The Commentariat -- April 11, 2016

Reality Chex was far better than usual this weekend because of contributions by Weaders other than I. Thank you all. -- Constant Weader

Afternoon Update:

Greg Sargent: "Hillary Clinton's secret weapon against Bernie Sanders: Democratic voters." New York state & a number of other states will hold "closed primaries"; that is, where party crossovers or independents are not permitted to vote. Since many of Sanders' voters have been independents, while more of Clinton's core supporters are registered Democrats, Clinton has an advantage in these states which Sanders may not be able to overcome. -- CW

The Guardian has been liveblogging developments in the British Parliament re: published revelations based on Panama Papers documents.

*****

Whose Big Mistake Was It? Claire Landsbaum of New York: "'Failing to plan for the day after what I think was the right thing to do in intervening in Libya' was 'probably' his biggest regret as president, [President] Obama told Fox's Chris Wallace." CW: Hmmm. That would have been the Secretary of State's job, wouldn't it? See video of the full interview in yesterday's Commentariat.

... Juan Cole of Informed Comment: "You could make a case that some Clinton policies as secretary of state did contribute to the spread of Daesh to Libya, but in my view that is a stretch. Libyan radical fundamentalists were well established in the country, and had supplied fighters against the US in Iraq in the thousands." -- LT, HT: PD Pepe.

Neil Irwin & Quoctrung Bui of the New York Times: "For poor Americans, the place they call home can be a matter of life or death. The poor in some cities -- big ones like New York and Los Angeles, and also quite a few smaller ones like Birmingham, Ala. -- live nearly as long as their middle-class neighbors or have seen rising life expectancy in the 21st century. But in some other parts of the country, adults with the lowest incomes die on average as young as people in much poorer nations like Rwanda, and their life spans are getting shorter.In those differences, documented in sweeping new research, lies an optimistic message: The right mix of steps to improve habits and public health could help people live longer, regardless of how much money they make." Includes interactive map. -- CW

Carol Morello of the Washington Post: "Secretary of State John F. Kerry will focus on the vision of a nuclear-free future while he is here and will not apologize for the atomic bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II, killing 140,000 people, a U.S. official said Sunday. Kerry arrived in Hiroshima on Sunday morning to attend a meeting of foreign ministers of the Group of Seven countries, who discussed the war in Syria and the refugee crisis sweeping Europe." -- CW

     ... Update. Carol Morello: "Secretary of State John F. Kerry on Monday said he thought everybody, including President Obama, should visit Hiroshima, after completing what he called a 'gut-wrenching' visit to a museum at ground zero in the city where the United States dropped the first atomic bomb, in World War II.... No decision has been made about whether President Obama will visit Hiroshima next month when he comes to Japan for a meeting with leaders of the G-7 countries."

Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: Lt. Cmdr. Edward C. Lin, "a Taiwan-born Navy officer who became a naturalized U.S. citizen, faces charges of espionage, attempted espionage and prostitution in a highly secretive case in which he is accused of providing classified information to China, U.S. officials said." -- CW

Paul Krugman writes about a court case that sided with MetLife on its objections to being designated a "systemically important" financial corporation. CW: I suspect he's written an extended criticism of Bernie Sanders, even tho he doesn't mention Sanders by name. ...

... CW: Here's why it's sometimes important to read comments sections:

According to Open Secrets, Met Life has contributed the third highest amount to the Clinton campaign -- $156,000, trailing only Citicorp and Goldman Sachs in Open Secrets' listing of her top 20 contributors ... but you snidely imply -- once again -- that Bernie Sanders, who does not do Super PACS or accept donations is unfit for president but Hillary Clinton with her Snoopy-endorsed MetLife money is? Good grief, PaulKrugman! -- Gluscabi

Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: The Panama Papers"... leak signaled something ... that was a big deal but went unheralded: The official WikiLeaks-ization of mainstream journalism; the next step in the tentative merger between the Fourth Estate, with its relatively restrained conventional journalists, and the Fifth Estate, with the push-the-limits ethos of its blogger, hacker and journo-activist cohort, in the era of gargantuan data breaches." -- CW ...

     ... CW: Just because the Panama Papers are a huge cache, I don't see how their use by the Fourth Estate has been materially different from countless other journalistic scoops. That is, investigative journalists traditionally rely on information which whistleblowers have obtained illegally from the government or in violation of their confidentiality contracts with private entities. What is different from the old days, where hardcopy documents were physically stolen or copied, is hacking, a virtual theft. Hacking usually, but not always (Ed Snowden hacked the accounts of NSA coworkers), is the work of outsiders.

Presidential Race

Abby Phillip of the Washington Post: Hillary & Bill Clinton "spent an entire day [Sunday] courting black voters in half a dozen New York churches and at a campaign event in Baltimore" after Bill Clinton escalated an encounter with Black Lives Matter activists last week. -- CW

Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) endorsed Hillary Clinton on Sunday, after months of staying neutral in the presidential contest because of his post as the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform." -- CW

Kristen East of Politico: "Donald Trump on Sunday dismissed the Boston Globe as a 'stupid' and 'worthless' newspaper on the same day that the organization published a fake front page with stories depicting would-be news events during a Trump administration. '... The whole front page, they made up the story that Trump is the president and they made up the whole front page,' he said during an event in Rochester, New York. "It's a make-believe story, which is really no different than the whole paper.'... At the same event Sunday, Trump also criticized the New York Times and the Washington Post as 'dishonest' publications." -- CW

David Masciotra of Salon: "We let the idiots take the wheel... The framers of the United States Constitution were ... terrified of what damage the public might inflict upon their invention. Benjamin Franklin even went so far as to predict that 'the people shall become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other.' Thomas Jefferson... called information the 'currency of democracy.' It would appear that large parts of America are all but bankrupt, suffering the consequences of a long liquidation at the hands of a sensationalistic media, but most of all, a broken education system." -- LT

