekhar of the Washington Post: "Investigators with the California Department of Justice on Tuesday raided the home of David Daleiden, the anti-abortion activist behind a series of undercover videos targeting Planned Parenthood, the activist said.... The raid confirms that California is among the states looking into possible criminal activity on the part of Daleiden and his organization, the Center for Medical Progress, which have been the center of controversy since releasing videos purporting to show that Planned Parenthood illegally sells fetal tissue for a profit." -- CW ...
... Kevin Drum: "Daleiden is now in trouble with both Texas and California. But I suppose it's all good PR as long as they spell his name right. At this point, Daleiden can probably do better as a martyr for the cause than he can as a straightforward activist. After all, his activism produced squat -- except for lots of death threats against abortion providers. But maybe that was the whole plan." -- CW
Liz Robbins of the New York Times: "In 2012, the Department of Homeland Security set up the fake University of Northern New Jersey "as part of a sting operation to ensnare criminals involved in student visa fraud. On Tuesday, that operation resulted in the issuing of arrest warrants for 21 people in the New York metropolitan area, the United States attorney for New Jersey, Paul J. Fishman, and Sarah Saldaña, the director of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, announced at a news conference in Newark. The people arrested were brokers who knowingly recruited foreign students, mainly from China and India, to an institution that would not have real classes in order to obtain student visas." CW: Rather than setting up a whole new fake university, DHS could have just borrowed Trump University. Either way, Chris Christie would be the right choice for chairman of the board of trustees. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Reed Abelson of the New York Times: "There were widespread predictions that [with the advent of the ACA,] employers would leap at the chance to drop coverage and send workers to fend for themselves. But those predictions were largely wrong. Most companies, and particularly large employers, that offered coverage before the law have stayed committed to providing health insurance." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Liam Stack of the New York Times provides a primer on the Panama Papers. -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Worse than Panama. Jane Kasperkevic of the Guardian: "One of the surprises about the Panama Papers -- the largest leak from an offshore tax adviser in history -- is how few Americans have so far been exposed. The reason? It may be because creating a shell company in the US is easier than obtaining a library card.... 'In every state in the US, you can incorporate an LLC -- [a limited liability company] -- or another legal entity and you don't have to disclose who the beneficiary on it is. In fact, Delaware is so synonymous with anonymous companies and ghost corporations that it was named in Transparency International's Unlock the Corrupt campaign as one of the most symbolic cases of corruption,' [says Shruti Shah..., of Transparency International, an anti-corruption organization.]" -- CW ...
... Jon Schuppe of NBC News on more reasons that no Americans, so far, have been outed in the Panama Papers. -- CW ...
... Well, Actually, Some Americans. Kevin Hall & Marisa Taylor of McClatchy News: "The passports of at least 200 Americans show up in this week's massive leak of secret data on secretive offshore shell companies.... In four separate cases, the law firm Mossack Fonseca helped register offshore companies for Americans who are now either accused or convicted by federal prosecutors of serious financial crimes, including securities fraud and running a Ponzi scheme.... [Some] appeared to be American retirees purchasing real estate in places like Costa Rica and Panama." Hall & Taylor outline a few of the instances in which Americans appear in the papers. -- CW ...
... Tyler Durden of Zero Hedge: The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, whose members are doing the reporting on the Panama Papers, & WikiLinks take potshots at each other's methodologies. -- CW ...
... Annals of Journalism. Matt Pearce of the Los Angeles Times on how the Panama Papers came to be published: "... the story started small, with an anonymous writer's message to the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung in early 2015: 'Hello. This is John Doe. Interested in data?'" -- CW
... AND Jon Lee Anderson of the New Yorker provides some background on the accommodating country of Panama: "It may be mere coincidence, but it was interesting to note that Erhard Mossack, the father of Jürgen Mossack, a part owner of Mossack Fonseca, was a former Waffen-S.S. officer who immigrated to Panama with his family after the Second World War. Then, as now, Panama was an extremely accommodating place." -- CW
Bethania Palma Markus of Raw Story: Leonard Chanin, former Deputy Director of the Division of Consumer and Community Affairs at the Federal Reserve Board, got the [Elizabeth] Warren Treatment during the Senate Republican Banking Committee. In reply to his claim that there was no hard data to predict the coming housing crisis, "Warren fired back, 'Did you have your eyes stitched closed?'" I wish we had more Senators like her! -- LT
Beyond the Beltway
Patrick Marley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "State Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley was elected to a 10-year term Tuesday, overcoming a challenge from Appeals Court Judge JoAnne Kloppenburg and keeping the job Gov. Scott Walker appointed her to in the fall. Boosted by heavy turnout in the Republican presidential primary, Bradley overcame criticism that dominated headlines for days about her college writings calling gays 'queers,' comparing abortion to slavery and dubbing voters as stupid or evil for electing Bill Clinton president in 1992." CW: Thanks, Cheeseheads!
