An Experiment in Representative Democracy

During the past few weeks, I've been trying to think of a way of keeping Reality Chex going without having to do much, um, work. It wasn't until this morning that I hit on a possible solution that will take some cooperation among Reality Chex regulars but won't require an undying commitment (nor anything like the 8-12 hours a day I've spent on it during presidential election seasons).

So here's the idea, tho I'm very open to suggestions to modify the "plan." If somewhere between four and ten regular contributors would be willing to post a link or two to news & views in the main body of the daily Commentariat, let me know. You can contact me here. It isn't especially difficult, as those of you who've run your own blogs know. In fact, it's easier than creating links in the Comments section, as contributors do regularly. I'll provide instructions.

I'll try to set up a new page at about 5:00 pm ET every day, but these lucky "correspondents" would have the ability to do it, too, if I am busy installing reclaimed baseboards in the closet (today's project) or tiling a bathroom or two (next week's fun). The page, over the course of the day, would end up functioning in a fashion similar to the way it does today.

Meanwhile, we'll make sure the Comments are open.

This is a little bit of a riff on the much-despised New York Times comments caste system. I don't like it, but it wouldn't be too helpful to have that "Fuck you, asshole" guy mucking up the page, so I think it best to limit those with direct access to the main page.

Let me know what you think, & if you're a regular contributor who is willing to help run the show, please let me know via e-mail (linked above). Soon.

Marie

The Commentariat -- March 29, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Gary Robertson of the AP: "North Carolina's attorney general said Tuesday he won't defend in court a new state law preventing Charlotte and other local governments from approving protections for LGBT people, calling it discriminatory and a 'national embarrassment.' Democrat Roy Cooper made the announcement during a news conference a day after gay rights advocates sued to overturn the law approved last week and signed by Republican Gov. Pat McCrory."

Matthew Lee & Lolita Baldor of the AP: "The State Department and Pentagon ordered the families of U.S. diplomats and military personnel Tuesday to leave posts in southern Turkey due to 'increased threats from terrorist groups' in the country."

Lulu Ramadan of the Palm Beach Post: "Corey Lewandowski, Donald Trump campaign manager, was charged this morning with misdemeanor battery after allegations of forcefully grabbing a reporter at a Jupiter news conference, town police confirmed this morning. Following a March 8 conference at Trump National Golf Club, Michelle Fields, a 28-year-old reporter formerly with the online Breitbart News Network, said she was grabbed on the arm by Lewandowski, 41, after she asked Trump a question about affirmative action." CW Note: You have to love the fact that the reporter who broke the story is named Ramadan. ...

... Here's police video of Lewandowski manhandling Fields in an incident Lewandowski says never happened:

     ... Nick Gass of Politico: "Donald Trump issued his first tweets Tuesday after Florida authorities charged his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, with misdemeanor battery for allegedly forcefully grabbing Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields. 'Wow, Corey Lewandowski, my campaign manager and a very decent man, was just charged with assaulting a reporter. Look at tapes-nothing there!' Trump wrote. Surveillance footage from the venue at which the alleged incident took place, released Tuesday, appears to corroborate Fields' account that Lewandowski grabbed her as she sought to ask Trump a question following a March 8 news conference in Jupiter, Florida."

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "A case that seemed poised to deal a major blow to public unions ended in a 4-4 tie on Tuesday at the Supreme Court, effectively delivering a big victory to the unions. When the case was argued in January, the court's conservative majority seemed ready to say that forcing public workers to support unions they had declined to join violates the First Amendment. But the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February changed the balance of power in the case, which was brought by California public schoolteachers who chose not to join unions and objected to paying for the unions' collective bargaining activities on their behalf.... Relying on a 1977 Supreme Court precedent, the appeals court in the case upheld the requirement that the objecting teachers pay fees. Tuesday's announcement, saying only that 'the judgment is affirmed by an equally divided court,' affirmed that ruling and set no new precedent."

Claire Landsbaum of New York: "GOP Rips Hillary Clinton for Politicizing Hyperpolitical SCOTUS Fight."

I'll Only Debate You if You Promise to Lose, Ctd. Nick Gass: "The debate in the Democratic race has largely returned to where it was several months ago -- on the debates themselves. Hillary Clinton's campaign on Tuesday refused to budge from its refusal to participate in future debates until Bernie Sanders pledges not to launch any attacks on the former secretary of state, maintaining that the Vermont senator has not upheld the lofty ideals he set for his own campaign's rhetoric."

Nick Gass: "Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on Tuesday sharply criticized rhetoric about Muslims from both Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, slamming both Republican candidates for their 'counterproductive' and 'inflammatory' comments."

New York Times Editors: "In a recent spate of interviews, including with The Times, [Donald Trump] was unable or unwilling to clarify his disturbing views on ... critical national security issues, which sometimes shift from one minute to the next.... Mr. Trump is confronting most of these issues for the first time, and many of his thoughts are contradictory and shockingly ignorant.... Mostly, his vision of cooperation with allies depends largely on how much they would pay the United States for protection."

Nick Gass & Katie Glueck of Politico: "Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker endorsed Ted Cruz on Tuesday, becoming the latest lawmaker to support the Texas senator as he seeks to emerge as the consensus anti-Trump choice in the Republican primary. Walker said on Charlie Sykes' radio show on WTMJ in Milwaukee that he was 'proud' to back Cruz, casting his decision as one for Cruz and not against anyone else."

