The Commentariat -- April 2, 2016
CW: Okay. You're on your own!
Mark Landler of the New York Times: "President Obama on Friday questioned Donald J. Trump's fitness for office after statements from the Republican front-runner that the United States and its allies should move away from decades of constraints on the use of nuclear weapons. 'We don't want somebody in the Oval Office who doesn't recognize how important that is,' Mr. Obama said. Speaking to reporters at the end of a summit meeting devoted to nuclear security, the president said the comments by Mr. Trump reflected a person who 'doesn't know much about foreign policy or nuclear policy or the Korean Peninsula or the world in general'": -- CW
... Harper Neidig of the Hill: "President Obama on Friday called out Turkish President Recep Erdogan, saying his policies toward journalists have been 'troubling.'" -- CW
Josh Lederman & Darlene Superville of the AP: "President Barack Obama urged global leaders Friday not to be complacent in the face of an evolving threat from terrorists who he said are eager to unleash a devastating nuclear attack. 'It would change our world,' he declared." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Nelson Schwartz & Neil Irwin of the New York Times: "The 215,000 jump in payrolls in March reported by the Labor Department on Friday capped the best two-year period for hiring since the late 1990s, while the proportion of Americans in the labor force -- which had been on a downward trajectory since 2001 and an even steeper slide since 2008 -- hit a two-year high. 'It's really a best-case scenario,' said Michelle Meyer, deputy head of United States economics at Bank of America Merrill Lynch." -- CW
Sarah Wheaton of Politico: "White House Counsel Neil Eggleston ... has promised to pick up the pace [of granting presidential pardons & clemency], but so far, acceleration has been halting. That's about to change, Eggleston said on Friday at a Politico Playbook Breakfast." -- CW
** Gail Collins on abortion, contraception, Donald Trump, & Republicans' deep respect for women. "In reality, the anti-abortion movement is grounded on the idea that sex outside of marriage is a sin, and the only choice a woman should have is between abstinence and the possibility of imminent parenthood. It may be politically unwise to say that the sinner ought to pay, but she should at minimum have to carry an unwanted child to term. Look at it this way and it's easy to understand why abortion opponents have shown virtually no interest in working to make contraceptives and family planning universally available. It's the sex, at bottom, that they oppose...." -- CW
Matt Apuzzo & Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "The Obama administration is considering whether North Carolina's new law on gay and transgender rights makes the state ineligible for billions of dollars in federal aid for schools, highways and housing, officials said Friday. Cutting off any federal money -- or even simply threatening to do so -- would put major new pressure on North Carolina to repeal the law, which eliminated local protections for gay and transgender people and restricted which bathrooms transgender people can use.... Experts said such a drastic step was unlikely, at least immediately.... Gov. Pat McCrory of North Carolina had assured residents that the law would not jeopardize federal money for education." -- CW
Guardian: "Company CEOs and city officials have joined other government and business leaders in opposition to North Carolina's new law that prevents specific anti-discrimination rules for LGBT people for restroom use. The Human Rights Campaign and Equality North Carolina on Friday released the names of another 10 company executives that have signed on to a letter criticizing the law and seeking its repeal, bringing the number of names to more than 120. New executives include those from Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Qualcomm and EMC Corp." -- CaptRuss
Max Ehrenfreund & Roberto Ferdman of the Washington Post: "As many as 1 million Americans will stop receiving food stamps over the course of this year beginning on Friday, the consequence of a controversial work mandate that has been reinstated in 22 states as the economy improves. The 20-year-old rule -- which was suspended in many states during the economic recession -- requires that adults without children or disabilities must have a job in order to receive food stamps through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for more than three months, with some exceptions." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Jennifer Bendery of the Huffington Post: Iowa teen Jake Smith, in a letter published by the Des Moines Register, asks Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) to step down as head of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Grassley argues that President Obama cannot appoint a Supreme Court Justice because the "people" in the next presidential election must decide who gets to make the appointment. Smith reasons, "... since you, too, are in an election year, how can you possess the authority to make a decision that will affect the future of our country if 'the people have not yet spoken?"' Smith told Bendery, 'I know he's not going to read this letter from an 18-year-old and say, "Oh crap. I have to step down now," But I'm just trying to kind of match his ridiculous statements about this issue with another ridiculous statement." -- CW
Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "The international hacker who allegedly accessed personal emails and photographs belonging to the family of former president George W. Bush and whose cyber-mischief revealed that Hillary Clinton was using a private email address appeared in a U.S. court for the first time Friday. Marcel Lehel Lazar -- better known by the moniker 'Guccifer' that he is said to have affixed to the materials he stole -- is charged with cyber-stalking, aggravated identity theft and unauthorized access of a protected computer in a nine-count indictment filed in 2014 in federal district court in Alexandria, Va. He was extradited to the United States recently from Romania, his home country, where he had been serving a sentence for hacking.
