Thursday
Jan282016
The Commentariat -- January 29, 2016
Afternoon Update:
Abby Goodnough of the New York Times: "Of all the concerns raised by the contamination of Flint's water supply, and the failure of the state and federal governments to promptly address the crisis after it began nearly two years ago, none is more chilling than the possibility that children in this tattered city may have suffered irreversible damage to their developing brains and nervous systems from exposure to lead."
Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "Senator John Cornyn, a former Texas judge and attorney general, is a devoted believer in the criminal justice overhaul awaiting its moment in the Senate. Now, he just has to convert doubting Republican colleagues.... 'John has some work to do, big-time work,' to secure enough support to persuade [Mitch] McConnell to go forward, said one Republican senator...."
Amy Davidson of the New Yorker: Possibly the only genuine moment in Thursday's GOP debate came when Rand Paul & Marco Rubio demonstrated how much they loathed Ted Cruz. Both accused him of lying; Rubio said Cruz's campaign is built on a lie.
Feeling the Bern:
.@kasie goes inside @BernieSanders' campaign, Sanders says: Don't underestimate me https://t.co/EgSDnysWtH
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) January 29, 2016
... Greg Sargent: "The Sanders phenomenon raises possible warning signs for Clinton's chances in a general election. His ability to engage, excite and involve younger voters -- his ability to make them feel invested in politics -- throws into sharp relief Clinton';s relative failure, at least for now, to do the same." ...
... Philip Bump of the Washington Post: Bernie Sanders, long-distance runner. Sanders was a high-school track star at Brooklyn's Madison High when distance running was a big deal.
*****
Presidential Race
Nasty Boys. Patrick Healy & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "The Republican presidential candidates competed vigorously to fill the vacuum created by Donald J. Trump's boycott of Thursday night's debate, with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida trading ferocious attacks on immigration and taking fire from rivals seeking advantage in the Iowa caucuses on Monday." ...
... The New York Times' liveblog of the debate is pretty good; it's more of a live chat: the reporters talk to each other rather than just repeating the candidates' bull. ...
... Driftglass's liveblog/translation gets to the gestalt of it all. ...
... Glenn Kessler & Michelle Lee of the Washington Post fact-checks some of the whoppers. ...
Gosh, if you guys ask one more mean question I may have to leave the stage. -- Ted Cruz, to Fox "News" debate moderators ...
... Imitation Is the Sincerest Form of Flattery. Hunter Walker of Yahoo News: "Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx.) ... threat[ened] to leave the stage ... after he accused Fox News' questioners of encouraging his rivals to attack him. 'I would note that the last four questions have been, "Rand, please attack Ted. Marco, please attack Ted. Chris, please attack Ted. Jeb, please attack Ted."' Cruz's comment provoked loud boos from the audience." With video. ...
... Brian Beutler: Ted "Cruz is the most seasoned debater of all the Republican candidates, and Trump's absence created a vacuum that Cruz could have filled with his typical brio. Instead, at a moment that presented Cruz as much opportunity and peril as any in his political career, he offered up his worst performance of the cycle." ...
... Elizabeth Bruenig of the New Republic: "Donald Trump won the debate he didn't attend." ...
... Margaret Hartmann of New York has a good rundown of reviews by pundits from left & right. ...
... Michael Barbaro & Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: "It was supposed to be about the veterans. It was not really about the veterans. Donald J. Trump was putting on a show -- and it was entirely about him: his hurt, his feelings, his vanity and his revenge. Separated from the Republican debate here by three miles and enough chutzpah to fill his own auditorium, Mr. Trump taunted, derided and laughed off the candidates who showed up to the Fox News forum that he so theatrically snubbed Thursday evening." ...
... Ben Jacobs of the Guardian: "In an old theater with red velvet curtains and folding wooden seats, Donald Trump trotted out his own unique variety show for a crowd of roughly 700 in the theater and millions more watching on cable news. It was an attempt to resurrect the long-dead genre of vaudeville only replacing acrobats with Rick Santorum and tenors with veterans." CW: It didn't take Trump long to go full-vaudeville after I suggested it a few days ago. ...
... Jonathan Chait: "Last night's split-screen image, of front-runner Donald Trump in his own venue and the non-Trump Republicans clustered together elsewhere, is the starkest representation yet of a party that is cleft in two. But there is something puzzling and ethereal about this schism. The opposing factions are not divided over a policy question.... At the same time, Trump is offering something genuinely transformational. His candidacy would reshape the Republican Party as more of a European-style white-identity party, rather than a party rooted in opposition to big government.... What makes the distinction difficult to identify is that Republicans have been using versions of this nationalist appeal for decades." What worries the GOP establishment is a justifiable fear that Trump isn't sufficiently dedicated to their top priorities of "reducing the top tax rate and deregulating business."