Ben Kamisar of the Hill: "Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is threatening to skip CNN's town hall interview Tuesday night over the network's treatment of him. 'Wow, @CNN has nothing but my opponents on their shows,' he wrote on Twitter. 'Really one-sided and unfair reporting. Maybe I shouldn't do their town-hall tonight!'"

Sarah Ferris of the Hill: "Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe on Tuesday said he was 'very proud' to veto a GOP-led bill that would have stripped Planned Parenthood of state funding. 'We're here today to smack down the latest attack on women's health care rights,' McAuliffe said at an event attended by Planned Parenthood patients and staff."

*****

Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post: "President Obama used a keynote speech at an annual journalism dinner to lament the often divisive and sometimes vulgar state of American politics and to call on reporters to work harder to hold politicians accountable.... 'What we're seeing right now does corrode our democracy and our society,' he said. 'When our elected officials and political campaigns become entirely untethered to reason and facts and analysis; when it doesn't matter what is true and what's not, that makes it all but impossible for us to make decisions on behalf of future generations'":

Katie Benner & Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times: "The Justice Department said on Monday that it had found a way to unlock an iPhone without help from Apple, allowing the agency to withdraw its legal effort to compel the tech company to assist in a mass-shooting investigation. The decision to drop the case -- which involved demanding Apple's help to open an iPhone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, a gunman in the December shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., that killed 14 people -- ends a legal standoff between the government and the world's most valuable public company. The case had become increasingly contentious as Apple refused to help authorities, inciting a debate about whether privacy or security were more important."

American "Justice," Ctd. Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department today announced that it is resuming a controversial practice that allows local police departments to funnel a large portion of assets seized from citizens into their own coffers under federal law.... Asset forfeiture is a contentious practice that lets police seize and keep cash and property from people who are never convicted -- and in many cases, never charged -- with wrongdoing. Recent reports have found that the use of the practice has exploded in recent years, prompting concern that, in some cases, police are motivated more by profit and less by justice.... Asset forfeiture is fast growing -- in 2014, for instance, federal authorities seized over $5 billion in assets. That's more than the amount of money lost in every single burglary that year." ...

    ... CW: This program really is a horrible abuse of power, one perpetrated against minorities more often than whites. Loretta Lynch should be ashamed of herself. Yo, Congress: instead of running hearings about against Planned Parenthood, medical researchers & stupid Hillary tricks, how about haulng Lynch up to the Hill & asking her to justify asset forfeiture. (Fat chance, of course, because cops love the program.)

Ari Melber of NBC News: "Two weeks into the nomination fight [of Merrick Garland for Supreme Court justice], 16 Republican senators now say they will meet with Garland -- over 25 percent of the GOP caucus -- according to a running count by NBC News.... At least three GOP senators also back a hearing for Garland's nomination -- moderates like Illinois' [Mark] Kirk and Maine's Susan Collins, plus Kansas' Senator Jerry Moran -- while most of their colleagues oppose both of those steps."

Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "The CIA took naked photographs of people it sent to its foreign partners for torture.... A former US official who had seen some of the photographs described them as 'very gruesome'. The naked imagery of CIA captives raises new questions about the seeming willingness of the US to use what one medical and human rights expert called 'sexual humiliation' in its post-9/11 captivity of terrorism suspects.... In some of the photos, which remain classified, CIA captives are blindfolded, bound and show visible bruises."

Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Alexandra Stevenson & Matthew Goldstein of the New York Times: "A former executive with a large private equity firm has been arrested and charged with securities fraud, federal prosecutors said on Monday. Andrew Caspersen, a Harvard Law School graduate and a partner at the Park Hill Group, an advisory firm that until last fall had been a part of the Blackstone Group's advisory business, has been accused of seeking to defraud a number of institutional investors of $95 million through fake private equity investments. One investor duped by Mr. Caspersen was a charitable foundation affiliated with an unidentified New York hedge fund that sank nearly $25 million in the scheme."

Peter Hermann, et al., of the Washington Post: "A man with a gun was shot by police Monday afternoon at the Capitol Visitor Center at the U.S. Capitol Complex.... The report of gunfire in a city on heightened alert because of terrorist attacks in Europe sent dozens of emergency vehicles to the Capitol building and forced staff and visitors into lockdown. Road barricades went up, and police officers with automatic rifles were stationed on street corners.... U.S. Capitol Police Chief Matthew R. Verderosa said the gunman was caught as he went through the screening process. The man 'drew what appeared to be a weapon and pointed it at officers,' the chief said."

Krugman has more on trade deficits in a blogpost. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

If Trump wins, it might be like the 'Hunger Games,' and kids might have to fight each other for the eggs. -- An 11-year-old boy, at Monday's White House Easter egg roll * ...

... Petula Dvorak of the Washington Post: The White House Easter egg roll became a tradition after 1878, when President Rutheford B. Hayes defied Congress & "invited the District's children to play on his lawn.... It became a tradition for decades after that, with brief suspensions during wars or tough times. And for all those years, it was [a] notoriously white event. In 1953, first lady Mamie Eisenhower saw black children peering in from outside the White House gates and insisted that black families be included in events in the following years. In 2006, a coalition of gay and lesbian families, sick of hiding in plain sight, joined to make their presence known at one of America's most family-friendly events and to show the George W. Bush administration that they are no different from other American families."

     * CW: OR, that kid could go to Orange, Connecticut, where adults are already practicing Easter candy Trumpism.