...speaking of idiots: Jenny Rowland of the Center for American Progress: "By launching an ideological attack on the government's authority to protect and preserve lands, waters, and wildlife, the anti-parks caucus is proving to conservative primary voters that it is opposed to the federal government in every way." -- LT, an unhappy national and state park-loving Coloradan

Ed Kilgore of New York: "The [Trump] campaign seems to figure all policy specifics are premature until [he] takes office and sits down with Republicans -- and Democrats -- on the Hill (...) The [Republican] party has been hoping and planning to avoid deal-making or bipartisanship at all costs if it takes the White House. In the first days of a new Republican administration, the plan has been to cram absolutely everything the right wants on major domestic-policy topics -- with health care high on the list -- into a budget-reconciliation bill (which, because it deals money, cannot be filibustered) and whip it through Congress to be signed immediately by the president." -- safari

Kristen East: "CIA Director John Brennan shut down one of Donald Trump's biggest campaign talking points on Sunday, saying his agency would not engage in waterboarding, even if a future president were to order it. 'I will not agree to carry out some of these tactics and techniques I've heard banded about because this institution needs to endure,' Brennan said in an interview with NBC News." -- CW ...

... National security expert Donald Trump derided Brennan. Nick Gass of Politico: "'Well I think his comments are ridiculous,' Trump said in a telephone interview Monday with 'Fox & Friends.'... Trump went on to suggest that the reason the U.S. cannot defeat the Islamic State is because it cannot operate in a 'strong' enough manner." -- CW

Rebecca Savransky of the Hill: "Donald Trump's convention manager, Paul Manafort, said on Sunday that the Republican presidential front-runner's campaign didn't do all it could to win delegates in Colorado. 'I acknowledge that we weren't playing in Colorado,' he said." -- CW

Steve M. has a good summary (with links) of Trump's Bad Weekend. Trumpelstiltskin has been raging about the "crooked deal" he got as five states, to some extent or another, chose Cruz's delegates over Trump's, even where Trump won the popular vote. But the Trumpbots are "not rioting. Unless that changes, I think they could be paper tigers in reaction to a Trump-thwarting convention." -- CW

Worse than Trump? The terrible, no-good horrible prospect of a Drumpf presidency must not cloud the very real possibility that a Cruz victory could actually be worse. Kyle Mantyla of Right Wing Watch reminds us that there "...seems to be no activist who is too extreme" for Ted Cruz who engaged "...infamous demon-hunting, anti-gay exorcist/state legislator Gordon Klingenschmitt" to help him win whatever that was that happened in Colorado. -- Akhilleus

To whom much is given, all will be retained, except insofar as there be a payoff. -- The Gospel according to Drumpf ...

Ebenezer McDrumpf.... ** American Cheapskate -- A Narcissist's Definition of Charity. David Fahrenthold & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump has said that he gave more than $102 million to charity in the past five years. But ... not a single one of those donations was actually a personal gift of Trump's own money. Instead..., many of the gifts that Trump cited to prove his generosity were free rounds of golf.... The largest items on the list were ... land-conservation agreements to forgo development rights on property Trump owns.... Many of the gifts on the list came from the charity that bears his name..., which didn't receive a personal check from Trump from 2009 through 2014.... Its work is largely funded by others, although Trump decides where the gifts go. Some beneficiaries on the list are not charities at all: They included clients, other businesses and tennis superstar Serena Willimas. His giving appears narrowly tied to his business and, now, his political interests." -- CW

Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "While [House Speaker Paul] Ryan has repeatedly said that he has no intention of becoming his party's nominee this year, he is already deep into his own parallel national operation to counter Donald J. Trump and help House and Senate candidates navigate the political headwinds that Mr. Trump would generate as the party's standard-bearer -- or, for that matter, Senator Ted Cruz, who is only slightly more popular. Mr. Ryan is creating a personality and policy alternative to run alongside the presidential effort -- one that provides a foundation to rebuild if Republicans splinter and lose in the fall." -- CW

Stupid Apples Don't Fall Far From Ridiculous Loser Tree. it appears, according to Carrie Dann at NBC news, that those crazy Trump kids "Eric and Ivanka Trump -- failed to register as Republicans in the state in time to be eligible to vote for him in New York's April 19 primary...according to New York's public Voter Registration Database, both Eric and Ivanka Trump are registered to vote but not enrolled in a political party." Oopsy. -- Akhilleus

Beyond the Beltway

Laura Vozzella of the Washington Post: "Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe gutted a bill to let Virginia use the electric chair when it cannot find scarce lethal-injection drugs, making an 11th-hour amendment Sunday that would instead allow the state to hire a pharmacy to make a special batch in secret. [McAuliffe was u]p against a midnight deadline to veto or amend legislation from this year’s General Assembly session...." -- CW

Mike Dumke of the Chicago Sun-Times: As Mayor Rahm Emanuel faced growing criticism last fall over the city's handling of police shootings, Chicago Police Department officials laid plans to have undercover officers spy on protest groups, records obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times show." -- CW

Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "Police used punches, knee strikes, elbow strikes, slaps, wrist twists, baton blows and Tasers at Homan Square, according to documents released to the Guardian in the course of its transparency lawsuit about the warehouse. The new information contradicts an official denial about treatment of prisoners at the facility. The injured men are among at least 7,351 people -- over 6,000 of them black -- who, police documents show, have been detained and interrogated at Homan Square without a public notice of their whereabouts or access to an attorney."--safari

Jonathan Cole in the Atlantic: "America's great public research universities, which produce path-breaking discoveries and train some of the country's most talented young students, are under siege. According to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences' recently completed Lincoln Project report, between 2008 and 2013 states reduced financial support to top public research universities by close to 30 percent. At the same time, these states increased support of prisons by more than 130 percent." --safari