Alan Rappeport of the New York Times lists the venues for watching or listening to Thursday's GOP debate. ...
... Tom McCarthy & Scott Bixby of the Guardian are liveblogging the GOP debate AND Trump's concurrent event. @17:29 GMT: "The Donald has scheduled a simultaneous event in Des Moines, billed as a benefit for military veterans -- which means it's Republican fight night on the plains of Iowa and in the streets of Des Moines. His fellow candidates Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum have promised to join him -- but only after they have competed in the consolation-prize undercard debate for Fox." CW: Wow! I could watch Huckleberry & Santorum twice if only I'd turn on the teevee, which I won't. Not sure who will cover Trump's hoo-hah, but CNN is a likely suspect. ...
... Update. Tom Kludt of CNN: "MSNBC declined to comment on its prime time plans. CNN said it will cover Trump as a live news event. C-Span will carry it live in full."
** Dana Milbank: "This year's Holocaust remembrance comes at a time when Donald Trump, the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, retweets to his nearly 6 million followers a message from @WhiteGenocideTM based in 'Jewmerica,' and a time when his nearest challenger, Ted Cruz, brandishes the endorsement of a minister who says Hitler was a 'hunter' sent after the Jews by God. There has never been a more important time for Americans to heed the moral authority of the Holocaust survivors still among us." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker: "Donald Trump's attempt at a hostile takeover of the G.O.P. is astonishing in its breadth. He is not just competing against a large field of candidates for votes in the primaries; he is at war with nearly every power center in the Republican Party -- and he is winning." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... ** Josh Marshall: "Pundits and political obsessives tend to get distracted by process and policy literalism. But politics generally and especially intra-Republican political battles are really about demonstrating dominance - not policy mastery or polling leads but a series of symbols and actions that mark the dominating from the dominated.... This driving force of Republican politics has only become more salient and central as the GOP has become increasingly dominated by core constituencies animated by anger and resentment that things to which they believe they are entitled are being taken away from them.... It's Trump's native language. I still believe it's rooted in the mix of the hyper-aggressive New York real estate world, his decades of immersion in the city's febrile tabloid culture and just being, at the most basic level, a bully." ...
... Eliza Collins of Politico: "Donald Trump continued his onslaught on Fox News host Megyn Kelly on Thursday, retweeting a follower who criticized a photo shoot she did for GQ Magazine. 'And this is the bimbo that's asking presidential questions?', the tweet said. It included two photos of Kelly posing provocatively and the following text: 'Criticizes Trump for objectifying women ... Poses like this in GQ Magazine.'" CW: The photos of Kelly are embarrassing. Most adult women would strike these poses only for their lovers. ...
... Nancy LeTourneau of the Washington Monthly isn't afraid to call Donald Trump a sociopath, and she demonstrates with one example why the diagnosis applies. "Donald Trump calling Megyn Kelly a 'bimbo' for a sexually suggestive photo shoot she did for GQ Magazine.... I's actually hard to come up with a link to demonstrate what that means because most of them range from tabloids to soft-porn. But here's a headline for you: Melania Trump would be the only First Lady to pose in the NUDE and talk about her 'incredible' sex life." ...
... AP: "... Donald Trump has launched a new website for collecting donations to veterans ahead of his event on Thursday evening. The link, which Trump posted on Twitter, includes the seal of the Donald J. Trump Foundation, and a form for contributions. It says that 100 percent of donations will go directly to veterans' needs." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Bethania Markus of the Raw Story: "Conservative CNN political commentator Ben Ferguson slammed ... Donald Trump, accusing him of cynically taking advantage of veterans because it is 'politically advantageous' to do so as the controversial primary debate loomed Thursday.... Trump wrote in a 1991 letter to the then-chairman of the state Assembly's Committee on Cities, obtained by the Daily News[:] 'Do we allow Fifth Ave., one of the world's finest and most luxurious shopping districts, to be turned into an outdoor flea market, clogging and seriously downgrading the area?'":
... Christopher Massie of BuzzFeed: "Donald Trump's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said on Thursday that his candidate would be 'happy' to debate Ted Cruz once the Texas senator gets a federal judge to rule him eligible to run for president." ...