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Okay, here's a stupid piece of "analysis" coming out of Glenn Greenwald's lefty Intercept. Jim Lewis: Donald Trump "owes his celebrity, his money, his arrogance, and his skill at drawing attention to those coastal cultural gatekeepers -- presumably mostly liberal -- who first elevated him out of general obscurity, making him famous and rewarding him (and, not at all incidentally, themselves) for his idiocies." ...

... Steve M. takes apart Lewis's argument.

Presidential Race

Molly Beck of the Wisconsin State Journal: "Hillary Clinton on Monday urged a small crowd at UW-Madison to consider future rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court when casting a ballot in Tuesday's presidential primary and in November's general election. Clinton ... said to a group of invited guests at the Gordon Dining and Event Center that the next president is likely to appoint more than one justice to the nation's highest court and warned of the impact of a Republican governor making those choices." ...

     ... CW: Beck must mean "Republican president," not "Republican governor." Likely she suffers from an advanced case of Walker Syndrome & can't get Scottie out of her head. As P.D. Pepe wrote in yesterday's thread, Hillary must be channeling contributor Kate M., a Wisconsin native, who has been reminding us since the Days of Mitt to "Remember the Supremes!" ...

... Here's a clip:

... Seung Min Kim of Politico: "Sen. Chuck Grassley [R-Iowa] preemptively swung back at Hillary Clinton ahead of her Monday speech in which she's expected to hammer the Judiciary Committee chairman for his role in blocking the confirmation of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. 'With all the troubles she's getting on email, and the FBI's going to question her, I would imagine she'd want to change the tone of her campaign,; Grassley (R-Iowa) told Politico in an interview.... He was apparently referring to a Los Angeles Times story Monday that indicated an FBI investigation of the private email server she used as secretary of state is entering a final phase that will include interviews with her advisers." ...

... Josh Gerstein of Politico: "The FBI does not have close to 150 agents working the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's email server, a source familiar with the matter told Politico Monday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, commented after the Washington Post reported that FBI Director James Comey told an unnamed member of Congress that 147 agents were working the Clinton investigation. Asked about the Post report, the source said: 'That number is greatly exaggerated.'"

Hillary Camp: If Bernie wants more debates, he'll have to be nicer.

OBummer. Jackbooted Feds Quash Freeedom. Niraj Chokshi of the Washington Post: "The Secret Service on Monday quashed the hopes of gun rights advocates who were pushing for the open carry of firearms to be allowed at this summer's Republican National Convention in Cleveland. An online petition in support of the effort rapidly gained signatures and attention in the past week, applying pressure to pro-gun Republican officials and presidential contenders to& walk the walk when it comes to guns.... Begun anonymously a week ago, the petition had collected more than 44,000 signatures as of early Monday afternoon, putting it well on its way to a goal of 50,000. Republican presidential contenders Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and John Kasich were each asked about the petition, which none directly backed." CW: Uh, that should be, "the candidates responded in classical Weasel":

You know what a gun-free zone is to sickos? That's bait! -- Donald Trump, January 2016

I'm not going to comment to you when I haven't seen ... the fine print. -- Donald Trump, March 27, 2016

If you're a lunatic, ain't nothing better than having a bunch of targets you know that are going to be unarmed. -- Ted Cruz, December 2015

I haven't reviewed the particular petition. [Something, something,] Secret Service. -- Ted Cruz, March 28, 2016

... Francis Wilkinson of Bloomberg suggests the petition, which was created anonymously, is a stunt to highlight the hypocrisy of Republican politicians. "The rhetoric sounds like ... a too-predictable parody on the 'Daily Show.'... After all, if guns everywhere make us safer, how can a gun-free political convention possibly be a good thing? The party is no doubt counting on the U.S. Secret Service to take the blame for prohibiting guns at the convention. So the gathering of embittered factions, including the Trumpistas who are poised to 'riot' in the event their leader is denied, will almost surely attend the convention in their capacity as sitting ducks. For Republican leaders, that's a far better outcome than actually living up to their own gun-rights rhetoric."

The Independent Order of Trumps was an organization of New Jersey Civil War soldiers who "championed boozing and whoring, cursing and card-playing," David Brooks tells us in a column in which he attempts, successfully I think, to define Donald Trump's brand of misogyny: "... Trump represents the spread of something brutal. He takes economic anxiety and turns it into sexual hostility. He effectively tells men: You may be struggling, but at least you're better than women, Mexicans and Muslims."

John Harwood of the New York Times on how Trump "happened to" the Republican party: "Today, voters across the United States take their influence over presidential nominations for granted. As recently as 1968, however, just 15 states held primaries in which the rank-and-file selected convention delegates.... By 1980, 35 states were holding presidential primaries. Now, nearly every state holds either a primary or a delegate-selection caucus. As a result, precinct captains in Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina have more influence over Republican and Democratic nominations than national party leaders. It opens the door to candidates who can attract grass-roots followings even as they repel party leaders." ...

     ... CW: I think Harwood is a bit off-base about the Democratic party. While he concedes the same thing could happen to Democrats, he notes that the party is not nearly as homogeneous as the GOP, making the likelihood of outsider insurgency much lower. He's right, but he glides over the fact that in 2008, Barack Obama was that outsider candidate. Although there were a few top Democrats who favored Obama early on -- Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.) encouraged him to run -- the overwhelming majority of party poobahs initially lined up behind Hillary Clinton. Only as Obama began winning primaries or coming in a close second did he begin picking off party leaders/superdelegates. It was a BFD when leaders like John Lewis & Bill Richardson declared for Obama. (Lewis, notably, switched from Clinton to Obama when his Congressional district voted heavily for Obama.)