Sam Levin of the Guardian: "Eleven employees at the University of California at Berkeley have been fired or resigned after facing accusations of sexual harassment, according to new records that provide disturbing details on numerous misconduct allegations and dramatically expand a scandal plaguing the prestigious institution. The hundreds of pages of records -- which include extensive documentation of harassment cases involving 19 employees and were released on the heels of multiple high-profile controversies -- show that men in powerful positions avoided discipline after the school substantiated harassment complaints from students and employees." -- CW

Christopher Goffard of the Los Angeles Times: On his last day in office, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Calif.) reduced the sentence of convicted murderer Esteban Nuñez, the son of former California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, a friend & political ally of Schwarznegger's. Esteban will be released this week. Schwarznegger did not reduce the sentence of Esteban's s co-defendant, who will presumably serve out his term. "'Of course you help a friend,' Schwarzenegger later said, a remark that deepened widespread outrage over the commutation, which was reflected in editorials and denunciations by Republicans and Democrats alike." -- CW

Samantha Page of ThinkProgress: "A group of youngsters just won a major decision in their efforts to sue the federal government over climate change. An Oregon judge ruled Friday that their lawsuit, which alleges the government violated the constitutional rights of the next generation by allowing the pollution that has caused climate change, can go forward." --safari

BOYCOTT! The Associated Press in the Hollywood Reporter:" Canadian rocker Bryan Adams is canceling a performance this week in Mississippi, citing the state's new law that allows religious groups and some private businesses to refuse service to gay couples." --safari

Way Beyond

Andrew Roth of the Washington Post: "Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk on Sunday announced his resignation, calling for the formation of a new government as Kiev endures its worst political crisis since the Euromaidan revolution of 2014. The public's patience has grown thin with Yatsenyuk, as well as with President Petro Poroshenko, because of a struggling economy, stalled reforms and entrenched corruption. The ruling coalition has fractured as public support hits new lows." -- CW

Thomas Seibert of The Daily Beast: "Forget The Donald, Hillary and Bernie in New York. If you want to see some serious mud-slinging, look to Turkey's capital Ankara, where the president of the republic and the leader of the opposition have been calling each other political and sexual perverts." --safari

Gangster Islam. Andrew Higgins & Kimiko De Freytas-Tamura of The New York Times Khalid Zerkani, who lived in the Molenbeek district of Brussels, Belgium, & whom Belgian judges had previously sentenced to 12 years in prison for terrorist-related activity, “has emerged as a central element in attacks in both Paris and Brussels — as well as one in France that the authorities said last month they had foiled.” -- CaptRuss

Ben Taub of The New Yorker: "The Commission for International Justice and Accountability's ... four-hundred-page legal brief ... links the systematic torture and murder of tens of thousands of Syrians to a written policy approved by President Bashar al-Assad, coördinated among his security-intelligence agencies, and implemented by regime operatives. ...The case is the first international war-crimes investigation completed by an independent agency ... funded by governments but without a court mandate. The organization's founder, Bill Wiley....had grown frustrated with the geopolitical red tape that often shapes the pursuit of justice." -- LT

News Lede

Washington Post: "Duane R. 'Dewey' Clarridge, a CIA operative and official of dash, daring and swagger who helped establish and headed the agency's counterterrorism center and also was known for his connection to the Iran-contra affair of the 1980s, died April 9 at his home in Leesburg, Va. He was 83." CW: An entertaining obituary.

The Commentariat -- April 10, 2016

Presidential Race

Bernie Ratchets It up Again. Jeremy Herb of Politico: "Bernie Sanders's attacks on his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton are shifting from qualifications for president to her judgment. 'She may have the experience to be president of the United States. No one can argue that,' Sanders said on NBC's 'Meet the Press.' 'But in terms of her judgment, something is clearly lacking.' And on CNN's 'State of the Union,' Sanders said: 'I have my doubts about what kind of president she would make.'" -- CW

Rebecca Shebad of The Hill: "Former President Carter says ... when Secretary Clinton was Secretary of State, she took very little action to bring about peace. It was only John Kerry's coming into office that reinitiated all these very important and crucial issues." -- LT

This Is Sickening. Evelyn Rupert of the Hill: "A Bernie Sanders event in New York reached a tense ending Saturday as a man shouted questions about Sanders's religion over boos from the audience. 'As you know, the Zionist Jews -- and I don't mean to offend anybody -- they run the Federal Reserve, they run Wall Street, they run every campaign,' the man said. Sanders responded by shaking his head and saying 'Brother, brother, brother.' The man then said: 'What is your affiliation to your Jewish community? That's all I'm asking.' Sanders responded: 'That's not what your asking.'" -- CW

Jeremy Herb: "President Barack Obama insisted in an interview with Fox News aired Sunday that the FBI and Justice Department will not protect ... Hillary Clinton while investigating her private emails and server. 'I can guarantee that,' Obama said repeatedly in an interview with Fox News' Chris Wallace, who interviewed the president in his first appearance on 'Fox News Sunday' during his seven-year tenure." Full interview under Other News & Views below. -- CW

Yamiche Alcindor & Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "Continuing a string of victories across the West, Senator Bernie Sanders won the Wyoming Democratic caucuses Saturday, chipping away at Hillary Clinton's delegate lead before a major primary in New York next week. With 96 percent of precincts reporting, The Associated Press declared Mr. Sanders the winner with 56 percent of the vote.... Coming after Mr. Sanders's recent big victories in Washington State, Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Hawaii and Wisconsin, it was more evidence of Mrs. Clinton's weaknesses among white and liberal voters...." -- CW

Nobody can take someone's arm anymore in America? That's assault? -- Bill Maher, Friday ...

... Maher Embraces His "Politically Incorrect" Brand. Pundit Bill Maher defended Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski's alleged "simple battery" on former Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields -- Maher called it alleged "assault," but he's not a lawyer -- & went on to diss Fields for complaining about it. Marlow Stern of the Daily Beast reports. CW: This is a reminder that Maher thinks violence against women is funny. Maher has a long history of sexism (Google it), which is something to keep in mind, especially if Clinton becomes the Democratic nominee.