... "Trumped." Paul Campos in LG&$: "... the real significance of all this is that the Trump campaign merely needs to keep raising doubts in voters' minds over the next few weeks regarding the -- again, legitimate, incredibly enough -- question of whether Cruz is legally eligible for the presidency, in order to accomplish Trump's practical goal of undermining Cruz's campaign at the margin." ...
... Patricia Murphy of the Daily Beast: Ted Cruz was for legalization of undocumented immigrants before he was against it.
Steve M. points to this remarkable poll result:
... As the WashPo/ABC analysts note, "Of the candidates tested, only Sanders comes out ahead in terms of comfort vs. anxiety." ...
... Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "Bernie Sanders is 'in overall very good health,' the attending Senate physician said in a letter released Thursday summarizing the Vermont senator's medical evaluation. 'You are in overall very good health and active in your professional work, and recreational lifestyle without limitation,' Senate attending physician Dr. Brian P. Monahan wrote in a letter dated Jan. 20. The Senate office has treated Sanders for more than two decades." ...
... CW: This last bit does not seem likely; Sanders has been in the Senate for only ten years. He served in the House for 16 years prior to that. Oh, and the final graf of the story is complete bullshit: "Republican poll leader Donald Trump released his records last month. Trump would 'be the healthiest individual elected to the presidency,' his doctor asserted." Why can't Politico get better reporters? ...
... CW: Maybe McCaskill was having a sad day because he'd just learned that Jim VandeHei, one of the founders of Politico, will be leaving the building. Oh, & Mike Allen is leaving, too. ...
... Yo, Fred Hiatt, Bernie Is Not Taking Any of Your Crap. Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: "Bernie Sanders unloads on the Washington Post" after its editors wrote a scathing editorial (CW: which I chose not to link) "headlined: 'A campaign full of fiction.' The print edition sub-headline contended, 'Sen. Sanders is not a brave truth-teller. He's just telling progressives what they want to hear.'" ...
... Charles Pierce unloads on the Washington Post: "Because of the way our politics is conducted these days, and because of the unprecedented use of the institutional choke-points in Washington, every presidential campaign is necessarily aspirational. The idea that this is a phenomenon unique to the Sanders campaign is an indication of a very large thumb on the scale." ...
... CW: Here's another thing the Washington Post, Hillary Clinton & most of the leftish punditocracy doesn't get: its' not good enough to be able to get your objectives passed into law if your objectives suck. You have to start with righteous aspirations. It isn't Clinton's competence I question; it's her goals. Some people move left as they grow older & become less self-obsessed. Clinton, as she became part of & benefited from the elite-determined system, moved right. As a result, her platitudes & shout-outs to a 20th-century liberal agenda seem contrived, as if she was dipping into her rich memory bank & paying out a bit of the interest earned early-on, without touching any of the huge principal she accumulated later.
... The Post strikes back. ...
... Impersonating a Sous Chef. Jon Ralston: "Operatives from Bernie Sanders' campaign have donned Culinary union pins and secured access to employee areas inside [Las Vegas, Nevada,] Strip hotels to try to secure garner voes for the Feb. 20 caucus, sources confirm." They've since agreed to cut that out. ...
... Hunter of Daily Kos: "The Sanders campaign says it's a misunderstanding and nobody was attempting to mislead workers." ...
... CW: When I watched Sanders' ad, it was followed by a paid ad by Marco Rubio that made me want to punch him in the face. Here it is. He's more obnoxious than Trump. Do not punch your computer:
Michael Cohen of the Boston Globe: "What happens in Iowa ... doesn't matter.... It's not that what happens in Iowa won't affect the trajectory of the race; it very well might. But more likely than not, Iowa's caucus results will only hasten -- or delay -- outcomes that appear already baked into the race."
Actual News, etc.
Julie Davis of the New York Times: "The Obama administration will move on Friday to require companies to report to the federal government what they pay employees by race, gender and ethnicity, part of a push by President Obama to crack down on firms that pay women less for doing the same work as men. The new rules, Mr. Obama's latest bid to use his executive power to address a priority of his that Congress has resisted acting on, would mandate that companies with 100 employees or more include salary information on a form they already submit annually that reports employees' sex, age and job groups."
Lauren French of Politico: "President Barack Obama took a victory lap Thursday evening. During a short speech to House Democrats at their policy retreat here, Obama counted off his biggest policy achievements as president while predicting that Democrats would win the White House next November. The partisan speech was designed to excite Democrats already squarely behind Obama." ...