Zack Ford of ThinkProgress: "Mississippi is now in competition with North Carolina for having the most anti-LGBT law on the books. Tuesday morning, Gov. Phil Bryant (R) signed HB 1523 into law, endorsing a veritable catalog of discrimination against LGBT people and even those who have sex before marriage." --safari ...
... Amber Phillips of the Washington Post: "The religious objection law Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (R) signed Tuesday is much more sweeping than any other religious protection law we've seen before. It is the first law to prohibit state government from taking any discriminatory action against a person, religious organization, business or government employee for refusing services to LGBT people because of 'sincerely held religious beliefs' or 'moral conviction' against same-sex marriage, extra-marital sex and/or transgender people." -- CW ...
... CW: Unless You Can Produce a Marriage License, Don't Order the Oysters. CW: It won't be two weeks before this law gets a court challenge. It's so egregious, a federal court might stay its implementation. If you're out on a date, the waitress can refuse to serve you a slice of Mississippi mud pie because she may hold the "moral conviction" that y'all might have sex after pie. And that would be wrong.
... CW: Apologies to those who don't care for Phil Ochs. I'm well aware this is the third day in a row I've embedded one of his songs.
OK, we'll give Phil Ochs a break: same genre, different artist with Country Joe and the Fish. What is it with Texans and noses? --unwashed
... CW: Not that Ochs didn't have this well-covered, too.
Big business officially dumps bigotry... Jena McGregor of the Washington Post: "Corporate America's evolution on gay rights appears to have reached a tipping point, one where so many companies have taken a stand on the issue that the risk of speaking out has been superseded by the risk of not doing so." --safari
... BUT Janet Langhart Cohen, in an opinion piece in the Washington Post, points out that Corporate America should throw their weight behind racial equality as well. --safari ...
... Mark Berman of the Washington Post: "The backlash against a North Carolina law that bars local governments from extending civil rights protections to gay and transgender people continued Tuesday, with PayPal saying it is abandoning plans to expand into Charlotte in response to the legislation. This decision came just weeks after PayPal, the California-based online payments firm spun off from eBay, said it would open a global operations center in Charlotte, a move that state officials said would bring millions to the local economy and employ 400 people.... North Carolina's law was introduced to override a civil rights ordinance passed in Charlotte this year that said transgender people in the state's largest city could use bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity." -- CW (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times: "PayPal's action is notable for two reasons. The first is that until Tuesday, PayPal had simply been one among several corporations that had expressed unhappiness with the law rhetorically but hadn't taken any concrete action, stating only that it was 'disappointed by the bill.' The second is that this is a major blow to the state's economy: Charlotte had competed vigorously for the PayPal project, beating out sites in Arizona and Florida in part by offering a $3.7-million tax incentive. The firm's action may well open the floodgates to other concrete corporate responses." -- CW ...
... CW: Wouldn't it be something if corporations started pulling out of states that oppress minorities & the poor? The South would be as devastated as it was after the Civil War.
In the laboratories of Democracy. Susan Rinkunas in New York Magazine: "Indiana Governor Mike Pence recently signed a bonkers anti-choice bill into law that will not only hold doctors liable if a woman has an abortion because of a fetus's race, sex, or diagnosis of Down syndrome or any other disability, but also requires fetal remains to be cremated or buried, whether from an abortion or a miscarriage. (...) One Indiana woman recently created the Facebook page Periods for Pence where she encourages others to call the governor's office to report their periods, since they could technically be having a miscarriage." safari note: My favorite phrase from the article... "Menstrual trolling is the best new kind of trolling". ...
... Lara Parker of BuzzFeed: More women call Governor Mikey to tell him about their periods. Luckily for Indiana women, he care: "'We are always willing to take calls from constituents who have questions, concerns, or are looking for assistance,; the governor's deputy press secretary, Stephanie Hodgin, told BuzzFeed News." -- CW
Covering Their ASS. Pema Levy of Mother Jones: "Last week, George Mason University announced that it was renaming its law school in honor of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Henceforth, students would attend the Antonin Scalia School of Law or, as the internet quickly (and gleefully) pointed out, ASSLaw -- or ASSoL. It didn't take long for the school to tweak the name. According to the Wall Street Journal, 'Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University' will be the official name, but the school's website and promotional materials will refer to the Antonin Scalia Law School." -- CW
Way Beyond
Wow! Steve Erlanger of the New York Times: "The prime minister of Iceland resigned on Tuesday after an enormous leak of documents from a secretive Panamanian law firm about offshore shell companies and tax shelters. The resignation of the prime minister, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, was the first prominent political fallout from the document leaks, which have shed unflattering light on the private financial activities of many rich and powerful people around the world." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
News Ledes
New York Times: "Merle Haggard, one of the most successful singers in the history of country music, a contrarian populist whose songs about his scuffling early life and his time in prison made him the closest thing that the genre had to a real-life outlaw hero, died at his ranch in Northern California on Wednesday, his 79th birthday."
New York Times: "European Union authorities introduced proposals on Wednesday intended to reform the bloc's overwhelmed and ineffective asylum system while avoiding a backlash from member states reluctant to accept a larger number of migrants."
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