Jill Lepore of the New Yorker: "Trump will want this to be an election about popular sovereignty: the people rule. Clinton will not be able to avoid making an argument about female rule, because much in Trump's campaign, and in Cruz's, too, suggests that a woman should not have authority over a man, or over her own body, either. The candidates may not want this election to become a battle of the sexes, but the lines have been drawn, long since." -- CW

Mussolini v. Hitler. Rebecca Savransky of the Hill: "Donald Trump's convention manager, Paul Manafort, said on Sunday that Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz is using 'Gestapo tactics' to try to lure delegates. 'He's threatening, you go to these county conventions, and you see the tactics, Gestapo tactics, the scorched-earth tactics,' Manafort said on NBC's 'Meet the Press.'" -- CW ..

... BUT. Tom LoBianco of CNN: "Ted Cruz suffered a rare convention loss Saturday after delegates backing John Kasich and Donald Trump boxed him out of key positions in the Michigan delegation. The Texas senator's campaign ran eight delegates for eight committee spots and lost every one, alleging it was 'double-crossed' by Kasich supporters." -- CW

John Frank & Joey Bunch of the Denver Post: Ted Cruz "won all 34 delegates awarded in Colorado in what amounts to a stunning rebuke of Republican front-runner Donald Trump. Cruz completed the sweep by winning all 13 delegates at the state convention in Colorado Springs -- the largest in history with nearly 8,000 in the crowd -- where he gave what amounted to an victory speech earlier in the day." -- CW

Denis Slattery of the New York Daily News: On Saturday, Donald Trump made his first visit to the 9/11 Ground Zero memorial & museum. "Trump also made a $100,000 donation to the institution, another first, the Daily News has learned." Trump's charitable foundation [never made] a single substantial donation to any 9/11-related nonprofit groups that have aided survivors, rescue workers and the families of first-responders ..." tho his campaign said he made a "significant" donation to the Red Cross right after the 2001 attack. Trump "The deal-maker did accept a $150,000 federal grant that was part of a program meant to assist small businesses affected by the attacks." ...

... CW: According to this February Smoking Gun report, Trump, who funnels his charitable contributions through the Donald Trump Foundation, made no donation to the Red Cross in 2001 or 2002. But he did get that small business grant.

Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Indiana hasn't cast its ballots for president yet, but Donald Trump is already losing. Republican Party insiders in the state will select 27 delegates to the national convention on Saturday, and Trump is assured to be nearly shut out of support, according to interviews with a dozen party leaders and officials involved in the delegate selection process.... Indiana's delegates will be bound to the results of the state's May 3 primary on the first vote in Cleveland, and Trump is expected to be competitive in that contest.... But if Trump fails to clinch the nomination, they'll be free to vote their conscience -- and that means a rapid rejection of Trump." -- CW

Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump still leads the Republican presidential race, but Ted Cruz continues to beat him at a trickier game -- securing convention delegates in states that don't hold caucuses or primaries. If Trump fails to secure the 1,237 delegates needed to win the GOP presidential nomination before the party convention in Cleveland this July, his missteps in more obscure delegate contests could be the ones that cost him a victory." -- CW ...

... Evan Osnos of the New Yorker: "... as we approach the growing prospect of a contested convention..., it's becoming clearer that Trump may seek to shape the outcome by using his most unwieldy weapon of all: the latent power of usually peaceful people. It's easy to mock Trump for his thin-skinned fixation on the size of his audiences, but that misses a deeper point: you can't have a riot without a mob." -- CW

... Jeff Greenfield of Politico on Republicans trying to turn back the clock: "...Republican elders who are desperately trying to derail Trump are openly contemplating going back to the old ways, handing the nomination to someone who never spent a day on the campaign trail, never tried to persuade single voter, and was simply delivered the nomination by an arena full of anonymous delegates. Somehow, the establishment thinks, it can instruct all those millions of Republican voters who came out for Trump and Cruz and Kasich to fall in line behind, say, Speaker Paul Ryan." --unwashed

Hadas Gold of Politico: "The Boston Globe on Sunday will publish a satirical front page predicting headlines about a Donald Trump presidency alongside a 'Stop Trump' editorial. The fake front page will be the lead of the Globe's Sunday Ideas section and 'is a work of political satire and commentary produced by the Globe's Editorial Board, not the newsroom,' Globe Editorial Page Editor Ellen Clegg wrote in an email." Here's the Globe's fake front page for April 9, 2017. CW: It's a slow-loader but worth the wait. Unfortunately, the "stories" are not too farfetched, & some teases are pretty funny: "Heavy spring snow closed Trump National Park for the first time since it dropped its loser name, Yellowstone, in January." The accompanying editorial is here. ...

... Speaking of Fake News.... Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "So on Friday night, Donald Trump tweeted this: '@Cam: Reports are RNC has received +1 million postcards so far....'" Trump's tweet included a photo of the postcards, which are addressed to RNC chair Reince Priebus, & say "I will only vote for Donald Trump. Do not steal this election." Even given the unlikelihood that Trump supporters could have organized such a massive mail campaign -- and without news of it leaking -- "... the postcards are printed with the wrong address. The address printed on those alleged one million postcards would have ended up dumped in a pile at the intersection next to the Capitol South Metro stop.... We asked the Republican National Committee how many postcards they may have received. 'We have received a grand total of zero,' said spokesman Michael Short." -- CW

Driftglass provides a humorous take on David Brooks and the death of the Republican Party: "[Friday], Mr. Brooks imagineers out of thin air an entire army of public-spirited Reasonable Republicans who will infiltrate the Republican convention in July cleverly disguised as party hacks but then -- surprise! -- cast off their fake George Wallace noses and Pat Buchanan wigs just in time to rise as one!... But when I read it, in my head it sounded a lot like this..." a la Monty Python. --unwashed