... CSPAN has the speech here. President strong> Obama's appearance begins at 8 min. in.
Michael Schmidt & Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "Pentagon officials have concluded that hundreds more trainers, advisers and commandos from the United States and its allies will need to be sent to Iraq and Syria in the coming months as the campaign to isolate the Islamic State intensifies."
Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "White House press secretary Josh Earnest on Thursday threw cold water on the idea President Obama would accept an appointment to the Supreme Court after he leaves office."
Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Obama signed a presidential memorandum on Thursday creating a White House task force on cancer, the first step in what Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has called a 'moonshot' to cure the disease, administration officials said. The president appointed Mr. Biden to lead the panel, which will include representatives from at least 13 government agencies. The group's first meeting will be on Monday, officials said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, in a New York Times op-ed: "The Obama administration has a substantial track record on agency rules and executive actions. It has used these tools to protect retirement savings, expand overtime pay, prohibit discrimination against L.G.B.T. employees who work for the government and federal contractors, and rein in carbon pollution. These accomplishments matter. Whether the next president will build on them, or reverse them, is a central issue in the 2016 election. But the administration's record on enforcement falls short -- and federal enforcement of laws that already exist has received far too little attention on the campaign trail."
Jack Ewing of the New York Times: "Volkswagen may buy back some diesel cars in the United States if it can't make them compliant with air quality rules fast enough, a lawyer for the company says."
CW: Well, I'm just going to link to Paul Krugman's column so you can read it. Not one of his better days, IMO. I'm skipping Tim Egan today; there's just so much Bernie-bashing I can manage in a day. But you know where to find him.
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.
Peter Sterne of Politico: "The Huffington Post has started appending an editor's note to the bottom of posts about ... Donald Trump.... 'Note to our readers: Donald Trump is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, birther and bully who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims -- 1.6 billion members of an entire religion -- from entering the U.S.,' reads the note, which was added to an article about Trump's feud with Fox News published last night. The note also includes links to prior coverage of Trump's comments. A Huffington Post spokesperson told Politico that the note will be added to all future stories about Trump." ...
... CW: The HuffPost, ever proving it is just as dignified & serious-minded as Donald Trump. ...
... Josh Israel of Think Progress: "Trump is in good company in the GOP primary field when it comes to xenophobia." Israel points to xenophobic statements made by Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul & Marco Rubio. But these guys don't rate an editor's note.
Navel-Gazing. Erik Wemple of the Washington Post: "In what can be described only as a cataclysm in Beltway media, CEO Jim VandeHei is leaving Politico, the eight-year-old politics website that shook up Washington journalism...." CW: Somehow, we'll survive the "cataclysm."
Senate Race, 2014
Ken Vogel of Politico: "A pair of left-leaning watchdog groups on Thursday asked for federal investigations into whether a Koch brothers-backed nonprofit outfit broke the law by spending more than $250,000 in untraceable money boosting Joni Ernst's 2014 Senate campaign. The watchdog groups, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the Center for Media and Democracy, allege that a nonprofit called Trees of Liberty violated the tax code and possibly criminal law by spending most of its cash on political purposes, while claiming otherwise in its tax filings."
Beyond the Beltway
Kirk Johnson, et al., of the New York Times: "The F.B.I. took the extraordinary step of releasing surveillance video on Thursday showing the shooting death of LaVoy Finicum.... Mr. Finicum, 54, was killed Tuesday by Oregon State Police troopers, said Greg Bretzing, the special agent in charge for the F.B.I in Oregon, after he tried to run through a police barricade on a wooded road, then climbed from his truck and, Mr. Bretzing said, reached for a weapon in his jacket pocket.... He said the total number of shots fired was 'in the single digits.'... In the video, Mr. Finicum is shown with his hands raised at one point, but Mr. Bretzing said it also showed him reaching for a weapon. 'On at least two occasions, Finicum reaches his right hand toward a pocket on the left inside portion of his jacket. He did have a loaded 9 mm semiautomatic handgun in that pocket,' Mr. Bretzing said." Includes video, which has no sound. ...