Aaron Rupar of Think Progress: "Neck-and-neck in the polls with Ted Cruz eight days before Republicans vote in the ... Wisconsin presidential primary, front-runner Donald Trump decided to go through the gauntlet of the Badger State's Trump-unfriendly conservative talk radio shows on Monday in hopes of winning some new supporters." The interviews did not go according to plan. ...

... Jesse Byrnes of the Hill: "Donald Trump on Monday defended his past controversial remarks on women, saying they date from his time as a celebrity entertainer. Radio host Charlie Sykes challenged the Republican presidential front-runner during an interview on WTMJ in Milwaukee, asking whether the rules are different for celebrities when it comes to insulting women. ;The rules aren't different, but certainly I never thought I would run for office,' Trump responded before the host finished asking the question."

Margaret Hartmann explains Trump's threatened suit of, well, somebody in Louisiana: "Donald Trump has been facing many unfair challenges in his quest for the GOP presidential nomination, from Establishment plots to derail his candidacy to shadowy forces that set the delegate requirement at the 'arbitrary number' of 1,237 (also known as math). Now the front-runner has vowed to fight back, after being cruelly robbed of ten delegates thanks to Louisiana's primary rules.... Of course, a winner like Trump has no use for that kind of logic. Everyone knows America's primary process isn't great, and threatening frivolous lawsuits is Trump's preferred method of fixing things." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Susan Hasler, a former CIA counterterrorism analyst, in a CNN opinion piece: Donald Trump & Ted Cruz don't know what they're talking about & their incendiary talk is increasing the likelihood of terrorist attacks: "Politicians such as Donald Trump and Ted Cruz harness the attacks to advance their own ambitions. They play to the psychological need to hit back, the need to do something quick and spectacular. Go bomb the crap out of someone -- a tack which also has the advantage of using up a lot of materiel and enriching the defense contractors who contribute so heavily to political campaigns. (Trump tweeted Sunday afternoon about the Lahore attack, which he called 'another radical Islamic attack' and said, 'I alone can solve.')"

Gene Robinson: "The 'media created Trump' storyline ignores the fact that the 'mainstream' media are about as popular among the Republican base as the Zika virus. And the one exception, Fox News, has been tougher on Trump than other outlets, not more accommodating.... Blaming ourselves for Trump's rise is just another way to ignore the voters who have made him the favorite for the GOP nomination." ...

... Charles Pierce makes mincemeat of Nicholas Kristof. I couldn't agree more. I realize Kristof was off in Afghanistan or somewhere when several decades ago I was reading -- in MSM, BTW, not in the Daily Worker -- about the grotesque income disparity that was growing in the U.S. Now to pretend, as Kristof does, that no one in the MSM was fact-checking Trump or challenging his trumped-up Trumpisms is a de facto admission that one is not even reading the NYT editorial pages, much less most of the other mainstream outlets. (Also linked yesterday.)

Reagan Democrats Are Dead, Literally & Figuratively. Peter Beinart of the Atlantic: "The electoral fantasy that Trump can win the presidency by luring vast numbers of blue-collar whites who wouldn't otherwise vote Republican is akin to the ideological fantasy that he can keep America prosperous and safe by banning Muslim immigration and getting Mexico to pay for a wall on the U.S. southern border. It's a fantasy that he can roll back history to a time when whites enjoyed more control, both over nonwhites inside the United States and over those who wish to enter from outside. This throwback fantasy is appealing inside a Republican Party where white voters remain unquestionably dominant.... And, unfortunately for Donald Trump, it's in today's America -- not Ronald Reagan's -- that he must compete this fall." ...

... Ron Brownstein, in the Atlantic, on Donald Trump's possible path to victory in November: it runs through the Rust Belt. ...

... Greg Sargent: "The key takeaway from Brownstein’s analysis: It's not impossible, but a lot has to go right for Trump in order to make it happen, rendering it highly improbable." CW: I'd like to remind Sargent that early on, I (tho perhaps not he) thought it was impossible for Republicans to retake control of the House in 2010.

CW: I missed this, but luckily P.D. Pepe didnt. Erin O'Neill of NJ.com (March 24): "A Philadelphia brewery plans to protest the leading Republican presidential candidate with a new beer series dubbed 'Friends Don't Let Friends Vote Drumpf.' The line of anti-Donald Trump beverages from Dock Street Brewery will start with the release of the 'Short-Fingered Stout,' a reference to the size of the billionaire businessman's hands (a topic that took center stage at a recent GOP debate in Detroit). The brewery ... describes the first beer in its series as 'a bitter and delusional stout with an airy, light-colored head atop a so-so body.'"

A Note to Suckers from Paul Waldman: Ted Cruz is not the rebel he claims to be. "The truth is that almost all of the policies Ted Cruz would pursue are exactly those that would have been pursued by Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Scott Walker, or any of the other Republicans who ran for president. Tax cuts for the wealthy? Oh yeah. Fewer regulations for corporations? Right on. No action on climate change? Yes, sir. Boost military spending? You know it. Right-wing judges? You betcha. Continue the assault on collective bargaining? No doubt.... The arguments between the establishment and the rebels like Cruz were always about tactics, not ideology."