Lazar claimed to have compromised the email account of former Bill Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal and released memos Blumenthal sent to Hillary Clinton. Gawker noticed that the notes were directed to a private, nongovernmental email account. The New York Times later reported that Clinton exclusively used a personal account to conduct government business. -- CW
... CW: In all of the bazillion words I've read or heard about "the damned e-mails," I never knew that a hacker was partially responsible for bringing to light Hillary's use of a private account for State business. How'd I miss that? The news (to me) is both fascinating & troubling. If a guy whose hacking "system" relies on Kabballah, numerology, the occult & Jung's archetypes, among other things, can hack the U.S. Secretary of State's e-mail account, you can bet that Israel, Russia, China & official eavesdroppers everywhere were reading her e-mails, too.
Presidential Race
Ari Berman of the Nation: "... 300,000 registered voters in Wisconsin, 9 percent of the electorate..., do not have a government-issued photo ID and could be disenfranchised by the state's new voter-ID law, which is in effect for the first time in 2016." CW: Bernie Sanders is ahead of Hillary Clinton by several points in polls of Wisconsin voters. If he loses, it's likely the voter ID law will be the reason: students are among those most likely not to have the requisite IDs.
** "Soften Your Tone" and Other Bronx Cheers. Eric Levitz of New York: "On Thursday night..., [Bernie Sanders] drew 18,500 raucous supporters to St. Mary's Park in the South Bronx. Although the senator's campaign has often been portrayed as the whitest thing since sliced Wonder Bread, the crowd in Mott Haven was a rainbow coalition: Among the Caucasian Sandersistas were significant numbers of African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, and even a smattering of Hasidic Jews. BernieBros and BernieBroads were out in roughly equal numbers. The only demographic that went underrepresented was 'people who were alive when Ronald Reagan was in office.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Maryalice Parks of ABC News: "Speaking to a packed house [in] eastern Wisconsin, Sanders twice said Clinton owed his campaign an apology. 'We were not lying, we were telling the truth,' the presidential hopeful said after bringing up an incident yesterday in which an activist asked Clinton if she would stop taking money from the fossil fuel industry. Clinton responded aggressively and accused the Sanders' campaign of lying." -- CW ...
... Paul Krugman says Bernie needs to cut that out & start playing nice. He also says Clinton is raising money for down-ballot candidates which Sanders is not. CW: What he doesn't say is that Clinton's little fundraising deal with the states is a mighty sleazy scheme. It is certainly not the point in her favor that Krugman pretends it is. -- CW
...Michael Tomasky of The Daily Beast on why he's voting for Hillary: "...I vote for other people's interests...economic welfare, of course, but voting rights, rights for immigrants, all the rest. The things the Republican Party wants to yank away from people. And you know what? I actually just think that Hillary Clinton will do a better job of defending those interests than Bernie Sanders will. Nobody makes me say that. Chelsea isn't sending me secret messages. I just think it." -- unwashed
... Jeff Stein of Vox explains the hoohah over Hillary Clinton's acceptance of campaign contributions from employees of oil-and-gas companies. Hey, Bernie Sanders has a accepted a teensy number, too. -- CW
Rosie Gray of BuzzFeed: "Roger Stone, the longtime Republican political operative and current ally of Donald Trump, says he's trying to organize protests at the Republican convention in Cleveland this summer to disrupt any effort by the party to 'steal' the nomination from the frontrunner. Stone tweeted several times on Friday evening about his plans, announcing a 'Stop the Steal March on Cleveland' and calling on supporters to get to Cleveland for the convention in July. Stone told BuzzFeed News over email that he is planning '#DaysofRage,' a seeming reference to the Weatherman-organized Days of Rage protests that took place in Chicago in 1969." ...
... CW: According to a New York Times report (linked on the Commentariat yesterday), Trump conceded to RNC brass that his campaign had failed to mount a delegate outreach effort, which is SOP for presidential campaigns. (The whole idea of schmoozing delegates seemed to come as a surprise to Trump, which in itself is pretty amazing.) That is, candidates & their campaigns try to get committed delegates to stick with them thru multiple roll calls, to get uncommitted delegates to support them, & to get those committed to other candidates to move to them on a second roll call. But that's not the Trump plan. No, the Trump plan is "rage" & violence. If this was the only thing you knew about the great businessman & his management style, it should be enough to tell you he isn't qualified to be president.