... Les Zaitz of the Oregonian reports that there appear to be only four occupiers left at the Malheur Refuge. They claim they are negotiating with the FBI to leave, but want to be assured that the Feds will drop felony charges against one of them. No word on whether or not they're still drunk. Zaitz has updated his story several times. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
** Yanan Wang of the Washington Post: "Employees at the state office in Flint, Mich., have been drinking from coolers of purified water since last January -- the same month that representatives from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality assured residents the water was safe to drink. Emails released by liberal group Progress Michigan Thursday include a facility announcement responding to a notice that the city's water contained levels of trihalomethanes, a chlorine byproduct linked to cancer and other diseases, that violated federal standards for safe drinking water.... During this time, both city and state officials were denying that Flint's water was dangerous." ...
... Charles Pierce: "Okay, somebody should go to jail over the Flint water crisis.... Rick Snyder and several other somebodies in his administration belong in the pokey, if not hauled off to The Hague for crimes against humanity." ...
... CW: Say, Huff Post, how about an editor's note for all articles about Rick Snyder? You could crib some of it from your repeating Trump note: "liar" and "racist" will work.
Oliver Milman & Jessica Glenza of the Guardian: "The Philadelphia[, Pennsylvania,] city council will investigate how it tests its water, after an expert told the Guardian the city's procedures are 'worse than Flint' and risk putting residents' health in jeopardy.... Dr Yanna Lambrinidou, a medical ethnographer, said that water sampling methods used by the Philadelphia water department don't properly illustrate the level of lead in drinking water and could mask the sort of problems suffered in Flint, Michigan, where a state of emergency has been declared over the toxic, discolored water that made many residents ill."
News Ledes
AP: "Iran flew a surveillance drone over a U.S. aircraft carrier and published video of the encounter Friday, the latest in a series of edgy naval incidents between the two countries in the Persian Gulf after the recent nuclear deal. While the U.S. Navy stressed it knew the drone was unarmed and the flyover didn't interrupt U.S. operations in the war against the Islamic State group, the incident underlined the continued tension over control of waterways crucial to global oil supplies."
Bloomberg: "The U.S. economy expanded at a slower pace in the fourth quarter as households tempered spending and businesses cut back on capital investment and made further adjustments to inventories. Gross domestic product rose at a 0.7 percent annualized rate in the three months ended in December after a 2 percent gain in the third quarter, Commerce Department figures showed Friday. The advance was in line with the Bloomberg survey median forecast of 0.8 percent."
Los Angeles Times: "A 44-year-old woman who worked as an English teacher at a Santa Ana jail was arrested Thursday on suspicion of helping three inmates mount a daring escape last week, officials said."
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Reader Comments (10)
Glad to see you posting a comment in the NYTimes today, Marie :)
After reading Driftglass what can one add. He so cleverly and hilariously presents the so called GOP debate as a cornucopia of rotten fruit and wilted word salads. I will add, however, the fury I felt at the trash talk of Obama by Rubio who gets his digs in almost every time he opens his mouth. And he is the one who constantly says, "When I am President" rather than the "if I am elected"...So-––Marco says when he becomes President not only will he get rid of everything Obama has ever implemented but America's light will shine again. "I will allow my faith to influence everything thing I do" says Rubio looking up to the heavens, with hand on heart. His pandering to Cruz's base of evangelicals is sickening.
God was present big time: We have to have religion to be able to be moral individuals;––God has blessed this land with great resources; lots and lots of "God given" stuff. And the alfa male that was absent gave these candidates air to breathe, especially Jeb who seemed almost giddy, even moved around like a real human being.
Another show of shows.
Last night Charlie Rose interviewed the two film makers that have made a documentary about their time in Iraq covering the fighting with Isis. At one point when they (the film makers) were interviewing Ryan Crocker, the former ambassador to Iraq under the Bush administration, they expected Crocker to perhaps answer their question about the Iraq war the same as Cheney always does. Crocker gave a long pause, looked away for some time, then said, "We were better under Sadam–-invading that country was the worst thing we could have done. Sadam was never a threat––but now Isis is."
The film makers think that Iraq will have to be divided into three separate parts in order to survive. Wasn't that the idea of Biden early on? This documentary will be shown on HBO sometime soon––was late getting into their conversation so didn't even catch the name of it.
Although the candidates are vile, ignorant, and reprehensible, I understand that televising the babble of the GOP "debate" is expected and appropriate. However, the media continues to dig itself an enormous hole of shame for televising Trump's campaign ad as if he were doing a noble deed instead of exploiting veterans. The "dark money" of politics has also enveloped the MSM. I would argue that the absence of integrity in the practices of the MSM are a major catalyst in the virulent strains of anti-democracy that we are experiencing.