Jack Holmes of Esquire: Secretary of John Kerry says leaders of other countries are "shocked" by the American "circus of campaigning" wherein certain unnamed presidential candidates are talking "about banning Muslim immigrants..., surveilling Muslim neighborhoods and also water-boarding." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Jonathan Swan of the Hill: "The leader of the main super-PAC supporting Ben Carson has declared the group 'dormant' after questions were raised about its continued fundraising off of Carson's name. 'The 2016 Committee is, effective Friday, dormant,' the super-PAC's head, John Philip Sousa IV, told The Hill on Monday.... Prominent conservatives denounced the move, calling it a 'scam PAC' run by 'grifters.' Carson decried the fundraising in a Facebook post without mentioning the super-PAC by name."

... I do not believe that it is appropriate at this time to be using any notoriety that I have gained to try to get people to donate to a political effort on my behalf. I'm not seeking a vice presidential slot or any cabinet post. My interest is in bettering our country for generations to come. -- Ben Carson, in a Facebook post

Yes, you have gained notoriety, Ole Doc, but assuming you didn't intend to admit it, I'd suggest you get a dictionary & find out what "notoriety" means. -- Constant Weader

Congressional Race

No Name v. Ryan. S. A. Miller of the Washington Times: "A wealthy businessman with tea party ties confirmed Sunday that he is mounting a primary challenge to House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, saying that after donating to the Wisconsin Republican's past campaigns he feels 'betrayed' by the speaker on trade deals and immigration. The businessman, who is not yet revealing his identity, promised that his run will 'shake up the establishment in a profound way,' according to a political consultant close to the prospective candidate."

Beyond the Beltway

Anglo Republican Ladies Surprised to Learn Hispanics Vote. Fernanda Santos of the New York Times: "A protester was led off in handcuffs from the visitors' gallery of the Arizona Legislature on Monday amid a fractious debate over Primary Day last week, when a drastic cutback in polling locations left tens of thousands of Arizonans unable to vote, forced to cast provisional ballots or made to wait in long lines for hours in the high heat. As the anger bubbled over within a packed State Capitol, a sheepish election official blamed the chaos on poor planning and a misguided attempt to save money by closing poll locations. 'I apologize profusely -- I can't go back and undo it,' said Helen Purcell [R]. the Maricopa County recorder, during a hearing of the Arizona House Elections Committee on Monday.... Michelle Reagan [R], the Arizona secretary of state ... told reporters before the hearing that she had known about the [70 percent] cutback in polling places [in poor neighborhoods], but had not wanted to 'second-guess' the county's decision...."

John Myers & Liam Dillon of the Los Angeles Times: "In a move catapulting California into uncharted national territory, Gov. Jerry Brown announced Monday a six-year plan to boost the statewide minimum wage to $15 an hour, promising that millions of low-wage workers would receive the help they desperately need. 'It's a matter of economic justice. It makes sense,' Brown said at a news conference at the state Capitol, surrounded by Democratic leaders of the Legislature and those from some of the state's most prominent labor unions."

Laura Nahmias of Politico: New York City "Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday he is instituting a ban on 'non-essential travel' by New York City employees to the state of North Carolina following the passage of a law there that overturns anti-discrimination protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. De Blasio said he would also order a similar ban on non-essential travel to Georgia if the state's Legislature votes to override a veto by Gov. Nathan Deal of a bill seen by some as allowing discrimination against gay and lesbian people in Georgia."

Monica Davey of the New York Times: "Chicago has long been troubled by violence, but homicides and shootings have risen sharply this year.... As of Friday, 131 people had been killed here in the first months of 2016, an 84 percent rise in homicides from the same period in 2015.... The city is at a pivotal moment for law enforcement, mired in a crisis over police conduct.... The Justice Department is scrutinizing the patterns and practices of the city's police force; the mayor on Monday named an interim police superintendent to replace the department's fired leader; and voters have rejected Cook County's top prosecutor, defeating her in a primary on March 15."

Way Beyond

How Do You Say "Keystone Kops" in Flemish? Andrew Higgins & Aurelien Breeden of the New York Times: "The Belgian authorities on Monday conceded another enormous blunder in their investigation into the attacks last week on Brussels. They freed a man they had charged with terrorism and murder, acknowledging that he had been mistakenly identified as a bomber in a dark hat and white coat in an airport surveillance photo. The man, who was arrested on Thursday and charged on Friday, was released after three days in custody, during which some officials publicly vilified him as a terrorist. On Monday, the police said that the real attacker remained at large and they issued a new plea to the public to help identify one of the men who blew up a departures area at Brussels Airport." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

News Ledes

New York Times: "James Noble, the actor best known for his role as the absent-minded governor on the hit 1980s sitcom 'Benson,' died on Monday at Norwalk Hospital in Connecticut. He was 94."

New York Times: "Lester C. Thurow, a prominent and provocative economist who earned a dedicated following through his long writing and speaking career, and who was known for his prescient warnings about the growing income gap between rich and poor Americans, died on Friday in Westport, Mass. He was 77."

New York Times: "Patty Duke, an Oscar-winning actress renowned at midcentury as a child star of stage, film and television, who, amid public struggles with bipolar disorder, went on to cultivate a respected screen career in adulthood, died on Tuesday at a hospital near her home in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. She was 69."

New York Times: "A man claiming to be wearing an explosive vest hijacked an EgyptAir plane on Tuesday, forcing it to land in Larnaca, on the southern coast of Cyprus, before he was arrested, according to the Cypriot government."