Descent of the Zombie. Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump ... may have surrendered any remaining chance to rally Republicans strongly around him before the party's July convention in Cleveland. At a moment when a more traditional front-runner might have sought to smooth over divisions within his party and turn his attention to the general election, Mr. Trump has only intensified his slash-and-burn, no-apologies approach to the campaign.... Republicans who once worried that Mr. Trump might gain overwhelming momentum in the primaries are now becoming preoccupied with a different grim prospect: that Mr. Trump might become a kind of zombie candidate -- damaged beyond the point of repair, but too late for any of his rivals to stop him." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... CW: Funniest part of Burns' article: where he turns to Newt Gingrich to provide advice on how to be presidential.
Dana Milbank: "... it's impossible to ignore a growing volume of public-opinion data showing that a large number of [Donald Trump's] supporters are indeed driven by racial animus." -- CW
Bully of Week: Trump's Hells Angels. The Daily Beast's Mak & Suebaeng are scaring me with "Donald Trump has a new line of defense in his ongoing war against protesters: hundreds, if not thousands, of pro-Trump bikers ready and willing to provide extra security at his rallies...Trump has embraced his biker supporters with gusto...'My biker friends,' Trump said during a Q&A at a recent Wisconsin Rally. His new friends aren't just fans and are now pledging to provide ad hoc security at for their new hero, using violence if necessary." (I wonder if Scott Walker will show up with truncheons on his Harley?) -- unwashed
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. The Fourth Estate thinks about growing a pair. Jonathan Easley of The Hill: "The trio of controversies that have trailed [Donald] Trump over the last week -- dragging Ted Cruz's wife into the spotlight, his campaign manager's battery charge against a reporter and his statement on punishment for illegal abortions -- all had key media components.... 'Part of this is malice on the media's part,' said Republican strategist Ford O'Connell .. 'He's been able to outfox them at every turn, and now that he's backed into a corner you see some of the latent aggression coming out here as they try and make up for past instances where he's gotten the better of them...,' O'Connell said. 'It got away from him this week. If Trump loses the nomination, I think this is the week we'll look back on as when the bottom fell out.'" -- CaptRuss -- Could this be blood in the water that hastens a feeding frenzy?
Katherine Krueger of TPM: "Republican operative Karl Rove said Thursday that based on the GOP's current crop of candidates, the party might be better off picking a 'fresh face' for the best chance of winning the White House. 'Donald Trump excites a lot of enthusiasm,' Rove said about the Republican frontrunner. 'But he also excites a lot of anger within the Republican Party and outside of the Republican Party. And a fresh face might be the thing that could give us a chance to turn this election and win in November against Hillary.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Scott Wartman of Cincinatti.com: "Former presidential candidate Rand Paul said Friday he would still support Donald Trump if the controversial real estate tycoon ends up as the Republican nominee. Paul's statement, in response to an Enquirer reporter's question, puts him at odds with other Republicans, including Ted Cruz, John Kasich and Donald Trump. Those three candidates have backed off from earlier pledges to support the Republican nominee no matter what." CW: Yo, Karl, there's your "fresh face"! (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
...Holger Stark's essay in Der Spiegel provides a German perspective on how our lame-stream media is loosing the battle against Drumpf's successful use of social media. He concludes: "If Trump actually becomes his party's candidate or, even worse, becomes the next president of the United States of America, the damage to democracy would be significant not only because it would turn America into an autocratic nation, but because it would mean that, in this election, the principle of public scrutiny and thus democracy would have failed." -- unwashed
Beyond the Beltway
Richard Winton of the Los Angeles Times: "The knife reportedly found at the former home of O.J. Simpson is not connected to the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, Los Angeles police confirmed Friday."