PD,
The division of Iraq into three parts would just be a return to what it looked like under Ottoman rule for 400 years or so. Iraq has always been somewhat of a political pastiche, a loosely connected collection of regions defined not just by geography but by political, religious, and ethnic affiliations.
Like much of the Mideast, the aftermath of WWI and the discovery of oil created the conditions that have led to many of the current complications. But had there been no oil, huge chunks of southwest Asia would be what they had always been, a kind of Arabian Nights locale with warring tribes, camels, and palm trees and would show up in popular films as an exotic location with ornate palaces surrounded by deserts dotted here and there with oases, rather than the source of international terror, oil, war, and vicious ethnic strife.
The first few minutes of a film made in 2007 by director Peter Berg ("The Kingdom") has what I think is a very nicely done overview of the complex interactions between the West, especially the US, and the Middle East, specifically Saudi Arabia, but the dynamic is one that has transformed the entire region which has been jiggered considerably because of the requirements of forces both inside and outside the region. The Bush Debacle is only the latest fuck up.
Check it out.
As for Iraq, had Cheney any sense of the actual history of the place, he would never have (A) invaded in the first place (also he'd have to have had a soul), (B) predicted garlands of flowers from grateful Iraqis, and (C) believed it would all be over in a couple of months with him and his oil buddies in charge, he-roes all.
Just a thought about the Trump Ascendancy and his latest attacks on Megyn Kelly and, by extension, all women.
Blatant misogyny may not hurt Trump with Confederate voters, just the opposite, it seems. Put downs of smart ass, uppity women may be just what Bubba loves to hear (in addition to attacks on blacks, Mexicans, Obama, and dirty sochulist libr'uls), and may stand him in good stead in a contest for winger votes, but I'm thinking that all those references to "fat pigs" and "dogs", "bimbos" and scurrilous jibes about menstruation as the source of a Megyn Kelly's "bitchiness" won't help him much in the general. Of course we'll see a sudden turnaround if he wins the Confederate nomination. Overnight he'll be a "lifelong supporter of women and women's rights" and he'll blame the media for any "misunderstanding" there may have been regarding his supposed misogyny.
Unless the MSM decides to give him a pass, which it very well may, he'll have to defend such trash talk. Although he's been able to get away so far with defending the indefensible.
We shall see. In any event, please god, can we hear no more about fucking Iowa after Monday? That would be good.
PD
On HBO Feb 6, 2016, 9-11 PM. Jim: the James Foley Story.
I'd like to know exactly how much the Bundy family now owes US taxpayers. These idiots are not just moochers, although they are that, certainly, but thieves as well. Oh, yeah, and traitors.
Watching the helicopter footage covering the attempted escape and shooting of one of Bundy's traitors, it struck me that a lot of money has been spent because of these assholes. I then read about how the FBI has been using the local airport as a staging area full of trucks and cars and helicopters. Add in the costs of local law enforcement, school closings, and additional costs connected to oversight at the bird house where the tough guys have been cooped up (except for when they went into town to buy cigarettes and get lit), and taxpayers are out some serious change.
One estimate by a local judge puts the tab around $75K a day. We'll give them the first week but now, at day 27 of the standoff, that would make it 20 days and a bill of around $1.5M. Add in the one million old man Bundy owes us for mooching off taxpayers and these scumbags owe us a pile.
Now the remaining traitors are demanding that charges against them be dropped, otherwise they'll hold their breath until they turn blue.
Okay, assholes, you can come out and go home, but first, that'll be $1.5 million smackers. You can pay that gentleman over there. The one with the top hat, the red tie and the white beard.
@Akhilleus: As I recall, the $75K estimate represented only the local & county costs. Obviously, the state & feds spent a lot more. Local motels, B&Bs & cafes may have been glad for all the hoo-hah, but I doubt any other taxpayers are.
Marie
I know there are many serious issues to be discussed at this time, so I'll keep this short. I believe it is another layer of misogyny that women cannot be simultaneously clever and attractive in the minds of so many men like Trump. This is another objectification of women. As for Kelly's GQ shoot, the point of Fox is to entertain its audience, and the vixen are required to meet an expectation. They may all be constructed to look alike, and present alike, but it is deeply insulting to all women to suggest that none of them are smart, as much as I can't stand them or their employers.
In real estate, one can do what Trump has done in this debate, take your ball and go home, there is always another deal. In international politics however, this is not the case. Spitting the dummy in the actual world has ramifications that can be "yuuuge".