The Commentariat -- March 28, 2016

Afternoon Update:

How Do You Say "Keystone Kops" in Flemish? Andrew Higgins & Aurelien Breeden of the New York Times: "The Belgian authorities on Monday conceded another enormous blunder in their investigation into the attacks last week on Brussels. They freed a man they had charged with terrorism and murder, acknowledging that he had been mistakenly identified as a bomber in a dark hat and white coat in an airport surveillance photo. The man, who was arrested on Thursday and charged on Friday, was released after three days in custody, during which some officials publicly vilified him as a terrorist. On Monday, the police said that the real attacker remained at large and they issued a new plea to the public to help identify one of the men who blew up a departures area at Brussels Airport."

Margaret Hartmann explains Trump's threatened to sue, well, somebody in Louisiana: "Donald Trump has been facing many unfair challenges in his quest for the GOP presidential nomination, from Establishment plots to derail his candidacy to shadowy forces that set the delegate requirement at the 'arbitrary number' of 1,237 (also known as math). Now the front-runner has vowed to fight back, after being cruelly robbed of ten delegates thanks to Louisiana's primary rules.... Of course, a winner like Trump has no use for that kind of logic. Everyone knows America's primary process isn't great, and threatening frivolous lawsuits is Trump's preferred method of fixing things."

Charles Pierce makes mincemeat of Nicholas Kristof. I couldn't agree more. I realize Kristof was off in Afghanistan or somewhere when several decades ago I was reading -- in MSM, BTW, not in the Daily Worker -- about the grotesque income disparity that was growing in the U.S. Now to pretend, as Kristof does, that no one in the MSM was fact-checking Trump or challenging his trumped-up Trumpisms is a de facto admission that one is not even reading the NYT editorial pages, much less most of the other mainstream outlets.

Jack Holmes of Esquire: Secretary of John Kerry says leaders of other countries are "shocked" by the American "circus of campaigning" wherein certain unnamed presidential candidates are talking "about banning Muslim immigrants..., surveilling Muslim neighborhoods and also water-boarding."k

Krugman has more on trade deficits in a blogpost.

*****

CW: If, like me, you are a bit hazy on the fundamentals of international trade, Irwin & Krugman are mighty helpful. I think I'd start with Irwin (I did, only because the Times published it earlier), because he's willing to write in terms that even Trump could understand -- if Trump ever heeded the advice of anyone other than himself. But, as he says, he doesn't.

** "Cutting the Trade Deficit Won't Make America Great Again." Neil Irwin of the New York Times explains macroeconomics to Donald (& Bernie): "Trade deficits are not inherently good or bad; they can be either, depending on circumstances. The trade deficit is not a scorecard.... In fact, trying to eliminate the trade deficit could mean giving up some of the key levers of power that allow the United States to get its way in international politics.... The choice is stark: A country running a trade surplus must either let its currency rise or let money flow back to its trading partners.... Money flowing into a country [-- the country with the trade deficit --] is usually considered a good thing.... Part of what makes the United States powerful is the great importance of the dollar to global finance. And part of the price the United States pays for that status is a stronger currency and higher trade deficits than would be the case otherwise." ...

... CW: In fairness to Bernie, I think he's more interested in what's in the trade agreements & how the deals will affect American workers, not in the size of the trade deficits they may maintain or increase. As Krugman explained a while back, modern "trade agreements" are mostly about intellectual property rights & international dispute settlements. ...

... Paul Krugman: "... the Democratic nominee won't have to engage in saber-rattling over trade. She ... will, rightly, express skepticism about future trade deals, but she will be able to address the problems of working families without engaging in irresponsible trash talk about the world trade system. The Republican nominee won't.... If you're generally a supporter of open world markets -- which you should be, mainly because market access is so important to poor countries -- you need to know that whatever they may say, politicians who espouse rigid free-market ideology are not on your side." ...

     ... Jack Mahoney has an excellent comment on Krugman's column, but I don't know how to isolate it, so you'll have to hunt it down.

... CW: All that aside, the most jarring thing for me in Krugman's piece is his lede: "There's a lot of things about the 2016 election that nobody saw coming...." There is? I would have said "there are," even though I acknowledge "a lot" is singular as a stand-alone term. So I went to grammarly, where I got an answer that made me feel better (link fixed).

"Interesting Times." Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times: "As the Republican Party collapses on itself, conservative leaders struggling to explain Mr. Trump's appeal have largely seized on his unique qualities as a candidate.... But the story is also one of a party elite that abandoned its most faithful voters, blue-collar white Americans, who faced economic pain and uncertainty over the past decade as the party's donors, lawmakers and lobbyists prospered.... While wages declined and workers grew anxious about retirement, Republicans offered an economic program still centered on tax cuts for the affluent and the curtailing of popular entitlements [CW: Grrrr!] like Medicare and Social Security." CW: Quite a good autopsy of the Republican party, even though Confessore doesn't explain why Trump's positions on immigration & trade are, among other things, stoopid. (See also Nate Cohn's post, linked below.)

... CW: To me, the most challenging job for Democrats is to explain why those policies are stoopid. I don't think the presidential candidates, much less most down-ballot candidates, are up to it. For one thing, it can't be done in sound bytes. When they try, as Clinton did in Ohio, they bungle it. This is the quote that stuck: "We're going to put a lot of coal companies and coal miners out of business." Her overall message was excellent. As Tim McDonnell of Mother Jones wrote, "That comment was immediately preceded by a promise to invest in the clean-energy economy in those places, and immediately followed by a pledge to 'make it clear that we don't want to forget those people.'" Besides, those coal miners would be much better off making solar panels in a nice, clean, well-lit factory than working underground in unsafe mines. ...