Other News & Views

Chris Wallace of "Fox 'News' Sunday" interviews President Obama: (The quality isn't too good, but it's all I got. -- CW:

A Democratic Congress is good for America. President Obama, Friday

Darlene Superville of the AP: Speaking at a fundraiser at the California home of Gordon Getty, "President Barack Obama praised Democratic lawmakers for having his back through some politically tough votes and encouraged supporters to help elect more of them in November. Obama also criticized Senate Republicans for refusing to consider his Supreme Court nominee and said GOP presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz aren't 'outliers' but are simply parroting what some congressional Republicans have said for years." -- CW

Mitch Smith & Monica Davey of the New York Times: "A lawyer for J. Dennis Hastert, the former speaker of the House who is awaiting sentencing for a federal banking violation, said Saturday that his client acknowledged committing 'transgressions' decades ago as a high school teacher and wrestling coach, but again stopped short of detailing those misdeeds." -- CW

**Josh Marshall of TPM: "...Hastert's improbable rise to the pinnacle of political power in Washington was a direct consequence of Republican party efforts to exploit and eventually criminalize Bill Clinton's extramarital sex life in order to overturn the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections. The chain of events is clear and straightforward." --safari

Ed Vulliamy of the Guardian on how Teddy Roosevelt & financier J. P. Morgan made Panama a haven for the rich. -- CW ...

... Ken Silverstein in Vice (December 2014): "In 1903, the administration of Theodore Roosevelt created the country [of Panama] after bullying Colombia to hand over what was then the province of Panama. Roosevelt acted at the behest of various banking groups, among them J. P. Morgan & Co., which was appointed as the country's official 'fiscal agent,' in charge of managing $10 million in aid that the US rushed down to the new nation." CW: Silverstein pretty much had the goods on the law firm Mossack Fonseca a couple of years before the Panama Papers came out.

James Carroll in the New Yorker: "Pope Francis's emphasis on mercy toward the divorced and remarried doesn't only mean that those people will more freely partake of Communion. It also means that the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage, however much it is still held up as an ideal, will not grip the moral imagination of the Church as it once did." -- CW

NewsCorpse on DailyKos: "Sesame Street made a historic addition to its cast of lovable characters ...an Afghan girl [who] will join the Muppets for its broadcast in the Afghanistan version of the show.... The news of Zari's debut has produced the all too predictable rash of bigotry that we've all come to expect from the conservative hate mongers who believe that all Muslims are terrorists."

Beyond the Beltway

David Warren of the AP: "A former FBI agent who later enlisted in the U.S. Air Force was identified Saturday as the man who killed his commander at an air base in San Antonio before turning the gun on himself."

Paul Bond of the Hollywood Reporter: Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC) called performer Bruce Springsteen a "bully" for cancelling a concert in Greensboro -- part of Walker's district -- in protest of a North Carolina law that protects bullies.

Way Beyond

Raphael Satter of the AP: "The attackers who struck Brussels on March 22 initially planned to launch a second assault on France, Belgium's Federal Prosecution Office said Sunday. But the perpetrators were 'surprised by the speed of the progress in the ongoing investigation' and decided to rush an attack on Brussels instead, the office said in a statement." -- CW ...

... Alissa Rubin of the New York Times: "The 'man in the hat' who accompanied the two suicide bombers who detonated their explosives at Brussels Airport on March 22, and who was seen in a surveillance video walking away from the airport, has been identified as Mohamed Abrini, the Belgian prosecutor's office said in a statement on Saturday. Mr. Abrini is also suspected of providing logistical help for the men who carried out the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris. He was detained on Friday in Brussels after a nearly five-month manhunt and was charged on Saturday with participation in the activities of a terrorist group and terrorist murder." -- CW ...

... Erik Kirschbaum of the Los Angeles Times: "A suspected terrorist arrested Friday in Belgium has confessed to being the mysterious 'man in the hat' believed to have participated in the Brussels attacks last month that killed 32 people, prosecutors said Saturday." -- CW

Bradley Klapper of the AP: "Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Saturday committed to pushing reforms after his picks for attorney general and interior minister won long-sought Cabinet confirmation, while U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry pleaded with the government's power-sharing leaders to bury their "factional divisions" for the good of the country." -- CW

Daniel Boffey of the Guardian's Observer: British Prime Minister David Cameron "took the unprecedented decision to release his personal tax records on Saturday, as growing anger over revelations in the Panama Papers threatened to derail his premiership. But the extraordinary move seems set to plunge David Cameron into further controversy, as it emerged that his mother transferred two separate payments of £100,000 to his accounts in 2011, allowing the family estate to avoid a potential £80,000 worth of inheritance tax." -- CW

Yonette Joseph of the New York Times: "The archbishop of Canterbury, who is the head of the Church of England, said on Friday that a DNA test had revealed that his biological father was not the whiskey salesman who had married his mother, but the man who had been the last private secretary for Sir Winston Churchill. In an unusually frank statement on his website, the Most Rev. Justin Welby said he had discovered the truth 'in the last month,' after taking the test." -- CW

     ... CW: If you're awfully fond of dear old Dad, you might want to think twice about getting one of those DNA tests.

Niraj Chokshi of the Washington Post: After their boat capsized, three men swam two miles to a tiny Pacific Island several hundred miles north of Papua New Guinea, from which they were rescued: "The crew aboard a Navy plane spotted the men waving life jackets, standing next to piles of palm leaves arranged to spell out four capital letters: H-E-L-P." The U.S. Coast Guard had coordinated an effort to find the men." CW: "Cast Away" would not have been a much shorter film if the Tom Hanks character had thought of that.