Ashley Southall of the New York Times: "A lieutenant with the New York Police Department who oversaw the arrest of an on-duty mail carrier in Brooklyn has been stripped of his gun and badge and placed on administrative duty. The police commissioner, William J. Bratton, said on Friday that Lt. Luis D. Machado would remain in the modified assignment until the internal investigation of the episode is completed.... The Postal Service's office of inspector general is investigating whether any federal laws were violated." -- CW
Way Beyond
Mathieu Rosemain of Reuters ; "Salah Abdeslam, the Paris attacks suspect who was arrested in Brussels last month, refused to blow himself up on the day of the attacks, his brother Mohamed told French news channel BFM TV ... 'There would have been more victims had I done it,' Salah Abdeslam told his brother. 'Luckily, I couldn't go through with it.'" CaptRuss: This story doesn't mention that the members of the Brussels "terrorist" cell were known to Belgian police as criminals, not as militants from the DAESH network. The crazies who are willing to blow themselves up are encouraged by those unwilling to do the same. Kinda like the right-wingers who harp on the "good guy with a gun" illogical fantasy while wanting their own Republican National Convention to be a gun-free zone. The parallels between DAESH and the American Taliban never cease to amaze me.
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Reader Comments (15)
Looks like a good start! Thank you new volunteers!
"By God....I think you've got it!"
Love and hugs - Rex Harrison
Let's get this straight. This is not a good start. It's barely even a start. If I were a nicer person, which I hope to be soon, I would be "disappointed." Right now I'm in "fuck you all" mode.
Of seven volunteers, no one has made a single contribution, although the page has been up for 12 hours.
One person is not able to contribute on weekends & I'm perfectly fine with that. That was the deal. I tried to do less on weekends, too.
One person has been working on learning the job, & s/he's doing quite well, but s/he's not there yet. I'm pleased with that, too, & very appreciative of the effort.
One person just wrote that her/his "contribution" would be to occasionally send someone an idea for an article to link that the other person should write up & link. WTF??? Is that what you people think I did here? "Occasionally" saw an article of interest to me that when I got around to it I might share with you lucky duckies, if it wasn't too much trouble?
Haven't heard or seen Word 1 from anybody else.
Clearly, the do-nothing model is not going to work.
Tomorrow, or, you know, when I get around to it, I'll work on putting up a blog-roll to help regular readers. Some time I'll try to make it fancier. In the meantime, well, never mind. Paul Ryan just repudiated his "makers" & "takers" thesis of how the world works. I guess I can own it now.
Marie
As I scanned the postings this morning I realized that all of them had been done by CW and my heart sank. Then after reading Marie's comments above it sank even deeper. All of us here have praised Marie for putting this together, but I'm telling you people, until you do just one or two piddly tries you have no idea the time and the skill this procedure entails. Yes, for her it's second nature, but it still means many hours spent putting this all together and the artful way she has managed to do it. Yesterday after my first try and getting that headache, I dusted myself off, and tried again. This time I managed a few things I hadn't been able to do before, ( during my first try I clicked the wrong tab and if CW hadn't caught it, it would have erased everything) but I realized that I hated doing it. That this was not something that was going to be easy for me, or satisfying even though I felt a sense of responsibility, which brings me back to the laborious labor of, perhaps not love, but certainly a large gift that has been bestowed on us from Marie who right now is pissed, and rightfully so. I was so hoping that there would be people here with those "tecky skills" to take over, but obviously not or if they possess those skills they don't want the job. So it appears we are back where we started and I am so sorry––Marie went to all the trouble of writing up those directions––literally pages of them––all for naught. What is troublesome is that, according to Marie, no one has really done anything! Why volunteer if you are not willing to try to help?
I must add that I feel really bad, but I'm too old to engage in something I know will cause anxiety and that I don't like doing. I wanted to be a maker but looks like I'm a taker like everyone else.
@PD Pepe & Unwashed:
Two things. PD: I checked what you had worked on yesterday, & you did an amazing job. You shouldn't be hard on yourself. Yes, you still have a bit of work to do to get it down pat, but you got most of the important stuff in there. I can't remember how much difficulty I had when I first started this site in 2008, but stuff still "happens" that I can't figure out or it takes me a while to figure out & rectify. I do remember that the Squarespace people were pretty amazed I got the site designed & running live as quickly as I did. Their amazement certainly stemmed from the fact that I asked incredibly rookie questions when I ran into various troubles creating the site. When you try something new outside your comfort zone, you may look stoopid to experts at the outset, & there isn't necessarily -- tho there may be -- a point where a light dawns & you suddenly "get it." I think you went from knowing nothing about it to nearly mastering a job that isn't, in my opinion, difficult, but that requires doing a lot of little steps, many of which are unfamiliar to you. You should congratulate yourself for your progress. It's not a cure for cancer. But.
Half-an-hour ago, Unwashed made the first "super-contributor" entry. Was it perfect? Nope. So Unwashed went back in a fixed it. I'm somewhere near ecstatic about the entry. Really.