... Greg Sargent: "There is a lot of talk about how Ryan and Trump now represent warring opposites inside the GOP, and that's true. But if anything, what this polarity really illustrates is the paralysis of GOP elites in the face of Trumpism's appeal. Not even clever Luntzian messaging may be able to bail them out this time. Trump is peddling a scam, but at least it's a new scam."

E. J. Dionne: "In November, one of the most contentious campaigns in our history could end in a catastrophe for our democracy. A major culprit would be the U.S. Supreme Court, and specifically the conservative majority that gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013.... Before the Supreme Court undermined Voting Rights Act enforcement, radical changes in voting practices such as Maricopa's drastic cut in the number of polling places [in heavily minority/Democratic-leaning areas only] would have been required to be cleared with the Justice Department.... Arizona has shown us what could happen. We have seven months to prevent what really could be an electoral cataclysm." Thanks, Supremes!

Nick Gass of Politico: Fidel "Castro ripped into [President Obama] ... in El Granma, the official state newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party, bringing up Obama's relative youth, the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and the role of both countries in ending the apartheid in South Africa and elsewhere...." When he was in Cuba, Obama did not meet with Fidel.

Presidential Race

Del Wilber of the Los Angeles Times: "Federal prosecutors investigating the possible mishandling of classified materials on Hillary Clinton's private email server have begun the process of setting up formal interviews with some of her longtime and closest aides, according to two people familiar with the probe, an indication that the inquiry is moving into its final phases. Those interviews and the final review of the case, however, could still take many weeks, all but guaranteeing that the investigation will continue to dog Clinton's presidential campaign through most, if not all, of the remaining presidential primaries." ...

I Want My Blackberry!... Hubris of the Luddite. Robert O'Harrow of the Washington Post: "Hillary Clinton's email problems began in her first days as secretary of state. She insisted on using her personal BlackBerry for all her email communications, but she wasn't allowed to take the device into her seventh-floor suite of offices, a secure space known as Mahogany Row.... From the earliest days, Clinton aides and senior officials focused intently on accommodating the secretary's desire to use her private email account.... Throughout, they paid insufficient attention to laws and regulations governing the handling of classified material and the preservation of government records, interviews and documents show. They also neglected repeated warnings about the security of the BlackBerry while Clinton and her closest aides took obvious security risks in using the basement server [in the Clinton home in Chappaqua, N.Y]." ...

... CW: There are reasons for governmental rules & protocols. While sometimes those reasons are questionable or have become outdated, in this case they appear to have been well-justified. Clinton used her position as top dog to break those rules, & it has come back to haunt her in a way that could devastate the country if she loses the general election to Donald Trump because of her obstinacy. grandeur & unwillingness to adapt to the requirements of her job. Yesterday, I mentioned at a dinner party that Hillary had shortcomings, & the first thing one Democrat said was, "Yeah, the emails." Be assured she would pull similar dumb moves when everybody was calling her "Madame President." (Needless to say, President Trump would be many times worse than she in this regard.)

Patrick Healy of the New York Times: "Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont challenged Hillary Clinton on Sunday to a debate in New York before the state's primary on April 19 and expressed concern that Mrs. Clinton might not debate him now that she is far ahead in the race to win the Democratic nomination." ...

... Yamiche Alcindor of the New York Times on covering Bernie: "Unlike our colleagues, especially those who cover Hillary Clinton, we in the Sanders press corps rarely lack access to the candidate."

I'll sue your ass if you're mean to me!Wilborn Nobles of the New Orleans Times-Picayune: "Donald Trump threatened on Sunday (March 27) to file a lawsuit over the number of convention delegates he's being awarded in Louisiana following the state's presidential primary. In a tweet, he said he won the state but will 'get less delegates than Cruz-Lawsuit coming.' The Wall Street Journal, however, reported that Cruz might ultimately get 'as many as 10 more delegates' from Louisiana than Trump.... [Trump garnered the most votes in Louisiana's Republican presidential primary ... with 41.4 percent of the vote, beating Sen. Ted Cruz, who received 37.8 percent.... While they each earned 18 delegates on election night, the five delegates previously awarded to Marco Rubio are now up for grabs -- and the Wall Street Journal said they're expected to back Cruz. In addition, the state has five other delegates who are free to back whichever candidate they want, and are also more likely to support Cruz." ...

     ... @danpfeiffer replies: "He should sue his own campaign for not knowing some of the basics of delegate rules" Via Politico. CW: Dan Pfeiffer was President Obama's chief communications guy.

Nicki Rossoll & Jessica Harper of ABC News: "Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump blamed rival Ted Cruz for starting a spat leading up to a report in the National Enquirer claiming 'political operatives' are looking into rumors that the Texas senator had multiple marital infidelities.... 'I had nothing to do with it. The campaign had absolutely nothing to do with it,' Trump told ABC's Jonathan Karl on 'This Week' Sunday.... In an appearance on Fox News, Cruz said he doesn't believe that Trump had no involvement in the story's publication.... The National Enquirer allegations have not been confirmed by ABC News."