News Lede

New York Times: "Will Smith, a former defensive end for the New Orleans Saints who played on their Super Bowl championship team in 2009-10, was shot and killed in New Orleans late Saturday, the authorities said. Jeffrey Rouse, the Orleans Parish coroner, confirmed in a statement overnight that Smith had died of 'multiple gunshot wounds' after an exchange of words with another driver. The New Orleans Police Department said early Sunday that a suspect in the shooting, Cardell Hayes, 28, had been arrested and charged with second-degree murder."

The Commentariat -- April 9, 2016

Wyoming Democrats caucus, & Colorado Republicans hold their state convention today. ...

     ... CW Update: Oops! Guess Colorado Republican delegates met yesterday have been voting all week. Partial results linked under Presidential Race below.

Your Tax Dollars at Work: Official Voter Suppression Commission. Michael Wines of the New York Times: "The federal Election Assistance Commission was formed after the disputed 2000 election between George W. Bush and Al Gore and given an innocuous name and a seemingly inoffensive mission: to help state election officials make it easier to vote.... The election commission is in federal court this month, effectively accused of trying to suppress voter turnout in November's elections. The Justice Department, its nominal legal counsel, has declined to defend it. Its case instead is being pleaded by one of the nation's leading advocates of voting restrictions." -- CW

Ron Nixon of the New York Times: "Dozens of Transportation Security Administration employees in recent years have been reassigned, demoted, investigated or fired for reporting lapses or misconduct by senior managers, charges that were later upheld by whistle-blower protection agencies, records show.... The agency is troubled by internal problems.... Former and current T.S.A. employees said in interviews that they experienced a culture of fear and intimidation, where senior managers seemed more interested in targeting those who disclosed the agency's shortcomings rather than fixing problems." -- CW

Peter Hotez, in a New York Times op-ed: "If mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus reach the United States later this spring or summer, [Florida & Gulf Coast cities] are the major urban areas where the sickness will spread. If we don't intervene now, we could begin seeing newborns with microcephaly and stunted brain development on the obstetrics wards in one or more of these places." -- CW ...

... CW: Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans -- many of whom supposedly represent these Gulf Coast states -- refuse to fund R&D & other responses to the spread of the virus. These states' Republican leaders all have refused the Medicaid expansion under the ACA (The newly-elected Democratic governor of Louisiana has accepted it, but coverage is not yet in effect). While having health insurance obviously won't prevent mosquito bites, it would greatly increase the likelihood that pregnant women would get proper prenatal care & counseling on how to lower the risk of infection. ...

     ... CW: In what has to be the Comment of the Week, Victoria writes today that the Gulf states are "the exact areas where birth control and abortions are increasingly difficult to obtain. How will the evangelicals handle this disaster? Do chastity belts prevent mosquito bites?"

... more on the war on women - Amanda Marcotte of Salon: "The Missouri GOP wants a list of women who've had abortions in the state and is using the threat of jail to get it. While major anti-choice activists and politicians are rushing to microphones to disingenuously declare, contra Donald Trump, that they would never try to punish women for abortions, their true punitive and frankly creepy side is coming out in Missouri." -- LT

Seung Min Kim of Politico: "The GOP-led House of Representatives will be allotted 15 minutes of oral argument time to make its case against the Obama administration['s executive actions on immigration], according to a Friday order from the court. Overall, oral arguments will run 90 minutes, the order says." -- CW

Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times: "In the next battleground in the Justice Department's fight to unlock some of Apple's well-encrypted iPhones, the department on Friday pressed ahead with its efforts to get access to a locked phone linked to a methamphetamine ring in Brooklyn. Although the F.B.I. unlocked a phone last month, ending its prominent legal battle with Apple in the case involving the mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., the Justice Department on Friday told a federal judge in the Eastern District of New York that it still needs the technology giant's help to unlock the phone in the Brooklyn case." -- CW

The Party of Fear. Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "Vulnerable Republican incumbents are increasingly raising fears about Guantánamo Bay detainees, following a campaign strategy used by Scott Brown before his surprise victory in a Massachusetts special election for a Senate seat six years ago." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... CW: Never mind that we learned only yesterday that "Far more convicted terrorists are being held in federal prisons in the United States than in Guantanamo Bay." Reason seldom factors in to any Republican talking point.

Guns and Ammo. Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Four years after asserting executive privilege to block Congress from obtaining documents relating to a controversial federal gun trafficking investigation, President Barack Obama relented Friday, turning over to lawmakers thousands of pages of records that led to unusual House votes holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt in 2012." -- unwashed

** Jeffrey Toobin of the New Yorker: "The Supreme Court Extremism of Clarence Thomas and Chuck Grassley.... The crudeness of Grassley's attack on [Chief Justice] Roberts, from a senator who claims to want to avoid a politicization of the court, is astonishing.... Thomas's blindness to the realities of American life -- and concomitant obsession with his understanding of the Framers' intent -- reflects his bizarre jurisprudential views." -- safari

Jennifer Bendery of The Huffington Post: "It sucks to be Merrick Garland right now...It's worth noting there are 46 other Merrick Garlands. That is, 46 other judicial nominees are in the same boat...who aren't getting votes ... because GOP leaders don't want to confirm judges until 2017." -- unwashed

Monica Davey & Mitch Smith of the New York Times: "Federal prosecutors on Friday for the first time provided details of sexual abuse allegations against J. Dennis Hastert, the former speaker of the House, asserting that he molested at least four boys, as young as 14, when he worked as a high school wrestling coach decades ago.... In a court filing late Friday, making suggestions for a judge who will decide Mr. Hastert's sentence, the prosecutors described specific, graphic incidents that they say occurred when Mr. Hastert was a popular, championship-winning coach in a small Illinois town in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s. The 'known acts,' the prosecutors said, consisted of 'intentional touching of minors' groin area and genitals or oral sex with a minor.'" Story includes the prosecutor's filing document. -- CW

Presidential Race

Rob Krilly of The Telegraph: "Laura Bush, the former first lady, has hinted she would rather vote for Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump, saying she wants the next American president to be someone who cares about women in Afghanistan... she signalled she was among the growing band of establishment Republicans whose anyone-but-Trump stance extended to voting for Mrs Clinton in the general election." -- LT

Megan Carpentier & Laura Gambino of the Guardian: "Bernie Sanders returned to [Brooklyn] ... in a last-minute campaign rally..., in the middle of the street outside his childhood home off Kings Highway in Brooklyn to address supporters. Across the state, there was another homecoming of sorts for his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, who returned to western New York to once again ask the voters who helped launch her Senate career for their support." -- CW

BTW, Much Ado about Nothing. Both Bernie Sanders (here) & Hillary Clinton (here) have conceded that the other is qualified to be president. No kidding. CW: Still waiting for a Krugman apology.

Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone: "Bernie or no Bernie, 'Times' columnist Paul Krugman is wrong about the banks...The lessons of the crash era are that these megabanks have grown beyond the organic controls of capitalism. They were so big and so systemically important in '08 that the government could not let them go out of business.... This alone was an argument for breaking them up." -- LT

Gail Collins: "Have you noticed how Senator Sanders, former mayor of Burlington, Vt., is the glamour candidate while Clinton, former first lady, senator from New York and secretary of state, seems to follow an itinerary fit for a county commissioner? Welcome to the New York primary."

Philip Pullella & Alana Wise of Reuters: "... Bernie Sanders was invited to speak at an April 15 Vatican event by the Vatican, a senior papal official said on Friday, denying a report that Sanders had invited himself.... 'I deny that. It was not that way,' Monsignor Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo told Reuters in a telephone interview while he was traveling in New York. Sorondo, a close aide to Pope Francis, is chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, which is hosting the event.He said it was his idea to invite Sanders." Via Kevin Drum. -- CW

Ali Gharib of the Guardian: "New Yorkers got a chuckle on Thursday morning when Hillary Clinton rode the subway.... Clinton had a little bit of trouble swiping her MetroCard: it took five goes...." However, the bigger problem was that she broke the MTA's rules against campaigning on subways. "The incident is all the more galling because there are actual, regular New Yorkers ... who are arrested for violating the same rules that Clinton disregards with impunity." -- CW

Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "Former President Bill Clinton said Friday he regretted drowning out the chants of black protesters at a rally in Philadelphia the day before, when he issued an aggressive defense of his administration's impact on black families. His reaction thrust a debate about the 1990s into the center of his wife's presidential campaign, one that has focused heavily on issues of race and criminal justice."

Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "Senator Ted Cruz captured a majority of Colorado's delegates to the Republican National Convention on Friday, outmaneuvering Donald J. Trump, whose lack of an organized national campaign once again allowed Mr. Cruz to gain at his expense.... By Friday night, Mr. Cruz had taken 21 of the state's 37 national delegates. Mr. Trump and Gov. John Kasich of Ohio had none. Thirteen others will be decided on Saturday at the state convention." -- CW

Michael Cohen of the Boston Globe went to a Trump rally in Long Island: "There was an electricity and energy in the room that felt venomous, violent, terrifying -- like the political equivalent of parched kindling before a conflagration.... The more aggressive that Trump was in his comments, the more the crowd responded.... There's no poetry at Trump's events, no higher calling, no challenge other than to vote for Trump, no invocation of the 'better angels of our nature' -- it's just raw aggression, an animal, nationalistic spirit, us vs. them, zero sum game resentment politics." -- CW

...kind of like a frat party or hazing? Max Kutner of Newsweek: The Chalkening, a pro-Trump movement on campuses, ... "is likely a response to [college student populations being more liberal, diverse, and tolerant] especially for members of Greek life who are facing 'a crackdown on college campuses on fraternity culture' because some have said it promotes binge drinking and sexual assault." -- LT

Meet Trump's Mentor Roy Cohn. Michael Kruse in Politico Magazine: "That Roy Cohn..., the lurking legal hit man for red-baiting Sen. Joe McCarthy, whose reign of televised intimidation in the 1950s has become synonymous with demagoguery, fear-mongering and character assassination. In the formative years of Donald Trump's career..., Cohn was one of the most powerful influences and helpful contacts in Trump's life. Over a 13-year-period, ending shortly before Cohn's death in 1986, Cohn brought his say-anything, win-at-all-costs style to all of Trump's most notable legal and business deals."

David Graham of The Atlantic: "The breadth of Trump's controversies is truly yuge, ranging from allegations of mafia ties to unscrupulous business dealings, and from racial discrimination to alleged marital rape...This is a snapshot of some of the most interesting and largest of those scandals." --safari

...will he add bribery to the list? Philip Rucker of The Washington Post: "The swing voters of the GOP nominating contest, nearly 200 activists and elected leaders [are] beholden to nothing except their personal judgment... Campaign finance lawyers are divided over whether federal or state anti-bribery statutes would apply to delegates who are not elected officials -- and if so, what kinds of perks or inducements [like a weekend at Donald's] could be illegal." -- LT

Aaron Barlow of Salon: "Donald Trump has been a disaster for political journalists, but he has also been an incredible boon for those of us who teach journalism. Questions of ethics and practice, for instance, particularly in interview situations, are no longer simply academic."--safari

"New York Values." Katie Zezima of the Washington Post: "... with the delegate-rich New York primary looming, [Ted] Cruz must campaign in the Empire State -- a place known for its bare-knuckles approach to all things political, a propensity to hit back when slighted and residents who speak up when they disagree. "Take the F U train, Ted,' blared the cover of the New York Daily News Thursday, the day after Cruz was greeted by hecklers at a campaign stop in the Bronx. Cruz was swarmed by media as he walked into a Dominican-Chinese restaurant where he met with local and faith leaders. Two men were dragged out by police after they disrupted the gathering.... Despite the reception, Cruz refused to apologize for his 'New York values' criticism.... When asked by CNN if he regretted using the phrase, Cruz said, 'not remotely.'" -- CW

But Cruz Could Win the Big Prize. Steve M. "Hillary Clinton doesn't inspire much love; in that way she's like Gore and Kerry. She's not running on peace and prosperity. Her biggest advantage is the likely weakness of her opponent -- but Nixon, Reagan, and Poppy Bush have proved that you don't have to be loved to beat a Democrat." -- CW

Following up on Steve M.'s takedown (linked yesterday) of Time's fawning interview of Ted Cruz, Ed Kilgore patiently explains the obvious: "Ted Cruz is not an 'economic populist.'... It's hard to find a politician more inclined to get government off the backs of the very rich and the very powerful." -- CW ...