So maybe we are up & running. Or at least taking baby steps.
Marie
From today's Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/father-and-son-fatally-shot-by-officers-in-east-baltimore/2016/04/01/de72e7ce-f84f-11e5-a3ce-f06b5ba21f33_story.html?tid=pm_local_pop_b
Baltimore police in plain clothes (but, wearing armored vests marked "Police") observe two known bad guys, armed, exit a vehicle in a bad neighborhood, moving toward a group of people. Police were aware that there could be bad blood involved. Police shoot on sight and kill the two gun-carrying men, who are father/son. Cognizant senior police official praises officers for preventing a massacre.
The neighborhood, in E. Baltimore, is black.
I did not pick up anything that said there were warrants or armed and dangerous lookouts on the two men. Both had prior offenses and pending charges, one for "gun violation."
How will the 2d Amendment crowd deal with this?
Unwashed - nice link on "Bikers for Trump".
I ride a motorcycle, basically just to commute in decent weather, but people who use motorcycles are not "bikers." Those tend to inflate motorcycle ownership with some style (leather vests with patches? gloves without fingers? not really safety gear), lifestyle (rebel flags, flaming skull over crossed piston tie-rods, etc.) and philosophy ("live to ride" etc.). They like to dress in black rather than high-visibility riding gear. And many of them like helmets that look like German WWII Wehrmacht pots. For "bikers", appearance and conformity to the elements of biker style are important. Safety and functionality, not so much.
One of the stereotypes associated with "bikers" is that they treat women like dirt. A popular t-shirt reads, on the back, "If you can read this, the bitch fell off". A little change-up to "thank a teacher" bumperstickers.
So, I can totally see a bikers-for-Trump political movement. Mouthy, misogynistic, surface-style fixated bad boys. Vroom vroom for the Leader of the Pack.
Oops! I thought congratulations were in order for commenters yesterday. Did not notice that CW put up Everything! Rex Harrison takes back what he said. Instead, Ann Landers has gotten out her big wet noodle.
Gotta say, I did not think this was gonna work. I knew I did not have the tech savvy to take it on. Maybe we all just to admit that we can never be Marie and either say an honest goodbye--or come up with a different way to stay in contact and discuss world affairs (and Ted Cruz). I am not against a Facebook page--even though I do not like FB. I really do not want to lose touch with all (any) of you, and my creative juices have evaporated. Sigh.....
Looks like Unwashed has scaled the mountain high and presented us with a clean, nifty entry. My congratulations to you and the Captain who braved the bully bolds and italics and managed to post correctly. True heroes. Thank you!!
unwashed and Patrick - Bikers for security? Like the Hell's Angels at the Stones' Free Altamont Concert in 1969? That went well. NOT
Fortune magazine has named our governor rick snyder #1 of the 19
most disappointing leaders in business and politics. Also includes
that NJ guy, Christie.
http://fortune.com/2016/03/30/most-disappointing-leaders/
@Forrest, my governor raises yours!
How dare Fortune magazine give the number one spot to anyone other than " Paul LePage " ? Susan Deschambault thought it was an April Fools' joke on Friday after driving 72-miles with family & friends to be sworn in as a senator-elect in Maine—only to discover the governor called off the swearing-in ceremony.
Why? Supposedly because of Democrats' stance against one of his nominees for an unrelated position.
Kindly Note:
This was meant to be posted on April 1st. (sigh) Not sure how I managed the no-show.
Greetings, One & All!
Profound thanks to all of you intrepid ones!
Sadly, I'm too low-tech to be of any service in this regard, and so commend those who are 'a better (wo)man than I am, Gumga Din!' Grazie Mille!
*IF* there is room/interest for a Human (actually, an Avian) Interest piece, I offer the following:
"Washington DC Live Bald Eagle Cam"
http://www.eagles.org/dceaglecam/
Cheers - Ophelia
(That shoulda been GUNGA . . . Another sigh.)
Ophelia
"Christian Universities Increasingly Apply for Exemptions From Anti-Discrimination Rules"
Saturday, 02 April 2016 00:00
By Eleanor J. Bader, Truthout | News Analysis
A record number of conservative Christian colleges and universities are asking the US Department of Education to exempt them from Title IX provisions that protect LGBTQ students, staff and faculty from discrimination. Pro-LGBTQ advocates are calling for the schools to publicly disclose their exemptions.
http://www.truth-out.org/
Ophelia