Amy Davidson of the New Yorker: "There are clear stylistic differences between Trump, who tends to call anyone who disagrees with him stupid, weak, or disgusting, and Cruz, who, with a pitying smile, questions dissenters' motives, decency, and patriotism.... The party that talks loudest about American exceptionalism has given us a cast of characters that would be perfectly unexceptional in any backwater oligarchy. What the G.O.P. offers is a choice between two kinds of demagogues: one who insinuates and one who shouts."

Nobody Likes Him, Everybody Hates Him, Guess They'll Endorse Him if They Must. Jonathan Martin & Matt Flegenheimer of the New York Times: "As [Ted] Cruz seeks to unite the disparate factions of the Republican Party that are bonded only by their dead-set opposition to Donald J. Trump, a high-wire act is required: welcoming the top ranks of the same establishment he has spent years excoriating while not abandoning the hard-line conservatives who like him in part because of his attacks on party leaders."

Nate Cohn of the New York Times: "... this year, blue-state Republicans have abandoned the establishment for Donald J. Trump. So far, Mr. Trump has won every non-caucus contest in a state carried by Barack Obama in 2012, with the exception of John Kasich's home state, Ohio.... Mr. Trump's blue-state appeal is a little hard to explain. It's well established that he fares best among less educated voters. Yet his strongest performance ... [was] in Massachusetts, a famously liberal state, where he won 49 percent of Republican voters. His appeal in historically Democratic areas is a reflection of strength among new Republicans -- whether they be white Southerners or white Roman Catholics and working-class voters in the North.... There is evidence both anecdotal and statistical that racism was another factor in the shift of some of these voters to the Republican Party." ...

... CW: Is this a fair statement? Ninety-nine & 44/100ths percent of people who vote for Donald Trump are  pure racists.

Marco's Secret Slush Fund. Shane Goldmacher of Politico: "Marco Rubio's campaign is dead. His secret-money legacy lives on. No presidential candidate fighting for their party's nomination has ever benefited from as much undisclosed cash, and watchdogs worry the pro-Rubio group's unchecked activity serves as a dangerous precedent that will soon become common practice. 'It is now the model for a how a candidate can inject unlimited, secret, corrupting money into their campaigns to benefit their election,' said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a campaign watchdog group. 'That is precisely the kind of model that we do not need in America.'"CW: Thanks, Supremes!

Driftglass on the No-Labels cult of both-siderism. Wait till you get to the part that inspired today's rant. CW: And a reminder of why Al Gore lost the presidential race, one which has nothing to do with Ralph Nader. No, one cannot blame Nader for Joe Lieberman; Gore did that all by himself.

Beyond the Beltway

WOW! Greg Bluestein of the Atlantia Journal-Constitution: "Gov. Nathan Deal on Monday vetoed the 'religious liberty' bill that triggered a wave of criticism from gay rights groups and business leaders and presented him with one of the most consequential challenges he's faced since his election to Georgia's top office. In a press conference at the state Capitol, Deal said House Bill 757 doesn't reflect Georgia's welcoming image as a state full of 'warm, friendly and loving people' -- and warned critics that he doesn't respond well to threats of payback for rejecting the measure.... A steady stream of corporate titans ... urged him to veto the bill -- and threatened to pull investments from Georgia if it became law."

Christians Gone Wild. David Edwards of the Raw Story: "An Easter egg hunt hosted by Pez [in Orange, Connecticut,] turned into a shoving match on Saturday when greedy parents 'rushed the field' and allegedly left some children hurt.... General Manager Shawn Peterson insisted that Pez staff tried to enforce the starting times, but said that the parents were 'kind of like locusts.'" CW: Luckily, the Secret Service will be around for today's Easter egg roll at the White House.

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." -- Matthew 19:13, New International Version

Jesus said, "Let the little children fend for themselves, and stay out of our way or we shall deck them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these, but the earth belongs to the strongest among us." -- Matthew 19:13, New Connecticut Version

Way Beyond

Salman Masood of the New York Times: "A powerful blast ripped through a public park in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Sunday evening, killing at least 69 people and wounding around 300, including many children, rescue workers and officials said. The blast, which appeared to be caused by a suicide bomber, occurred in a parking lot at Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park, one of the largest parks in Lahore, said Haider Ashraf, a senior police official in Lahore." ...

... Shashank Bengali of the Los Angeles Times: "A splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast, which it said was aimed at Christians celebrating the Easter holiday. Pakistan, an overwhelmingly Muslim nation, has a small Christian minority. Officials said they had not confirmed if Christians were the target." ...

... Shaiq Hussain & Erin Cunningham of the Washington Post: "The death toll in a devastating suicide attack on picnicking families in the city of Lahore rose to 72, with another 230 injured, local media reports said Monday, as Pakistani authorities vowed to hunt down the Islamist militant bombers who claimed they specifically targeted Christians on Easter Sunday."

Steven Mufson of the Washington Post: The Belgian prison system "has become a breeding ground for violent Muslim extremists. Many of those involved in the Paris and Brussels attacks first did short stints behind bars for relatively petty crimes. And there these wayward young people met proselytizers and appear to have acquired a new, lethal sense of purpose.... For the past year, Belgium's Ministry of Justice has been planning to change a prison system widely seen as a school for radicals."

News Lede

AP: "After Syrian government forces recaptured Palmyra from the Islamic State group, Syrian antiquities experts said Monday they were deeply shocked by the destruction the extremists had carried out inside the town museum, with scores of priceless relics and statues demolished."