... Digby follows on, noting that the Time coverage is so Onion-esque that the Onion did indeed predict it. "... once you read the stories within, you'll have to conclude that the man whom virtually everyone with the misfortune of knowing him finds repulsive is terribly misunderstood. Where you might have thought the man was a doctrinaire rightwinger, steeped in religious fanaticism and radical free market extremism, you will find out that he's actually a good old boy, a salt of the earth populist." -- CW ...

... CW BTW: Digby describes Ted's portrait as "fetching." I find it standard-issue Cruz-creepy. If I were a crazed fundamentalist Christian who wanted to instill in my innocent children an abiding fear of the devil, I would show them photos of Ted.

Bill Maher discusses Republican electoral strategy: "Long lines are the new poll tax"--safari

Beyond the Beltway

Scott Bauer & Todd Richmond of the AP: "Wisconsin's right-to-work law, championed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker as he was mounting his run for president, was struck down Friday as violating the state constitution. Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel, also a Republican, promised to appeal the decision and said he was confident it would not stand." -- CW

     ... The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel story, by Patrick Marley & Jason Stein, is here. -- CW

Soumya Karlamangla of the Los Angeles Times: "Officials announced Friday that women in California can now drop by their neighborhood pharmacy and pick up birth control pills without a prescription from a doctor. It's not technically over-the-counter, but you can get them by talking to a pharmacist and filling out a questionnaire.... State legislators originally passed the law in 2013 but it was held up in regulatory discussions until Friday." -- CW

Mark Berman of the Washington Post: "The backlash against North Carolina's law banning anti-discrimination ordinances kept going unabated Friday, as Bruce Springsteen announced that he was canceling a weekend show in the state in solidarity with those protesting the bill." -- CW

...Brian Tashman of Right Wing Watch: "Rep. Louie Gohmert, R[nutcase]-Texas, defended North Carolina's new anti-LGBT law...Citing his own childhood, the congressman said that boys would be unable to resist the temptation to see girls while they are in the bathroom." -- unwashed

Arturo Garcia of Raw Story: "A new online campaign is targeting North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) for mockery concerning his state's new anti-trans legislation. The #PeeingForPat tag has already started circulating around Twitter, with various users posting pictures of urinals or toilets."--safari

Steve Reilly of USA Today: "A USA Today analysis ... found that both Nevada and Wyoming have become secretive havens much like Bermuda and Switzerland have long been. And at least 150 companies set up by Mossack Fonseca in those states have ties to major corruption scandals in Brazil and Argentina. The corporate records of 1,000-plus Nevada business entities linked to the Panamanian law firm reveal layers of secretive ownership, with few having humans' names behind them, and most tracing back to a tiny number of overseas addresses from Bangkok high rises to post offices on tiny island nations. Only 100 of the Nevada-born corporations have officers with addresses in this country...." -- CW

...Eric Ortiz of Truthdig: "No high-profile Americans have been implicated in the Panama Papers, but various sources are reporting a Clinton connection to the leaked documents....Sberbank (Savings Bank in Russian) engaged the Podesta Group to help its public image....Tony Podesta is a super fundraiser, or bundler, for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, and John Podesta is the chairman of her 2016 campaign." -- LT

Samantha Masunaga & Geoffrey Mohan of the Los Angeles Times: "SpaceX successfully landed its Falcon 9 rocket's reusable first-stage booster on a drone ship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean on Friday. It was the Hawthorne[, California,] company's fifth attempt at a sea landing and first successful one." -- CW

Thomas Gibbons-Neff of the Washington Post: "Robert James O'Neill, the former member of SEAL Team 6 who claimed to have shot and killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden..., was charged with DUI on Friday in his home town of Butte, Mont." -- CW

Amanda Terkel of The Huffington Post: "Florida Gov. Rick Scott's [Rwhackjob-FL] political action committee has put out a new ad that goes after Cara Jennings, the woman who confronted him at a Starbucks and called him an 'asshole.'" What a guy. -- unwashed

Way Beyond

strong>Souad Mekhennet, et al., of the Washington Post: "Belgian officials have arrested a key suspect from last year's terrorist attacks in Paris, a senior official said Friday, and investigators also explored possible links to the deadly bombings in Brussels last month. The suspect, Mohamed Abrini, was the subject of a massive manhunt since November's rampage in Paris...." -- CW

Kristen Hall-Geisler of Tech Crunch: "The interest in Tesla vehicles has done the electric car market a lot of good, according to [Nick] Sampson... head of the startup electric vehicle company Faraday Future...'It opens people's minds to the possibilities.'" -- unwashed

...Paresh Dave and Charles Fleming of the LA Times: "Electric car start-up Faraday Future Inc...[is] poised to receive millions of dollars in state tax breaks over the next five years if they can hit hiring and investment goals...[FF] would get a total of $12.7 million in credit toward corporate income taxes for meeting requirements set with the state, including adding almost 2,000 workers in Gardena and elsewhere in California by 2020." -- unwashed {Disclaimer: I have a minor role in the development of this new product. From my experience it's truly a multi-cultural, muli-national endeavor. However, if I write anything more I'll need to chop off my own fingers.}